This is my story, what's yours?

I am not sure precisely where or when this particular story began; but, looking back, I’d say that it was just around my tenth birthday when I first stumbled upon writings of C.S. Lewis and his imagination-absorbing tales of Narnia. 

The fascination continued when, as a young theology and philosophy undergraduate, I learned of a world where Truth could no longer be reduced to a series of objective facts, but captured in the meta-narratives that define and guide our reading of the way things are.  Then, and I am really not sure why, I started reading the work of people like Stephen Denning and his ground-breaking work on storytelling and organizational change.[i]  Despite the fact that I knew nothing at the time about the world of Corporate Communications, what he had to say still had a ring of truth about it – and not just to me.  Today, more than a decade later, narrative approaches to what we do are everywhere and Denning is arguably responsible for a brand new tribe.

Now I say we, but who am I kidding?  I work in a school – with kids!  Isn’t that a world apart from the real business of Corporate Communications?  In one sense, of course, it is different.  Entirely different, unless you follow David Perkins’ line of reasoning when he says that all organizations are really only about conversations and that, notwithstanding the particular line of business we are in, effective leadership is always about helping people to have better, smarter conversations.[ii] 

And if you talk about conversations in one breath, you surely have to mention stories in the next.  After all, stories are the ‘stuff’ of most conversations and unique in their ability to bring meaning, pattern and order to the otherwise disconnected fragments of our lives.  

Not convinced?  Well just try and think of any recent, meaningful conversation, at work or in the office, in which you did not tell a story to illustrate your point, contribute an idea, raise an issue or make a connection with somebody.

In short, it’s all about stories.

In fact, these days, notwithstanding the complexity of our art, we are in the end nothing more and nothing less than a band of storytellers: Telling the story of our organization and helping other people find their place in that story.  It really is that simple.  Everything else – all our plans, budgeting, annual targets, policies, and protocols – is just white noise.

Now this does not mean, of course, that we have left our work-a-worlds and plunged into a realm of fantasy and make-believe.  On the contrary, as Michael Margolis explains, for those of us who communicate on behalf of our companies or organizations, it is high time we faced up to the fact that ‘people don’t really buy your product, solution, or idea, they buy the stories that are attached to it.’[iii] 

So what does a storytelling approach to Corporate Communications look like?  The good news is that today there are a bunch of people out there, like Margolis and Denning, redefining and bringing the narrative dimension of what we do into sharp relief.  Rather than simply tell you what they already know, I will therefore stick to what I know best: my practitioner’s tale, which turns upon three story-focused questions we happened to ask along the way, and some pointers for further discussion.

Is our story coherent at every stage along the way?

Have you ever sat down at your desk only to stumble upon a lack of coherence in the story that you were trying to tell.  It’s the moment you first notice that, despite the best laid plans and awe-inspiring publications, inconsistencies have appeared like bubbles on a freshly painted wall.   

Of course, in a school with 1500 students from 70 countries and 300 employees, inconsistencies are everywhere.  So where to start?

Our approach began by recognizing that, just as epic tales conjure up characters , each one of which may happen to be on some kind of journey, everyone connected with our organization also is journeying and could literally be mapped on a continuum between first ‘attraction’ and ‘release’ (See Figure 1).

Of course, each one of my colleagues focuses upon different aspects of this life-cycle depending upon their prescribed roles within the team.  From a storytelling point of view, however, it was critical that we came to a common understanding that it really is all part of the same process: telling the story and helping people – students, parents, donors, partners – find their place in that story. 

Having seen ourselves connected in this way, we went on to ask whether there was sufficient coherence between each of these ‘staging posts’.  Concretely, was the experience of ‘inclusion, challenge and success’ that is so much a part of our brand proposition in Stage 1 so keenly felt as students and their families journeyed through the school?   After all, it is one thing to have a story.  It is quite another to see it lived out in every aspect of who we are and what we do.

Is our story listening or even making sense?

A wise man once wrote that ‘if a story is not about the hearer he [or she] will not listen … A great lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting – only the deeply personal and familiar.’[iv]  From a storytelling point of view, the idea that a story is as much about the listener as the narrator is hardly new.  Yet it was only a few years that we all sat reading The Cluetrain Manifesto, transfixed by the suggestion that this truly was the end of business-as-usual; pondering that audacious proposal that markets are now conversations and that ‘in just a few more years, the current homogenized "voice" of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.’[v]

A little more than ten years on, sitting in our communications offices, it is all too apparent how prophetic this manifesto was.  The Internet, to say nothing of web 2.0 and social media, has changed everything – forever.  Even at school, we have become accustomed to a world of daily Google alerts and moderated Facebook or YouTube comments.  Via our website and other online platforms, we have got used to the fact that we can no longer get away with the digital equivalent of our dusty, old brochures, but instead are required to offer a space where conversations about learning take place; a dynamic environment in which people feel that their questions are pondered, opinions heard, and values, well, valued.

Personally, we are not there yet.  That said, we keep coming back to this question with two simple observations.

First, in story terms, our school website is slowly becoming as much a narrative about the organization we want to be as the organization we already are.  Again, to Margolis’ point, it is not the product (even if that ‘product’ is an education) that is driving effective conversations with our prospective customers or future employees.  No, it’s the stories behind that product – all of the values, aspirations, struggles, ideas and customer feedback – that capture the imagination and inspire people to believe that we really could become the school we desire to be.  So, rather than being narrators of a static script, everything is today far more fluid.  It’s less about giving information, more about sending out invitations to join the discussion.

Second, there is the lingering issue of losing control vs losing the plot.  As social media inevitably and relentlessly pushes us to become better listeners, have better conversations and become more flexible in relation to our ‘customers’, it is clear that sooner or later we will all have to give up the myth that we can control what people are saying about us, our companies or organizations.  They always did talk about us, in fact.  The only difference now, with the advent of Web 2.0, is that we can listen in more easily and, in some cases, measure what people are saying out there.  Even if we have lost control, however, a lot of our customers are enjoying a great deal of ‘airtime’ right now and it’s time to ask ourselves whether we are really ready to throw up our hands in despair and give ourselves up to the winds of common opinion?  Or is there another way of championing the story, holding on to the vision, and guiding people in the right direction.

Can we play with the story and is there a chance it will break?

If effective communications is all about storytelling, then it follows that there must also be an innate playfulness to our art.

This association is not new.  Alan Kelly, CEO and Founder of The Playmaker’s Standard has spent his career analyzing the communications role and come up with what he believes to be a series of essential, irreducible elements – ‘plays’ – which together make up a lexicon, a lingua franca, by which we can talk about, strategize, organize and predict the impact of the conversations we are having out there.[vi]  Communication, Kelly argues, is thus akin to a game of chess; a game with rules, strategies and, if not predictable outcomes, predictable moves. 

As we reflect upon our roles within the organization, however, it may be that predictability is not the first word that comes to mind.  We may consider ourselves playful, but more along the lines of the Shakespearean fool who pops up at key points in the narrative to simplify things, summarize, explain or simply bring a different perspective to the conversation – always looking for new ways and new opportunities to engage those around us. 

The key to change, in this sense, is innovation.  So we can never forget that ours is also the task of understanding, communicating, criticizing and reinventing the story almost on a daily basis – like a child rearranging Lego™ bricks to mirror constantly the imaginations of his or her mind. 

There is a chance, of course, that a story under such pressure of re-invention will shatter into a thousand tiny fragments.  At the same time, as C.S. Lewis once wrote, it is only by playing that we can break the story and begin to tell a truer tale.

Talking of truth, you may well ask, is any of this true?  Well, like a good communications plan or any other good story for that matter, to ask the question is to miss the point entirely.  After all, stories – even Corporate stories – are always personal and can never be reduced to matters of fact.  Are the tales of Narnia true?  Of course they are!  Like effective communication, they are sealed with a ‘ring of truth’ and spoken with an authentic voice.  In the end, even as communications ‘professionals’ that is surely as much as we can ever hope for.

This article was written for publication in Communication Director: Magazine for Corporate Communications and Public Relations.  To view the article in PDF format, click here.

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[i] Denning, S. The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action In Knowledge-Era Organizations (Butterworth-Heinemann,2000)
[ii] Perkins, D. King Arthur's Round Table: How Collaborative Conversations Create Smart Organizations (Wiley, 2002)
[vi] Kelly, A. The Elements of Influence: Introducing The Playmaker's Standard: The New Essential System For Managing Competition, Reputation, Brand, And Buzz (Dutton Adult 2006)
[iii] Margolis, M. Believe Me: Why Your Vision, Brand, and Leadership Need A Bigger Story (Get Storied Press, 2009)
[iv] Steinbeck, J. East of Eden (Penguin Classics, 1992)
[v] Levine, R. et al. The Cluetrain Manifesto : The End Of Business As Usual (Basic Books, 2000)

Have you ever seen a bear-dog?

This story is inspired by the imagination of my children and begins in a traditional way.

Once upon a time, in a large house on the other side of the forest, there lived a bear-dog.  No one had ever seen this terrible woodland creature, but everyone knew he was there and everybody talked about him. 

A dog of apparently bear-like proportions, the beast regularly invaded the dreams of children sleeping in bedrooms in the nearby village.  And if you happened to walk past the school gates, once the sun had returned, you could hear the very same children huddled together in small groups, singing a braver song.

If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise.
We're going on a bear hunt. We're gonna catch the big one. We're not scared.

The fact is, though, they were scared.  Everybody was scared.

Locals who ventured deep into the centre of the forest, along muddy paths on late-Summer evenings, would arrive at the crossroads in a small clearing between the trees and consider their route; deciding to travel straight on in search of Spider’s Web, turn right towards the Wasp’s Nest or simply turn around and retrace their steps towards home.  Never left in the direction of Bear-Dog Lane. 

Only a silent stranger in a long, leathery trench coat, accompanied by a malevolent hound, dared to walk along the path; left, along the lane where the trees seemed to huddle together to make an even darker canopy.

Who the stranger was, no one knew.  He never came down into the village and could not be recognized by any of the regulars who could be seen drowning their fears in the local public house. 

Stay away from the man and his hound, shouted anxious parents to their children as they ran out of their front doors to play in nearby streets.  Stay away from him and the path he seems not to fear.  Stay away from anything that will bring danger into our lives and interrupt our sleep.  Stay away, above all, from the bear-dog.

Of course, the signs of this terrible beast were everywhere: scratches carved deep into fallen trees, odd clumps of animal hair strewn across deserted paths, and haunting sounds emerging from the trees in fading light.

Everything about this story made perfect sense.  The stranger and his hound, the drowned memories in the local pub, the children crying in their sleep, not to say anything of the tales of those who had ventured deep into the forest only to return more convinced and more afraid.

Everything made perfect sense – except the fact that no one ever saw the bear-dog.

And no one ever will.

So what's the moral of the story?

Sometimes the things that scare us most don’t exist, but we still make choices as if they do.

Broken, but still successful

Let's face the brutal facts.

Modern family life, even at the best of times, is a messy, complicated, and unpredictable business.  In fact, ask almost anyone to tell the story of their family and it is immediately obvious that they too are an exception to the urban myth of mum, dad, and two point four kids, living together as a harmonious, mutually supportive unit.

Once we start talking about it, in fact, it seems that we all have a ‘mad’ aunt tucked away in dusty photo albums, unresolved family feuds that occasionally explode into life (particularly around Christmas and at weddings), or children that, from time to time, push us to our limits and challenge us to our core. 

In other words, if the myth-makers portray family life as a Sunday afternoon stroll in the park, the sobering reality for most of us is of a cross-country marathon across difficult terrain.  We’re cold, tired, dirty, and it’s as much as we can to do to keep everyone together, motivated, and out of harm’s way.

Sadly, not all families cope under this kind of pressure.  For whatever reason, one or both of the team ‘leaders’ simply reach a point where they choose to pull away from the group and follow a different path, more often than not leaving the children to pick themselves up, navigate the disruption, and carry on as best they can.

The turning point
My own turning-point in the race occurred nearly ten years ago now.  Almost overnight, I went from Sunday afternoon walks in the park to being a ‘Eurostar Dad’, committing myself to a fortnightly journey across the Channel and being the link between two sets of fabulous kids.  In the years that followed, in other words, I did what many dads do following a divorce: simply hold the various fragments of my life together and place them into some kind of meaningful whole. 

Alternate weekends in London were spent at the park, sharing news about school, getting wet, shouting at one another, eating together, watching Match of the Day together, and making each other laugh.  It was almost always the same.  But, then again, we liked our routine and it worked for us. 

My embrace of one child, however, was always felt as absence for another.  How could I forget those two little girls in Brussels, growing up with a father who wasn’t always there, to take them to the park or simply support their mother in the tricky business of raising twins?

Even today, I seem always to be journeying, always somewhere in-between, but it seems to be the least I can do to show my children how forever precious they are to me.

The opinion
In a recent conversation about this non-traditional tale of family life, a ‘friend’ declared to me that, in his opinion, I no longer had a family.  Rather, he went on to explain, I had to face up to the fact that I am now a member of a broken family.  

Putting down the phone, the more I thought about his remarks, the more awkward and resentful I began to feel.

And here’s why.

I’m open to other suggestions, but I’d dare to suggest that all of us are part of families that are intrinsically broken – not just those of us who have gone through the pain of separation and divorce.  That’s right!  In one way or another, we’re all messed up and scarred by the wounds that we have inflicted upon one another – as parents, children, brothers and sisters.  Behind closed doors, all of us guard familial tales of hurt, disappointment, that make us feel ashamed and somehow different from the rest.  So let’s not single out one group as somehow being ‘more broken’ than others.  We’re all hurting.

On the flip side, though, I actually remain deeply optimistic about modern family life – in all its forms – and increasingly find confidence in the ‘elasticity’ of families to accommodate all manner of stresses and strains over long periods of time.  Even when stretched to their limits, modern family life reveals itself to be a positive, meaningful and, ultimately, successful social unit.  At least, that is my story.  Despite everything and despite feeling stretched between two countries for a decade, I can honestly say that I have no regrets and nothing but heartfelt appreciation for every one of those precious moments with those I love the most – moments borne out of the complexity of all the journeys, all the hellos and goodbyes.

A story that is ours to celebrate
Once upon a time, we were all once taught to believe in the perfect, circular shape of ‘mum, dad and two point four children’.  In reality, though, as time passed, many of us found that our families don’t hold this form for long.  We had more children, or less.  We found that we couldn’t have children at all, or decided to adopt.  Extended family members came and went.  We hurt each other and the scars remained.  Family members passed away – leaving a space where they should have been.  Families broke up and attached themselves to other families.

Stretched by our history in all manner of directions, more often than not our stories completely break the mould of a traditional nuclear family.  We break.  We change.  We adapt.  We grow into something unique and generally get used to who we are.  And if we’re honest, some of us wouldn’t have it any other way.

And, in my book, that’s success.

This article was written for publication in TOGETHER magazine, Issue 22, December 2010.

My dad needs a shed

I never thought it would happen, but it did.

My name is David and I am here to confess that my sixty-three year old father has a shed.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  It’s a garage, but in essence it amounts to the same thing. Situated on the outer limits of the family home, this man’s den and ‘resting place’ is the real deal and includes the obligatory electric fan heater and splendid collection of screws, wires and random collection of old tools.

I’m not entirely sure how it happened.  I’m not sure whether the transition occurred gradually or all at once.  The fact is, though, Dad’s shed has become a ‘home away from home’ – an older man’s playground that shows no signs of relinquishing its grip on his daily routines.

Of course, we all know the reputation of men and why they need their sheds.  And if by any freak of nature you don’t, this video will explain the psychology of it all far better than ever I could.

What I didn’t know until I started looking into all this, however, is the fact that British men spend on average one year of their lives pottering away in their sheds.  That’s around 3 hours and 20 minutes a week between the ages of 30 and 76 and, according to the research, most of the time they don’t do anything in particular.  They just like being there.  Apparently, even Roald Dahl, Dylan Thomas and Shaw were reputed shed enthusiasts.

Age Concern have even launched a campaign, offering men ‘shed therapy’ and providing them with an opportunity to get away from it all, potter around, and have a chat over a cup of tea.  Their campaign poster kind of sums it all up:

A shed is to a man what a handbag is to a woman – both contain all the essentials for surviving in the modern world.

So it appears that all men need sheds – not just my Dad. 

And I’m guessing that one day, it’ll be my turn.

Digitial storytelling for schools

There’s a story inside every one of us.  That much we know already.

From the moment we began to control our infant worlds with speech and the movement of our hands across the page, the child within us innately understood the power of story to make sense of and bring meaning to the otherwise disconnected fragments of our lives. 

Fast forward to the present day and some of this generation, people I’m glad to call my friends and colleagues, have become master storytellers.  In contrast to those of us who were so easily distracted by other ‘stuff’, they have spent every waking moment refining their craft and clocking up the 10 000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell says is the sine qua non of true success. 

Today, it is this small group people that controls the multinational brands that excerpt such a powerful influence over our lives, defining what we think and, critically, what we want.  And these guys know, all too well, that branding is all about storytelling and that, through these stories, they can manage the associations we make with a particular product, company or organization.

Correction.

It’s through stories that they can manage the emotional associations we make with that product, company or organization. 

So let’s assume for a moment that the same is true for those of us who market schools.  Our job is then simply to manage the stories people tell about us by managing the stories we tell about our school.

In truth, though, it’s not really that simple - especially if you are committed to keeping the story truthful, up-to-date, coherent and truly engaging for an unusually demanding audience.

The future, for those of us who work in this business, is certainly going to be challenging.  We are being asked to put away the traditional tools of our storytelling trade (paper and words) and can no longer expect that people will have the time or inclination to visit our websites, however good our stories may be.   And then there is the fact that, with the advent of social media, we can no longer control the story in the way we once thought we could (it was always a myth anyway). 

Personally, I’m not sure where this will take us.  I am happy, though, to say that rather than cling hopelessly to the past or give up altogether, I’m lucky enough to work with a team of individuals who are trying to think through what the new storytelling tools for schools may be. 

The ISB Experience Stick, presented below, may not be the end of the story.  For some of us though, it at least helps us think through what the next chapter might look like.