[MUSIC] Welcome back, we're talking with Liz Gerber, Greg Holderfield. And Ed Colgate from the Segal Design Institute within the Northwestern School of Engineering. And we want to further this conversation about the relationship between innovation, leadership, and storytelling. So I wondered if you all could give me some practical examples of where storytelling has helped within the innovation process. Liz, why don't we start with you? >> Yeah, I'd love to, this is one of my favorite stories, Candy. Comes from working with a software company. I was working with a small, internal team. And they wanted to redefine and redesign the software platform. They were struggling to get resources from the CEO. We all know, we've been in that situation. And they would them, and show presentations of why they needed more resources to redesign this. But the thing that got them the resources eventually was a good story. They had tried several times, it was on their third try. They went into the CEO's office. And they said, we want to share some observations we had of a client visit yesterday. They had been out to a client working with another C-level executive. Very competent, competent person, who admitted to sometimes at the end of a long week, having broken down trying to use the software when trying to enter their expenses into the form, right? We all know this, you've been on a long trip all week. Friday, the last thing you want to do, you just want to get out of there. Well, they told that story to the CEO and the CEO related to that. He said, oh, I hate when the software is the way I end my week. And it was that story alone that got them the resources to improve the software platform. >> I like that because we can all relate to the story and it works. >> And there's kind of a one to one relationship with it. >> That's right. >> You have another example? >> Yeah, I was going back through some coursework that we were doing within Segal. And we had actually partnered with the YMCA. The challenge that they had posed to us was membership growth. And they were primarily focused on their fitness space. And so we deployed our design innovation students out into the field, the majority of which were MBAs who are traditionally focused on analytical big data to sort of frame their innovation. And this was the first time many of them were out in the field doing ethnographic work. They had realized, through human interaction, that there was opportunities as it related to new families. And new families, in terms of building community. And community is a pillar of the YMCA. It wasn't specifically framed this way in the challenge. But they saw an opportunity for community to be a growth engine as it related to new families. And we basically created a whole host of different services around new moms, understanding the community, concierge for new parents, etc., that were all new platforms for the YMCA. The students told this story to the YMCA through lots of visualization. Through personas and story boards and rapid prototypes. And actually filmed a lot of this engagement with the prototypes. And so we used this as a mechanism to not only rally the team further to develop the concepts. But then, when we showed this work to the YMCA, that sort of galvanized the interest. And really the passion and the emotion. >> When we're thinking about the storytelling and leadership, we actually have to teach it to students. How do we get the central idea across so that students feel that they're capable of telling their own stories as leaders? >> I'll start, the first thing I do is ask my students to remember the last powerful story they heard where two things happened. One, they either felt extremely happy or extremely sad, so an extreme emotion. And then, second, they were moved to do something after the story. Because, effectively, that's what stories need to do. They need to capture your heart. And then they need to propel you to so something. That's why we tell stories. After I have them think about that, then I have them think about their own stories. And actually tell them to other people. And look at other people as they're telling their stories, friends and family. And watch when their friends and family are nodding. Or watch when they're looking at their watch, trying to figure out when the story's going to be over with. And really try and gauge what are the highlights of their story. When are they making their audience cry or laugh? And when are they propelling them to do something? At the end of the story they can ask their friends and family, so what do you want to do now that you've heard that story? And if they say nothing, then they haven't told a very good story. And is it good to rehearse, or do you think it should be more improv? >> So I think it's really good to know the core elements of your story. You want to know who your characters are, what the context is. And what the resolution is to the challenge that the users are facing in the story. But you don't want to have rehearsed every line. Because people love hearing stores that feel authentic and fresh. >> Makes sense, what about you? >> On the Segal side what I teach and preach is the visualization of stories. And so bringing the stories to life, bringing that narrative to life with props. And so whether they're storyboards or physical prototypes or personas, we find that to be very, very effective. That is also a cautionary tale because some students and individuals are uncomfortable with visualization. And what we want them to understand is it's not about art, right? Visualization in this context is not about art. It's about rapidly expressing that story in a visual way. And so, whether it's a stick figure or it's a rough block of cardboard, anything that's helping to tell that story is important. >> And I think that makes sense because some of us are learners who hear the words, and we're audio. And some of us can only imagine the story once we see a picture to go with it. >> Right. >> And what about you, when you're teaching? >> Well, one of the things I do is I work with Lynn Kelso, who's faculty in the Theater Department here at Northwestern. And she comes in and helps me teach graduate students in Segal storytelling. And I remember a couple of her bits of advice very, very distinctly. One of them is the importance of using very concrete images, including names. So when telling the story, one of the ways you help your audience develop a very rich picture of what's going on is you tell them the color of the furniture in the room. And you give them the name of the person, their occupation. And so forth, so concrete images. And the second, and I think this is really important, is she teaches the students not to editorialize. Don't explain how much someone loves the new product, right? Explain what they do, what's their behavior, right? A good story should bring about emotion. But the way it's going to do that is through those sort of very rich details. Not through you, the storyteller, explaining on behalf of the audience how they should feel. >> Right. >> So I think those are really very important ideas. They're really pretty easily learned, we practice them with stories. Often, early stories are ones from the students' own lives. But then you begin to put them into play. And the stories that relate to the design work. >> You've given us examples of organizations and people to people stories. Is there a difference, if you're a leader in a startup versus a leader in a large organization, in how you think about storytelling in innovation? Here's what I've learned, having worked with many small organizations and many large organizations. Is the story at its core needs to have the great elements of any story. Like Ed said, it needs have to characters, it needs to have context. It needs to have actions and behaviors and resolution. What I find is in large organizations, those stories often must travel between more people. So they morph over time, but the core essence of the story travels farther. Additionally, the story is often transferred from people who didn't experience the story first hand. In a small organization, most people have experienced the story first hand. In a large organization, it's often come through nine people, ten people, before you receive the story. You must be able to internalize that story, and then pass it on to the next group. >> And of course, if you're a user, and I'm telling another user, I'm yet another step away from the organization as well. So that's very good, you have had some startups yourself. And have you had storytelling that is essentially the same? Where everybody has experienced the story to begin with? >> Liz is exactly right, yeah. In a startup situation, very often, kind of that key story. Often, really the main driver for the business is one that the founders and the small team have all experienced. But, you've gotta take that story, you've gotta craft it. You've gotta build it to tell it to investors, right, to potential partners. And so very quickly a story travels beyond that initial core. And for it to travel well, as Liz emphasized, it really needs those core elements, right? And so I think that the sort of things we've talked about, concrete details, people, context, not editorializing. Those things are really important in any size organization because stories do travel. >> It was so good to talk to each one of you. Thank you very much for joining us. It was a pleasure to learn more about innovation, storytelling, and leadership. [MUSIC]
