The power of story

Hello and happy Friday

Hope your week has been a good one.

With the passing of two people, I have long admired, Queen Elizabeth and Australian Indigenous champion, Uncle Jack Charles, this week I have spent a great deal of time pondering just how remarkable it is how strangers, people you have never met can influence your life and in the case of the above mentioned, two very different people with two very different lives.

As a young girl I heard a lot about the Queen. My Mum and Nana are staunch royalists and according to our family tree we are related to the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the ones from the 1700’s and whilst via marriage, my Mum and Nana have always claimed to have “blue blood.” In fact, I am pretty sure my Mum is waiting for an invitation to Westminster Abbey as we speak. 

And while I come from generations of loyal royalists, I have never quite engaged with the whole royal thing. I am pretty sure my Nana is still cross at me for throwing away the Women’s Weekly Wedding edition and cup and saucer set of Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding (perhaps I somehow knew something they didn’t).

What I did involve myself with however, was admiring the Queen. I admired her grace and poise as a child, her ability to command attention and warmly embrace others. As an adult I admired her leadership, her ability to influence change from afar, to negotiate a better way of doing things and rebuild, recreate, and repurpose an institution and family that have looked like crumbling and falling apart on many occasions. I have long revered her ability to remain calm and gracious under pressure and challenge royal tradition while still honouring it. 

And I dare say I am not the only one to be moved by her sagacity, I am sure there are many of you reading this that will have felt very much the same.

The other death that had a profound impact on me this week was that of Uncle Jack Charles, revered Aboriginal elder and giant of the arts, a Melbourne man, and a man with a “hell” of a story. Unlike Queen Elizabeth, Jack Charles was born into completely different circumstances. Taken from his mother at four months old and forced to survive physical and sexual abuse in state care, Uncle Jack became an inspiration for many, particularly those in the indigenous community. His inspiration however did not just come from his ability to rise above his early years, nor his misspent years involving time in prison (22 times in fact) and drug abuse, his brilliance in my opinion was being brave enough to share his story and encouraging others to do the same. His sagacity came in the form of insight, understanding and expression, sharing uncomfortable truths and using drama, music, and conversation to help heal himself and others. Although I had heard of Uncle Jack and had seen him unknowingly in films, I came to know more about him at the TEDX “Unconventional” conference in Sydney in 2017 where he shared some of his story, his humour, and his style of leadership – straight up and provoking. He also performed alongside another fallen and inspiring Australian leader Archie Roach, singing “We won’t cry,” a beautiful song about resilience, a trait that regardless of our circumstances we all require from time to time with the Queen and Uncle Jack being a testament to this.

Resilience as I have mentioned in many of my newsletters and broadcast (sometimes very loudly) in my Resilience workshops is not only a necessity for all of us, it is also a necessity for others and more so in the stories we share because one of the ways we “bounce back and keep moving forward” is through story, by sharing who supported us, who inspired us, what kept us moving and how we solved problems. Stories, our stories, others stories have long been a way to help us keep going and bring us together.

And while they often take courage, especially when sharing with team members and direct reports, they are the thing that I have seen bring teams, workplaces, communities, and families together.

As someone who has been involved in leadership development for over two decades and runs Sharing your story workshops for leaders and teams, I have seen firsthand the impact sharing stories has. Sure, 360’s help, team assessments help, and SWOT evaluation helps, I use these too, but stories, they open the door, they inspire, they share a bit more about who we are and what we have to offer. They build trust and engagement and set the foundations for healthy relationships and a healthy working culture.

So, thank you Queen Elizabeth for inspiring us with your story, thank you Uncle Jack for inspiring us with your story. Thank you for reminding us that we have choices in the stories we write for ourselves and that it will be our adventures, experiences and what we make of them that will outlive our time here on planet earth.

Until next week, choose kind, be brave and stay fearless!

Kylie

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Here is the link to the TED TALK with Uncle Jack - Make sure you watch it until the end so you can hear the song he sings with Archie Roach.

#leadershipcoach #leadershiptraining #resilience #storytelling