Story, Story. Who's Got a Story?

Uh, everyone! 

Everyone wants to share their story/stories.

Everyone wants to experience success.

Everyone wants to make a difference.

Those three facts definitely link to one another. The stories reflect successes--even/especially stories about failures that lead to later success. And a strong motive for sharing stories is to provide insights to others, to make a difference for them. Do you sense how engaging in a little story-sharing can unleash engagement among the participants?

All you have to do is provide opportunities for you and your team to unleash those desires.

Here is the first example (of who-knows-how-many) ways you can make sharing of people's stories a key part of your organization's culture. NOTE: Story-sharing is a specific form of engagement.

Introduce Story Power to your organization's culture. Here's a simple summary of the process you can follow:

1. Communicate the reasons for everyone having their own story or stories...and being willing to share them.
2. Provide ample time and resources for your people to develop (and become comfortable with) their stories.
3. Offer non-threatening opportunities for team members to share their stories.
4. Celebrate the infusion of stories and story-sharing in a variety of ways.

So, here's a bit more detail on the how-to of each of those 4 steps:

Communicate

• Review the reasons stories and sharing those stories make a difference in an organization.
• Develop your own story and be willing/eager to share it as a lead-off example.
• Invite informal, open-ended discussion from your team about values they know and have experienced from sharing stories with others.

Resources

• Provide every staff member a copy of the Build a Story tips.
• Make how-is-it-going discussion time available for people to discuss their success/difficulty in developing their stories. (A staff-meeting agenda item?)
• Make books and other information about the art and value of storytelling available. You may check this bibliography.

Opportunities

• The Story Hour: once a month hold a one-hour, informal reception in which just a few of your members share their stories. Refreshments are a good idea.
• The Story Magazine: stories can be written and shared as well. Invite members to write their stories, edit them, and submit them to an office publication.
• The Story Celebration: once story-sharing has become an accepted and practiced element of your organization's culture, build to major story-shares. Volunteers might share a holiday story at the holiday party. Individuals might recall and share stories brought to mind by memorable events such as moving to a new location, a change in leadership, the loss of a loved team member. These are only examples; your team's ideas will be much better.

Celebrate

• Encourage continuing reference to the stories shared. (Paul, thank you for sharing your story with us this morning. I've enjoyed reflecting on it.)
• Express thanks that individuals are willing to share both personal and professional stories.
• Offer encouragement to stimulate more story-sharing. ($5 gift cards are good encouragers.)
• Post recognition on bulletin boards. (If you didn't hear Patsy's story about her childhood victory, ask her to tell it to you.)

And b/t/w...next Thursday, 5/22, 4-5:30 EDT, I'm offering my Manage Magic with Stories audio
conference. We'll cover so much more than is here!

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aprilbmoore/2266391264/