Storytelling

The latest episode of NOVL Takes is all about Storytelling. When you move beyond the brand appeal of storytelling, what other powers do stories and storytelling have? What is their value in a business context? We explore that, and more, in this episode. 

Transcript

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Hey, they're beautiful people. Welcome to NOVL Takes, the podcast where we lift a veil on business as usual. Join us for our novel takes on business culture and the art of getting things done. I'm partner and principal Rachel Gans-Boriskin A I'm founder and principal Sarah Patrick. It's time for this week's NOVL Take. Today's show is all about storytelling. We know storytelling's kind of a buzzword in business right now. It seems like every other consultant is working to help teams tell their story. But when you move beyond, brand appeal of storytelling, what other powers of stories, and storytelling, what does it have for us? What is the value to us at NOVL? That's really what we're gonna be exploring in today's show. I am from a family of storytellers, um, from professional storytellers, homegrown storytellers, just a lineage of storytellers. and.. I know you're a storyteller too. Yeah. Um, one of the things, along the way that I've done is, if you've heard of the moth, radio hour, moth style storytelling, live storytelling, and I'm active, in the storytelling community in Boston. And I love to get up on a stage and tell a true story from my life. Partly cuz I think everyone else in my life has heard the stories already and they're sick and tired of me. But I, I still love telling them. In moth style storytelling, you have a theme and you tell a story on that theme. But I know for me, I have, you know, a list of stories and different ones fit with different themes, multiple themes. And one of the things I love is taking a story I've told multiple times and fitting it to a new theme. And in the process, I often find out new things about myself. The story means something different, and it's, it's an exciting thing. So I've, I've come to see storytelling in every aspect of my life. And also, you know, when anything bad happens, it's like, you know what, eventually this is gonna be a really good story, this good story, , right? Storytelling right now is like all the rage. If you type into Google something about story, I mean, you're gonna get millions of results .If you go to any bookstore, you know, there are just so many books on storytelling and how to tell your own story. Which is interesting, right? Like, it's suddenly what we're all talking about. You know? I wonder why you think that is at the moment. Right? Right. I think despite the buzzword element around it, it is central to the human condition. This is not new, right? We, this is how story is how we make sense of things. It's how we make meaning. It's how we develop memory and how we can kind of hold on to certain information. You know, one of the neatest things I learned,, is that actually when we think back to our earliest memories mm-hmm. they're sort of episodic. Like, you know, I have a memory, I think from when I was three. I've got a memory from, you know, six, maybe from eight, but they don't like link up. They're just sort of there. Right? And that it's not just me probably, you know, if you are listening to this, think about that. That's probably what you have too. And it turns out that developmentally, um our stories don't kind of link up into a cohesive sense of self till about 12. and that's probably the moment you start having memories where you know the connection one to the next and that you're really building an identity. And I, I think that's so interesting that we go from being sort of characters in other people's stories., right. To really, you know, the central character in our own and building that and that continuity of self. And so that story is inherently linked to identity. Right. and so I, I think that there is a real link here to business. Right. as we think of an organization's story, you know, kind of beyond strategy. Right. To the point you made about that identity link, right? There's, the individual identity. There's also the organizational identity, right? So how are we telling the story? How is an organization telling its own story and how is that linked to the organizational identity? Right. I mean, like any company has its founding story, right? Right. Like ours is at a coffee, right? Where we're like, wait a minute, we can, we can do this right. I clearly have not crafted that into a compelling story but I will, I will, at some point. And so I, I think most organizations can point to that moment. Mm-hmm. And that story is part of, you know, what, what you have to say about who you are. And, and I wonder you know, just as an individual, you may start telling a different story about yourself, there are points when a company shifts and that story starts to change mm-hmm. as well. Mm-hmm. So, you know, what, what is that, you know, how do you shift that as an organization when you go from being a startup with that, you know, startup energy to, you know, a going concern. Right, right. I think part of that is the framework that you design into that story. Right. And where in the, kind of what elements of that narrative that you are gonna pick out and highlight as you design that frame. Right. I wonder. You know, you tell me the story of Little Red Riding Hood and how that can be told in two different ways. Okay. Should we, should we, should we do that? Yes. Okay. So I love it because I think that that offers, you know, kind of how you can see certain things in different kinds of ways and different sort of frame ups. Okay. So, Sarah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put you on the spot. Tell me the story of Little Red Riding Hood you got it.. You know, I always fail this one. Right? Right. Go for it. All right, so Little Red Riding Hood is sent into the woods, but once.. Once... Once upon a time, little Red Riding Hood is sent into the woods to go visit her grandmother. She runs into a wolf. The wolf asks, where you going, little girl? She says To visit my grandma. Wolf disappears. Goes into the woods, Goes into the cabin eats, the grandma gets in the bed. Little Red Riding Hood arrives at her grandmother's cabin. Doesn't necessarily recognize her grandmother right away. Does some investigation. Oh grandma, what big eyes you have. All the better to see you with my dear. Oh grandma, what big ears you have. All the better to hear you with my dear. Oh grandma, what big teeth you have. All the better to eat you with my dear. Red Riding Hood is eaten, swallowed whole and digested. Nope. Not digested. Not digested. Not digested. You actually learned the wolves don't chew their food., right? Just completely whole.. Because here comes the axman who comes in and, chops up the, wolf in half. Somehow unharming Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother who are undigested in the wolf's stomach and fall out. Yeah. Whole onto the ground. Right. Like it's a wolf cesarean. They're right, right. No, They're pulled out And so, you know, and that's our story, and everybody except the wolf right. Lives happily ever after. Right? And we learn from this , don't talk to strangers when you are a small little girl who runs into the woods, to go see her grandmother. Listen to your mother. Listen to your mother. Yeah. Right. be careful in the woods alone. Mm-hmm. and that sometimes big, burly men can come save you.. Right. You, you probably also learned, and I think the original idea was actually not to have sex with strangers, because she was wearing a red coat. It, you can look it up. Anyway All very important things to learn. So this is, but this is like, it's a, it's a fairytale. Like, and we know how this works and there's a function to it, which was clearer actually. I think it's interesting because, fewer and fewer people know this story. I think we're just not telling it to our kids anymore cuz it's a little horrifying, It's troublesome. It is troublesome in a lot of ways. but let's say we take the story that we, we know and we put it into a news heading, like we go with the, you know, the who, what, when, where, why, right. and so it's, you know, yesterday in the woods a little girl and her grandmother were injured in, a vicious wolf attack, right?/ I would even say something like ax man rescues little girl and grandmother from, from wolf digestion or, you know, so it's like completely centers who, somebody who you know, seems like a tertiary character, right. In this narrative. Right? Right. Something we usually, I even forget, is part of the story at all. Right? Right. So we, so we can actually focus on different things. It's also, by the way, a terrible way to tell a story, right?, right? Like you get rid of all the preamble, you get rid of the fun dialogue, right? You know, we don't, we don't get the, the test of eyes and ears and teeth and all of that, right? but it's actually the shorthand for how we read news. And it, it may be, you know, that's actually why we can't remember a lot of, you know, what we've watched or read, right? My husband and I will play this game. We'll watch the local news and we'll sit there and at the end say, ok name three stories. Nope. And, and it's, it's nearly impossible, right? because they're so short, they are so formulaic, that, you know, they're, they're just not memorable. Mm-hmm., Right? But part of this is about reworking a story and the way we tell the story, we remember different things, we highlight different things. And we do this in our own lives. Mm-hmm. um, You know, there's a, a whole line of, of work in, psychology and narrative therapy, of how you re-author your life, where you take agency or instead of focusing, you know, on what, what has been done to you. Right. You talk about what you have done in response, and I, I think it's incredibly powerful, psychologically. Right? Right, but you know, for us, I, I think there's a way we, we see that as, a fertile ground in business too. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think, you know, kind of to your point, especially in that kind of, in that narrative therapy element, you move yourself from being the victim, from having things done unto you to being the hero of your narrative. How can you be the hero? How do you center yourself in an empowerment framework? How do we help organizations, be the heroes of their own narrative? How do we help them be a hero in a way that makes sense for them at this juncture? Because sometimes where you are in your hero narrative shifts, right. As things shift around you too, right? and how, how the data points change. sometimes you outgrow your. And you have to, you have to rethink it and redesign it. And I think that that's one thing, one reason why, storytelling is so important to us at NOVL because we think of it as a process, not as a product, not something that we're just designing for the end result, but like how are we utilizing this tool called storytelling? This tool called narrative to like help move things along, how do we use it as a tool? Right? Right. I, I think actually just, not just where we've been, but where we're going mm-hmm., what is the story you want to tell? Right? Like, looking back, you know, at this moment, this pivotal moment, you know, 10 years from now, what's the story that you wanna tell. or, you know, we are at this, you know, point of choice. What are those different stories you could tell, you know, sort of our multiverse? Right? You know, what's, what's the different timeline and, and that storytelling is imagining mm-hmm.. that. It's not just, you know, what happened before. It's telling a story, a vision of where you wanna go, and understanding, you know, through story, what's, what's the worst case scenario here? Like Right. Right. Um, and engaging, creatively mm-hmm. with it. As people, you know, we often think like, you know, starting a new chapter in your life., right? Like, okay, what's next? I, I think businesses have that too, right. and sometimes the, the way we live life, the way, you know, the business cycle goes, there isn't time to really think those through. You're just kind of on this path and you just keep going. And, you know, for our work, you know, what we are passionate about and excited about is bringing people together in that moment and say like, let's pause. Let's figure out, you know, this story here. and, and help you move intentionally, and, and write the story right as you go instead of just like rewriting it, at some future point. Right. But this, I think, goes beyond rebranding. Right? Right. Which I think goes back to something we said at the beginning, which is why in part, storytelling is such a buzzword right now. Right. It's such an idea, such an exciting idea, being able to use the tools of narrative to kind of overlay them onto existing, business frameworks. But that's not what we're talking about here, right? We're talking about going beyond just a rebrand, right? You get to a point in your, business trajectory, your growth trajectory, and you're like, okay, we have done all these things. We're ready for, a rebrand. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about, almost.. I don't know. Do you think re-authorship would be fair? Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're, you're re-authoring your story and I think part of the disappointment, that we find with business, that I think the public, sometimes gets disappointed by, is that it's it's surface. Mm-hmm.. Right? Your own, your own employees are gonna feel that. Just because you're, you're starting to tell a new story unless you're living that, right. It doesn't make a difference, right? If I, you know, rewrite the past as I see it, and I move from being, you know, a victim in the past to telling a story of my own, you know, being a hero, but I still engage with the world in the future as if I am a victim, as if things are happening to me and not, my having agency, then the story hasn't stuck. Mm-hmm. You have to live it. And so that's where storytelling is a process. And it isn't just that product that you sell because I think, you know, certainly right now, young people in particular are, are pretty cynical and saying, you know, I don't believe it. You know, walk the walk. Right. And so being intentional about this work is so important. Right. Right. We're talking about an, a depth of investigation, right? We're talking about a depth of doing the, the work, but also a depth of exploring that story, authorship of that story, and then I mean, -buzzword-implementation of that story. Right? Sarah's back to systems.. You can't escape it. I can't do it. So I, I think, you know, we, we know every story has a beginning, middle, and an end, but ends aren't always satisfying, right? and so I, I think this is, this is a pause, uh, maybe an unsatisfying end, or maybe it's an end that leaves you wanting more, little more. So if this conversation has piqued your interest and you wanna hear more about what we have to say, Stay tuned for other episodes. Please subscribe, rate, and review and give us some love. Yes, and if you're curious about what we do over here At NOVL or think we could help you or your organization out, check us out or send us an inquiry over@thinknovel.com. That's T H I N K N O V l.com and that's it. we wanna shout out everyone who helped us make this show to Mira, who helps edit and produce the show to Alva, who is forever an inspiration. this is NOVL takes.