One key factor differentiating humans from other animals is that we can work together in big groups. Yes, some animals can work together in groups like wolves or chimpanzees but in a maximum size of 50 or 100. But we are not like them, we can work together in groups of millions or billions. Yes, you read it right “millions or billions”
Take the case of religions, millions of people march towards achieving their spiritual principles even though they don’t know each other, people from different parts of the world, from different ethnicities, cultures, values etc. Have you ever wondered how and why this is possible?
That is the power of storytelling. Take the case of religion. Take any religion in the world they all are collections of powerful stories that connect directly to our emotions. Stories that paint a bigger picture or cause, a cause for your existence, a role that you have to play, or an inspiration from a character from the many stories those books have.
All of those stories have conflicts, resolutions, relatable characters, motivations, and emotions, that create a sense of belonging and community. This is the reason why people who haven’t seen each other rally behind these religions.
You might be wondering where am I going with this. The reason why I thought about this is because of this project incident.
My friend has been working on this team for the last 10 to 12 years. A team that was delivering consistently for these years but suddenly things have changed and now everything is stuck,and things are not moving.
What happened was:
This dev team was part of one of the biggest companies in the world. The dev and business team used to be under the same company until one day they found that they wanted to increase the profitability, and their numbers were not going in the positive direction according to the competition in the market.
The C suites sat together and looked at the numbers and they pulled out the most powerful tool they had. “ The Excel sheet”. They started playing around with the numbers and found out that if they could reduce the dev cost then the numbers could match up to the figure they wanted.
This was the eureka moment for them.“ Sell or outsource the dev work” !
They formed a separate unit inside the company whose responsibility is to make the parent company profitable. By either selling, handing over, or outsourcing the development team. Effectively they made their problems someone else’s. Simple!
So what happened at the end was the dev team who had been working on this project for many years was suddenly bought over by another big service company in the world. During this process, some of them lost their jobs. The new service company outsourced those roles to save money and the remaining was being absorbed under their banner. A story that looks perfect in paper. The numbers became positive and happy ending for the C suites, They achieved the target.
But the same people who were super productive earlier are not effective now. Projects are not getting delivered, systems are failing one after the other, escalation emails are flying right left-center, nothing is happening and the team doesn’t care. Why?
This made me wonder why the same set of people is not able to resolve these issues or not care about what is happening now.
The reason is, they lack belonging, they lack purpose, and they feel cheated. Now there is no story that connects them to the new flag that’s being flying above their heads. This is similar to the feeling of the people who are being conquered by another empire.
Almost with every merger and project pressure, most of the corporates miss this part. The power and effectiveness of storytelling. You have to realize at the end of the day every project in every company is a group of individuals, they need a common belief, a role which they all have to play towards a bigger story, and the leaders have to articulate that story and stay true to that narrative.
People seek purpose in life. If work lacks meaning or purpose, they will leave despite friendships. To retain employees, ensure the company’s mission resonates personally with them.
This incident ignited a spark in me about “why people collaborate”? What I realized is, that for us to work together we need a shared story or goal and one of the most impressive thing about storytelling is the ability to communicate and create feelings.
When you come up with stories, remember that storytelling starts with your audience and not with the story. For this, you must know your audience and empathize with them. Otherwise, you will be like that uncle who repeats the same story repeatedly. Not just that, you should keep your words and actions in sync so more and more people will start believing in your story and will start following you. Thus creating strong lasting teams.
Also, keep in mind that it is not just a number game at the end of the day.
I would like to know your opinion about the power of storytelling and team building. Please feel free to share your comments below.
The content is also available on my channel: https://youtu.be/Ke8jjejPG30
Trooming 