By Greenbank Associate Phil Lowe
The work of Stephen Denning on storytelling in leadership suggests you need not only to structure your message carefully, but to pay attention to the personal qualities that will make your stories successful.
Denning has studied the way that leaders - political and organisational - tell stories which 'hook' their audience. In his book The Secret Language of Leadership he suggests that there are two areas you need to get right if you are to engage others successfully in the process of change.
The first area to master is the sequencing of the story you tell to your audience (which, depending on the context, could be one person or a conference hall full of stakeholders). Denning suggests four key steps in the structuring of what you say:
First, you need to get the audience's attention. A revolving bow tie or anything involving dropping your trousers do not seem to be high on Denning's list. He suggests either invoking a problem the audience faces, or hitting them with a surprising question or challenge.
Once you have the audience's attention, you need to get them to want the different future that you are offering. If bribery takes you over budget, then our own experience suggests that most successful is some combination of articulating the benefits for this particular group while highlighting why it is potentially painful for these people if things stay as they are. In one recent example, where we were helping a HR director persuade the board of the benefits of management development, the highly quantified 'Risk of Doing Nothing' section of her proposal was detached and photocopied by the CEO, before handing round the boardroom and then discussed for a whole hour. In other words, before they could get excited about the positive vision of the future, they needed to realise that inaction held real risks and costs....
This second step forges an emotional connection between you and your audience; at this point Denning suggests you can bring hard facts and logic to bear by articulating clear reasons why your proposal represents the best way forward and of course relating it to your audience - from our own experience, the words "what this means to you..." can wake up even the most overworked executive...
Even those leaders who have structured their conversation or presentation according to the three steps above frequently fall down by forgetting the vital fourth step, which is to continue the conversation beyond an initial presentation of the situation. In other words, engaging people in change is a process, not an event. A slick presentation will never be as effective as finding frequent opportunities to talk directly to those people you need to engage, being willing to listen to and understand your audience's story. In our own work with leaders we find most people find it easier to tell than to ask and listen, but the latter is the only way to get real buy in.
Following this clear sequence is necessary but not sufficient if you want to achieve real and genuine engagement, and Denning in his book explores some of what he calls the "enablers" which will make the four steps work successfully. In doing so, he unwittingly highlights the fact that while you can use a book like his to help you structure a message, being able to deliver it successfully requires mastering certain behaviours and mental attitudes which really only come through practice.
Several of these enablers Denning itemises form the heart of the work we do with leaders on building their personal impact and reputation: being able to articulate your message in a clear and inspiring way, for example, and deploying body language which conveys confidence and high status. The art of listening comes in again, as Denning underlines how essential it is to be able to see things from your audience's point of view and really understand their story before pushing your own. Or as Stephen Covey famously said:
"Seek first to understand...and then be understood"
Beyond such behavioural essentials lies the need for a mindset which is the real foundation of everything covered above: an intense personal commitment to making change happen, and ensuring that the stories you tell our authentic and truthful, because anything you say which is capable of being undermined subsequently may damage your reputation irreparably.
