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).

 I am not a Book Person!

She: “I am not a book person.”

Me: “You can read one page, right? Everyone can read one page.”

She: “So?”

Me: “Pick up a book which you can start at any page – read that one page – reflect – can you think of doing something new/different at your work?”

She (smiles): “And if I don’t find that page relevant?”

Me: “Go to another page – another story. There are 101 of them 🙂"

How I became a Published Author!

I did not start, intending to write a book.

In my journey from being a business leader to a facilitator, I realised in our busy corporate life, we are almost every time in the ‘performance zone.’  The stakes are high and expectation is to keep stretching.

To build myself up as a facilitator, I dipped into frameworks, books, experiences, pod-casts etc. to understand why some individuals or some teams perform consistently well, while others do not?

One thing became clear that to perform consistently, one cannot always be in the performance zone. To keep performing consistently, in-between, we need to build our ‘learning zone.’

We all have heard ‘what got you here won’t get you there.’

For some professions, the learning zones are integral part of their professional lives - sports, medicine & surgery, aviation, technology etc. Training is a pre-requisite for them to do their job well.  That is where they learn and practice new skills – whether a sportsperson with a coach, or a pilot on a simulation – they learn in a safe space away from their ‘performance zone.’

But for many, such a training zone is not a well defined one, is not mandatory, and is often random. A few examples which come to mind are managing self, working in teams, managing others, influencing, selling etc. – quite often you are given an initial training, then you are left to learn intuitively.

And then the learning happens random – role models, our experiences and of those around us. These are good but are they enough? How would you know if there are some easier tools out there, some concepts which have power to bring newer ways of getting things done, or stories of people solving similar challenges but in completely different industry or environment?

Some of us can get this by reading books. Books are super helpful in widening our horizon.
But there are many of us who with all good intentions, cannot get themselves to read or finish a book. What about them?

While I was building myself up, I came across some great tools, great stories and my first thought was ‘if I had known this when I was in my performing zone in corporate – I would have done things differently, I would have tried some of this, and I am sure would have got better outcomes.'

I wanted to share these with everyone I could reach out to, but without overwhelming them. I collected them and converted them into a small one-page stories – easy to read, comprehend and reflect upon. Anyone can read a small one-page story, right?

I did not intend to write a book. If these 101 anecdotal stories to break professional rut, has become a book – it is just a co-incidence. You can pick up any story at any page and reflect if it gives you a new idea of approaching your job, in some way. These helped me and I have zero doubt that it will help you to be more.

At INR 225, you can order it by clicking the link below in 1st comment. Happy Reading:

https://www.amazon.in/Chrysalis-Anecdotal-Stories-Break-Professional/dp/9356282064