A Fable: The Wolves and the storyteller

We tell a lot of stories in our workshops. And, because we know that great stories are one of the most powerful ways for people to understand and retain useful information, our workshops always contain a 'Big Story' that really encapsulates the key messages that we want attendees to go away remembering.

Writers of fables like Aesop, Hans Christien Anderson and Ambrose Bierce knew this - simple engaging stories with a core message are a great way to make enough of an impression on people to kick start a change in their thinking and possibly their behaviour. What are you most likely to remember, a slide with 5 bullet points or a story about a boy who cries Wolf before getting eaten by one?

For this to really work, good story telling is crucial. Being able to take people on a emotional journey, hold their attention, build curiosity and provide entertainment are invaluable skills in our training toolkit.

But the biggest skill is in the selection of the right story - it has to act as a perfect metaphor, providing a parallel to the point you're making in a way that makes people to go "ahhh, I get this... If I do things like that in my life, I'll get similar results..."

The more memorable the story, the more likely people are to retain, recall and act on the message it contains.

First, you need to have a broad repertoire of stories - and go out of your way to find more and more interesting, off the wall, little known stories - each researched in detail and underpinned with dates, locations and interesting facts. Then, you need to be able to identify how each story can be used to sum up a key message in such a powerful way that it will never be forgotten. And 'never' is the important part here - we aim to tell our stories in such a way that they'll be impossible to forget. That way, we achieve true behaviour change in the people we tell tell them to.

Back in March, we worked with a professional sports team for the first time. Warrington Wolves had lost their 3 opening games of the 2009 Super League season. On top of the 5 losses at the end of the 2008 campaign, 8 defeats on the bounce had led to a dive in confidence that had started to affect the Rugby's team morale adversely. We were invited to spend a day with the squad to 'do something different' with them. There were a number of things we were asked to focus on but the main outcome the coaching staff wanted was greater patience and belief that if they stuck to a game plan, in the long term, it would pay off with results.

We designed our workshop structure with the relevant sections and supporting exercises before moving on to selecting our Big Story. It had to have undertones of patience, composure, mental resilience, overcoming odds and a solid example of internal positive attitude despite negative external views.

Fast forward to August 2009 and the Warrington Wolves have just secured a place in the Challenge Cup Final at Wembley - something they haven't done since 1990 in a competition they haven't won since 1974.

There are many reasons for the turn around in their fortunes and I don't for one moment think that our workshop is the reason for their success. But I do know that the story we told during the Instant Impact Workshop back in March made an impact on them.

The first time I knew it had an impact was when their key playmaker came straight up to me at the end of the workshop and said "Can I have a copy of that video you showed at the end?"

Then, recently, I had a meeting with one of their Great Britain International players to get some feedback on the workshop. He told me that many of the players still mention our story during training or when they are together as a group. He also said that the way they are now playing - finishing matches strongly and remaining confident in their ability even when losing - is uncannily like the character in our story.

When I told the 'Cliffy' story to the Warrington Wolves players, 30 of them had been sat in a training room for 5 hours with only a short break for a mountain of carbohydrates. For a group of athletes who like to be outdoors or in the gym, it's not a comfortable environment. They were restless and despite throwing themselves in to the session as a whole, some of them were looking like they'd had enough.

I knew that they would be getting fidgety by the time we got to the 'Cliffy' story. But I also knew it was where we would bind everything we'd covered together in their minds and allow them to apply it. Everything from the selection of the story to the way in which we made it of interest to them had to be carefully thought through.

Knowing that they are athletes and were more likely to respect a sportsman than a business man, we used a sporting heroics story - but it couldn't be a cliche or something they all already knew about. We wanted a sense of anticipation - not 'yeah, yeah, we know this one!'. Choosing something that happened before their time or when they were very young made most sense.

With an audience of British and Australian players, we chose something that had a Down Under theme to create a bit of rivalry and pride in the room.

We also decided to show a 2 minute video clip before telling the story verbally. The clip was a carefully prepared montage of photographs and youtube clips with a series of questions posed over the footage - the opening sequence referring to maps of Australia and Great Britain to pour fuel on the Aussie vs. Pom pride. Getting people in the right state of mind before they hear a story is crucial.

For the background music, we chose an emotional song with lyrics that conveyed a sense of time - important in terms of patience and helping people realise that you're never too old or too experienced to change. It also happened to be by an artist who we knew from our research many of the players had stated as a personal favourite, with an acoustic guitar rhythm to appeal to the 5 or 6 known guitarists in the squad. The song title and chorus even contained the name of the sporting hero in question. The devil is in the detail.

When the clip ended, I told the back story to the video clip in a humourous way but laboured all of the important facts that we wanted the players to retain. And even though I was being humourous with the story, the players were captivated - leaning forward in their chairs, eager to hear the next line.

When I finished, you could feel the gasp of air across the room as the players took a pull of oxygen to reflect on the outcome of the story, now sitting back in admiration at the character of the main character of the story.

So, what's the story?

If they win at Wembley, I'll blog it and share it.

For now, I'm just going to wish the players the best for their final appearance by saying "Go Cliffy"

If you need to make a change to your team's performance, on the field or in the office, contact us.

Related Blog - What's the opposite of comfort zone

UPDATE - Warrington Wolves did win the Carnegie Challenge Cup - as promised, here's the story.