What business storytelling is really about

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alist, and training more than: 1000

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You can also find people talking to you about business storytelling, and saying things like it will make your presentation more interesting. You will connect to people on an emotional level, people will just be drawn to you, they will understand you better, they will find you interesting right away, which are all very true. I actually published a white paper on how business storytelling really improves employees engagement, and even the external communication of the of an organisation. And they've asked people what they thought business storytelling was what they identified business storytelling with, and they, the majority of them, thought about 30% of them actually thought about creative writing. And 26% of them thought about TEDx talks. And it's true. I mean, business storytelling is it is about stories, it is about telling this story. It is about how you tell the story, how difficult it is, honestly, to be vulnerable enough to allow yourself to share something a content presentation is speech through a story. Because it's not that immediate. You need to be able to embrace your personality, to be happy or ready to be vulnerable, because you can fail as well, which is totally fine. But you need that level of vulnerability. But the thing is that research shows that stories do work. In fact, there is a research that shows that when we share character driven stories. And those are stories where the main subject is a character, our happier moon, our oxytocin starts to be released, which means we are happier, or at the very least, we are interested. And the speaker, or the storyteller really has caught our attention, which is what we want people to do when telling a story. But there is a piece that is often missing when we talk about business, storytelling or storytelling in general. So we attract people attention. But then what? What happens next? And what do we want people to do with that story? Do we share talks on TEDx? Because we want to demonstrate the knowledge? No? Do we share company culture in the form of a personal story because we want to share our employees how good we are in telling stories? No, in order to really do it effectively do storytelling effectively, we need to consider the action. And the step before telling the story. Of course, sharing a story or hearing the story from one of our our leader of our team members give us so much proud, especially if it's a story that we relate to that we see in our company, it makes us feel like we belong because it reiterates our values, our purpose, why we are doing what we are doing, it makes a connect to the person especially if they share a personal story. It makes us empathise, as well, it sparkles a reflection, which is what TEDx talks do all the time. And it also helps us to think okay, if that person has done it, I can do it too, which is the role of leaders. But what comes next, what's after the story. There needs to be something after the story. It's not just this story, this story itself,

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it's vanity. It's something that we get to it's something that we work towards to but then as leaders in any shape and form because I do believe that leaders are not just people in the C suite or the CEOs. Leaders are everyone in the company who has a voice. Because leading it's really making sure that you are an example. And everyone can be an example for some other people, whether it's in an organisation, whether it's in your personal life, I do believe that my children are the best examples for so many aspects of the characters, they are leaders in our house and the younger, that doesn't make them less of leaders as their parents. So when a leader of our company shares a TEDx talk, or you know, an inspiring speech, we have that feeling in our heart in our gut, like we are motivated and inspired. But there is something that needs to happen half after that. So let's say that someone goes on to a TED talk, and then shares a story a compelling, inspiring moving story about how inclusion, it's important and fundamental for organisations. But then, when they actually go back into their organisation, their questionnaire, only have female and male under the voice, what's your gender, you see how these really shows that there is a discrepancy between the story told and the actions taken. When it comes to business storytelling, it is true that actions speak louder than words. But in order for any leader to take action, what's necessary, it's to listen. So a little bit about how a story is constructed. So we have a story because we have an audience. We know what the audience needs, what they need to learn, to listen to, to think about to do, what are their issues, their problems, their daily lives. And because we know all of those information, we can build an effective story for them. A brief example we cannot we are not going to speak to teenagers in the same way we speak to elderly people, even if they have a common issue. We are not going to speak to children in the same way we speak to adults, they are different audiences. And we need to listen to what their needs are. So that we can shape our stories based on those needs, on those issues on those thoughts and actions and characters and behaviours. So the very first thing when it comes to business storytelling, is to listen. On my blog, on my website, which is Kaboo takakkaw.com KBUTAKPU a.com, you will find that the most read post in my blog is one that it's called 11 ways to master the art of listening. And they do really encourage you to have a look at that post. Because I found really interesting the fact that when I had conversations with people who reshare that post, they were interested in all the different 11 steps that were there to help them to improve their listening skills. Because if you don't listen to your audience first, you have no story to tell. And that is true within organisations as well. You cannot create a PowerPoint on how your company is effectively reducing co2 in the atmosphere. If you don't first speak to your internal audience and ask them, How do you feel about the efforts that we are making as a company?

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What are the informations that you are missing? Why are you missing them? How can we make sure that these informations are shared with you in a more compelling and understandable and descending way? Because otherwise, if you don't go through that step, what happens is that you are going to create something first. That is way to reach information, which is what often often happens with PowerPoint presentation and presentations in general. But then it's also something that your people don't necessarily need. So you want to first listen to your audience understand the issue. This is actually the way I work with all my clients partners. This is how we start to work together. It's because someone, a manager in HR person, someone in the d y department, they have identified a problem for their colleagues, their colleagues told them that there was an issue with something, it might be something that is more, it's something it might be something more going on on an organisational level, but they have listened to their colleagues. And they're now able to say you know b, we have these, these issue and we are thinking to solve it. But they do listen first. And this is the process. You listen first, you then articulate your short your story and inspire everyone. And then you take action. So you listen to the issue to the problem to the complaint, feedback, joys, everything, then you create a story. And within that story, you want to let people know that you have heard that you have listened to them that you understand that you empathise and that you also feel something similar. And you want to anticipate to them how you're going to change things. And then you change things, then you take action. And this process of listening, sharing the story taking action is a process that you can take and apply in any at any level of your organisation. And in the next episodes, we are going to look further in how your HR team can use this process to attract talent and really show them demonstrate to them what the company culture looks like, in reality, not just with the key words. But in reality with real stories. We are going to use this process to help internal communicators to articulate the purpose of the company the values of the company through real life examples. But then it's really up to the leadership level to take actions. For my clients when it comes to listening. It's done in different ways. It can be that we organise a storytelling circle which is a process that I've developed. And that requires vulnerability, openness, and welcoming feedback. And it's really a session where employees have the chance to talk to the managers or to the leadership level. And it's a, it's wonderful because in these sessions, everyone is at the same level, we are just there to listen, it's not a judgmental thing. It's not something to criticise. It's something that creates an opportunity to listen so that we can then develop and update and change something. Sometimes it happens with workshops as well. It happens so many times when I run storytelling workshops, and help employees to articulate messages through stories that they share. Actually, my biggest problem was that I felt vulnerable about sharing stories, or, you know, being the storyteller, among my team.

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And then we work on that. But it can also be through more quantitative information. So through assessments and surveys, but you always need to have the listening part. You listen, you share the story, you take action. You listen, you share the story, you take action. And you can start really small with this. Because I know that zooming out and thinking about okay, where do I go with these with my own organisation? Meaning where do I start with this? You can start in two ways. The simpler one, is to use the how word you question. So we are very much used to say how are you fine, thanks, in a very automatic way, even without articulating too much whether we are actually fine. And I think that one lessons that we learn from this pandemic, and from having so many meetings online, is that we need to take the time to actually listen to the answer. Because we have no idea what's the what was what was going on in people's life before they joined the meetings before they came online. So we want to make sure that we know how they're feeling. So start small. Next time you have a meeting with one of your colleague, ask how are you? And minute? Wait for the answer. And if it's just a simple, fine, thanks, how will you just ask a follow up question? Or just make sure that your colleague understand that you really want to know how they're how they're doing. You can say something like, how are you really? And then you listen to the answer. And there are in there, there are different ways of listening. If your colleagues, for instance, gay give a very long pause before actually answering maybe something's wrong. If they, if they take big breath before answering, maybe there is something more. Ask them, what's more, what's going on. And when they give you the answer, try and see whether there is something within the work structure that you can do to improve the situation take action. So you ask the question, you share, if you want a story of how you also relate to their feelings are to that situation or how you have seen that happening in other people's lives. And then you take action. This is a very small thing to do. Let's say for instance, two colleagues join a meeting online. The first colleague asked, Hey, how are you? And the second colleague, take a very long breath and say, Yeah, fine. The first colleague needs to follow up, really, how are you doing? And then they share that they had so many meetings that they're feeling very disconnected to the to their colleagues, and that they're spending way too much time on the screen. And then you want to answer to that. Yeah, I understand that. In fact, the number of people on screen have increased. I also feel like I spend way too much time in front of the screen. How about next time we do a phone call? Simple, easy. That's the point. process. Listen, share the story. Take action. Let me know if this is something that you relate to let me know how you think about business storytelling. As always, you can connect with me on LinkedIn, just look for storytelling Beatrice, you will find me. You will also find me on Twitter at Cabo taka. And if you're ready to have a talk with me about how you want to create that culture, which is based on listening, sharing the story and taking action, how you want to make sure to demonstrate that your employees know why they're doing what they're doing. You can book a call with me. You will find the link to my calendar in the show notes.

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I am Beatrice Ngalula Kabutakapua Taco, and we have been listening to thank God, it's Monday. Now it's time to share your key takeaways from this episode. Connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter. And if you haven't yet, subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Thank you for listening