Creating Brand U: Telling a Compelling Story

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick, and welcome to CareerCast at the Chicago GSB to help you advance in your career. Today we're speaking with Annette Simmons, who is president of Group Process Consulting in Greensboro, North Carolina, and it's an organizational consulting firm. Her experience crosses industries and extends from the US to Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. She has a bachelor's degree in marketing and economics and a master's degree in training and development.

She is a successful speaker and consultant and author of four books, including Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins. Annette has been featured on CNBC's Power Lunch, NPR's MarketWatch, and was quoted in Fortune, Working Women, and Harvard Business Review. Welcome, Annette.

Annette Simmons: Good to be here.

Anita Brick: What are the things to consider, number one, when putting a story together that's really for transitional purposes?

Annette Simmons: Well, this is a situation I identify with, because I think I'm on either my third or fourth career, depending on how you count. One of the things that is important to understand is that while the situations and circumstances might change, there are certain universal truths that remain important no matter what career, no matter how old you are, no matter which culture you're in.

And one of the things I love about storytelling is that it mines down to those universal truths. Specifically, let's just get down to one that we can rely on. And that is the story of integrity. One of the reasons I love stories of integrity is because integrity is something that actually happens when no one is looking—when you do the right thing, and nobody would ever know whether you did the right thing or not.

When you interview for a new job, it's going to always be relevant. You can take examples from your past life and find situations where you were tested at a time when personal gain and integrity pointed into different directions. An example when you could have taken the easy way and instead you did the right thing. When you tell that story, it's going to demonstrate your core values in a way that people can then imagine how those core values will apply in new situations, because core values ultimately are going to be the most important things that people look for when they're interviewing you for a new position.

Anita Brick: So can you think of an example of someone who actually changed careers, where they looked at one of these universal truths and were able to kind of convince someone that even if they didn't have the direct experience, they could make that transition?

Annette Simmons: I'll use myself in that situation. When I worked internationally, I had a unique opportunity to live in Australia. I got a baptism by fire in understanding cultural differences. So when I tell that story, then I can begin to talk about law to lawyers, accounting to accountants. I've worked with the military. In every situation I go into as a consultant, I am uniquely unqualified at one level in terms of understanding their industry.

And yet what that story does is demonstrate basic humility and understanding my lack of understanding, which a lot of people really want to know—that you don't think you know it all. Contrary to what some of our advice is—which is, you know, tell them your strengths and show them your assets—when you tell a story about having messed up, you communicate an important universal skill which I would consider a willingness to learn.

Also call it humility. And once I can demonstrate that core value, I then have more trust. They're willing to proceed ahead with faith that I will ask questions when I need to and won't be arrogant in my assumptions.

Anita Brick: One of the things that came up actually in a workshop that we did in September, and we were looking at stories and how do you tell your transitional story? And there was a group of people who are fairly experienced, and it was a global group, and I was sitting talking to a group of them, and they said, we understand our transferable skills, but we don't know how to then create a story that takes those transitional skills and kind of whips them into something that is going to be accessible and compelling.

Annette Simmons: For me, the great discovery of the last decade and working with storytelling is, I think I've figured out why business people suck at storytelling. And it's very important to know, because there are three rules that we mindlessly abide by when we communicate that increase our clarity and that decrease ambiguity and that manage to numbers, which is something that is the number one language in business.

The problem with that is, that really makes you a lousy storyteller. And so before I walk them through that process, I have to get them to suspend these habits. Just briefly, here's the three habits that’ll really mess you up. And one is that you go for clarity. Traditionally, when we're trying to communicate business, we're trying to be clear.

Well, your transferable skill is something that you could be incredibly clear about, and yet it still isn't experiential. For instance, I can be clear that I understand cultural differences. That's the most clear way of making that statement. And yet, story is an application of that in reality. And once you invite reality into communication, you invite ambiguity. And so you have to suspend the desire to be clear and allow your story to increase the variability of interpretation.

If you are trying to control people's interpretation of your story, it's going to make you really, really boring. And it's also going to force your story to be too general and not specific enough. When I talk about integrity, integrity means different things to different people. For my dad, for instance, integrity means that when his boss told him to do something—he was a federal employee; he was in the military—he did it. Well, integrity to me means when somebody asks me to do something and I don't think it's the right thing, I have to resign the client. Those are radically different interpretations. And in order to tell a story, you must reveal your radically different interpretation of what, for instance, project management is. Because only when you give evidence of a specific event in time that happened to you with specific others, can you give evidence?

Now, the minute you get specific, you sacrifice clarity. And so one of the things about storytelling is you’ve got to be willing to do that. Third one—and I'm going to skip to that one—the third one is the idea of numbers. We don't realize how often we communicate with numbers, and we also don't realize how the philosophy of the scientific method and the axioms of numbers, one of the most hidden and prevalent axioms of numbers, is that relationships are linear. One plus one always equals two.

And so we tend to impose this expectation of linearity into our communications about things that aren't linear. Specifically, I look at numbers logic as objective logic and story logic as subjective logic. Subjective logic includes emotions—and, again, the ambiguity of reality. When we look at reality, we know that one plus one doesn't always equal two.

For instance, you could walk into a room and say one wrong thing and it could equal 10 years of trying to reclaim trust.

Anita Brick: Good point.

Annette Simmons: You could say one right thing and that could get you forgiven for the same 10 years. Now this specific difference is so important when you're telling a story, because business people tend to impose a linear expectation onto their stories rather than allow the story to basically, in a numerical sense, not make sense, so that your transferable skills—when you tell a project management story, more than likely that story will highlight a crisis.

And if you self-censor, you will realize that most project management is not done at crisis level. And then you'll begin to second-guess yourself as to whether you know you sound like you think everything is a crisis, and then you'll begin to wonder whether they understand that you can maintain good management skills when things are going right, and then you'll eat yourself alive.

So it's important for business people to release the need for all of this to fit in a nice, tidy box and follow a recipe and make sense in a linear one-plus-one-equals-two way. Once I can get them to stop imposing those habits—and temporarily, I think that, you know, everybody needs to understand that …

Anita Brick: But wait a second, what was the number two that you skipped over?

Annette Simmons: OK. Number two that I skipped over was the idea of ambiguity.

Anita Brick: OK.

Annette Simmons: That's a situation where ambiguity has altered. I'm going to use this as a teaching moment.

Anita Brick: Well, and you know, this is a very interesting dilemma because you're talking about ambiguity. And ambiguity is very difficult to talk about because it's ambiguous. Maybe that's the whole point of it.

Annette Simmons: Well, and that's the teachable moment here. When you are in a business situation, traditionally, these moments of silence in these times of reflection feel like you're stumbling on your words. And when you feel like you're stumbling on your words, you make the assumption that people are criticizing you in their minds, that you don't know what you're talking about.

In storytelling, there is a commitment that you make to authenticity. Here's how I describe authenticity. It's easier for me to talk about what is the root cause of inauthenticity.

Anita Brick: OK, go for it.

Annette Simmons: Inauthenticity is caused from only two situations. It's when you are trying to pretend like you were something you are not, or you were trying to pretend you are not something you are.

Anita Brick: I mean, that's a really important point, especially in the context we're talking about.

Annette Simmons: In every context, but most specifically in this context of business, because we've defaulted to all the numbers logic, and this whole concept of authenticity, people have tried to come up with recipes for it. And there is no recipe for authenticity. There is no way to hold your hands and your body to pick situations that is going to guarantee authenticity, because each one of us is so dramatically unique that your recipe for authenticity is going to be completely unique to you.

And so it's really important to spend some time with yourself and figure out: in my communications and the way that I live my life, what are the sources of inauthenticity? When you have that down, then you've got power to make different choices. It is a risk to allow people to see behind the professional persona.

And I hate the term “We need to be professional,” because it is consistently used by people who are criticizing other people for having emotion at work or for caring. I just finished an article about how appropriate personal stories are, and yet, in a business sense, we're always trying to support the positive emotions and decrease the negative emotions. The issue is, if you care about your work, then you're going to care just as much about failures as you care about the successes.

So yeah, inspiration is really great, but truly passionate, inspired people, when they encounter an obstacle to their best efforts to create excellence, they are going to be, at the very least, ticked off. And sometimes they're going to be sad, and sometimes they're going to be angry, and all of those will tend to be the places where we then go inauthentic and try to pretend like we're not ticked off or we're not angry. If there is a recipe for authenticity, it would be to allow others to see your personal dilemmas and your personal feelings about your work.

Anita Brick: So when you go into an interview situation, how do you do that in a way that makes you look like a great candidate, rather than someone who has big dilemmas?

Annette Simmons: What I'm hoping is that at the end of listening to this, the people who have listened will recalibrate their perception of the risk. You can tell a story about a complete balls-up, but when you tell it—number one, don't tell it unless it's over and everything turned out OK.

Anita Brick: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Annette Simmons: But when you tell a tale of—and we'll just call it self-disclosure—then people can see, number one, that you survived it. Number two, they get evidence of how you handle a crisis. But most importantly, they can hear in your voice that you will never, ever allow that to happen again if it's within your power. So telling a story about a time when you screwed up, counterintuitively, actually builds more trust and more respect for you and for your skills than only giving a list of how wonderful you are.

Anita Brick: It's a good point. The things that you talk about in terms of bad communication, habits, clarity, not having ambiguity or not allowing that in, and numbers is sort of the cornerstone and the foundation for a lot of our students and alumni. So we do think creatively, but we are a very analytical, quantitative type of place.

Annette Simmons: And that's what's giving you success up until this point. And to reach the next level is an exploration of a whole different way of being.

Anita Brick: And I know there's no formula, but what elements would you recommend that someone include in a transitional story to make it real, but also to make it persuasive?

Annette Simmons: This is the sweet part of this story. This process is … like, it is so easy. People say, well, I'm not a good storyteller. It's like—if you are breathing, you're a good storyteller. You simply haven't been paying attention to which stories you tell. Every human being is constantly telling stories all day long. Number one, the minute you get on the phone with anyone and say “You will not believe what happened today,” you're telling a story.

So understanding that you're already telling stories, then all I'm asking you to do is to pay specific attention to which stories you tell. Now let's talk about the elements in order to make a story real. Let's just look at what is reality. Reality, in terms of an experiential level, comes to you from five places, and those are your five senses: what you see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. So number one, you're going to go find an event. And I think there are four events you can use. One is a time you shined. So let's just say we're looking at project management skills. A time when you were really tested and you came through. The second source of story is a time when you blew it.

And we just were talking about that, a time when you made a huge mistake and you learned from that mistake. Those are really powerful stories. You can tell a story about a mentor, someone who taught you about project management, and when you tell that story about a mentor, the listener can tell you got it simply by the way you tell the story.

So that's a good source. And then to a lesser extent, you can lift an example from a book or a movie. So those are the four situations. So you choose one of them that gives an example of the quality you're trying to prove. And that's what a story is. Proof of your assertion—whatever it is that you want them to know about you. What you're doing is you're dipping back into a body of evidence, which is basically your life story, and you're coming up with a sample so that they can experience it.

When you tell of the sample experience, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And you look at it chronologically; there are characters, so you simply tell the story in a way that the person can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste for themselves. For instance, if I talk about a time when I blew it, I overpromised.

That's a summary. And yet, when I take them to a scene where there are 75 people in a room who don't understand the task that I've given them—I have tried to make it simple, with color-coded highlighters and the white paper, you know, taped on the wall that you see in every retreat they’ve ever been to. And I've thought out exactly how this process should work, and it is not working.

One table of people has stolen everyone's highlighters and they're making little towers out of it. There are people who are building a tower with the paper that we're supposed to be writing on. Those are specific events so that there's imagery and evidence of basically a screwup—overpromising and under-delivering. And then I talk about my client walking over to me with two bottles of water and turning to face the same way I'm facing, looking out upon this mess, rocking back and forth on his feet, taking in a deep breath and saying without looking at me, “You've never done this before, have you?”

And me saying nope. And then he hands me one of the bottles of water and he says, “I just thought you might be thirsty.”

Anita Brick: Geez.

Annette Simmons: And I said, thank you. And he walked away. And eventually I made it work, you know, as you do. But when I tell that story, it has two levels. One is a time when I overpromised and under-delivered, and I can talk about how I decided I would never let that happen again. But on another level, it gets to be a mentor story because Mark, my client, taught me what it feels like to screwup and have that mistake met with compassion and confidence and faith that I'll figure it out myself.

So his example to me gave me confidence to try this and then become committed to respond to people’s screwups with both compassion and a confidence that they can figure it out themselves.

Anita Brick: So someone, for example, they could use a story like that if they're going into a situation where they've never managed people, exactly, but they've been in situations where they have managed, in a sense, and they're able to at least make a case.

Annette Simmons: Absolutely. And the thing is that you can make a case for doing it well, and you can also use a situation where you haven't done it well. That's one of the injunctions I'm hoping that people will not place upon themselves for looking for stories, and that's one of the reasons people find it hard to find a story, is that every little story idea that comes into their head, they're going, oh, not that one.

Oh no, that's too personal. Oh, that's the time I screwed up. Then they'll think I don't know what I'm doing. The reason it's hard to come up with stories is that your critical voice keeps rejecting all these good ideas. I'm asking you to simply tell it to shut up for a minute, come up with a story; tell it to someone in your peer group.

It's very important to test the story because frankly, you don't know how it's going to sound until you tell another human being. You can't practice a story in your head. It just doesn't work. It's a waste of your time. It's much faster to tell it to somebody else. You get to see how their eyes and face react, and you get to ask them what they liked about the story.

I'm real big about not asking for a critique. I won't go into that, but that's again from the objective system, and critiques can kill a baby story dead before it even learns how to walk. So I strongly recommend that you ask for appreciations, things that people liked about the story, and then build that story towards the light—you know, build on your strengths.

Make sure that you are looking for what works in the story, and then you'll find that you end up with a lot more stories than you would have if you had first listened to that critical voice that rejected all the little ideas before they had a chance to grow.

Anita Brick: That's actually very good advice. So, OK, now I go into an interview and I'm making a case of why I should be hired for a position in investment management when I've been an engineer. And I think I've told a good story, I've shown how my quantitative skills transfer and all of this, and yet people don't seem convinced. The feedback that I get is really all about, you know, you just don't have the experience.

And often that means I just haven't told a good enough story. How do I go back and regroup after I've had sort of a story rejected?

Annette Simmons: Well, when someone's rejecting data, it has to do with the criteria they're using to evaluate, OK. And so I think a better use of your time is to get them to tell you a story so that you can better understand their criteria, because you could disappear into a spiral of self-examination and never find the right sweet spot, because you don't understand where the sweet spot is.

Anita Brick: Good point. So how do you do that? Either, say, in a networking situation where you have a short period of time or in an interview situation?

Annette Simmons: First of all, stories usually take a lot less time than you think. You always have time for a story. If you've thought about it ahead of time, you can probably edit a story down to three sentences.

Anita Brick: Oh, good.

Annette Simmons: Point number two. How do you get them to tell you a story? The first thing you do is you begin to alter the tone and the atmosphere of the conversation into storytelling mode. And you do that by going first. You tell a story that's very specific and don't go too long, or else they're going to back away from this whole idea of moving the communication to a more personal level—because that's what you're doing with storytelling: you're moving it to a more personal level.

So when you tell a story, what it does is it invokes a storytelling response because every story begets a story. The easiest way to look at this phenomena is to think about the meaning-making process we went through after 9/11. The first thing you did was you called everybody that you knew to make sure they were OK.

And then the second thing you did is you told the story of where you were when you heard, and you asked people to tell you the story of where they were. And we have been telling those stories. And right now my guess is you are remembering the story of where you were. I'm remembering the story of where I was, and everyone listening to this feels an urge to retell that story.

That's the storytelling impulse. When I tell you that I was on a StairMaster in Denver, Colorado, about to teach a federal group leadership skills, specifically storytelling, and that we had people there who had family and peers and the Pentagon at the time. When I asked them what they wanted to do, they said, we want to continue rather than watch TV—because we had two TVs in the room—we want to continue with the training because if we don't, then they win.

This tiny little story will probably prompt someone to want to tell their story about where they were. Am I right? Are you thinking about where you were?

Anita Brick: I think so, I think in our audience it depends maybe where in the world they were, because this is a global audience that listens.

Annette Simmons: Everybody knows. Everybody.

Anita Brick: That's true. It's a good point.

Annette Simmons: I was in Nigeria and gave this example.

Anita Brick: And so at that point you tell a very brief story.

Annette Simmons: And then you ask them for, what examples can you think of when you discovered that investment banking is not like anything else?

Anita Brick: And hopefully that will engage them?

Annette Simmons: Yeah, I mean, some people are kind of bullies. You're going to end up with interviewers who are bullies and they're not going to give you a thing because they're operating by some idea that if they reveal anything about their desires of what they're looking for, that then you won't be honest. And you have to deal with those people who just bounce connections off of them, because in most situations, and by the third story, you've got a human connection somewhere.

Because if you're telling about a universal human value—integrity, respect, honesty, compassion, any one of those—you're going to make a connection. Then it's simply a function of telling a story that's meaningful. Now, if after three times you haven't made a connection, you're dealing with someone who's actively defending against connection, or there's just something wrong, and it's happened to all of us.

My recommendation is to address that issue in the moment, rather than continuing to pitch to someone who's not hitting.

Anita Brick: So, for example, if I say to you, you know, I feel like perhaps we're not connecting …

Annette Simmons: I wouldn't go that far, because it's too direct. The beauty of storytelling is that you don't have to name it.

Anita Brick: Let's say I was really a bully in this conversation, and I was just not connecting with you. As we're supposed to be dialoguing about stories, what would you do to bring me back?

Annette Simmons: Good example. I would begin to talk about a time when I worked with the Pentagon, and you would think that the Pentagon would be the last place that you would want to use a story. But I'm going to tell you that I even went further and I used poetry with the Pentagon.

Anita Brick: Oh, geez.

Annette Simmons: I'll have to admit, there's a couple of nights in my life where I've stayed awake the night before I worked with a client because I was genuinely afraid of the client, and I wanted to serve because ultimately, that's how I live in the world. I want to be of service. But at the same time, I have this desire to be considered like the best consultant they've ever had. And so the dilemma is going to always take me to a place where I want to risk almost too much.

In that situation, it paid off. The story is too long to tell here. It's in the book, actually. But I used poetry to take the people there to a situation that is familiar. And then I told a story—because we were there for a budget meeting—about … I actually told a poem written by Billy Rose about the Unknown Soldier, which takes them to a time and a place and an emotional state of considering the men and women they know personally.

Anita Brick: So at that point, you then connect with them emotionally, and at that point you had the space to actually tell a story to take them to the next step.

Annette Simmons: Absolutely. If I was going to give a top line, what if you're dealing with someone who's not being a human being, to steal a quote from someone I can't remember, you have to be one first, right?

Anita Brick: OK. And that may take a little bit more experience to be able to finesse that.

Annette Simmons: Absolutely. Because our tendency is to name the issue. When you said, you know, I don't feel like we're connecting, I used to do that all the time, and 90 percent of the time the response I got was actually defensive.

Anita Brick: Yeah. Now it makes perfect sense.

Annette Simmons: They're going to say, well, I don't think … you know, what makes you think we're not connecting? And I know you're connected, right? I feel connected to you. Well, yeah. Yeah, it's just like … so the story allows you to name an issue without naming it.

Anita Brick: Good. Well, I know we're almost out of time, but I wanted to ask you one final question, if I may. If I am someone who feels inept at crafting a story, what are three things I can do to start feeling more confident about it?

Annette Simmons: The first thing is to find a story and tell it in a low-risk situation. OK? Because what I'm going to take you on … is basically practice success. So number one is to practice, right? Number two is to notice what works. Because the reason you feel inept—my operating theory about the reason you feel inept is that you're too hard on yourself.

And I've been doing this for a decade, and I've never seen a situation where that wasn't true. Awkwardness, ultimately, is a product of this internal voice that says, oh, you're stupid, or that didn't work, or blah blah, blah, blah, blah, or even, you know, listening to other people, let's just say your dad was really hard on you.

You know, that voice keeps coming up and you're so stupid. There are going to be voices that say you're smart, and there are going to be voices that say you're stupid in life. And so if you listen to the ones that say you're stupid, you're going to feel awkward; listen to ones that say you're smart, you're going to feel more competent.

Anita Brick: OK, OK, good. And the third.

Annette Simmons: The third … let me think.

Anita Brick: Or maybe there are only two.

Annette Simmons: Yeah, I think if you, you know, repeat above. Repeat one and two.

Anita Brick: So find something that you feel like you can start with. Do it in a low-risk situation and then look to yourself and maybe to others to find out what works and use that as a foundation to build on. Great. This was really great. Thank you so much.

Annette Simmons: Well, I'm grateful for the opportunity to help.

Anita Brick: Well, we appreciate it. And if anyone wants to learn more about … you have some wonderful things on your website. You can go to GroupProcessConsulting.com. … Thanks again, and thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at the Chicago GSB. Keep advancing.