Building Collective Capability Through Storytelling

One of the things I particularly love about the bedtime routine for my five-year-old is her request to share with her some ‘scary but learning stories’.

Reflecting On The Good - And The Bad

Each night my husband or I dutifully wrack our brains for an appropriately scary story (for an impressionable little one) which involve unanticipated challenges, a few hair-raising wrong turns and mistakes but all resolved with greater insight, emotional relief and reconnection to what is most important.

“We all love a hero’s journey, no matter what our age. And a journey is not heroic without some ups and downs and serious cliff-hangers along the way.”

In reflecting on the importance of storytelling for how we make sense of the world, I realised that somewhere in our quest for excellence, many teams and their leaders, have tried to paper over or have simply forgotten the power of making time to candidly share stories of challenge and failure as an opportunity to collectively sense make, build connection to meaning and purpose, and to articulate the insights that can be gained from these experiences.

And yet it is one of the most powerful ways to build an organisation’s skill and willingness to learn and take the risks necessary for adaptation and innovation.

For those leaders, teams and their business up for doing the courageous work of sharing the real, behind the scenes stories – warts and all - the rewards are many.

An organisation where stories about challenge and failure and lessons learnt are openly and candidly discussed and made sense of, will be more able to galvanise its people to tolerate the inevitable ups and downs experienced in pursuit of meaningful objectives.

For if we don’t know how to make sense of the bad times, we are more likely to be badly buffeted by them when they next roll around, as they always do.

Intentionally Carve Out Time For Sharing Stories

Creating time and space for storytelling is one of the key shapers of organisational culture. It helps employees make sense of their efforts, experiences of personal discomfort and failure, in the service of a higher, motivating purpose.

For those of us who are leaders, what are the stories that you can share with your teams about when you might have stuffed up or tried different approaches before you hit on a winner?  

What have been the major insights gleaned through your business or team’s struggles  - the failed projects, the stuff ups – and how did you realise them? How has having a clear sense of why you might be doing something – your purpose - enabled you to keep moving forward, even in face of significant challenge?

If you are serious about building collective capability across your organisation – and unleashing the power of many – then you need to intentionally prioritise the sharing of stories that people can connect to and find meaningful.

Don’t Just Share The Good Stories

Don’t just share stories about what’s working but ‘lean in’ to the friction points, the tension, the difference in perspectives with the intention to create habits across your organisation around seeking to understand and explore, not stamp out, uncertainty, doubt and ‘eek’, FAILURE!

If you want to build a team that can adapt and evolve to changing environments and keep meeting and anticipating customer needs, then start thinking about the ways that you are already doing this as well as the times you have lost your way. 

Share and explore these latter stories not to blame and shame but instead as a springboard for encouraging further experimentation, deepening team reflection and understanding.

Encourage Experimentation & Learn From Failure

Be brave enough to create environments where the vulnerable yet courageous work of experimenting and learning and failing and dusting yourself off with new insights and experiences is celebrated and encouraged – not avoided.

For experimenting with new ideas and learning from failure is a considerable source of business growth and resilience.

What do you think? How has understanding your own or your team’s less successful moments given you powerful insights into what is most important and created even more value and connection to purpose than you thought possible?