TaleCatcher

Something to be known by

My old team used to tell the story of a disabled boy who worked in a supermarket and heard a motivational speaker talk about making your mark, doing something that you will be known by. This is about story - about giving people the 'supermarket story' they will know you and your organisation by.

I suspect the story came from Chicken Soup for the Soul, but it was just repeated to me. The story goes that the boy went home and thought a long time about it, then asked his dad to help him create a 'thought for the day' on the computer. It was the young man's job to help customers pack their groceries, so he put a slip of paper with the thought for the day in each customer's shopping bag.

One day a while later, the shop manager noticed that there was a long queue to pay for shopping. She rushed around trying to open more tills, but the customers refused to move across. They all wanted to see this young man, and to get his thought for the day for themselves.

The idea of individualisation spread across the store. The florists started taking any buds that broke off to elderly women and making a corsage for them. The butcher had 1000 Snoopy stickers printed and put one on every packet of meat he prepared - and people wanted to buy that meat over the ordinary, anonymous options.

What do we do to make ourselves memorable? What story do we create about ourselves, that resonates with the stories our colleagues, customers, friends are telling themselves?

Here's a real life example: Nigel from Homebase got 1600 votes to switch on his town's Christmas lights. Johnny Depp only got 500. People went away from Homebase talking about Nigel and telling about the conversations they'd had with him.

People are desperate to make a connection with other people. They want to be acknowledged, understood, known. To do this we have to be present and confident and real in the first place.

And: Well done to Homebase for allowing him to be himself. Just like the supermarket of the story, the whole business benefits from letting people grow and be individuals. 

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.

What Jon T tells about me

Jonathan T works in the intranet support team. He helped us do our user testing when I was setting up  the customer site. Notice that that's what I choose to tell about him. But here's the 'supermarket story' apparently he's still telling about me, a year on:

When we were in our second day of user testing for the Customer Site, I wanted to show Jon and Adam that I was grateful for their help and their patience in pushing this huge task through all the barriers and hoops we were facing. So I made some muffins. I like making muffins. I try to every week. This time I tried a new recipe - like carrot cake, the description said: only with cocoa and courgette (zucchini), adding vitamins and moisture. Perfect, I thought. We've got a glut of courgette from the garden. And how much more homemade will they be then!

We did that morning's first session, then took a break. I gave Jon and Adam their muffins then slipped out to go get coffee - and came back to find Jon spitting the muffin out and pulling pieces of courgette from his teeth. He was disgusted. I hadn't had a chance to tell him what was in them, but I hadn't expected a reaction like that in any case. He says he thought it was cannabis. And he's still telling to this day about the disgusting cakes I make.

So creating a story about myself didn't really work in this case. I'm just left wondering what Jon already thought of me, that he a)thought I was into cannabis and b)thought I would bring it to work and share with him!

(Of course lovely Adam ate his happily and thanked me for it...)

Supermarket stories

I want to introduce a new storytelling category on the blog: supermarket stories.

Imagine you're in the supermarket with your other half. You bump into someone from work and the three of you have a pleasant little chat, pass the time of day, etc. You move on. As soon as you're out of earshot, your partner asks 'Who was that again?' And then you say, 'She's the one who...' Because chances are, you'll have already told a story about this person. Your partner will have a reference for them in their mind, and it will all be around one story.

And so the argument begins that our lives are made up of our stories - and certainly shape others' perceptions of us.

So what's the story to be? She's the one who always gets drunk at the office party and ends up on the karaoke machine? She's the one who was late to our meeting because she was down in the car park putting her footprints in the wet cement? She's the one who brought a full homemade picnic for us the time she asked us to work through lunch?

The things we do get people talking about us. Thinking about the stories we inspire and become the subject of is a great way to consider the impact we have on the people around us - and it's even a way to start changing things, if you fancy a change. Surprise them, and get them telling different stories.