Writing a book in Seven Days - Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Principles of Storytelling

“Analysis might excite the mind, but it hardly offers a route to the heart. And that is where we must go if we are to motivate people not only to take action but to do so with energy and enthusiasm”

Stephen Denning



We have all picked up a book and given up on it halfway through. Or been told a story and had to repress a yawn.

Have you been at a conference and heard a bunch of Senior Manager’s getting excited about the company direction yet all it has done is left you flat and bored?

I have.

So what is it about some stories that keep you engaged and some that turn you right off?


If I am to really understand how some businesses use storytelling so effectively, I have to find the answer to this conundrum first.


So being from an HR background, I started to look at learning theory for inspiration. Yes. Really.

There is the school of thought that goes like this; not all people learn in the same way and to communicate knowledge the teacher has to take different learning styles into account.

Anyone who has picked up a training book from the CIPD will have read about all the different theories on how learners learn. But in truth, try as I might, when I pulled my old course notes out of the filing box, I just didn’t get all that excited by the Sunbury model of democratic education or David Kolb’s experiential learning framework.

Then an email popped into my inbox. From Innocent Drinks. It intrigued me and I went on the website and had a look at their blog. And a wonder it was to behold.

Full of anecdotes, pictures, jokes, videos, recipes and product information, it was amazingly engaging. I especially liked the bit about The Big Knit – where they get their customers to knit hats for their bottles and 50p from each hatted drink sold goes to keep old people warm (101,246 hats knitted so far!).

Have a look for yourself at www.innocentdrinks.com.

But what is it about the stories that they tell that make them so compelling – why did I want to keep pressing hyperlink after hyperlink and have found myself writing about it now?

After many hours of happy surfing I have found some key principles that they employ and that you can apply to any story you tell.

They are passionate about what they are talking about – fruit to them is the most exciting thing in the world.

It has a great tone of voice – there is a real Innocent style – quirky, friendly, and personal

It has a context – whether it’s about “what Alex did this week” or World Peace Day, there is a reason they are telling their story. To call readers to action – to make a difference – to make us more healthy (oh, and to sell smoothies)

It is collaborative – the stories are full of anecdotes from, and about, their staff and customers. There is a chance to join in and have some fun along the way.


So that is how Innocent Drinks make their stories so engaging.

Then I remembered my English Degree at Goldsmiths’ College. I, rather pretentiously, had chosen a Classics Module (I say pretentiously as this was also accompanied by Anglo Saxon English Translation and the poems of Milton – I could have decided to study Modern American Literature).

Were the hours spent pouring over Plato and Homer going to finally prove useful in life? Well, the answer is Yes.

I remembered that the fundamental principles of storytelling are contained in Aristotle’s Poetics.

For those of you who haven’t read it – hands up – here is a quick summary.

Aristotle says that every story must have a beginning, middle and an end. It must have characters and a main protagonist. There must be a unified plot, with spectacle and surprise. And finally there must be a reversal of fortune or a discovery, with a lesson learnt

He says

“ A good plot progresses like a knot that is tied up with increasingly greater complexity until the reversal of fortune, at which point the knot is untied until it reaches an unknotted conclusion”

Now that is a lot of knots!

So next time you are writing a speech or creating a power point presentation, have a think about Aristotle and Innocent.

Are you demonstrating your passion for this subject?

Does your story have a beginning, middle and an end?

Is your story coherent?

Is there a lesson to be learned?

Are you involving your audience?

Is there a call to action?


There you have it. Storytelling from the old and the new Masters.

Apply those principles to a speech or presentation and you will have them begging for more in aisles.

Trying to write in 7 days - Storytelling in Business

I am co-hosting a conference on Innovation and HR at Roffey Park on October 15th (http://bit.ly/cqsiW3) but time is running away with me. I have a speech to deliver that day, and a workshop to run. And I also wanted to produce a white paper on something I have been meaning to write about for years - Story Telling in Business.

But time is running out - so I have set myself a challenge. To write a short chapter a day (max 1000 words) and publish it here for you to see and comment on. Please support me in this - add any comments or criticism. Let's collaborate to tell the story together!

Here goes....installment one:

Are you sitting comfortably?

How the world’s most innovative companies are using storytelling to drive business success

"What really counts is that I’m Irish and I know how to tell stories”
Jack Welsh

Contents

Introduction – my father, the storyteller

Stories about the Individual

Stories to create a Vision

Stories to create a Culture

Storytelling to your Customers

The future of Storytelling



Introduction

When I was a child I used to get really excited around bedtime. I am aware that this is unusual behaviour as most children try to find every excuse in the book to stay up late with the adults.

It wasn’t that I had a particular penchant for sleep or the best bedroom in North London. What excited me was what happened just before the lights went out.

My father, an immigrant from Ireland, and like many from his homeland, is a master storyteller. Every night, before lights out, he would sit at the end of my bed and tell me a story. He didn’t read me a story. He would make one up on this spot – with either my brother or I as the lead character. It was a tale personal to us.

And as I heard magical tales of Glinda the Wicked Witch of Wales or Detective Michael Patrick O’Keeffe, he taught me lessons about life that have stayed with me forever.

In the fight between the good witches and the bad witches, I learnt the importance of morality. In the one about my brother and I solving great crimes, I learnt that hard work and diligence pays off. And in the one he told me one Christmas, about there being no Santa Clause, taught me that sometimes we have to be disappointed in life to learn lessons that help us to grow.

As I grew up and moved into the world of business both in London and New York I ran conferences, wrote internal communications, crafted CEO speeches, developed new products and pulled together marketing campaigns I realised that I was telling stories – just like the ones my father used to tell me all those years ago.

And as I look around the business world, I see that successful leaders, organisations and brands are all using stories to inspire their people, engage their customers or, sometimes, make a real difference in the world.

This pamphlet is an attempt to share with you some of the great examples of storytelling I have seen and to inspire you to throw away some of your policy manuals and bring them to life – through the power of stories.

From the early cave man drawing on walls, through the Greek Myths and right up to Reality TV, the human condition and its development is bound up with stories.

What a powerful organisation you could have if you harnessed a bit of that.

Busy Bee drinking tea

We are really pleased to have just signed up a new project for Twinings Tea. It's a great piece of work building the Marketing Capability for the Global Marketing Team - working on insights and agency briefing.

The event is in January so we will be busy bees till then!

Collaborative Innovation

Yesterday we went to London Fashion Week to see the Todd Lynn Show. We have been working through LAB - brand and culture innovation company (www.creativecoachinglab.com) for Ecco Leather over the last year, and it was really exciting to see the project come together on the catwalk

Innovation and HR

We are really excited to be partnering with Roffey Park to run a one day conference on how HR can drive Innovation. Check it out:

http://www.roffeypark.com/whatweoffer/events/Pages/InnovationandHR.aspx

Looking for innovation in all the right places

A great piece from today's FT which argues that to really innovate organizations shoukd look outside of marketing to other functions such as Customer Services to really understand consumer needs. Nice bit on Apple's use of external partners too

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9720d444-98dd-11df-9418-00144feab49a.html

Some thoughts on making innovation live and breath

Pick up any Management magazine today, or look at the events on the conference circuit and you will see a plethora of articles about “Innovation”. It is the latest mantra and, in this tough economic climate, Management Teams are looking to it as the way to differentiate their product or service. They read about Apple, Google and Tesco and look to these organisations for inspiration and whilst lessons can be learnt from successful organisations, it would be a mistake to simply lift what works at Apple and put it into a bank.

The Innovation Beehive works on the principle of stimulus – look at successful organisations, unpick the principles of why they are successful and then apply those principles to your business.

There isn’t the space here to write about all the building blocks that go into creating an Innovative organisation, but I want to share a couple of key learnings. And if you want to know more, then give us a buzz.

All the organisations we have visited have one thing in common – as well as making lots of money (!), they have clearly defined and communicated a “Higher Purpose”. We call this freedom in a gilded cage” – an articulation of their reason for existing that is more that about profit and a clear communication to staff of what is and isn’t on brand.

One company that constantly innovates is Ikea.. They exist:

“To Create a Better Everyday Life for the Many People”

This is far more inspiring than, “we exist to sell inexpensive furniture”. It’s a real duvet chuck statement – a reason to get out of bed and go to work on a Monday morning. If we unpick it further, it creates a unique organisational lexicon – “the many people” is uniquely Ikea – it sounds just sounds like Ikea. Additionally, this Higher Purpose can be translated into an employee, customer and product proposition – whilst building the gilded cage, they have created a Vision that works for all parts of their business.

Ask yourself – do I have a Vision that inspires my people? Is it about more than money? Are we doing well and doing good?

Following on from the Higher Purpose, Innovative organisations are clear on where their Innovation is going to come from.

The Ritz Carlton believes that the best innovation happens at a local level; when it responds directly to guest’s needs. They empower their staff with $3000 to make things right for the customer, without the need for management approval. Staff are constantly looking for ways to improve the guest’s experience, whether it is fixing something that has gone wrong, or delighting them with unexpected surprises. We heard about a chambermaid who noticed that the guest was putting the nightly pillow chocolate in the bin, along with several Snicker wrappers. She realized that the guest loved chocolate – just not the one supplied by the hotel. So the chambermaid went out to the local Seven Eleven and bought a mini pack of Snickers and, every night, placed one on the guest’s pillow. A tiny service Innovation, but a great wow for the guest.

Proctor and Gamble have developed a whole innovation system – they call it Connect + Develop. In 2000 they set themselves the goal to source 50% of innovations externally. They had 9000 in-house R&D experts, but believed this strategy would give them access to over 2 million scientists worldwide. Today, this ‘open source’ innovation programme has resulted in some of their most successful products including Swiffer Wetjet and Crest White Strips. They publish their big opportunity areas annually and anyone can submit an idea though the Connect + Develop website. Alongside this they have worldwide ‘scouts’ that search out the latest thinking in service, technology and product devices from university labs, small businesses and venture capitalists.

Ask yourself – do I have a structure in place to drive Innovation? Does all my Innovation come from the centre? What ideas lie outside my organisation or with my employees?

All the innovative companies we have visited have a real buzz about them – a real energy. In part their physical environment drives this. Environment can either drain you or provide you with energy. And energy is the key to innovation (and employee engagement). The best examples of organisations that drive Innovation is where they provide places for creative activity, places that stimulate, spaces for reflection, spaces for collaboration and spaces to play. All these spaces live and breath the Brand – whether it is Innocent’s grass filled offices, P&G’s dedicated off-site Innovation Centre called The Clay Street Project or Virgin’s Headquarters, where bold graphics communicate the company philosophy (“Screw it, Let’s Do it”) and an informal meeting room called “The Love Room” create a sense of play, brand values and creative spirit.

Ask yourself – what does our physical environment say to our staff? How is it influencing behaviours? Does it drive the behaviours we need to win in business?

Innovation is a system. I have described three elements of that system above. To really live and breath innovation you will need to look at many other components – Leadership, Communication, Recruitment, Reward and Recognition, Skills and Customer Closeness.

But if you start with the three above, you will begin a journey that is exciting, financially rewarding and will give you a real duvet check on Monday morning

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For more on this check out “I wish I worked there! - A look inside the most creative spaces in business” by Kursty Groves