3 Stories Every Manager (Leader) Should Master

I was failing

I sat in the windowless conference room, my stomach was in tightly curled knots, I was messing up and I hated it. The proverbial plates I was spinning were crashing down around me and I couldn’t catch them fast enough.

The second client in as many weeks sent my boss a complaint e-mail. The services I was tasked with providing were not satisfactory, let alone good. As I sat in the conference room waiting to have “The Talk”, the anticipation for him to walk through the door was unbearable. I wanted to just hoist the white flag – It was our busy season, client demands were unrelenting and here I was failing for them, for myself, and worst of all, the boss who had put his neck on the line to hire me.

As the brown conference room door swung open, I saw his face, and he gave a half smile and calmly closed the giant piece of oak. I decided I would go on the offensive. But before I could throw my first jab he started in. “When I took this job offer I moved myself and my family down here,” he said pausing for emphasis. “I re-lo-cated for this job. The pressure to do well has always been in the back of my mind and peeking out behind every corner. It overwhelmed me and led to the biggest blunder in this department's history.”

As he went into more detail about the pressure, the debilitating fear, and the expectations – I could see the realness of the pain and embarrassment in his eyes. He ended his story by saying: “We all mess up, we all get overwhelmed. But how you respond to that will determine where you end up.”

In that moment, he didn’t need to tell me what I was doing wrong. I knew. I didn’t need to tell him I understood. It was clear.

I experienced his pain, struggle, and embarrassment. He invited me along to his journey. I lived the experience and learned the lesson as if it was my own.

As one of my mentors told me years later, “Story is the peanut butter for your listener to swallow the pill.” I swallowed the pill, although it was a difficult change and it took more effort than I thought I would be able to summon. But hearing his story and knowing I was working for something greater than just me or my clients, helped me conjure a more effective, more dedicated and simply better version of myself. From that day forward I was able to do my best, which fortunately was enough to perform well, keep my clients — and most importantly — show my boss that he had made the right decision, and we were in it together.

The Opportunity Others See: Microsoft, Google, & Nike

It’s not a coincidence that Microsoft, Google, Berkshire Hathaway, and Nike are employing corporate story trainers and internal storytellers to help their management become better at the skill of narrative.

They understand the value from both a motivational and a leadership perspective. As humans, we crave story just like we crave entertainment. Stories provide the entertainment (if told right) coupled with the stickiness of the message to keep the lessons alive in the listener's mind.

As Chip Heath, a Stanford Graduate Business School professor, Author, and Management Researcher put it, “Stories act as a flight simulator” for those you lead to experience the same lessons you have learned.

This begs the next question: What type of stories do we tell?

The 3 Stories You Need in Your Toolbelt

These are the story types that, like popular city blocks, will be frequented throughout your time as a leader and will allow you to create better connections, improve learning, and bring out the best performance of those you lead.

I have broken down three story types that are foundational for every leader/manager to know and master.

1)  Your “Why” Story

• Enable your employees to know why they are fighting for you
• Gives them a purpose and greater cause for what they are doing
• Create camaraderie and an “in this together” connection between you and the team

As made famous by Dale Carnegie and more recently Simon Sinek “people don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it”. The greatest leaders of all time had a burning Why and they were the greatest leaders because their employees, soldiers, and/or citizens bought into their Why. They believed it with a passion and energy that it changed the lives of millions. Social psychology has shown that we crave a cause, something to get behind, and we seek a leader to follow. But if we don’t have a leader to believe in we won’t give our all to the cause.

I recently spoke with an engineer who works at Elon Musk’s famed startup SpaceX. SpaceX has a big Why, as stated by its founder: “The future of humanity is dependent upon whether we can be a multi planetary species.”

Elon’s Why is big, maybe as big a Why as you can get, therefore many of his employees have automatic buy in.

The engineer I spoke with said people believe in the vision so much that the culture at SpaceX is fun, but people work long and demanding hours by choice. “It’s not uncommon for most engineers to work 75-90 hours per week,” he said. As I sat there shocked, doing the math about how many hours a day that breaks down to, what he said next surprised me even more. “Most are happy to do it. We believe that what we are working on will change humanity”.

At the onset, your Why may not seem as noble, but why not? You just have to get to the 'how' it does first. My question to you is, do your employees and co-workers know your Why?

2) Inspirational story

• It’s an inevitability that employees will need motivation
• Advice is helpful but simulated experience is even better

The greatest leaders in history from Winston Churchill to Martin Luther King Jr. used narrative to inspire and motivate their followers to continue through hard times, to take on challenges bigger than their abilities, and to bring their all to the causes. It is inevitable that struggle will come to those you lead — as a manager, how you respond to that will determine how your team rebounds.

I believe (and science has shown) that storytelling from the heart can inspire and boost the morale of those you lead. As Paul J. Zak, the man behind the discovery of oxytocin’s behavioral effect on the brain states “narratives that cause us to pay attention and also involve us emotionally are the stories that move us to action. This is what a good documentary film does.” Why Inspiring Stories Make Us React.

Often times when a team member has been de-motivated it is a form of non-action, stories have the ability to connect emotionally and regenerate a true desire for action, a better form of “motivational speaking” in my opinion. This was the same thing I experienced with my boss, in going through my trials. You will always encounter employees and co-workers who need motivation and encouragement through difficult times.

Advice is good, but a well-told story is the same advice packaged in an easier to consume form. Wrap your pill in the peanut butter and hopefully, it will help change the day, week, or month of those you lead.  

3) A Key Moment of Failure

• Build a bridge of emotional connection between you and your employees
• Cultivate an environment of failure-tolerant leadership

Like self-deprecating humor, being able to talk genuinely and candidly about your moments of failure, a time when you fell short, didn’t perform your best, or just completely screwed up to the point where you started looking for a to-go box for your things. Is one of the best ways to build relatability, credibility, and likeability with your team.

A moment of failure is something that each member of your team will experience and knowing that they aren’t alone in that purgatory is beneficial for a recouping of their performance and well-being. Another benefit of sharing your key moments of failure is beginning to develop yourself as what the Harvard Business Review calls a failure-tolerant leader; “failure-tolerant leaders—executives who, through their words and actions, help people overcome their fear of failure and, in the process, create a culture of intelligent risk taking that leads to sustained innovation.” Richard Farson, The Failure-Tolerant Leader.  

A key catalyst for this type of approach is for leaders to work to break down barriers that separate them from those that they lead.

I believe the best way to create this shared connection is through heartfelt storytelling – as scientists have learned stories of this type release oxytocin which is often called the bonding chemical. Science shows that when telling authentic stories to others we build a bond and connection that improves liking between listener and teller.

Are there stories that you tell to help those you lead? If so, which category do they fall under? I would love to hear in the comments section below.

Additional Resources:

https://hbr.org/2002/08/the-failure-tolerantleader

https://hbr.org/2003/06/storytelling-that-moves-people

https://www.dana.org/Cerebrum/2015/Why_Inspiring_Stories_Make_Us_React__The_Neuroscience_of_Narrative/