How powerful storytelling creates big change
As UK inflation peaked at 11.1%, a 41 year high (ouch) households and businesses are feeling the squeeze. With inflation set to be painful for the rest of this year and possibly into next, the pressure is on.
What does this mean for businesses? It’s a perfect storm. Do more with less, and do better. Further pressures are on leaders shoulders as they still grapple with some of the big pandemic hangovers: balancing mounting pressure to deliver a triple bottom line of profit, purpose and people — all while they’re having to keep up with the rapidly changing needs of customers.
Leaders have a full plate. When this plate is full, the default option is to focus on the small wins. The here and now. Survival mode. New innovative ideas get put to the side. Budgets are already tight and it’s a slog to pull together a business case. History has shown during hard times, businesses must keep innovating when the temptation is to step back and play it safe. (See: Success, setbacks and sausage rolls).
Innovate, innovate, innovate. It’s not an unwanted expense, nice-to-have or a dirty word. It means making something new of value — or making something better. It’s not limited to a team or function. Sometimes it’s a process or mindset. It is always a vision with a plan of how to make it happen. So why do so many get it wrong (or even worse not even attempt it) — especially when financial times are tough? Here’s a clue: it’s all about having a process and it’s definitely about how we talk about it.
Innovating in businesses isn’t easy. We’ve all seen businesses try and fail — ending in piles of post-it notes, wasted meeting time and ideas that don’t take off. It’s all about having effective and repeatable ideation and innovation process. Have a look at ‘Developing Big Ideas: 10 things we’ve learnt.’
How we tell the innovation story is make or break. Done right, whole industries can be turned upside down.
“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller” Steve Jobs famously said; “the storyteller sets the vision, values and the agenda of an entire generation to come.” He was also known to hit people with a ‘simple stick’ when ideas became too complicated or convoluted (only sometimes literally). Favouring very small groups of smart people, his vision made Apple the world’s most valuable company by market cap (as of 1 April 22). But Apple wasn’t always doing well. In fact, they’re probably the greatest comeback story of all time.
Organisations and their leaders stay relevant and adapt to change by thinking big and putting their customers and communities first.
Influencers are leaders with a little ‘l’. Once the vision is set, how do we identify audiences that will transmit the story and messages that need to be heard? Research shows that only 3% of a group can influence 85% of the same group. From an internal lens those influential 3% will not typically be managers. They’re the people that drive change, but are often overlooked. These influencers can build a movement that spreads across the whole company, but with the right conditions in place.
Global engineering firm WSP has two ambitious targets; be net zero for their internal operations by 2025, and reduce the carbon footprint of their design by 50% by 2030. By identifying a group of hyper-connected individuals to help them on their mission to decarbonise, we worked together to spark a movement of change. Empowering this group of individuals to support 7,000 engineers to think greener. They helped drive the change, reinforcing the vision with the storytelling; leading by example with the right behaviours.
Show, don’t tell. Engaging stakeholders with brilliant stories that prove impact is how the value of innovation continues to be seen. Stories that show and don’t just tell. Stories that focus on outcomes, benefits and changes that deliver value. These stories help to shift the focus from innovation being seen as trialling technology or worse, the perception of innovation work as ‘just doing cool stuff.’ In some cases, creating a culture of storytelling around innovation has even been seen to help drive culture change within organisations themselves — with both facts and data easier to retain in story form, when delivered correctly our people become connected in ways that motivate change and increasing their confidence in innovation.
At Magnetic, we’ve helped hundreds of businesses with capability building skills. We’d love to help more organisations build these capabilities. Our training is designed and delivered by active innovation practitioners, who solve big business challenges every day, for all types of organisations across the globe.
Magnetic is a design and innovation company that helps design better futures. We’ve worked with global businesses to build capabilities and transform organisations. If you’d like to find out more about our work drop us a line or sign up to our monthly newsletter to keep up to date.
Author: Jassi
