The story that changed my career
Keywords: leadership storytelling, storytelling in leadership, leadership communication and career stories.
I remember the moment I received it. I was in my house in Coventry in the UK, surrounded by boxes as I was packing up and moving back home to Reading to start a new job in the next few days. They had sent me a letter which I assumed would be one of those boring admin documents that I'd read quickly and then put down and not find again for weeks.
Instead, it was something which has stuck with me more than 20 years later, and has influenced my career more than I ever could have expected.
It was a simple letter, only two sides of paper, a document sent to all new starters "from" the CEO, Mark Wood, and it outlined the strategy and the transformation program that I was going to join as a Project Manager. It doesn't sound that exciting, does it?
But what was special was the way it was written. The CEO told a story about what he believed the organisation should be. He talked about the type of people that worked there, and the way we would do our work. And mostly he talked about the value and contribution we could all make not just to the organisation, but to our society.
He started by setting out his vision: "While most stories evoke a time gone by where everything was better than today, in this story I want to evoke a future time where we will have spent 1,000 days rebuilding our once great business."
He created a sense of agency and responsibility for our performance: "Each of us ... will be here because we want to be.... The pulse rate of the organisation has quickened. The acceptable standard of performance has risen. The error rate has dropped. Decisions result from analysis, not opinion."
He rounded it out with a call to action, reflecting on the reputation Prudential had as a pension provider (something like 50% of the UK population had pensions with Prudential).
"The job we have chosen to do is amongst the most valuable in society... We are the custodians of people's material well-being. People trust us. We must be worthy of that trust. Prudential is a mighty business."
When I joined the organisation I learned that the CEO had written it himself, refining multiple drafts on the weekends, and then taking the time to record a video (it was a video - it was 2005) that we all watched on our induction, where he delivered the message himself.
I remember reading the letter at least twice when I opened it and felt this sense of excitement rising. Not only I was going to get to work at this organisation which sounded amazing, but also I was going to actually be a part of making that change happen.
But more than that, it also made me realise that storytelling wasn't just something for writers and filmmakers.... it was actually something that could be valuable in the workplace. It was the seed that grew into my Doctoral research and the work I'm now focusing on full time as I help leaders shape the stories they tell about their organisation, their leadership and their change programs.
What are the stories that have shaped your career?
“People don’t resist change. They resist being changed.”