Storytelling in business

Review of No Story No Fans by Raf Stevens

I recently came across the work of Raf Stevens, and he sent me an advance copy of his new book, No Story No Fans for review. I’ve been slowly reading a section, then thinking about it, and reading more. I’ve also been thinking about how it relates to the storytelling aspects of the VisualsSpeak tools.

The book incorporates a number of interesting new media approaches. He developed the material in conjunction with a network of people who he connected with online. I like crowdsourced approaches, probably because I’ve seen the value in developing my own products. Each interaction brings another piece of understanding. He also uses QR codes to link to video and websites. It deepened my experience by going to view the samples he referred to in the text.

Selling the use of story

The book does a particularly good job building a case for how story can be used in business. There are a range of examples, which show how this can work. If you need to convince someone of a storytelling approach, you will get material that will support you.

Even though my tools are about surfacing stories and I tell a lot of stories in my workshops, I can now see many opportunities to use more stories in my marketing and on my websites. I will return and re-read sections as I shift how I incorporate story, and how I become more intentional in that process.

Story Listening and Story Circles

I know this is where the magic happens when people use VisualsSpeak. Shifts happen in the space between the stories of different people. I recognized what Raf described but I wonder if people who haven’t witnessed that kind of process would?

So much of what goes on is beyond words. There is a synergy that emerges in the space that I always struggle to describe. Raf does a good job of starting to talk about it. He gives some ideas of how it happens and what you can do to begin to create it.

What are we looking for in business storytelling?

There is an example in the book I keep thinking about where Raf worked with a pharmaceutical company. They surfaced a story that really resonated with people inside and outside the company. This is the start of the story:

“Most people may know what we do. Sometimes people ask what we stand for. They want to know who we are.

First of all, we are like everybody else, ordinary people facing ups and downs in our moods and health, dealing with our little daily worries. Some of us are scientists, some are businessmen, and some are something in between. We have children we are concerned about and aging parents we love dearly. Just like everyone else, we have our hopes and fears and moments of happiness and joy. Like everyone else, we know about pain and distress.
Secondly, we are a group of people, very diverse in thought, nationality and character, who have come around a dream that was brought to us by the  founder of one of our earliest pharmaceutical companies. We want nothing less than to contribute to the progress of health, and we are willing and able to work hard for it.

Finally, we are a company. We develop pharmaceutical products to address medical needs that have not yet been met. Once developed, we distribute them around the globe.”

I keep wondering if the resonance is coming from a story of this company— or if it’s discovering the universality of this company? Couldn’t you substitute the details of almost any org and have it be true? I’m left wondering if I am looking to surface what is unique or what is universal?

Perhaps we need both kinds of stories.

Telling stories over time

One of my favorite part of the book was Raf’s reminding me to think about telling stories over time. It’s easy to get caught up in the thinking that you need to get the one perfect story (and produce it in some slick very professional format.) That was more true before we had the tools to easily create multimedia, but it’s not true now. Our business stories can be more of a net across many channels. This has me thinking more strategically about how that can happen. Instead of being all over the place as I am now.

You can download the first part of the book for free on No Story No Fans

Discovering Raf

Best part of reviewing this book has been discovering the larger body of Raf’s work. He takes a creative approach to everything he does, so follow his links. He’s done some particularly interesting work on Prezi. Here is one example: