Once upon a time (about the art of storytelling)

Every night, I exercise my skills of storytelling at the bedside of my daughter Mathilde. She is 6, ans she loves hearing stories. She also spends quite a long time looking at the story illustrations  before going to sleep. It always ends up with me saying: Time to go to sleep now... good night Mathi! And she goes: Good night papa, I love you forever... Then she asks for a hug and kisses; She makes my day! Fast forward 12 hours later... I am at work, and it is very likely that I am doing exactly the same thing: telling a story and showing illustrations. If I am not doing that, I may be thinking about how to tell a story, or listening to one. In this blog post I want to dig into the phenomenon of story telling in corporate America, understand why it is so common and show its benefits and risks.

A couple of examples:
1) We are preparing for the 3 year product plan review --one of the many company wide bottoms-up top-down process for which GE is well renown. Everyone brings their slides with their business plans; all functions have their things to say and pet projects to push. After looking at everyones slides it is clear that there is no cohesion to the pitch. Someone takes the lead and says the magic words: So... what's the story? Silence follows... That's what it takes to bring everyone back together... and we end up crafting a nice story, that it s easy for us to tell, ans simple for the higher rank execs to grasp.
2) Here is another example: we are having some quality problems and we are late fixing them... the big review is coming and one member of my team is worried about what will happen in the meeting: This has the potential to blow-up! It depends: Whats our story ? We could have told this story: we are late because [...] and here is what we are going to do to recover: [...]. But we told this one: there is a capacity problem in [...] process, we are going to fix it by doing [...] and we'll update you on the status next week. Nothing blew up... we should thank the story!

What makes a story good?

• A good story simplifies the message. In one of my first blogs was about How having kids helped me at work. One of the reasons I discussed was that having kids helped with communication because you are forced to simplify the message and tune it to the developmental stage of your child. At work is the same, usually the higher in the hierarchy you pitch, the simpler the message has to be. That's the ticket to pay for the dialog. Expect the smart boss --like smart kids-- to ask questions. Why this and why that... this is where the value of the interaction lays.
• A good story is true. This is a fundamental characteristic of a good story.. and probably the reason why there aren't many. Wehther it is at work or at home... if you look close enough stories aren't completely true. Because truth is often complex, and truth is in shades of gray.

Ok, stories are good and necessary in large organizations, but they come with risks. What makes a story a bad story?

• A bad story is biased or untrue. Storytelling is a very powerful comunication tool, and as such can be abused. By definition there is an assymetry of information that favors the storyteller. Add that to what is at stake in a typical Corporate America pitches (get the budget or not, get praised or fingerpointed, etc.) and you see why there is systemic incentive for the storyteller to bias or even lie.
• Stories are self-fulfilling. Because they are easy to tell and understand; they are easy to repeat and they can spread like a virus. A story is a meme. And once you repeat it yourself, that's it, it's your story, and you don't want it to be wrong. Organizations can end up lying to themselves  because of bad stories, and all sort of bad things can happen just to keep the story true (including underestimating competitive threats, denying disruptions and identifying the incorrect root cause to problems).

Some tips on how to use and deal with stories:
1) When puting down a presentation ask yourself: What's the story? What's your elevator speech? This will help you frame the problem, get perspective and think clearly. Yes, you will simplify and that is ok.
2) Think about the audience. Now that you know your story, how do I tell the story to this specific audience. The more you know the audiences perspective, interests and background, the better. If you have limited information then you should spend time researching.
3) Be aware that 2) is not "what story does my audience wants to hear?". That's probably useful to know, but that shouldnt define your story or it will become a bad story.
4) If you are on the receiving end... understand what could be at stake for the storyteller. Ask questions at the beginning of the story to frame the potential biases. Ask questions during the story to cross-check it with other facts and independent data if possible.
5) At the end of a story believe it, be sure to understand it. Once it satisfies you drop it, ask yourself and the storyteller: What if the story is wrong? What decision or action are we forgoing because we believe the story and what could be the consequences not to dig further?. This will help you weight the importance to move forward vs. working on alternative scenarios.
6) Remember that the story you tell yourself ends up having a significant emotional impact. One of our HR managers always tells us that the truth is the story you tell yourself. Beware of your own cognitive biases, don't pick a story to quickly, play some what-ifs... don't tell yourself a story!

What? One year already!

Yes, I haven't blogged for more than a year. Gosh... I must have been busy!

Well, yes, I was busy. And before blogging about My Corporate America again, I'd like to update you on my endeavours in what has been a year plenty of sadness, joy, excitement, and change.

When I wrote "To Big to Succeed" in January 2010 I was in the middle of what ended up being a one-of-a-kind experience: the closure of the plant where I worked in Massachusetts. You can imagine the drama surrounding this situation: announcement on Jan 12th 2010, 50 people impacted by a plant closing (give or take). You can envision them interviewing with competitors in the morning and with the parent business in the afternoon, or frenetically inquiring about benefits, writing resumes, looking for referrals in  Linkedin. You get the picture. But here is what made this experience unique; With this kind of restructuring -- I said to myself -- there must be an opportunity to create value that ultimately benefits the employees, the parent company, investors! I followed through, consulted with my company execs, external advisors, created business plans and reached-out to private equity investors. I can't say more... other than it was very exiting and it did not work. I learned tons. Short-cut to the end of the story: I ended up staying with GE Healthcare, and I now run the Surgical Navigation Segment from Salt Lake City. Good thing that I don't need to rename my blog!

At the same time, 2010 was the saddest year of my life. My father passed away January the 19th of 2010. He was 68. So I went to Chile; The family was reunited; We buried his remains in two places: the Chilean coast and the Andean village of Bariloche in Argentina. It was his will. I feel good about him resting in two of the most beautiful, scenic places I know. I realize only now that it took me a year to get over this, and it was not until I returned to Chile earlier this year that I made peace with destiny.

Back to the US, 2010. I had to take care of moving to Salt Lake City. I sold my house in Wakefield MA, and bought one in Salt Lake City, UT. Put the kids in school and daycare, made new friends, started new activities with my wife and  discovered the region. Wow, I was impressed. Incredible outdoors, great weather, and the city has enough stuff going on to be fun.

Work has been extremely interesting too... and now that I finally settled, I feel I have so much to blog about. Stay tuned!