True Storytelling - You must reflect on the stories and how to create value
Principle 7 “You must reflect on the stories and how they create value”* is about the importance of reflection and how you integrate it in your daily business.
Create value is the number 1 in all Business adventures. Sometimes especially in the very established companies we do as we always have done – and then one day someone enters and they can see a completely different angle to the story.
In one of my first jobs I was supporting a product portfolio in a very very simple way. I just had to take a fax that was received and bring it to the order-facility. So super simple. Then one day I found out that the paper I received was actually an order of products, where no one paid any interest to the portfolio.
I asked if I could do something to give it more awareness and the management team decided to let me have a try. I gathered all the data that was behind each product, which accessories that was necessary, which therapeutic area it could support and the key description of each product. Then I reflected on the previous stories being told - and I brought together a new story that was supported by a graphical redesign and new images. We made sure each product told it’s own story. It was so simple but no one had done it for years. The portfolio had more or less been forgotten.
The material I created brought value. It guided which accessories to use, it showed the exact therapeutic areas and it gave detailed product description. I then added an overview of studies supporting each product.
The Doctors within this area was so glad for this material, that suddenly the company was presented at congresses with the portfolio and invited to do specific workshops. The Doctors wanted to create new studies as the procedures had evolved since they first were launched and the market grew.
It is in the simplicity, that we can find the answers. The more complex we make a situation, a project, a story – the more difficult it becomes to tell it and in the end to understand it.
Within Marketing & Branding we say: Your story has to be so simple that a 7-year old can understand it. It is art being able to tell a story in such a simple way but when you can do that all the stories you add on will work in flow.
In the reflection process, I use as a foundation – information gathering. When I have gathered everything, I then process it, down to the smallest detail. Then I let it be. I go for a walk. Don’t work on it in several days and then the innovation process happens all by itself. It comes like a wave of Energy. It is like in the cartoons, where you suddenly see a lightbulp. There it was – and thereby I create.
I have tried so many times to be forced to create without having the reflection time – and for me that doesn’t work. I need to find into that angle no one else has seen, connecting the dots in a different way – and for me to reach into that state of innovation – I need to go in a period of silence of reflection. Not thinking at all. I have spoken to a lot of people that say the same. It is like it is an universal thing – and I believe more and more in it. The more you try to force something through the more resistance you simply create. It is like trying to paddle against the stream. It gets so heavy so difficult. It takes strength and you are exhausted as you don’t feel that you are accomplishing anything and are not anyway near your goal. So what to do instead? Just let go. Focus on something else that also needs your intention. Something that brings you joy and happiness and then let the other thing solve itself. Because the magic is everything will always be sorted. No matter how complicated – as nothing can stay status quo.
The above is using reflection to create new projects and to bring in the creative side. But reflection can also be when you look back at what you already have created without any intention to become more creative or to create more. But simply pure reflection of the milestones you have achieved and how far you have come.
So that you can acknowledge yourself for how far you have come with the project and with yourself.
If you have the courage to look at your life, the projects you encounter, the business you are building as an opportunity to self-development and growth, you will be amazed on how your life can emerge. What you can experience – and here I have a secret sauce to share with you. If you can during the entire progress, have one focus, which is self-love and self-respect and practice this throughout your relations you can build like no tomorrow.
You will be in an endless stream of good things happening to you because you now see all the situations as a lesson and or a blessing and know that you want to achieve the best possible outcome.
Therefore I am also a great believer of Love as a tool in Business. I am not talking of a romantic kind of Love. I am talking of the heartfelt feeling of truly caring for the Business relation, for the project. We are all people and thereby also Energy. If our intensions are true and we wish to create value for all parties involved in a project. It will mirror in all situations.
I believe that if we can find our own path to our authentic selves, we will create a brighter future for all. There will not be the focus on profit as we all would feel whole within ourselves. Thereby there would not be a need for the external and material things as we will not need it anymore. This will create a balance that I believe we need now more than ever in our world.
This movement has already started very slowly, where more and more have started to reflect over their busy jobs, their big houses and material stuff. Simple is more, Less is more. The funny is the fewer possessions you have, the more wealthy you actually feel.
This movement of independency has started and I do believe Covid-19 has spiraled it. More and more people have had time to reflect over their lives and found out that they needed to be fulfilled in a different way, not by materialism but within. They wish to find out their true passion and help others through their passion and thereby live a fulfilling life.
The energy this comes from and creates is so different from the chasing of the external success and materialism. It comes from within. The feeling it brings within you, when you no longer need anyone to validate you is so profound and at the same time it has such a creative energy, that suddenly all dreams come true. You feel light and you look around in all the situations in your life, all your relations and you feel at peace. That is the end-goal for living the True Storytelling principles and I do believe we all can accomplish this.
*The 7 principles are from the book True Storytelling, Seven Principles For An Ethical and Sustainable Change-Management Strategy by Jens Larsen, David M. Boje and Lena Bruun.
Anne-Marie Hall became a certified Trainer by the True Storytelling Institute in February 2021.
Amazing Hall helps Healthcare Entrepreneurs and Executives through a mixture of storytelling and strategic marketing guidance to navigate in their journey.
