What Is Your Storytelling Quotient? (SQ)

Creativity has never been so valued in the workplace. What was once confined to the dark recesses of someone’s personal life is fast becoming the differentiator in a competitive world where ideas are king.

Everyone has had periods in their lives where they have been bitten by the creative bug, only for their passion to be dampened by the reality that their efforts have a limited audience. While creativity is enjoyable and beneficial on a personal level, many of us yearn for it to have a wider purpose. When that purpose has been lacking, the priorities of our busy lives have taken over and that creative drive ebbs and flows like the tides.

Ironically, it is technology that has enabled the rise of the corporate storytellers. Mobile phones are their medium, social media is their loudspeaker, and instant messaging their oxygen. It has never been easier to engage an audience of thousands, but herein lies the challenge: they are not exclusively your audience.

People are being bombarded by information like never before. In order for your employees or customers to retain your messages, they have to be memorable - they have to “stick.” This is where storytellers come into focus.

Tell someone a fact and it will likely be consigned to the wasteland of “sorry, what was that again?” Invoke an emotional response by telling them a story around that fact and it will be far more likely to be retained in their memory. When you involve them in the story by appealing to their emotions, you are taking the first step to influencing them.

Of course, you have to tailor your stories to the audience. You should understand what is important to them and make them feel as if it is their story rather than your story. Companies and individuals with a high SQ first seek to understand whom they are speaking to before even thinking about their story.

When you let a meaningful story out into the world, it takes on a life of its own in the heads of those who hear it. They will all interpret it in subtly different ways, and it melds in their imaginations with all the other dialogues that make up “their world.” If (that is the important word) it is meaningful to them, they will accept it. If it doesn’t resonate, it will be dismissed, crashing like a wave against the harbor wall, never to leave its mark.

Storytelling is not only the territory of the marketing department. Finance tell stories to give their figures some context. Operations need to listen to stories of employees in order to make things run smoothly. Sales need to tune into the stories of their customers rather than force feed them their “own” stories. HR are increasingly moulding the company culture through storytelling, letting their employer brand develop organically through a constant internal dialogue.

So, coming back to the question of the title, do you have a high SQ?

Do you take every opportunity to fire the imaginations and stimulate the creativity of the people you work with? Do you foster a dialogue with your colleagues, or does information flow only in one direction? Do you make time for your team to tell their own stories and make sure that everyone’s thoughts are heard? Can you talk about something totally unrelated to work, only for people to find parallels and lessons within your words?

Storytelling takes time, it doesn’t have an obvious ROI, and it defies measurement. Despite this, it is the most important movement in modern business. Its magic takes place in the hearts and minds of its audience, influencing them once but touching them forever.

We should all tell a few more stories. Here are some of mine.

Please share your thoughts in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you. I write a daily blog on leadership, innovation, careers, tech & self improvement. Here are some other articles I have written. If you like what you read, please feel free to follow me here on LinkedIn or via twitter @anuragharsh.