The Top 3 Reasons Executives Miss Storytelling Opportunities
Communication is a big part of leading. Yet leaders don’t even realize that their communication could be stronger by leveraging the power of story more.
The great thing about my career has been the opportunity to help leaders of all industry types and company sizes to better education, communicate and motivate their key stakeholders.
Those keys stakeholders include current and potential employees. The power of story helps with recruitment, retention and results. The better a leaders is at storytelling, the more their team trusts them. The more the team knows what is expected of them which increases productivity. The more potential employees want to join the team.
Another key stakeholder is current customers. Storytelling helps manage expectations and builds relationships.
Reaching, engaging and influencing new customers is also driven by powerful storytelling.
Companies also have referral sources and centers of influence who help bring new customers and employees to the mix. Leaders need to leverage the power of story to educate, communicate and motive these groups as well.
I’ve learned that there are 3 main reasons that leaders miss storytelling opportunities.
The Top 3 Reasons Executives Miss Storytelling Opportunities
1. They don’t realize how many storytelling opportunities are there for the taking. They don’t take the time to inventory the potential storytelling opportunities and build a plan to maximize them. Storytelling opportunities aren’t just the formal ones like town hall meetings, staff meetings or presentations to the board or potential customers. Leaders can tell stories through Walking Around Management, on Zoom calls, in emails and even through text messaging. The first step is taking inventory of your opportunities and most leaders flat out don’t even think about it.
2. They aren’t comfortable with building stories to use in a systematic way. They might think it’s not necessary. Or that they don’t have memorable stories. The reality is leaders already use anecdotes and analogies to make points. They already have their go to stories that they repeat again and again. If you don’t think you do, ask your team. They’ll laugh and tell you a few of your regular stories.
3. They might not realize the science behind how we process information and begin to formulate stories in our minds on a regular basis. This isn’t me talking. The cognitive science behind the power of story outlines how we start building stories. We try to understand the goal and target audience. We want to know about the struggles and barriers overcome. We look for who helped and how plus any lessons learned. Why wouldn’t we as leaders build our stories in a way that maximizes what cognitive science says our brains are wired to do anyway?
Leaders drive change and growth when they communicate, educate and motivate their key stakeholders. Leveraging the power of story will make you a better leader.
You tell stories in your personal life again and again. Do more of it in your professional life starting today.
I’ve built the Your No BS StoryBuilder to help leaders tell more and better stories
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
To get Your No BS StoryBuilder tool, go to massolutions.biz/storytelling
