How Storytelling Makes Talent Acquisition, Management, and Development Messaging Far More Effective
Storytelling is a powerful leadership and organizational transformation communication modality
In Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die authors Chip and Dan Heath identify six characteristics of “sticky” messages. One of the six characteristics is that the message is delivered as a story.
The authors note that stories one of the reasons that stories are such a powerful communication modality is because they provide both “inspiration and simulation.”
STORIES PROVIDE INSPIRATION
In the workplace, stories can be used to inspire employees to perform at their best and face challenges with greater courage, confidence, and optimism. Because they impact at a visceral level when told well, stories impact in a far more powerful way than any PowerPoint presentation.
Stories that illustrate the good that organization does (because of employees) inspire employees by connecting them emotionally to a sense of meaning and purpose, reminding them of why they do what they do, and helping them preserve through difficult times.
A great example of the power of story to inspire employees comes from Adam Grant’s article How Customer Can Rally Your Troops, where he shows how hearing customer stories about the impact of employees’ efforts can have a dramatic effect on their performance (in one case, improving it by 400 percent).
Stories that illustrate employees going the extra mile, showing extraordinary levels of compassion, resourcefulness, perseverance, and excellence inspire other employees to perform at their best and “up their game.”
These stories can also take what is typically a painfully boring experience in most organizations—the new hire orientation—and turn it into an inspiring event which reinforces the new employee’s belief they made the right decision.
Interspersing these stories in new hire orientation not only builds pride and commitment, doing so also helps employers clearly communicate what their values look and sound like, thereby helping instill cultural values and norms and strengthening their culture.
STORIES ACT AS A LEARNING SIMULATION
Some stories also provide a “simulation” experience, providing employees with a “virtual reality training video” that helps them understand how to:
- Deliver an exceptional customer or patient experience
- Engage someone in a constructive conversation about a difficult issue
- Engage in high value behaviors, like “show initiative,” “take ownership,” or “be a collaborative team member.”
Ritz Carlton is a great example of an employer that skillfully uses storytelling to provide both inspiration and simulation.
In team huddles, supervisors regularly tell “Wow Stories” that illustrate to employees what world-class customer service the Ritz Carlton way looks like, as well as to make their motto of “anticipate and satisfy unexpressed needs” understandable to employees. In The Tooth Fairy and Other Talent Management Tales, I write about a classic example of a Ritz Carlton Wow Story.
Stories help leaders communicate a clear vision of excellence; they also play a major role in making “constructive feedback” truly constructive.
For instance, let’s say a manager needs to coach a physician on their bedside manager. They could exhort the physician to “show more empathy,” “soften your approach,” and “show you care.”
Depending on the physician’s background, personality style, and belief systems, these abstract concepts could be translated into a wide range of behaviors and responses, including many that the manager did not intend.
Furthermore, because these abstract terms are by nature unspecific, they are likely to lead to frustration and resentment—e.g. “What do you MEAN ‘soften your approach,’ my approach is great!” or “So what exactly am I doing wrong?”
Without explicitly describing what they mean by “show more empathy” and the other requests, the manager is not offering the physician a clear vision of what “doing better” in these areas actually look and sound like.
By using a story—or multiple stories—to illustrate what these terms look and sound like in real life, the communicator turns abstract (i.e. vague and open to interpretation) language into a sensory-rich “virtual reality training videos” the listener can imagine in their mind.
It’s like radio sports commentators describing the game and each play with enough detail that listeners can create their own little TV broadcast in their mind.
In our example, let’s say the manager starts off her conversation with the physician with something like: “I think it would be helpful for you to work on showing more empathy to patients, especially when they’re giving you clues that they’re scared, confused, or frustrated…so for instance…”
Then, she follows this with an example that illustrates what she means. Perhaps she shares a stellar example she witnessed with another physician calm down a fearful, confused, and somewhat cantankerous elder. To make the story a “virtual reality training video” she would describe in detail how specifically the physician was able to connect with the patient, calm him down, and turn the visit into a positive experience.
With this specific depiction of an example of “showing more empathy,” the physician now has a clearer understanding of what the manager is requesting.
Thus, using stories as “virtual reality training videos” helps managers communicate far more clearly about what excellence looks like and to give constructive feedback that actually is constructive.
STORIES ALSO PROVIDE “CELEBRATION”
We can add “celebration” to the Chip and Dan Heath quote that “Stories provide inspiration and simulation.”
Sharing stories of employees embodying your prized cultural values and demonstrating excellence doesn’t just teach other employees what you value and how to embody that in their roles, doing so also enables you to “celebrate awesome.”
For instance, a client organization, an assisted living facility, started a program called “Mission in Motion” where they would share a story each quarter of an employee embodying their mission in a particularly impressive way.
One such story involved George, their head of maintenance.
At their quarterly town hall meeting, management shared a story of how their head of maintenance, George, embodied their value of “going the extra mile” and included a drawing from a resident capturing George in action.
Here’s what happened…An elderly resident put her dentures on her bedstand as she always did but accidentally brushed them off, into the waste basket. By the time she realized what had happened, housekeeping had emptied the basket, and her dentures began their journey to the local landfill.
Distraught, she called for George and asked him if there was any way he could find and rescue her dentures.
The picture she drew told the rest of the story. It showed George dumpster diving for her dentures…and retrieving them.
This story not only communicates in a clear, compelling, and memorable way about what “going the extra mile” looks like and how much this quality is valued in this organization, it also gives George well-deserved recognition for his exemplary behavior.
Thus, it’s a story that provides “inspiration, simulation, and celebration.”
FINDING SUCH STORIES
Organizations that already have a strong, high-performance culture and a proud heritage typically have at least a few “Go To” stories leaders share about what makes them a great organization.
These legacy stories are often used at hiring interviews, new hire orientation, and employee events. Southwest Airlines and Ritz Carlton are two great examples of employers who have a rich supply of these stories which they use in all aspects of talent acquisition and management.
For organizations that don’t have this already in place, the person in charge of gathering and curating stories can ask people at all levels of the organization for specific examples of:
- Why they enjoy working for their employer
- What makes them most proud to be part of the organization
- What makes their employer different –and better — than other places they’ve worked
- How their supervisor shows they care about them as a person and their well-being
- Colleagues embodying important cultural values and norms
While it is worthwhile asking for these stories from the past, often people have a hard time identifying such experiences because they weren’t going through their days through the lens of “stories we can use.”
Often, employees are much more capable of identifying these types of stories moving forward, rather than looking back. Thus, the second phase of “story catching” is to ask supervisors to ask their team to be on the lookout for experiences moving forward that fit into the above categories.
Now that they are looking for such examples, they will notice them where before, they wouldn’t have thought of the experience in terms of “This would be a great story our organization can use.”
A simple, user-friendly way of curating talent management stories is to use a two column word document or Excel spreadsheet with each row relating to a single story. One column contains enough narrative that someone can read it and tell the story with enough detail to make it clear and compelling.
The other column contains keywords that users can use to find stories that illustrate specific organizational values, general high value behaviors for all employees, role specific examples of high value behaviors, etc.
You can also have employees tell their story on camera or the designated “story catcher” can do so.
SUMMARY
Storytelling is a powerful communication modality that leaders can use to provide “inspiration, simulation, and celebration.”
Stories make communication more understandable, persuasive, and memorable, whether it’s communicating the organization’s vision and impact, what cultural values and norms mean in real life, what excellence looks like, and how one can improve one’s performance.
Bio: David Lee is the founder of HumanNature@Work. He has been teaching storytelling for over 30 years to coaches, therapists, healthcare practitioners, and leaders. He is the author of Powerful Storytelling Techniques for Trainers (ATD Press) and Dealing with a Difficult Co-Worker, a story-based book used to teach constructive conversation skills. He has presented at conferences throughout North America and Australia.
Selected Articles by David Lee on Storytelling
How to Make Your Employer Brand More Interesting, Credible, and Memorable
Selling Your Employer Brand: The Power You Find in Stories and Sound Bites
Five Kinds of Stories To Tell During Onboarding
Start Your Presentation Off With a Story: How and Why
Using Storytelling to Challenge at Work Without Being Confrontational
How Stories About Overcoming Adversity Can Inspire Your Employees
Selected LinkedIn Posts by David Lee on Storytelling
How to Use Storytelling to Inspire Great Customer Service – This is an example of how to using storytelling to communicate what excellence looks like in a job.
An Example of How to Use a Compelling Story to Attract Talent – A heart-warming story by Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland’s Executive Director Patsy Murphy that is a great example of stories that can be used in recruiting, new hire orientation, and keeping morale high.
To This Day, He Remains One of My Best Employees – A great story a supervisor told in a seminar of mine. Because she listened instead of reacting to what he said, he had a total attitude shift. This is a great example of a teaching story one can use to help other supervisors practice being more open-minded.
Selected Podcast Interviews and Discussions
Storytelling for Leaders on The Change Stories Podcast with Dr. Susanne Evans
Selected Videos Illustrating the Use of Storytelling in Presentations
Start Your Presentation with a Story – This is an example of what I call a Pain and Promise story, which are a great story genre to start presentations off with, because they tap into the common pain point(s) that brought people to the presentation, and offer a glimpse into what can change if they listen carefully and then apply the material.
How to Start Off Your Presentation with a Story – This is an example of using a humorous, self-effacing story as a way to start off on an upbeat note, make yourself more relatable while also subtly establishing credibility. These kinds of stories are especially helpful if the speaker is feeling anxious, as it shifts their state too.
What a Resilient Workforce Looks Like: How to Create at “Can Do” Attitude – This is a brief story I used to end off a presentation at a SHRM conference.
Tune Your Brain to See the Opportunities in Crises – This is an example of using a story to make a point more interesting and memorable.
