Why aren't you telling your story? It's the only one that matters

Professional influence often derives from creating a storytelling 'persona', something ChatGPT could never do. It's also great therapy. Here's how to do it successfully...

This is a story about therapy. Or, to be precise, why storytelling is therapy.

In my sessions now, I ask attendees what they want their work story to be, so they can be more influential. We develop personas – such as collaborator, pioneer, explainer, disruptor, ideas-person, iconoclast, leader – and how to build a series of stories on multiple platforms that shape that persona.

And then, in an individual setting, we co-create. We discuss the material and what the aim of a piece is, then attendees write the bare bones of their story, before I get to grips with it and ghostwrite a more complete version. And then there’s one final stage.

The therapy.

I turn the keyboard around with the story on screen, and say:

‘This is what I heard and saw. Now I’m going to leave you for five minutes so that you can finish it on your own. What have I missed that tells me who you are and why you matter? What do you think I should know about your situation?’

The answers they come up with are more revealing than anything I could have anticipated.

Last week, I was working with a group of leaders-in-waiting, none of whom knew each other. When we did this exercise, one revealed that he wanted to use storytelling to combat the vicious politics within his team. Someone else just wanted recognition that she was good at her job. I saw one other person with tears in their eyes (he hates his job, he later told me).

This one simple exercise opened them up in a way I never imagined storytelling workshops could do. But creating our story reaches deep within our psyche. By sharing who we are, our purpose, we end up with a competitive advantage because we’re better able to challenge negativity and bias with solutions.

So why do we spend too little time on getting our own story right, or learning the skills which will help our ability to succeed in the workplace? In this era of cold technology, we should be talking about ourselves in as human a way as possible.

I stole that above exercise from Rita Charon, the founder of what’s known as ‘narrative medicine’. She’s the pioneer of a healthcare movement which encourages patients to tell their stories to professionals who, through concentrated curiosity, are then better able to diagnose and treat them. Essentially, their medical performance is enhanced by everyone’s ability to tell, share and listen to stories.

We are constantly chasing decisions without stopping to wonder whether the stories we are trying to tell are compelling, empowering and transformational. The best of them can be. Thought leadership doesn’t have to be dull, repetitive and vanilla – it could and should move us. Sadly, too few CEOs and leaders recognise that.

What worries me about the use of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools, is not that they can do things in seconds and make so much of our work redundant. It’s that by relying on them we gradually cease to become questioning, empathetic, understanding and communicative. We lose our abilities to find, make and tell original stories.

We lose what makes us human.

To think critically, to make sense of what is right in front of us, to inspire teams and bring them together, to use our emotional intelligence to persuade and influence.

I recently came across this quote from author and former speech writer Daniel Pink who, contemplating the role of AI in our lives, said: ‘The future belongs to a different kind of person with a unique mindset: artists, inventors, storytellers and empathetic right-brain thinkers.’

If you don’t yet have a storytelling persona, find one. I have three, each one serving a different purpose. The sharp-elbowed journalist on Twitter/X; the business storytelling commentator on places like Substack and LinkedIn; and then the all-about-me learning confessionals that you’ll find in the national media.

My advice would be to stick to one persona. And ask these questions in order:

‘What do you want to be known for?’

‘How can that solve business problems?’

‘Now, why do you matter?’

That’s your story. Now tell it as much as you can. ChatGPT won’t get you a new job or protect the one you already have, or make you more relatable or even more inspiring.

But storytelling will.

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