Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:17: Idea for action 1: be a story spotter

00:02:29: Idea for action 2: gleam the details

00:05:02: Useful resource

00:05:34: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: It is the final episode of the Squiggly Careers Skills Sprint.  Thank you for spending 20 days learning with us.  We would love to know how you found this experience, so make sure you give us some feedback, helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.  But with one episode left, let's get into it.  So, we are ending on a high, and the high is the skill of storytelling.

Sarah Ellis: And storytelling matters because stories are memorable.  When we share a story, our brains light up in a different way.  We have mirror neurons in our brain.  And so when someone tells a story, they kind of connect.  And that's where we feel empathy, we feel connection. 

If Helen's telling a story about something, I start to think about, have I had a similar experience?  And so, we don't all want to tell stories all of the time, we do need facts and data along the way.  But I think often we can feel that stories are a bit intimidating, because you feel like it needs to be a TED Talk-style story, or it needs to be a life story.  But I think most of the stories that we tell at work are really small stories.  They're just those moments where it shows that we care, that we're human, and you're just bringing things to life in a different way.

Helen Tupper: And so my top tip here, and the thing that I am trying to do more of, because I think it gets you to be curious, it gives you a thing to focus on, is to be a story spotter.  So, set an intention for your week at work to spot the stories that people are saying in the meetings that you're in, the moments that you're having chats with, because I think what it helps you to do is see the variety of stories or examples that people are sharing. 

Sometimes I'm looking for the length, I'm looking for, are the ones that I'm connecting to very personal stories?  Are people bringing a personal story into their professional life; is that why it's interesting?  Or are people using a story to illustrate a fact, like a boring data point, and they go, "Do you know what?  It's a bit like this".  And you're like, "Oh, I see what you're doing.  You're using this thing that people can relate to, because people are scared of that thing". The more stories you spot at work, I think the more you realise this doesn't have to be this perfect art, and the more you say, "Well, what engages me?"  And it'll give you some insight about, "Well, what could my stories look like?  So, just do it for a week.  How many stories do you spot, what do you notice about the stories you spot and what might it help you to think about the stories you tell in your work?

Sarah Ellis: And my idea for action here is inspired by Bobette Buster.  She wrote a brilliant, very short book called Do Storytelling.  And one of the ideas she shares in there that's really stuck with me is this concept of gleaming details, that sometimes it's those very small examples that really bring things to life.  And I was thinking about this because somebody emailed me yesterday to say, "Thank you for some career development that we are doing", in their company.  And that happens a bit.  So, that probably wouldn't have stood out or wouldn't be that memorable.  But the reason I can remember that email is she just described a bit about her life. 

So, she talked about the fact that she paints murals and she paints furniture, and she sort of told me a mini story of who she is in her day-to-day, outside of work, in two sentences, but I really remember that.  And so, I think just don't be afraid to have those specifics that feel just really personal to you.

Sometimes when I describe the story of running a company in the pandemic, I will often talk about -- I won't say, "Oh it was really hard for all of the pandemic", I will talk about the first two to three days where that really hit our company, where I remember the coffee shops were still open, which is good news for me, because I love an overpriced coffee, so I'd gone to get myself a nice coffee locally and was sort of holding this expensive coffee and just seeing emails, getting phone calls with all of our work disappearing and just thinking, "Interesting, this is serious and this is going to be really hard".  And I just remember standing still and not really knowing what to do, whether to call Helen to go home, to drink the coffee, like, "Should I have spent this £3.50 on this coffee because what's going to happen?  Are they going to close my son's nursery?" and just so many thoughts crowding in my head whilst holding this coffee, and just standing there and just feeling really overwhelmed in that moment with so much data coming my way. I share that story a bit sometimes in workshops and I would say to people, like 25 minutes later, "What do you remember?"  And everyone just goes, "The coffee".

Helen Tupper: The coffee.

Sarah Ellis: And that's the thing.  It's not me going, "The pandemic was hard for lots of companies".  It's not me being general or saying things that other people could say.  That gleaming bit is so personal to me.  Only I can tell that story in that way, and that's just an example, right?  It's just an example of something that happened to me in that moment.  So, I think that's what we're looking for with storytelling.  You don't need to do a TED Talk.

Helen Tupper: So, our recommended expert for you to follow and learn a bit more is Jeremy Connell-Waite.  And he has some brilliant resources about storytelling, some of which I look at and I think, "Gosh, I could never do that".  I really admire it.  He uses these amazing drawings to tell stories, which I think is actually a different way of doing it.  We've talked a lot about verbal stories, I think he uses visual stories.

Sarah Ellis: He sort of dissects stories, doesn't he?

Helen Tupper: Yeah.

Sarah Ellis: It's fascinating.

Helen Tupper: His analysis on what makes a good story, literally the pace and the insight, really…  Give him a follow on LinkedIn.  I think I really admire and learn a lot from how he does it.  But back to you, we just want to say, because this is it, this is the end of our Skills Sprint and we just want to say, first of all, well done!  It's not easy to commit to 20 days of learning.  Thank you.  Thank you for being part of this, thank you for bringing your energy, thank you for sharing it with other people.  We will send you your badge, so please share that, celebrate your learning success, tag us in your posts on LinkedIn, we would love to see it and give you a massive thumbs up and a bit of support for all of the learning that you've done.  Anything else that you'd like to say?

Sarah Ellis: We always want to get better, work in progress is one of our values.  So, please do get in touch with us.  Connect with us directly on LinkedIn, say you've been part of the Squiggly Careers Skills Sprint, we'll always accept that invitation.  And we would love to know, in particular, any even-better-ifs.  So, if we do this again, what was missing; what's one change we could make that would make this even more useful for you, because that's how we know that we can just really help everyone to be even better in their Squiggly Careers.

Helen Tupper: Well done everybody!