Everyday Storytelling For Success: LD Leadership Development, #1

By Linda DeLuca

You don’t need to be a keynote speaker to be a good storyteller. No matter where you are in your career, the odds are high that you need to influence your peers, your boss, or your customers, to achieve your desired success. Storytelling is neither natural for everyone nor actively taught in schools or business training programs. Everyday Storytelling for Success fills that void. 

Written by Linda DeLuca, Executive Coach and President of the Leadership Development firm Azione-Scopo, LLC, this book is full of practical approaches to using storytelling that can be applied by anyone. The book combines not only the reasoning why and where storytelling will help you achieve your desired business results, but more importantly it provides step-by-step guide to using storytelling everyday in your professional life whether you are looking for work, getting to work, or leading others in work. With Everyday Storytelling for Success you will: 

• Gain a deeper understanding of the four conversation elements. 
• Understand the eight story elements for business success. 
• Discover sources from your own experiences and accomplishments to craft your core stories. 
• Recognize the different types of stories and their value in your career. 
• Match your core stories and craft stories for key business moments from job searching through leadership. 
• Create your personal plan to build your story telling skills. 

The world of business is becoming increasingly complex. You need every advantage available and Everyday Storytelling for Success will guide you in developing your own collection of stories to help you connect, build relationships, inspire, and influence others. You will be more successful with these stories than without. It’s up to you now. Are you ready?

• Language: English
• Publisher: azione scopo publishing
• Release date: Apr 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533784735

Book preview

EVERYDAY

STORYTELLING

FOR SUCCESS

Change the Conversation 

to Improve Your Career and Life

By Linda DeLuca

A GIFT FOR YOU

Everyday Storytelling for Success includes a powerful strategy to help you increase your influence and impact in your professional life. It shares why storytelling is important, shows how to craft stories, and explains where to use stories to improve your life and career.

Dig deeper and build stronger storytelling muscles by using The Everyday Storytelling Workbook. It expands on the elements of conversation and story and challenges you to make significant shifts in the way you think and act in conversation.

Get the first 90+ pages of The Everyday Storytelling Workbook for free: lindadeluca.com/story-workbook/

EVERYDAY STORYTELLING FOR SUCCESS

Change the Conversation to Improve Your Career and Life

Copyright © 2016 by Linda DeLuca

www.LindaDeLuca.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author / publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests email [e-mail].

DISCLAIMER: Although the author / publisher has made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time (including links to websites and resources), the author / publisher does not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

Cover design by MY Designs, my-designs.net

Content Editing by Jennifer Wennig, linkedin.com/in/jenniferwennig

Edits & Proofreading by MaryAnne Sarzynski, linkedin.com/in/maryannesarzysnki

Published in the United States of America

FIRST EDITION

INTRODUCTION

Words have power.

—Mira Grant, Blackout

Ashlee was anxious about her new assignment. I need to learn how to herd cats by Monday. Can you help me? I could hear the panic in her voice.

That depends, are they domestic or jungle cats? I was hoping to lighten the mood a little.

Hmm, maybe a little of both?

After working together for years, Ashlee felt comfortable sharing her fears with me. After she explained more about the situation, I recognized that her new assignment was stretching her skills and was impacting her self-confidence. I also knew she had faced new challenges before with good results.

Ashlee, do you remember when you first took over the process improvement project from Jeremy?

With that one question Ashlee and I launched into a discussion about one of her successes in overcoming obstacles. Through pointed questions about the situation, the people involved, the obstacles she faced, her approach, and the lessons she learned, I led Ashlee through telling her story. Once she realized she had what she needed to succeed, she was ready for Monday.

The power of storytelling came to light in that one conversation.

I had tried for years to move people into action. Initially, I thought it was enough to simply and directly ask co-workers, clients, and team members to do a task, but that didn’t work. Then I tried taking more time to simply, but comprehensively explain the situation and share the necessary actions and project timeline so the team could see how important it was to get the work done. But that didn’t work either. I became discouraged and frustrated at first, but that frustration drove me to find other solutions. In the end it transformed my thinking and my influence.

As a professional in business, I’ll bet you’ve had a few challenges getting things done. It’s frustrating! Just like you, my intent was always good, but I lacked the influence on others and the impact on results I needed to stay motivated and be successful. Something had to change.

I decided to take advantage of my strength observing human behavior and began to watch the more influential people around me. They had similar authority, tools, responsibilities, experience, and education as I had but somehow they were able to get people moving, where I was struggling. I had to find out more and so started my journey of discovery. After years of observing, researching, and interviewing these influencers I finally realized there were three things they did differently.

The first thing I realized was the way these influencers connected to other people in conversations. It was almost an intimate conversation between two people even if there were hundreds in the audience. A momentary glance that lasted only a second created a real connection. I remember watching Lilly, a project manager, speaking to a room full of scientists. Everyone was distracted reading handouts or typing on their blackberries (this was before iPhones). But that didn’t last. One by one they became engaged in what Lilly was presenting. I watched closely to try and see exactly what was going on. I realized that at one point in her presentation she intentionally caught the glance of each person in the room. She made an effort to hold their glance, smile, and make whatever she was saying at the time important to that one person - as if she was speaking only to that one person. I know because it also happened to me. For the rest of the meeting the room was focused on Lilly. It was amazing. She had me hooked and I needed to know more.

The second thing I noticed about these influencers was their willingness to share their own experiences - even when they showed fear or failed in their efforts. I could see the impact on the faces of the people hearing the stories - they looked relieved. I recall hearing others share stories of their personal experiences and remember feeling more connected to them as a result. These influencers were comfortable sharing their imperfections and vulnerability.

Why, when we know that there’s no such thing as perfect, do most of us spend an incredible amount of time and energy trying to be everything to everyone? Is it that we really admire perfection? No - the truth is that we are actually drawn to people who are real and down-to-earth. We love authenticity and we know that life is messy and imperfect.

—Brené Brown

No one embodies this power of vulnerability more than Brené Brown, researcher /  storyteller. I first experienced Brené in her initial TED talk. It was inspiring to hear stories of imperfection from such a successful academic. But it wasn’t until I watched a subsequent talk that I realized vulnerability’s true power. I realized that influencers are willing to share not only past but current fears, failures, and vulnerabilities. Their power came from being vulnerable and imperfect and continuing on with courage.

The third thing I discovered about these influencers is their ability to see things from the other person’s point of view. When I observed them, the conversation was never about their responsibilities as the leader, it was always about the other person’s challenge, strengths, needs, ideas, and perspective. It almost looked like a shift in power. Instead of the leader having the power position in a conversation, they gave the power to the other person. And that gesture often disarmed any resistance. No longer was one person the authority over the other, all parties were equally engaged and important in the conversation.

Cindy was the master at this power shift. I watched her approach the conference table at the management meeting. She never told anyone what to do. She rarely directed them or gave them answers. Instead she asked questions. She guided them toward what was possible. The combination of her body language, her tone of voice, the questions she asked and of course the stories she told - all slowly shifted the power. We’ve all heard of empowerment, but to see it embodied is pretty amazing.

As I delved deeper into the actions of these influential people I discovered people like Lilly, Brené, and Cindy use many skills as leaders. But possibly the most powerful skill they employed was storytelling. Yet storytelling was a class I don’t recall being offered in business school. They connected, shared experiences, and empowered people through storytelling. I wanted to know more about this skill and how I could use it in my own business and to benefit my clients.

In this book I share with you what I’ve learned about storytelling and how to apply it in your everyday business life. I’ve seen and experienced first hand how using storytelling can change the impact of leaders and I want you to have that same advantage.

My aim is to make storytelling part of your everyday business, to help you use it to get your idea across in a way that has impact on your professional success. With storytelling you can show your value to potential employers, persuade others to approve your project, and inspire and influence those you lead.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS BOOK

This book will show you how to connect more meaningfully and with greater frequency to the individuals and groups in your professional life through storytelling.

This book is about practicing storytelling by experimenting with small changes to your everyday interactions and in the process, mastering the skills of connecting to and inspiring others through powerful storytelling.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

The biggest mistake you’ll make is skimming through this book and putting it aside, hoping you’ve extracted a few tidbits of knowledge. As with many human behaviors, the skills we’ll talk about in this book aren’t things you can read once and effectively employ. It will take patience, distraction-free effort and practice.

This book follows the philosophy that change happens over time and with action. So we’ll take one step at a time, one concept at a time, actually creating changes as you make your way through the book.

This book will require a commitment from you. You’ll need to dedicate time to read and practice the techniques. Small investments implemented consistently over a period of time is how we change and create new and productive habits.

WILL YOU ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE?

Ready to take the challenge of building your storytelling skills? Together we’ll create more connections, more impact, and more success!

Commit to reading a chapter of this book every day (or every week) and to making one small change at a time. To encourage your commitment, I’ve created a companion workbook that you can download from here: lindadeluca.com/story-workbook/

Throughout the book are challenges to do the work in order to experience the benefits. If you complete these challenges you will:

PART ONE: Gain a deeper understanding of the four conversation elements.

PART TWO: Understand the eight story elements for business success.

PART THREE: Discover sources from your own experiences and accomplishments to craft your core stories. Recognize the different types of stories and their value in your career.

PART FOUR: Match your core stories and craft stories for key business moments from job searching through leadership.

PART FIVE: Create your personal plan to build your story telling skills.

You and I know the world of business is becoming increasingly complex. You need every advantage you can and, I will help. I hope you will join me on this journey and together we will become better tellers of stories that matter in our business relationships. As an added bonus you’ll notice that you’ll become a better storyteller in your personal life as well!

Linda DeLuca

Executive Coach, Author, Entrepreneur

WHY STORYTELLING FOR SUCCESS?

Storytelling has been around as long as humans have roamed the earth. Even without words, drawings conveyed stories. And like many things related to humans, the way stories are told has evolved.

From cave man drawings to smartphone apps - storytelling is woven through our history, our present, and reaches out to our future. But like many things common in our lives, the power of storytelling is taken for granted. Some look to storytelling as the latest buzzword for business with all of the books and courses on weaving storytelling into presentations and corporate messages. Others recognize it as the timeless communication tool it is. Either way, until you actually develop the skill set - you won’t know the power a story can wield.

If I asked you to picture storytelling, what do you see in your mind? Do you go back to the memory of your mom or dad reading you a story at bedtime? Or perhaps of you reading to your own child? Do you think of that first campfire where one of the older kids told ghost stories and made you wear out your flashlight battery in your tent that night? Maybe you suddenly smell the salty smoky aroma of popcorn, as you watch the epic tale of Frodo Baggins on a screen taller than your house and with sound you can feel vibrating in your chest.

What doesn’t often come to mind is the corporate boardroom or your office with those spreadsheets and looming deadlines. One of the last things we think about in business is storytelling, maybe because we don’t take storytelling seriously. It’s not serious business and we are serious business people. We don’t have time for stories. This is real life we are dealing with! Our bosses, stockholders, and clients don’t want to hear stories, they want results!

But what if I told you that telling stories is a strategy that will help you achieve those desired business results? Would you be interested then?

What is storytelling in business? Storytelling is an interactive art - using narrative to reveal the elements and images of a story while stimulating the listener’s imagination. It draws the listener in by encouraging and tapping into their active imagination so that it becomes a two-way interaction. That interactive nature accounts for its immediacy and impact. At its best, storytelling will directly and tightly connect the teller and audience.

Precisely because of this power to connect teller and audience, storytelling is a powerful method of gaining buy-in, remembering facts, recalling information, connecting ideas, and inspiring others into action.

A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.

—Plato

Business is built on a foundation of relationships between people. Stories are important because they strengthen that connection between people in a number of ways.

STORIES DEFINE US