I recently celebrated a big birthday (of course, after a certain point they are all big) and it made me take stock of my career, accomplishments, and how I want to spend my work hours moving forward.
I’ve had the good fortune to work with amazing colleagues and clients over the years. I also know that I get restless and need to keep using my talents on new challenges. The past decades have seen me morph from working in the theatre to being a freelance writer, entrepreneur, teacher, social impact activist, and story coach.
It’s that last role that I am focusing on now and my mission is clear:
I help people build their creative confidence and give voice to their stories.
All of my jobs in some way have revolved around stories–telling them and teaching others to tell theirs. I’m lucky in that I found my calling, the thing I am good at and that I truly believe in. Now I want more opportunities to share what I know, coaching people ready to move up the career ladder to improve their storytelling and communicating skills.
Leadership Development
I’ve coached small groups of emerging leaders who were still getting their heads around what it even means to be a leader.
I’ve also worked with cohorts of professionals who already lead their own teams but now must learn to lead a company, manage their own P & L, bring in new business, and create a positive work culture.
It’s exciting to work with both of these types of up-and-comers and so rewarding to watch them grow more confident and courageous in their communications.
Here are two lessons that always hit home:
1. It’s not hard to tell a story but it can be daunting to understand how to use stories at work.
The way we chat with our buddies at the bar is different than the way we share parts of ourselves at work.
Beth and I often focus on the persuasive power of a good story, whether that’s gaining a customer’s trust and making the sale, or asking your boss for the day off.
Sometimes though, sharing a story at work is just making conversation. And that’s ok. In fact, it’s really good.
When our students begin to understand how to craft a story and the need for strong details and images, then they can begin to understand the affect their story can have. I like to talk about how stories are “given” and how they are “received.”
Neuroscience explains an awful lot about how stories are processed in the brain. What science hasn’t yet gotten to is when to tell which story.
2. You have to make yourself vulnerable at the right moments.
When I teach creative writing it’s easy to tell when writers are dancing around their true subject, using platitudes and bland characters because they are scared to reveal too much about themselves.
I tell these students that you have to make yourself vulnerable on the page. To connect with your audience, you have to give at least a little bit of yourself. This may be sharing a personal detail, admitting to a past epic career fail, or saying you don’t know the answer.
Even more challenging is learning how to make yourself vulnerable when sharing a personal story at work. There are right and wrong times to do this of course. It’s one thing to open up to a colleague about an ill parent or child and quite another to talk about getting too drunk to find your way home last night.
Finding that line between sharing and over-sharing requires some guidance, coaching, and a safe space in which to learn and experiment.
3. The stories we listen to and the ones we share give us power to connect.
I’ll talk about storytelling to anyone who will listen, but what I’m really talking about is relationships. Good leaders are almost by definition, good storytellers. That’s because so much of being a great leader is about connecting with people.
Without sharing our stories we have no hope of getting to know one another, of making any sort of connection, never mind making that sale or building a positive team culture.
No matter the business you are in or the company in which you work, relationships matter. Sometimes it’s just the relationships between you and your co-workers. More often, the relationships that matter also include clients/customers, subcontractors, suppliers, new recruits, industry colleagues…the list can go on and on.
As much as leaders need to share their stories, it might be even more important to listen, to really listen when someone is trying to tell you their story. This is something I learned ages ago when working in the theatre. It’s terrific if you can memorize your lines, but to say them with any authority or persuasion, you need to listen to your scene partner to hear the fine details they share, the emotion in their voice, and what they aren’t saying out loud.
Sure, we’re all self-focused and the stories we know best come from our own lives. But each one of us has a huge storehouse of stories and if we aren’t closely listening to our conversation partner, then we have no idea which story to share to make the strongest connection.
They say it’s money that makes the world go round but I know it’s really our relationships–the way we treat and interact with the people in all spheres of our lives–that truly make our worlds turn.
If you run a leadership development program or know someone who does, please ping me. I’ll share what I know, how I coach, and the difference it makes.
