Written by Communicating between different teams such as creative and tech can present challenges. Are you are facing this problem within your business or organisation? A simple story may be just the thing you need.
Use the power of stories within your organisation to create a strategic way to inspire, education or motivate your employees, co-workers or clients.
Step 1 – Make Your Staff Heroes
There is a plot device in storytelling called the Hero’s Journey. The mythologist Joseph Campbell coined this term. He says that all stages of a hero’s journey are similar. First, adventure calls a character to accept a journey. The character then try’s to talk himself or herself out of taking the challenge. The call is eventually answered and the hero goes on to meet their destiny. For example, when Clark Kent accepts his extraordinary powers and becomes Superman. The challenge and journey represent the process of becoming yourself. It is also what unlocks your ability to help those around you.
Examine the stories of your staff to uncover their special superpowers. Their stories create connection around their personal and business goals to move them all forward. Stories ‘show’ their co-workers the kind of person they are, what their skills are and what makes each team member unique.
Step 3 – Make Work Meaningful
We all want to belong to something greater than ourselves.
It can be easy to get trapped in patterns or cycles within organisations with long-standing ways of working. Patterns can feel comfortable, but if a team’s goals are not aligned with their current path, it can make them feel impossible.
To make the impossible possible it is important to break free of tired cycles. An outsider’s fresh perspective can identify the well-worn paths under our feet we cannot see. What happens when we decide to leap off this path. Where do we go when this happens?
Leaving a path, to branch off into the unknown can feel like meandering, when in fact it is exploring. Exploring can bring us closer to goals. Staying locked in a cycle eventually leads us back to the beginning of where we started, this is not helpful when change is needed. A helicopter or bird’s eye view is needed as sometimes the cycle is so big it is possible to confuse it for forward motion. If in a year’s time everything feels eerily familiar it is because the cycle was so big it was hard to see the curve in the bend.
A clear vision creates a new path by planning for the future. Discovering that vision as a team makes it feel possible. All change starts with something that feels just beyond our reach, but if we all try just a bit harder we will get there together.
Imagine something that is completely new. Something you didn’t even think was possible. Make it possible and abandon the old cycle, so a new one can be forged!
Be Clear About How You Are Managing Transitions
It can feel unsettling when organisations are in a transition phase. The reality is in life is change is a constant, it is important to focus on making changes that create positive results.
We only know what we know at any given moment. As situations and co-workers around us flux and flow, the direction or the organisation will change.
This process feels better and more comfortable when you are aware that other people are changing as well. Staying flexible and understanding how people and circumstances are changing is very important.
Consider each step into the future as one on a shifting road. To monitor this ensure that part of your change management process includes gathering the stories and sentiments of the staff to understand where they are on their own journey.
Moving from one team or way of working to another can feel like leaping across a chasm. Teaching your team how to build their own bridges is the best way forward.
If you found this useful, please share this with your colleagues! For those of you in Melbourne join me and the Innovators Network on October 11 5:45 pm at the RACV club. Email anamicaroy@outlook.com for more your invitation or more information!
Storytelling Built For Innovation 