World Storytelling Day

In recognition of World Storytelling Day, the team at Anecdote are all sharing examples of a time when story really made a difference.

Back in 2017, I was running a workshop in Singapore. At the end of the workshop I was heading to the airport when our client asked me to sit in on a meeting and help one of the senior executives with a connection story. I walked into the meeting room and the head of communications was taking the senior executive through a slide deck.

The executive, Andrew, was a 30-year veteran in the company. Originally from London, he had been with the company for more than 30 years in a range of strategic roles. In his last job before retirement, he’d accepted the role of Health and Safety leader for APAC, leading a major transformation of the function. There was a regional town hall meeting with 3000-4000 staff attending and Andrew’s task was to introduce himself and set the vision for Health and Safety in the region.

After a lengthy conversation, Andrew agreed to ditch the powerpoint. He stood on the stage and spoke from the heart,

"For quite a few years I really didn’t think much about health and safety at all. I kinda knew it was important, but I was much more focused on running a really effective business. That all changed when I took over as the general manager of a plant in Russia. One afternoon I received a call to come down to the plant floor. One of our workers had been killed, electrocuted because a forklift had been operated incorrectly, driving with the tynes up. The forklift struck some overhead power cables and the unfortunate worker had been walking past and took the full brunt of the electric shock. It was completely avoidable at so many levels. I had to travel to remote area to tell the parents their son had been killed. There was lots of anger because the accident was completely avoidable. The son had been the main breadwinner and they were now facing poverty. They didn’t want anything to do with the company and we were not allowed to attend the funeral.

That event taught me the importance of Health and Safety… and the importance of ensuring that none of our team members are injured, let alone killed. That’s why I have taken on this role rather than retiring.

We’ve done lots of work here in APAC around the processes and reporting of health and safety. It has all been really important work, but it’s not sufficient. We need to work on changing our culture.

Two weeks ago, one of our drivers in Indonesia parked his truck on a slope. As he was unloading it started to roll backwards. He raced to the back of the truck to try to stop it rolling and was crushed against a vehicle behind. He was killed instantly. This event forces us to ask important one question. What are we doing here that causes the driver to get out and think ‘truck first’. We have to create a culture where a driver gets out of the vehicle and thinks ‘safety first’. We’ve got a big job ahead of us to do that, but it is an incredibly important job."

After the Townhall event, many people came up and talked about how emotional, how powerful and how inspiring Andrew’s talk was. The company still uses the video to demonstrate to leaders the importance of authentic, inspirational leadership. It's a great, and simple, illustration of how small, oral stories can make a big difference.