Nuggets On
storytelling
Perspectives from practitioners and thought leaders on how we could use the power of stories at the work place in order to build a stronger culture.
Building story telling skills
KV Sridhar talks about the distinction between creativity and craftsmanship. He mentions that all living beings (not just human beings) including creatures like ants have the ability to be creative. But for us to express it effectively, we need to practice our craft – whether it is story writing, photography, humour or anything else. And mastering that takes years and years of practice.
Demystifying Business storytelling
Indranil distinguishes business story telling from Storytelling (that we see in Ramayana, Harry Potter or in movies). Indranil speaks about the fact that brevity and story-telling are not contradictory and it is often a false trade-off that people have in mind. He actually goes onto say that business story-telling might even be a more time-efficient way of getting complex, nuanced messages across the organization.
More from Indranil Chakraborty
Contextual applications
Indranil talks about some of the common areas in the Corporate world where we could use stories – building rapport, influencing and getting strategies to stick. He also talks about the distinction between narrating a story versus sharing something that has the structure of a story. He goes on to say that for the purpose of business story-telling, it is often sufficient to focus on the science and process of story-telling than get bogged down by the art which can be overwhelming for a few.
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StorytellingCurse of Knowledge
Indranil talks about the curse of knowledge using the example of “tappers and listeners” – an experiment conducted by Elizabeth Newton at Stanford University in 1990\. He talks about how asymmetry of information often makes us poor communicators because we are too close to the content. He talks about the criticality of understanding the context of the receiver while delivering key messages.
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StorytellingBuilding a storytelling culture
Indranil talks about what it takes to build the habit of story-telling within an organization. He underscores the futility of one-off programmes that leave you with a high but don’t really move the needle when people come back to the rough and tumble of their daily life. He re-emphasizes the criticality of some sort of a deliberate practice programme for people to bake in the habit.
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Story tellers that stand out
Indranil talks about some of the hidden talents that story tellers have. He mentions that a lot of them are naturals in the way they tell stories and over time they have fine-tuned that capability. He lists R. Gopalakrishnan, Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos as three of the story tellers that he admires and shares a couple of his personal favourites.
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StorytellingSecret sauce behind the culture
Sudhir speaks about the four pillars of culture at HUL - Action, Values, Courage and Truth. He also speaks about how that these elements of culture are percolated through the organization. He traces these elements to the various strains of genetic code of the Anglo Dutch parent. He speaks about how when he spoke to some of the senior alumni of HUL, they shared stories of their experiences which eventually clustered around these 4 pillars.
Trap1 - Looking for simple stories
Jennifer speaks about how we grow up listening to linear stories that have a beginning, a middle and an end and there is often a very clear chain of causality. She mentions that this leads us to “making sense” of the world through simplistic stories and often that can be really far from the truth. She speaks about how we can recognize this trap and avoid it.
More from Jennifer Garvey Berger
The Power of stories
Bruce speaks about how he was leading a reasonably successful and predictable life till his 40s where he experienced multiple events that shook his world. He was diagnosed with an adult onset pediatric cancer (a 9-inch tumor in his femur), his father tried to take his life 6 times in 12 weeks, his father’s family business almost became bankrupt and his mother went through health challenges. He speaks about how he discovered the power of stories in healing his father’s situation and in making sense of what was going on. That eventually led him to pursue the life story project where he spoke to thousands of people and analyzed all the data with the management thinker Jim Collins and his team.
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StorytellingThe "naïve realism" trap
Amy speaks about the term, Naïve Realism, that was coined by Lee Ross of Stanford. This is a phenomenon where we believe that we all see a certain version of reality but believe that that IS the reality. She speaks about the implication of this trap.
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StorytellingArt of storytelling
Harish speaks about 4 elements that need to come together in a good story. It needs to evoke an emotion, involve human spirit, use simple language and add value and leave the user with a thought or an insight. He also speaks about some of the stories of Brands (Indian and International) that have inspired him.
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StorytellingShaping culture through stories
Harish speaks about how the Tata Group tries and uses Storytelling as a mechanism to reinforce the culture. He speaks about the need for discipline in collecting and telling stories. He also speaks about creating opportunities for the Tata Group members to listen to the stories of some of the legends that lived these values.
Content Marketing in the olden days
Pradeep speaks about Srimanta Sankardev who was a 15th-16th century polymath from Assam. He was a saint-scholar, poet, playwright, dancer, actor, musician, artist social-religious reformer and a figure of importance in the cultural and religious history of Assam, India. Pradeep speaks about how Sankardev used various forms of content to bring people together and for people to build trust with him.
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StorytellingListening to stories as a child
Raghu reflects on his childhood and how his grandfather would read the Mahabharata or the Ramayana and also use those stories as an opportunity to share a self-reflective story about their life. He speaks about how this approach might have influenced his style of interacting with people and his teaching approach.
More from Raghu Ananthanarayanan