Why your greatest storytelling superpower is 'not belonging'

Everyone talks about getting out of their comfort zones but we rarely do. This is a technique that really works

This is a story about one of the most unusual coincidences of my new career. Sitting in a hotel in Copenhagen, having just spent 48 hours with a team of insights professionals and marketers who found a collective voice that they didn’t even realise they had – and how you can too.

One of the most compelling insights we had as a group was that sometimes the more you know about something – the more knowledge you have about each other or the brand – the less able you are to see solutions. It’s called the curse of knowledge and it means that because we sometimes know too much, we find it difficult to express what truly matters.

The greatest way of solving this is by ‘not belonging’. When you aren’t part of a group or think like everyone else or have the same background and training, you’re able to take more interesting directions, make more empowering decisions. Simply because you see things in a different way.

During my time in Denmark, an interview was published with Maud Bailly, the inspirational chief executive of Sofitel, part of the Accor group of hotels. And I read it in the Copenhagen Sofitel hotel I was staying in. Coincidence, eh? In it, she says this about seeing the brand’s assets in a novel way:

‘I figured out that not belonging could be a superpower, because when you don’t belong from day one, it gives you freedom and a distance, which may allow you to make bigger decisions. It’s not your world, so if it’s not your world — you can go anywhere. I want to learn. Not being part of the system gives you freedom.’

When it comes to storytelling, and the masterclasses I run, we spend a lot of time getting out of that ‘system’. In particular, role-playing different journalistic scenarios. Taking data-heavy reports – the bigger, the better – and then turning them into stories for a tabloid audience, a podcast, a news bulletin, a radio interview (whatever takes my fancy on the morning, to be honest).

Everyone gets out of their comfort zones and ‘translates’ the material for new audiences. They have the freedom to reinterpret. What was once obvious and a bit dull becomes something much more complex and interesting. Because those I’m training don’t belong to my world – nor me, theirs – not belonging becomes both of our superpowers. We can go anywhere.

Then, in the next stage, we take all of those media stories and reinterpret them again, for the brand audiences they were originally intended for. Every time I’ve done this exercise, the same thing happens: different stories emerge, arguments ensue, debate takes everyone to a new place and storytelling becomes focused on decision-making.

All because everyone – just like Maud - is inspired by freedom and distance.

I think one of my greatest strengths in this new career of mine is also one of my most annoying traits. I’m constantly asking why. Why are you doing it that way? Why don’t you think in a different way? Why must it always be like that? Why not try something else?

Journalism teaches you that. To always ask why, throughout the lifecycle of a story. And that’s why storytelling very often doesn’t work in a business context. You don’t get the chance or the space to ask why. You just tell. Or get AI to tell for you.

The secret is to remember that storytelling – telling - is the last bit of the job and can only be effective once you’ve forced yourself out of your comfort zones.

To do that, you need to be storyfinders and then storymakers. Find what matters and why, then figure out a way of making it interesting so that people will sit up and take notice. Only then can you start telling the story.

The best way of truly understanding your world is to first get out of it. Journalism is a perfect tool for that.

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