Session One: Strategic Communication - Storytelling
Senior Managers play a pivotal role in conveying the organization's overarching strategy and vision to a diverse array of stakeholders, spanning employees, executives, and external partners. It's imperative that you learn to proficiently articulate how the endeavors of your team align with your organization’s broader objectives. Simply put, you must be able to articulate your efforts to the higher-ups. Employing storytelling techniques emerges as a powerful and engaging method to achieve this aim.
“If you just communicate, you can get by. But if you communicate skillfully, you can work miracles.”
Self-Assessment:
Strategic Storytelling
Please take a few moments to contemplate the following self-reflection questions. Where can you identify opportunities for personal growth in your leadership approach?
1. Am I proficient in articulating the organization's overall strategy and vision to various stakeholders?
2. Do I effectively communicate how my team's work aligns with the broader organizational goals?
3. Do I consistently communicate our strategic priorities to all levels of the organization using an appropriate method?
4. Do I adapt my communication style to suit different audiences and stakeholders?
5. Do I understand the importance of storytelling in conveying complex ideas and concepts?
6. Am I skilled in using storytelling techniques to make strategic messages more compelling and memorable?
7. Am I comfortable delivering presentations and speeches that inspire and engage all audiences?
8. Do I actively listen to feedback and adjust my communication approach accordingly?
Take your time and reflect upon these questions honestly. Going forward, use your responses as a tool to assess your strategic storytelling skills and discover the areas that need development.
Senior Managers deal with employees across the leadership hierarchy daily, ranging from executives to direct reports, peers and stakeholders. This requires the ability to communicate strategically based on their audience.
By tailoring your messaging to diverse audiences, you can ensure clear alignment between your team’s efforts and broader organizational goals. One of the essential methods to strategically communicate to diverse audiences is to use storytelling. Some of the world’s most renowned leaders—from Winston Churchill and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Brené Brown—are also some of the best storytellers.
“Developing excellent communication skills is absolutely essential to effective leadership. The leader must be able to share knowledge and ideas to transmit a sense of urgency and enthusiasm to others. If a leader can’t get a message across clearly and motivate others to act on it, then having a message doesn’t even matter.”
Storytelling unequivocally stands out as one of the most effective methods to cultivate trust across various stakeholders, including employees, customers, prospects, and investors. By offering an intimate glimpse into your persona, it fosters a deeper connection with your audience. Through storytelling, you can vividly portray your vision, ignite inspiration, question conventions, empower others to take action, and deeply engage your audience on an emotional level. Ultimately, stories have a remarkable ability to leave a lasting impression, particularly when they resonate with and move the hearts of those who hear them.
Before we take a closer look at Strategic Communication through storytelling, let’s dive in and look at all of the situations in which leading with Strategic Communication is critical for a leader.
At the very basic level, Strategic Communication means delivering the right information, to the right people, at the right time. Here are some of the types of communication that are important for leaders to give some attention:
Employee Engagement
This includes communication efforts aimed at keeping employees informed, motivated, and engaged in their work. It involves sharing company news, updates, and goals, as well as providing opportunities for feedback and two-way communication.
Change Management
Communicating effectively during times of organizational change, such as restructuring, mergers, or process improvements, is crucial. Senior Managers must help employees understand the reasons for change, the expected outcomes, and their role in the process.
Leadership Communication
Senior leaders need to communicate their vision, values, and expectations to inspire and guide their teams. This includes regular communication with employees through various channels and forums.
Crisis Response
When a crisis occurs, Senior Managers must communicate promptly, accurately, and transparently to manage the situation, protect the organization's reputation, and reassure stakeholders.
Public Relations
Managing the organization's public image, reputation, and media relations is a critical aspect of strategic communication. This involves creating and disseminating positive stories, responding to media inquiries, and handling crisis communication.
Being able to strategically communicate is essential as a Senior Manager. It helps in achieving alignment, making informed decisions, managing change, building trust, and maintaining positive relationships at every level. Ultimately, it contributes to the overall success and sustainability of the organization. Now, let’s put all this together by examining strategic communication through storytelling.
Remember :
As a Senior Manager your ability to weave strategic storytelling into your communication is not just a skill but a necessity, bridging the gap between your team's efforts and the organization's larger goals. Through effective storytelling, you can foster trust, inspire action, and leave a lasting impact on both stakeholders and the company as a whole.
By weaving storytelling into your communication, you can create emotional connections with your audience, making complex concepts more relatable and memorable. Stories can illustrate your key strategic initiatives, highlight your organizational values, and provide context for decision-making. This enables you, as Senior Managers, to articulate your vision in a compelling and authentic way. Through strategic storytelling, leaders can cultivate a culture of innovation, resilience, and adaptability, effectively conveying vision, inspiring action, and fostering alignment.
Adding storytelling to leadership communication involves several key steps:
Identify Your Message: Determine the key message or lesson you want to convey to your audience. Whether it's sharing a vision, illustrating a challenge, or highlighting a success story, clarity in your message is essential.
Choose the Right Story: Select a story that aligns with your message and resonates with your audience. Consider personal anecdotes, historical events, or even fictional narratives that can effectively illustrate your point.
Craft Your Story: Structure your story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Introduce the characters, set the scene, describe the conflict or challenge, and then resolve it with a satisfying conclusion. Ensure that your story is concise, relevant, and engaging.
Focus on Emotion: Infuse your story with emotion to captivate your audience. Whether it's excitement, empathy, humor, or inspiration, emotions help make your story memorable and relatable.
Use Vivid Imagery: Paint a vivid picture with descriptive language and imagery to bring your story to life. Help your audience visualize the characters, setting, and events, making the story more immersive and compelling.
Practice Delivery: Practice delivering your story with confidence and authenticity. Pay attention to your tone, pacing, and body language to effectively convey the emotion and message of your story.
Connect to the Audience: Tailor your story to resonate with your audience's experiences, interests, and values. Make it relevant and relatable to ensure maximum impact and engagement.
Encourage Reflection and Discussion: After sharing your story, encourage your audience to reflect on its message and implications. Facilitate discussion and invite questions to deepen understanding and foster dialogue.
Lastly and most importantly, be humble. By remembering to stay humble while storytelling, you can create narratives that are authentic, relatable, and impactful. Humility fosters trust, empathy, and collaboration, making your stories more engaging and inspiring.
“The more we learn about effective communication, the better we’ll be at leading, as our directives will be better understood.”
Stories can be used in various ways and settings to strengthen and strategize communication.
In the article "Elevate Your Leadership With These 5 Essential Business Stories," Gini Dietrich discusses distinct types of stories commonly utilized by leaders. One of these is the "teaching" story, which serves to impart wisdom, insights, or lessons in an indirect and often metaphorical manner. Such narratives educate the audience through examples and insights drawn from the storyteller's business or personal experiences. For instance, a leader might share a personal anecdote detailing a challenging period in their life and how they successfully navigated through it, highlighting the importance of persistence and adaptability. Alternatively, an employee could recount their journey from a junior position to higher ranks, underscoring the significance of hard work and dedication in achieving success. These stories create memorable experiences for the audience by offering tangible lessons in a relatable and engaging manner.
Here is an example of a teaching story:
Back in the day, before Amazon bought Zappos, Tony Hsieh, the founder and CEO, spent a year on the road to promote his book, Delivering Happiness. He said their customer service representatives were given some autonomy in how to help customers, including a daily stipend they could spend.
One representative received a phone call from a man whose father had just passed away, and he needed to buy shoes. As a mechanic, he’d never needed dress shoes and was overwhelmed by the options that Zappos provided. He just wanted someone to decide for him. The customer service rep got some information from him—shoe size, suit color, address, and the like—and said he would send several pairs of shoes to try on. He could keep the ones he liked and send the others back, for free.
This act of kindness is something most companies would never do, but it didn’t end there. The representative then took their daily stipend and bought some flowers to be delivered to the man the next day.
Reflection Questions:
▶ How did Tony Hsieh’s storytelling help him convey his message?
▶ What was Tony Hsieh wanting to convey in this story?
Elevate your understanding of Strategic Storytelling by taking flight with the following resources. Use this opportunity to navigate, uncover, and expand the horizons of your leadership influence.
The Importance of Stories
Simon Sinek (video)
Effective Leaders Are Storytellers
Leslie Veloz
Storytelling: The New Strategic Imperative Of Business
Billee Howard
