Storytelling helps leaders navigate choppy waters of constant change

The tur­bu­lent, trau­mat­ic and epochal events of last year forced every leader to begin a new chap­ter in their career. For the vast major­i­ty of those at the helm, pre­sent­ed with chop­py waters in unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry, 2020 pre­cip­i­tat­ed seis­mic trans­for­ma­tion, both per­son­al­ly and for their busi­ness.

The lead­ers who have best nav­i­gat­ed the waves of change col­lab­o­rat­ed, con­nect­ed and com­mu­ni­cat­ed with their peo­ple, dis­play­ing empa­thy and authen­tic­i­ty.

For mil­len­nia, shar­ing expe­ri­ences through sto­ry­telling has been cen­tral to the human under­stand­ing of life’s work­ings and has guid­ed the way for bil­lions of peo­ple. In the post-coro­n­avirus wash-up – a volatile, uncer­tain, com­plex and ambigu­ous busi­ness envi­ron­ment – sto­ry­telling has nev­er been more crit­i­cal for lead­ers to build organ­i­sa­tion­al resilience in the face of con­stant change.

Indeed, a care­ful­ly con­struct­ed, authen­tic change nar­ra­tive can be high­ly effec­tive in engag­ing, moti­vat­ing and inspir­ing col­leagues, cus­tomers, investors and oth­er stake­hold­ers.

Unlike the bina­ry response typ­i­cal­ly pro­duced by shar­ing data, the telling of a sto­ry lights up sev­er­al areas of the listener’s brain, releas­ing chem­i­cals such as oxy­tocin and dopamine, which height­en feel­ings of empa­thy and a sense of involve­ment, as if we are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the sto­ry our­selves. This emo­tion­al response can help lead­ers build trust with their teams and enhance the pos­i­tive sense of “being in this togeth­er”.

Har­ness­ing such emo­tions to com­mu­ni­cate a business’s strat­e­gy and vision enables the work­force to open up their minds to be recep­tive, feel empow­ered and under­stand the valu­able part they can play in the jour­ney.

Ulti­mate­ly, a good busi­ness sto­ry is about shared own­er­ship

You might have a win­ning strat­e­gy, but if you can’t artic­u­late the pro­posed direc­tion of trav­el, and there­fore bring your peo­ple along, then it counts for noth­ing. It is now imper­a­tive for lead­ers to win hearts and minds, build trust, and craft mean­ing and pur­pose for their work­force, many of whom now work remote­ly.

Evolution of leadership

Win­ning hearts and minds is noto­ri­ous­ly chal­leng­ing, though. Expert sto­ry­telling makes the process sig­nif­i­cant­ly eas­i­er. The chaos wrought by coro­n­avirus neces­si­tat­ed the accel­er­a­tion of sev­er­al trends, many of them cat­a­pult­ing both peo­ple and busi­ness­es into the dig­i­tal era. Ini­tial­ly, almost every­one was shunt­ed out of their com­fort zone. But pro­gres­sive and enlight­ened lead­ers, who were already embrac­ing agile work­ing and col­lab­o­ra­tive deci­sion-mak­ing, were able to bet­ter cope with the speed of change.

Under­stand­ably, a col­lab­o­ra­tive approach is trick­i­er with a dis­persed work­force. How­ev­er, a leader’s shift in mind­set, democ­ra­tis­ing deci­sions and admit­ting “I don’t have all the answers”, all dri­ven by a cohe­sive nar­ra­tive in the busi­ness, will catal­yse a thriv­ing work­place cul­ture.

Ulti­mate­ly, a good busi­ness sto­ry is about shared own­er­ship. The more engaged employ­ees are from the out­set, the more they will want to shape how the nar­ra­tive lives and breathes with­in an organ­i­sa­tion. They are more like­ly to want to dri­ve that change and influ­ence the out­come, and it will unleash an ener­gy and pas­sion across the busi­ness. A hap­pi­er, moti­vat­ed work­force equals increased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

If peo­ple can’t empathise with the change demand­ed of them, and they can’t see the role they are going to play in that jour­ney, they feel vic­tims of change. A busi­ness sto­ry pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the work­force to feel hero­ic. Once the story’s frame­work has been estab­lished, all those lit­tle suc­cess­es can, and should, be cel­e­brat­ed and enrich the nar­ra­tive.

Unique opportunity to rethink your story

In 2021, inspi­ra­tional lead­er­ship is a core require­ment for high-per­form­ing busi­ness­es. More­over, sto­ry­telling has become a recog­nised skill for lead­ers in organ­i­sa­tions world­wide and every indus­try sec­tor.

To attract and retain tal­ent, and cus­tomers, lead­ers must be authen­tic, empow­er­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tive, involv­ing, open to ideas and encour­ag­ing dia­logue with­in their teams to solve com­plex prob­lems and share best prac­tice. They must be will­ing to change and go the extra mile to achieve key busi­ness objec­tives.

While sto­ry­telling has been an essen­tial part of human devel­op­ment for thou­sands of years, the ways in which sto­ries are told has mul­ti­plied. The Sto­ry­tellers have enjoyed superb results, for exam­ple from their visu­al sto­ry­telling and in-per­son immer­sive events and inno­v­a­tive vir­tu­al ses­sions.

What­ev­er way the sto­ry is pre­sent­ed, the events of 2020 have pro­vid­ed a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty for busi­ness­es to rework or even com­plete­ly rethink their sto­ry and refo­cus their pur­pose. Deter­min­ing the nar­ra­tive that will glue every­thing and every­one in the organ­i­sa­tion togeth­er should be a top pri­or­i­ty for all lead­ers to help nav­i­gate the chop­py waters of con­stant change.

This arti­cle is an adver­tise­ment fea­ture from theSto­ry­tellers

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