TaleCatcher

Immeasurable impact

I am excited. When we workshop in Manchester next week, Alan will be coming along to tell his story - and hopefully lots more. 

It must have been five years ago. Graham told Charles Garfield's Tollboth Story from Chicken Soup for the Soul, and Alan responded by reflecting on his own experience. I was just putting together the old TaleCatcher, and Graham brought me his story.

I didn't know it was Graham until a few weeks back when I picked up the phone to see if he was still around. It turns out Alan didn't remember having told of his experience all that time ago. But the story had moved me, and I and my colleagues had used it dozens of times in people engagement, in discussions about how we own our own attitudes. Alan had told how he'd been redeployed to another part of the company, and had a terrible attitude, he didn't want to learn, he was a poor performer, disruptive, and was just plain unhappy - and made everyone around him unhappy as well.

So he went to his manager and told her how the job was making him feel. She was a very wise woman - but Alan was pretty switched on as well. Alan knew he had three options: he could leave, he could carry on as he was, or he could try to change his attitude. His boss sent him on three weeks' leave with immediate effect, telling him to sort himself out before he came back.

He changed his attitude. Nothing about the job changed, but he became productive. He contributed. He became pleasant to be around, he learned, and was eventually even promoted.

I got him on the phone and I asked him what happened next. For the rest of the story.

Alan still believes in 'glass half full'. And he's used his story several times, himself, to influence people around him who were in the same place he'd been. One young lady was argumentative and had anger issues. She was even drinking on the job, and he was having to try to get her fired. But he was honest with her, all the way along, and asked her to listen to recordings of her phone calls. He explained to her about her personal impact on the people around her. And she changed. Little by little, she changed, to the point that she was even influencing people around her who were having problems with their customers - asking them to think about whether the problem could start with themselves.

This isn't just an interesting advantage - it's an illustration of how culture changes. People respond to the expectations of their peers more than they listen to what bosses or head office or policies tell them to do. 'The way we do it around here' is a message reinforced by colleagues every minute of every day, and it's the most difficult part to shift. Alan shifted their culture by investing in this young lady - and they got extra support in to help them get everyone listening to their own calls, reflecting on their personal impact.

But let's look at before that again: Alan felt confident that he could speak to his manager, that she wouldn't ridicule him or dismiss his feelings. She built the culture by demonstrating a history of listening and being interested in seeing her people grow.

But they weren't isolated cases. The boss was only able to send him on leave because her managers had invested enough trust in her that she was able to make such a decision.

Everybody knows that our corporate cultures need to change, but few are willing to take it on a case by case basis, to make the investment in the few that will reap benefits for the many. Look at how Alan's story brought so much change, at how Graham's telling the Tollbooth brought it to us. The effects of these stories are immeasurable, and they go much further than we can trace. A culture is the same. It is worth setting up a place in which people can take time to invest in each other. The impact on each other (and the customers) will be immeasurable.

(PS The lady who was angry and was drinking at work - she's left now - she stays at home with her new baby. Alan tells me she was a changed woman from the one who joined his team. What good news for that little baby, to have such a learning mum.)

Taming the wild things

I made this story once to try to describe part of what I do.

In the creation story, God created the animals, and they were wild. Adam lived with the animals, and after he got to know them a bit, he named them. Instead of just being surrounded by fur and teeth and feathers and tails, it was elephants and kangaroos and tigers and mice. They weren't any less wild for having names. But they were contained in his imagination. He knew what he was dealing with. Language made some sense of them.

Ideas sometimes run so fast around us they leave us spinning. I spend time with people and their ideas and help find the words to make some sense of them. It doesn't make them any less wild either. It just settles them in our minds.

You choose

If you could do anything, and know you could not fail, what would it be?

It's a genuine question. You may need to think about it for a while.

But I'd love to know. What would you do?

And you know the next bit: what's stopping you?

In common

When stories are contagious, when someone hears a story and picks up with another, it is often not about the same surface topic, but about offering an account of another situation which made the listener feel the same way. 'Next stories' are rapport builders. We feel the same way, we have something in common.

Before the workshop I did this week, I was chatting with someone from facilities who was helping me with last-minute preparations. I was telling him how I'd had a fright the day before, because when I'd rung up to confirm my catering for the room, I'd been told that actually I didn't have the room booked at all. 'My heart stopped,' I told him. Fortunately it turned out I'd just asked about the wrong room, and all was okay.

He picked up on the 'heart stopping' feeling. 'I had one of those yesterday too,' he said. 'I was wandering around John Lewis at lunchtime and thought maybe I ought to start looking for a present for Claire, as her birthday is coming up pretty soon. And then I realised it was today, and she hadn't said anything at all.'

'Oh no!' I said, feeling his pain. Building great rapport here. We have loads in common, right? 'What did you do?' I was looking for the happy ending in his story, like in mine.

But it all fell apart. 'Nothing,' he said. 'I've been looking for a way to get out of it. This way she'll ditch me, and I won't have to do the dirty work.'

Whoa. See what I mean when I carry on about our stories revealing our values? And this one broke the feelings of commonality I'd had with him. Of course we kept chatting, stayed friendly, but for me something had shifted. His story wasn't about what I'd thought it was about. We'd been going in the same direction, and he took it to a place I didn't want to go to.

People feel great when they're swapping stories because it's the feelings they have in common that build the bridges between each one. Finding stories that don't quite resound is uncomfortable, but it is revealing and useful, even if it doesn't build affinity.

Play

I watched Stuart Brown on Play a few weeks ago and haven't got it out of my head.

Stuart Brown begins an argument that play is just as important as sleep and dreams in building our physical and mental health. I say begins, because he and his colleagues are only at the beginning of their discoveries.

Some of it didn't work for me, but I have drawn many analogies and anecdotes to use in my work. And I guess it's safe to say it's changed me: I now make more of a point to make sure I play.

For instance: juvenile rats play too. It's part of their progression in growing up. Scientists took a set of rats and suppressed their play instinct. The rats grew up normally in every other way, and were able to cope as adults same as their peers. Then the scientists introduced a collar that had been worn by a cat, and watched. All the rats ran for safety, but there was a difference. The rats that had played as youngsters came out after a time, sniffed the air, found out if the coast was clear, and then resumed normal life. The rats that had never played, however, stayed in hiding. Until they died. They hadn't been curious and explored. They didn't know how to cope with risk, how to recover from a fright, how to measure their options and make a decision.

And so a few hours later I was playing monsters with Adele. I pulled on my eyes and mouth and lunged for her, saying BOO! Her frightened face was priceless, just for a flash, then it erupted into laughter. Over and over. It was just a few moments of fun. But I can see it as more now. She's learning to recover from fear. And the laughter we shared helped me recover from bureaucracy, systems, commuting, convention.

Go make a game, and play.

Tasty elephants

Elephants again.

There's the expression 'You can't eat an elephant all in one go. You have to eat a lot of elephant burgers.'

I get that. Slow down. Pace myself. Be patient, I'll get there in the end.

Being positive and constructive, I am using the inverse of this analogy to console myself. You see, I tried having the conversation about having something to say with my colleague.

I am going to have to start feeding her elephant burgers. Ho hum.

Known for

I keep hearing that yesterday the guy who wrote the theme tune to the Adaams Family died.

There's a supermarket story for you - something to instantly be known by.

And it's a great example of how one story, unless it's overtaken by another, can become what you're known by. In his case, it was even more than his name.

I had a very pleasant coffee and chat with Mags yesterday. I am so fortunate to have simple and wise friends, who keep in mind what is important, and pull me back. She had walked into another conversation I was having about doing some storying work for the church, and asked to know more. I don't usually bore my friends with the details of work, but as the conversation got into supermarket stories, she stopped me.

'Why should I care what people tell about me?' Apart from validity of the question itself, I am amazed that it was the first time I had been challenged on it. It's a huge and fundamentally important point. That it had never come up before tells a lot about people in general. And it tells a lot about Mags that she asked.

We explored it. If people tell that I'm the one who always arrives 30 seconds before school or work or a meeting starts, then I guess I don't care very much. It doesn't interfere with how I see myself, and actually I'm realistic and confident enough to such a character trait be public. If they're telling, though, that I have a temper, or that I am difficult to talk to, or that I'm awkward with shopkeepers, well that's a different story. That's not in line with the values I try to live by. It matters then. And then it's an entirely different conversation - how you change your story.

Strengths, part 3: learning from Mr Gumpy

Ann bought the girls a copy of Mr Gumpy's Outing for a birthday last year. I enjoyed the book but didn't get it for a long time.

It goes like this: Mr Gumpy lives in a house by a river. He has a boat, and he decides one day to go out in it. The children ask to come along. Mr Gumpy is kind and says yes, but you mustn't mess about. The dog and cat want to come along; Mr Gumpy says the dog mustn't tease the cat. And so it goes on: the sheep mustn't go around bleating, the pig can't muck about, the chicken can't flap. Predictably, they all do exactly what their natures predispose them to do, and the boat topples. Mr Gumpy is also patient, so after they all swim to the shore, they walk across the fields and then sit down together for a lovely tea of fruit and cake.

That they each brought their own natures - or 'strengths' was obvious. And that they didn't mix was obvious. But I sensed there was a deeper application, and I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Until I used the expression 'liberate' to describe letting a member of staff go who just wasn't able to do the job. She had been coached and trained for six months and never grew in the role, just grew more frustrated. I referred to when she'd been set free, and those around me laughed, and I made a passing reference to how she could go find a job that would better suit her.

That night we read Mr Gumpy together. And I got it. Companies that force people in who don't fit, will topple, just like Mr Gumpy's boat. If the stakes are no higher than getting wet, then it doesn't matter. In an organisation in which people are putting their lives and livelihoods into it, however, we can't risk an all-inclusive, more-the-merrier approach. We've got to be clever and actively recruit on the strengths that will best fill the role, both in practical and emotional needs.  

Strengths, part 2: less to more

Marcus talks about how 'work' does necessarily have to have its bits that aren't play, but that the key is to learn to see the chores in ways that will appeal to stengths. So when I did my clouds exercise on myself the other day, I saw a direct correlation between the things that are holding me back and the things I need. Red lights, green lights, same issue, diferent names. Flip sides of the same behavoiur: obstacle or opportunity. Easier said than done, maybe, but identifying it is a start. And it makes for a fascinating half-hour of self-reflection.

In our old team we talked about 'lesser strengths,' when they occasionally needed to be acknowledged. Sometimes they get to be the elephant in the room, what everybody can see but nobody's talking about, even in our own minds. When they're obvious and causing problems, then it's time to pull out the 'lesser strengths', have a good look at them, and find out how we put them in the spaces we play in most naturally.

Marcus's example was about doing expenses, or something admin-y that he didn't like to do. But he had a huge completion strength, so he would focus on how pleased he'd be when he finished it. Rather than getting dragged down by the chore, he let his incentive for that 'done' rush pull him along.

Strengths, part 1: Every child matters

I love 'every child matters.' It is kind of a philosophy I think they're trying to run and measure schools around. I hadn't encountered it until we were getting Elena in school.

I was invited to her celebration assembly on Friday. I'd gone to one the previous year, so I knew that each child gets a certificate at some point during the year. Elena's, this time, was for her amazing reading abilities. I could barely contain my pride.

Now for lots of reasons my mind has returned to the strengths space, and it was clearly the way they are training up these kids. I loved seeing the reasons they got certificates: 'for always saying please and thank you, and being so eager to help.' 'For always offering to play with children who don't have anyone to play with.' 'For having such a confident voice in PE, always ready to call out boldly to his friends.' 'For always jumping in and having a go, no matter what anybody else is doing.'

The closest we got to this when I was at school was when John Byrd, our 9th grade biology teacher, announced at the end of the school year that he had been asked to recognise students' achievements, and did anybody think they deserved recognising?

I used to be excrutiatingly shy. I had been quiet all year long, hidden safely and quietly in the shelter of my lab partner Holly Denise Holley's boisterous and constant laugh. Mr Byrd had given out certificates for everything imaginable to 14 year-olds. I whispered to Holly, 'I didn't say anything all year.' I got a certificate for Silentism. Signed in Ronald Reagan's name.

Now John Byrd was the teacher who submitted a photo of a snake eating a mouse as his official image for the yearbook. And he was skirting scandal by living with my English teacher, the bohemian who taught us tap dance instead of literature for a while. Strange as we thought he was, John Byrd was onto something. I still have my certificate. I have outgrown it; silence is no longer a value for me. But the recognition, the moment of writing something down and having the class applaud me for what was uniquely mine, was an important moment. A first look into my strengths.