The Photography Class...

Last month in Bangalore, I facilitated one such workshop. In my experience, business storytelling per se is not difficult, what is difficult is to get people started converting their experiences into engaging anecdotal business stories with a clear message, without bothering about 'a perfect story'.

So I started the workshop with this story:

"A photography professor in Florida once divided his class
into two groups - A Quantity group and a Quality group.

The grades of the quantity group were tied to
the number of photos they would submit by the end of the semester.
To get an A, they were to submit 100 photos.

The quality group was to be graded on excellence.
They were to submit only one "almost perfect" photo by the end of the semester."

I then asked participants which group they thought would have produced some of the best photos? Most people voted for 'the quality group'.

In reality, almost all the best photos came from the 'quantity group' because they were busy taking many photos - which meant they had multiple experiences with composition and lighting. They made mistakes, learnt from them and their skills kept getting honed.

The other group sat around speculating what a perfect photo would mean, and took far fewer pictures with unverified theories of what perfection meant!

The message to get on right away converting experiences into stories, rather than waiting to write an 'excellent story' landed well.

Business storytelling is being recognised as a very important skill for business leaders.

Do you use stories at work? If yes, please share how you go about constructing your stories.

                                              

p.s.: The 'photography class' story is story no. 17 in my book 'Chrysalis - 101 Anecdotal stories to help break the professional rut'. (You can order it from Amazon or Flipkart).