The Power of the Story: The Leader as Storyteller
It is unusual to find someone these days who hasn't heard some version of this old parable of the bricklayers:
‘One day while wandering, a young monk came across three bricklayers. He asked the first bricklayer what he was doing.
“Laying bricks,” he told the monk. 
He asked the second what he was doing.
“Making a brick wall,” he replied.
He asked the third the same question.
“Building a cathedral,” he explained.’
The first time people hear this tale they say to themselves something like “Cute! What a great way to get the message across about the value of a positive attitude.” Unfortunately this is a very weak lesson to take from this simple story. The truth about humans, the one all great leaders know inside and out is that humans and stories are inseparable. In fact it just may be that what it is to be human is to be a being that lives the stories they are telling themselves.
If this is so, and I believe it to be then as a leader where I want to be is attending to the story I want people to be paying attention to, the one to be made real in the best interest of all concerned.
Let’s go back and consider the bricklayers for a moment. Aside from reporting on what they are doing each might also be considered to be reporting on their current state of engagement. The first, the one laying bricks might be reporting that he, or maybe she, is in a condition of engagement I’d call resistance. Not necessarily resistance to the work, resistance to being involved with anything outside or larger than themselves. The second, the one building the wall may be reporting on a condition of compliance, doing what there is to be done, a task to be completed, nothing more or less. The third, the cathedral builder, may be operating from a state of contribution and connection, clearly identifying with something greater than him, or her, self.
The pitfall here for the leader is to think that any one of these “stories” is better or worse than the others. They all seem to be getting the work done! So what of it?
Each story describes a field (see definition 6a), in this case a field of possibility. Ask yourself, from which story does there seem to be a greater sense of possibility for reward, satisfaction, sense of empowerment, which story is richer?
Last week my wife and I jointly took on the challenge of finally rebuilding a brick garden enclosure we had de-constructed about two months ago. That was Phase I. The original garden box was falling apart and not very useful. I had been deeply involved in this phase, taking the wall apart, digging up the foundation and chipping away all the old mortar on the bricks so we could start all over again, essentially building an identical structure using the same materials. (Have I told you how much I detest manual labor, especially working in the yard?) You can imagine how much fun I had with Phase I!
Having done everything I could think of to avoid being involved in Phase II I awoke one Sunday morning to find my wife curled up with her coffee on the couch watching ‘You Tube’ videos on how to construct brick walls. I was trapped without a plan for evasion. One of the many things I love about my wife is that while she knows my aversion to things yard related she is happy to pursue many tasks on her own and with the others she uses the old “Tom Sawyer” method, making whatever she has in mind seem like so much fun I wouldn’t want to be left out.
If I am resistant she takes what that provides, if I am compliant she works with that as well. However, she is always keen to let me know how much she is fully engaged and the fun she is having and how welcome I would be to join her.
In this case I fell for her enthusiasm and decided to make a game of it myself and since I knew she was bound to be the mason I offered to be her “hod carrier", mixing the mortar, fetching and wetting the bricks, setting them in a handy place, telling her what a great job she was doing, etc. Lo and behold a few hours later the two us grimy with lime dust stepped back and admired our completed construction; high five all around! The miracle? It was not that the work got done but that the work got done and I didn’t even notice the passage of time. I had been enchanted by a master storyteller and swept from resistance to contribution ending up in a place of shared accomplishment, all because she simply allowed me to be where I was and stuck to her story.
There is more than magic in becoming a master storyteller, for most of us it takes work and as a leader it is inherent in the role that you master the art. If you have the interest I recommend a blog called appropriately, ‘A Storied Career’, authored by Katharine Hansen. Her September 7th entry deals specifically with the topic of storytelling in blogs but there is much more information on the art available through Kathy and her site.
- Where is it that you can see that you have let the story get away from you and be told by others? Can you see how to get it back?
- Where do you see the need for a good story and people are just waiting for the storyteller to arrive?
ps: I just spoke to my wife, she is in the midst of painting the kitchen and I’m on the road and won’t be home for another week. Yippee!
Leaders can tell stories to paint a vision or strategic direction, share a lesson, convey
values or illustrate desired behaviours. Stories also have an ability to forge deeper
connections between people, so inspiring them to focus their attention and take action. As Terrence Gargiulo said, “The shortest distance between two people is a story.” Stories work for leaders as a successful communication and engagement technique for several reasons.