TaleCatcher - Tracy Kenny's blog

Don't say anything

Last week we collected Adele's glasses. She's only 3 1/2. We'd not even noticed that she had a vision problem, and I suspected that the highly-distracted consultant at the hospital had given her the benefit of her experience (think 'Blink') rather than the focus of her attention on the day we were there. I was skeptical.

Then I looked through the lenses as I was cleaning them (the first of many hundreds of times. Small children have sticky fingers and poor aim when eating ice cream cones, spaghetti bolognese, etc.)

I say I looked through - I tried, but I couldn't see a thing. It was like looking into a cloudy soupy mess. She, meanwhile, sits quietly looking through them, occasionally commenting 'I can see a bird' or 'I can see a book,' fascinated by discovering a world she never knew was there. 

So I was wrong. I had no idea she'd not been seeing what we could. So grateful thanks to the process (and to the government for sticking with it) that booked her an appointment literally upon her birth to have her eyes examined 3 years later, based on the family history of wearing glasses.

It's thrown up lots of learning for me about service and empathy. I took her to the locally-owned opticians in our little town to get the glasses made, so it was a familiar environment and not the factory atmosphere of Specsavers. Now I got to Specsavers myself, but partly out of fascination, because they stay so busy, and yet despite the expectations my prejudices against big business set me up with, every single one of them seems happy and helpful and genuinely knowledgable. I'd love to get into their recruitment and training to see how they do it.

In our little town, we had the same lady looking after her every time, but their processes were really poor, and I ended up getting cross with them, which is disappointing when I'd actually been trying to  go somewhere where we could have a relationship. They also assumed we'd want the NHS free glasses, rather than paying a measlly £13 for prettier frames, and they never offered scratch-resistant or reduced glare. I'm used to buying glasses. They're not used to 3 year-olds, or they'd have tried to talk me into this.

But the best was at her nursery this morning. I'd prepared for the  rush of encouragement and compliments they'd have for her, but they are soooo switched on about  little kids.

They never said  a word. They asked her about the toy duck she'd brought, asked if she was already wearing sun cream, and if she wanted Weetabix or toast for breakfast.

I took their cue, gave her a hug and kiss, and left - a little wiser.

Through the week I saw a lot of examples of failing to anticipate the customer's need, but the nursery's silence moves empathy into the space of positive action - by saying and doing nothing. Adele wants to be the same as the other kids. She doesn't want attention called to her difference, even in the shape of praise.

And so through Adele's glasses, now I see something much  more clearly than I ever had before: acceptance is so much better than reassurance, and it gets us so close to what customers or audiences we communicate with need. It's just the right place to start.

Something to say

I've found a new favourite voice. I don't say favourite poet because I like him more than just for his poetry, and actually I'm only just starting to explore his works, but poking around his website I just like him.  (Also although I find I have blogged poems several times, it still feels a bit pretentious to be talking about poetry. When you drop the presumptions and just enjoy the words, they can be hugely powerful and great fun.) 

I love what he stands for, and I love the playfulness of the anagrams menu on his website - if you scroll over 'the link poems online', the words change to 'lonesome pin' - and I love that he is passionate about teaching and making people better. My kind of guy.

He says his poems are there to share, and that he's happy for people to perform them, as long as they give him credit. So I'm grateful to Ronnie Bruce for introducing me to Mali, but whilst the visuals were just stunning, the voice treatment didn't hit the mark for me.

If you don't like reading poetry, look at the video. Actually look at the video either way. And listen out for me using passages of this stuff in conversation, and in future blogs, because it is absolutely in the space of story: that is, be somebody, have something to say, use it to reach out to someone, and create something meaningful.

Enjoy. It's my pleasure to introduce you :-)

Totally like whatever, you know?

By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com

In case you hadn't noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences - so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not -
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don't think I'm uncool just because I've noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It's like what I've heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I'm just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . .
I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we've just gotten to the point where it's just, like . . .
whatever!

And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
is just a clever sort of . . . thing
to disguise the fact that we've become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since . . .
you know, a long, long time ago!

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.

Anti-viral

My google reader is out of control. Instead of bringing me the internet in small chunks, it completely overwhelms me with what all is going on out there. Still, I'm a possibility junkie, and a 'collector' in Strengths Finder terms (they call it 'input'), and I love having all those articles there just waiting for me to discover them.

Yet most of them continue to wait.

One I try to catch up with though is the blog from The Storytellers. It's this type of company that makes me wish - a very rare occurance - that London wasn't so far away from Norfolk.

Yesterday Jackie Tolland of the Storytellers blogged about Geert Hofstede’s research into cultural differences in the workplace. She captured that traditionally-designed global communications will always struggle to design the right response, because peoples' cultural differences will always drive distinctive corporate expectations and responses.

That all makes sense. Malcolm Gladwell covered some of the same ground in Blink, in his harrowing description of cultural differences in conversations between pilots and air traffic controllers.

What I liked about Jackie's observation was that the right single story of  a corporate communciation can be re-told in a multitude of ways, to fit the individual circumstances and audience.

For me this is about getting the individual to re-tell the story to suit the circumstances they share with their audience, but it's also about investing in a local storyteller who already has a relationship with them. To get someone who understands the listeners shows an understanding and respect from the top, right from the start, and it removes the 'Who's he?' barriers that might stand in the way for an audience. 

It also suggests that the global company understands the personal touch.

I think I've seen something like this before... it's rather like a big company structuring their communciations so that they go to the ranks via peoples' line manager.

The challenge with that is making sure that the line managers understand and buy into the story, enough that they can share their personal journey of coming round to it. And like any vehicle of mass communication, it requires investment - this time of the human kind, to make sure it will accurately and effectively deliver the right message.

In my observed experience it's usually easier just to send an email or film a DVD message. What a wasted opportunity to build  relationships and confidence in the message, for everyone.

Simple story

I've been helping someone with his CV today. He warned me that he didn't want any of that storytelling stuff in it, that he'd read up on it and it's all more theory than accepted practice.

We've worked through several versions, over email and over several hours. I think he's as pleased as I am with it. But I haven't pointed out to him that what we've done is build in a clear story.

I maintain my position: a story is when Somebody Does Something and it Means Something.

That's all.

We spent some time on the 'Somebody' - he was selling himself short. He wasn't showing off his achievements, and he wasn't really clear on what he's all about.

Of course a great deal of what  you're 'about' is made up of what you 'do'. So we looked at the actions and achievements, figured out that they made him a certain type of person, and tweaked it to sort that persona. The actions and the person are in line, reinforcing and valdiating each other.

That's typical CV stuff.  The transformation is in the meaning. 'So what?' I asked (politely). 'What's the impact? Why did it matter?'

Bang, now there's lots of meaingful stories about his accomplishments, and one big story about a very caring, very efficient operations manager who's technologically savvy but does it all for the people he's working with.

It sounds like the preise for a novel. Or screenplay.

He won't let me put in the stories like about the widowed customer who cried because my friend helped him when learn to cook and use a washing machine (he thought his oven was broken when he actually was trying to bake it on GM2),but his story comes through all the same.

He can save that stuff for the interview. That's when stories will get centre-stage. 

Ways of getting what I want

Years ago when I was doing my MA, my friend De'Lara was working for a quite brilliant professor - whose intelligence of course left her a bit out of the loop around new technology.

I was reminded of the story when I was walking around Norwich Cathedral with my brother last week, admiring the typesetting machine which the Jarrold company had donated to their education hall. It had only two sets of type, all the letters held in a huge wooden tray with a key for finding the right ones quickly. It wasn't based on QWERTY!

Anyway back to the future, in this case the late 1990's. De'Lara had done some word processing for Prof M in some font or other, but it wasn't what the esteemed woman had in mind. She was kind but firm, insisting that my friend re-type the entire thing in the preferred font. My friend tried to interrupt and say that it was no problem, she could change it in a few key strokes. Eventually, rather than let the situation develop into a full argument, she backed down and told the boss she'd see her in a few hours with the document in the new font.

What lessons do I take out of this for today?

• Shut up and listen, I might learn something
• There are usually easier ways of doing things
• Think more about what I really want, than getting stuck on how I want to get there

Cool, collected, and wise

In our house we're really enjoying the poem 'The adventures of Isabel' by Ogden Nash. It's a great example of how poetry isn't alienating, a lot of the time it's just well-chosen words that tell a great story.

I've spent a few days trying to figure out the adult appeal of this one - why I enjoy it as much as the girls do. It's not  necessarily about strength, because as you'll read Isabel is not strong, she's just an ordinary girl making it through the 'threats' a child imagines.

And a lot of what holds us back are perceived threats as well. I'm wrestling with a few of those myself.

For me it's a great reminder about having the confidence of one's convictions, about understanding when threats are actually not as big as we imagine they are, and about knowing when actually the threatening thing might just be good for us.

Enjoy!

The adventures of Isabel

Isabel met an enormous bear,
Isabel, Isabel, didn't care;
The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous,
The bear's big mouth was cruel and cavernous.
The bear said, Isabel, glad to meet you,
How do, Isabel, now I'll eat you!
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry.
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She washed her hands and she straightened her hair up,
Then Isabel quietly ate the bear up.

Once in a night as black as pitch
Isabel met a wicked old witch.
the witch's face was cross and wrinkled,
The witch's gums with teeth were sprinkled.
Ho, ho, Isabel! the old witch crowed,
I'll turn you into an ugly toad!
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,
Isabel didn't scream or scurry,
She showed no rage and she showed no rancor,
But she turned the witch into milk and drank her.

Isabel met a hideous giant,
Isabel continued self reliant.
The giant was hairy, the giant was horrid,
He had one eye in the middle of his forhead.
Good morning, Isabel, the giant said,
I'll grind your bones to make my bread.
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She nibled the zwieback that she always fed off,
And when it was gone, she cut the giant's head off.

Isabel met a troublesome doctor,
He punched and he poked till he really shocked her.
The doctor's talk was of coughs and chills
And the doctor's satchel bulged with pills.
The doctor said unto Isabel,
Swallow this, it will make you well.
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She took those pills from the pill concocter,
And Isabel calmly cured the doctor.

End, then begin

Two words into a book is a bit early to be doing a book review. I know it is.

But I have to say, to my enormous delight, Peter Guber's Tell To Win has gripped me in its first two words.

He starts with, 'THE END.' Seriously.

He says he wants to give away the ending of the book - that he will argue that within each of us we have the power to convince, persuade, and grip others, by tapping into our inherent and inherited storytelling abilities.

This is of course right up my street. But the more exciting thing is that someone else gets the idea that in writing, you have to work your way through to the end to have real command of the beginning.

The first draft of anything is shit - Ernest Hemingway

Writing is creating, not regurgitating or reporting. It's taking the elements and their cumulative impact on you, and holding them up - hopefully considerately and caringly - to what you want your readers to gain from it. And as you learn and are moved by your own words and the places they  take you to, and what you discover as they unfold, if you have done any true writing with any effort or gift at all, you will be changed by the process, and you will have a work that is far different than what you set out to do.

This is what is often wrong with books that feel like the author struggles to get started. I've read two books by a well-respected London copywriter who prides himself on his ability to relate to the common people. I filled nearly every inch of white space and margin in these books, arguing with him - and then in the final chapters of each book, it felt like he finally got to what he was trying to say.  If he had moved that chapter to the start, he would have gone on to re-edit, and I would have understood where he was going with it - instead of my reading experience being more like a debate. (I would love the opportunity to meet him and talk about it!) (Unfortunately his relating to the common people doesn't include a suggestion that he wants to learn together with them.)

So what does this mean for us? Upon completing  the journey and growth that your writing takes you through, why in the word would you stick with the original start? The work you set out to introduce is almost certainly going to be different - in any case, you should be changed, for having removed it from your head and heart and getting it out into the articulated world.

Never get hung up on opening lines in writing. What you're writing at the start might get scrapped anyway. Tell yourself you're starting 1/3 of the way through - try starting by articulating any idea you've got a firm grasp on, even if it's just an incomplete phrase.

Once you really know what your work's about, and  what your reader is really likely to experience, only then can you write an opening that will prepare them considerately and respectfully. If people are going to spend their precious time on our words, and especially if we intend to have any sort of impact on them at all, then surely we should respect them enough to really have our own heads around our writing - this is what transforms it from a piece of text to a real gift.

 

Stuff I've Learned

Before I left Aviva I learned how powerful it can be to frame experience in the words 'Stuff I've Learned.'

'Stuff' keeps it humble, down-to-earth, and accessible.

'I've' keeps it personal.

'Learned' shows that I'm open to the journey, that I don't have all the answers, and that I'm heading in the right direction with the right attitude, even if I make mistakes along the way.

It's much more powerful a practice than it appears.

Today I sat down and captured the Stuff I’ve Learned in a sort-of 'story-listening' project I worked on in February and March. Much of it was learned again - isn't it funny how some stuff doesn't stick! I thought the device and the learnings both worth sharing:
 
1.            People will buy into a cause much more readily if they feel their opinion’s been heard.

2.            A giggle is heart-warming, even coming from deepest Africa over the internet.

3.            People learn deeply when they are asked questions, and they think through the answers.

4.            There is almost always something to find in common with someone, however different they may seem, and have a conversation.

5.            Brazil switches to Summer Time a week before the rest of the world does.

6.            A brand comes through clearly to everybody, regardless of a logo.

7.            Organisations develop metaphorical systems around a concept – which comes first, the thing or the way people talk about it?

8.            My hourly rate is higher than I thought it was.

9.            For the most part people want to get along.

10.          People are loyal first to their own team and direct boss, whatever the organisational structure. Communications plans need to always remember that.

11.          The internet means I may think I’m ringing Tanzania, but it can instead be a place in Massachusetts where I holidayed as a child.

12.          Playing to collective strengths is much more powerful and effective than building up lots of subsets.

13.          People are always going to be worried about how they are perceived.

14.          I still speak more French, German and Spanish than I thought I did.

15.          In reporting, the content leads, the style follows.

16.          When people say their opinion is neither considered nor expert, they like to hear that experts who don’t ask for their opinions will get things wrong. Everybody’s opinion counts.

Value or money

When I was doing the brand workshops for Aviva and their suppliers, one of the things that struck me the most was the discomfort many felt when they saw their own companies' values emerge through the exercises. The suppliers, who usually work toward directly resolving the customers' problems, tended toward values of response and urgency, regardless of their their industry. Aviva, however, which is clearly a financial services provider, spoke of 'Profit. ROI. Cost.'

(I was misplaced in that company you know - whenever anyone wanted to talk about value, I got excited, til I remembered they meant the pounds and pence kind.)

Aviva staff always seemed disappointed, but not surprised, that it was the concentration on money that came through most clearly. In one sense this is exactly how it should be,  because their customers trust them to be stable, profitable, and solvent for when they're needed.It's what they do. They should pay attention to it.

But money's a funny thing. Maybe it comes down to what it means for us.

In the marvellous Book of Silence, Sara Maitland describes the 5th century St Mary of Egypt. As all the best saints do, she spent the first part of her life in decadent  sin, before spending the rest in abject penance. Her sin was prostitution, which she began at the age of 12 - but the hagiographers tell it that she refused money for her services, as she was just doing it out of lust. The suggestion is that working in the sex trade for money would be more forgivable than for sheer pleasure. (Do we feel the opposite today?)

The two anecdotes make even clearer for me my suspicion that we all (including our organisations) operate on a primary value scale, and each of us has to define the upper and lower terms for it. For Mary's 5th century critics, a holy life vs an unholy life were the values to aim for or fail to reach, and the money issue was more of a means to an end. I suppose money was more of a means of survival for them.

So this morning Elena and Adele played one of their favourite games of making tents in the living room. They had all the kitchen chairs through, and all the throws and sheets off their beds. I heard a crash from the other room. In improving the tent, a picture got knocked off the wall, and the glass was in pieces.

Ray soon came down for his breakfast. Now, Elena's expecting a visit from the tooth fairy tonight, so his instant comment 'That'll be your pocket money spent then' felt very harsh. Especially given that at six, Elena doesn't really know what money is or does. She's pretty good at counting it, but it doesn't mean anything to her. If she gets a pound, she shows off because she has learnt that pounds are of value to us grown ups, but what it could mean to her has yet to sink in.

What she does value though is time. In an adult way. If I take her tent down before she's ready, she despairs because I've wasted the time she put into it.

So I explained that we get money when we work for it, and that she would have to spend time working for the broken glass. She spent a couple of hours helping me clean up all the baby and toddler things we're about to sell, and as I expected, she enjoyed sitting in the sun and wiping things clean.

The important thing was to make the loss meaningful. The fair exchange became one picture frame = two hours of not playing Barbies etc.

I wonder what the Aviva staff are thinking, then, that the company's focus on money means. Because it's not just a profit/loss scale, it's money vs something else, in their minds. Is it generosity? Is it a kind of behaviour or attitude? Are they reflecting on themselves, and noticing that they fail as individuals to live up to an expectation they would have? What is the exchange, and what does it mean?

Don't blame communications

A flash of insight last night:

When we complain of broken communications, we are often missing the point.

Communications are the usual and most obvious means of  demonstrating our relationships.

When we say communications need fixing, it is usually that something about the relationship itself  needs attention.

I don't need a communcations strategy to talk to those I care about. I do it because they are on my mind, I enjoy their company, and I want to share with them the things in my life.

Can I extend this to myself? Absolutely. One could argue I went quiet for a while because I'm reconsidering my relationship with this blog.

To mend fundamental communications problems, look first at whether the hearts and attitudes involved are in the right place, and being looked after. It's harder work speaking openly and sorting things out. It's a bigger investment in time and emotion than creating a spreadsheet around audiences and intended outcomes -  and you can't delegate it. There's a place for both.

But if you want your communications to make people feel cared about, you'd better start with actually caring.