S2:E4 - Andrew Thorp

Welcome to another episode in Season 2 of 'Engaged in Conversation'. This time Phil Wedgwood, CEO of Engage Solutions Group, sits down with Andrew Thorp to discuss the importance of storytelling in today's business world and how creating an effective narrative across your business, customers and community can have a positive impact both internally and externally.Andrew Thorp is a consultant, coach, storyteller, and Ted Talk speaker who's clients have included PwC, KPMG, Swiss Re, World Health Organisation, Coca Cola, and Unilever. He is also a podcast host of the 'Leaning Forward Podcast' and Ted Talk

Transcript

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00:00:00:04 - 00:00:30:24
Phil Wedgwood
Hi I'm Phil and welcome to another series of engaged in conversation today. We're going to be focusing on something very interesting, which is the art of storytelling in a business capacity. We all know that if you tell a story, it's more engaging and more memorable. And when you look at interactions between your colleagues or between your customers and your colleagues, it's really powerful to collect those stories and share them through the organization and beyond.

00:00:31:08 - 00:00:48:09
Phil Wedgwood
The question is, how do we do that in an effective way? Well, today we're going to give you the answer to that. I'm joined by a storytelling guru, Andrew Thorpe, who's going to share his expertize and wisdom in how we deliver an effective story.

00:00:54:12 - 00:01:20:10
Phil Wedgwood
Andrew, welcome to the studio today. Thank you very much for coming. I probably describe you as the person that has really helped craft the art of storytelling in business, something that many people have heard about. But it's a skill that's hard to do, I think. So it's great for you to come and share your insights today. And I'm sure we're going to talk a lot about what storytelling means in business and how you can improve it.

00:01:21:01 - 00:01:24:08
Andrew Thorp
Now, it's great to be here, Phil. I'm delighted to share some some insights.

00:01:25:09 - 00:01:47:24
Phil Wedgwood
So the audience may not know, but we've worked together over recent months and you have a particularly fascinating skill set which which we wanted to utilize ourselves. But it really got me thinking about the value of it in terms of engagement generally for organizations. As you know, we specialize in fostering engagement across the audiences that matter most for a business.

00:01:47:24 - 00:02:05:03
Phil Wedgwood
So typically their colleagues, their customers and getting wider communities engaged on their brand and you have a fantastic skill set around the art of storytelling, which you like to share with us, that that sort of expertize and how that came about.

00:02:05:16 - 00:02:33:24
Andrew Thorp
And just thinking about what you're saying there, I think the skill or whatever it is that you think I have is to do with connection skills. And because it isn't just about broadcasting something that that's nicely framed and sounds more elegant, it's about whether it lands and resonates with the audience. So I think what I actually teach people who help people with this is connection skills and usually through the medium of verbal communication.

00:02:34:08 - 00:02:57:04
Andrew Thorp
So I call it verbal PR and it basically means that when you open your mouth, something interesting comes out, which somehow resonates with the people you're trying to connect with. And so for the most part, I help people frame their message in a different way. And and it started actually in a very, very odd way because I come from an apparently unrelated industry, which is the golf industry.

00:02:57:15 - 00:03:35:20
Andrew Thorp
And you think, well, how on earth do you move from Gulf to this? What's the connection? But for me, it's public speaking. So I worked for 22 years in the golf and leisure industry in the UK in a variety of roles. As a journalist, as a marketing manager, a general manager, a golf coach, because my brother's a golf professional, so I was considering a similar avenue and but then I changed direction about 13 years ago, probably in my mid to late forties and, and decided that the common thread, what I wanted to continue doing from the golf industry was public speaking because if you love it and very few people do and I do, and

00:03:35:20 - 00:03:57:03
Andrew Thorp
this oodles of opportunity to do it in the golf industry because of all the prize giving and ceremonies associated with the sport. And so I set out to become a professional speaker and then realized that it's quite tough to earn a living initially. So I helped people present better in business because there's a it's of an enduring need for relief from death by PowerPoint.

00:03:57:22 - 00:04:19:20
Andrew Thorp
But it wasn't just, you know, the nerves and the anxiety that people were suffering with. It was problematic for them. It was that what they had to say wasn't as interesting as it could be. They didn't have a story. It was very dry. It was very factual. It was rather cold and transactional, and it informed the audience, but it didn't move them.

00:04:20:06 - 00:04:43:13
Andrew Thorp
There was nothing in there that inspired them. It was very dry and cold. So I set about, first of all, helping them to craft a better message if typically they represented an organization and where there was a product to service. And also the ethos and the culture of the business needed to be communicated because people would then see them as somebody worth dealing with.

00:04:43:21 - 00:05:08:22
Andrew Thorp
Or I like the sound of them, not just as a potential client, but also as an employee as well. I'd like to work for a company like that because I like the the vibe that's coming across in the story that's being told about them. So that's kind of the genesis of all of this. It came about from helping people present better on a formal stage, but then it's expanded into every form of verbal and written, but mostly verbal communication.

00:05:09:06 - 00:05:14:13
Phil Wedgwood
And what would you say the main use cases for this advice is being pointed out?

00:05:14:24 - 00:05:53:20
Andrew Thorp
Well, initially, as I said, it was about when they were on a stage. So typically, typically they would be projecting a message to an audience on a public platform of some kind and to introduce themselves to the audience to to raise awareness of what they did and who they were. But I think in recent years, it's also been about what happens on the inside of an organization, because you have a storytelling challenge internally as well, where the vision, the values, the mission, the purpose of the organization, I call that the big picture stuff needs to resonate with the workforce because the way that the leaders see the company might not be the way that the

00:05:53:20 - 00:06:20:00
Andrew Thorp
workforce sees it, and there's a disconnect. So you have this very interesting relationship between the macro message, which comes from the top, so to speak, but the micro stories that come from the coalface. And they need to illustrate that you're living out those values, that sense of purpose. But often there is a disconnect. The two and the two levels within the organization see things very differently.

00:06:20:00 - 00:06:51:12
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah, I would agree with that. And we see that from both sides of those audiences because we see corporate head office type functions that with the challenge of portraying those classically kind of top down messaging to the staff and then also enabling the staff to have a voice and communicate to their peer group and outputs through the organization with their typically more informal social media esque messaging, which inherently is often more engaging because it's coming from within, it's coming from the people.

00:06:51:21 - 00:07:00:21
Phil Wedgwood
And so I think there is an interesting joining of the two, and I think there is an opportunity for many organizations to improve that capability for sure.

00:07:01:07 - 00:07:21:11
Andrew Thorp
I think you also get people working in silos within that coalface area where they don't necessarily see how their work connects with other silos. And that in turn is in service to that big idea. So there's lots of connection that needs to be done internally as well as just connecting with an external audience.

00:07:22:16 - 00:07:30:01
Phil Wedgwood
So can you think of some good examples where you've advised organizations or individuals to improve that?

00:07:30:01 - 00:08:02:10
Andrew Thorp
Yeah, I worked for a while. For them, they're actually a school where company, they provide school uniform for many, many schools across the UK and typically in in retail and customer facing situations. You're looking for good stories from from the, you know, from the coalface. Sometimes the managers who send in one of those stories where one of their staff has done something really good, doesn't do justice to what was actually done because the story wasn't told very well.

00:08:02:10 - 00:08:31:23
Andrew Thorp
It was very surface level. So occasionally you have to dig down a little bit and become like a journalist and interview the person who's the subject of the story and actually drill down to find out what actually happened and why. Therefore, what they did was really good. So if, for example, in one case, one of the the young members of staff, I think it was a summer student who worked in one of the stores, helped a young boy who was concerned about his body shape, put it that way.

00:08:32:19 - 00:08:56:21
Andrew Thorp
And this young man, the summer student, calm them down and found some kind of bond in connection with this boy because he himself had an autistic brother and he'd had to learn to communicate with him in a particular way and connect with him. And he was also doing a psychology degree at university, but neither of those two pieces of information were given to me initially, and therefore the story was a little flat.

00:08:56:21 - 00:09:14:00
Andrew Thorp
It was okay, but it was a bit flat. And then at the end of the interaction with the little boy, the mother came over to the summer student and said, The way that you dealt with it, do you know what I wish? If I ever had another child, I wish he'd be like you. And he went bright red and then, you know, the tears started to flow.

00:09:14:17 - 00:09:27:22
Andrew Thorp
And so the story that was done wasn't they didn't do justice to it with the bed details that was sent initially. And then when the story was retold in the enhanced form, then it really hit home.

00:09:28:17 - 00:09:48:08
Phil Wedgwood
And I think that's really interesting because many of us lose the ability or don't have the ability to sort of step away and look out and look back in on something, especially for yourself. And you have that great skill of questioning and drawing out those additional elements that you've just example there.

00:09:48:12 - 00:10:11:24
Andrew Thorp
And I think it's similar, you know, filtered to journalists or observational comedians who are always on the lookout for stories. They have mental antennae that are always twitching. And and one of the phrases I use with people is you build your library. You're always having to be hoovering up stories that people don't always see. The story stuff happens to them, but they don't see.

00:10:11:24 - 00:10:38:18
Andrew Thorp
Or I could use that. That's interesting. So I have a process which I coach people through of being curious, of hoovering up things, figuring out what the angle might be, of what they could make of it to make perhaps, you know, a point about leadership or customer service or employee engagement, and then practice telling it. But in a safe setting, you know, I'll often be found walking or running in the hills, talking to myself, but I'm actually practicing.

00:10:38:18 - 00:11:03:00
Andrew Thorp
So that story, I'm sad that way. And and then once you're confident with it, then you can roll this out and start using it in a public situation where you really have to, you know, to nail it. So that that's like a process. And it isn't just stories. Your library is things like analogies, metaphors, models for explaining things, you know, like Maslow's hierarchy of needs would be an example of a model to explain something.

00:11:03:00 - 00:11:21:21
Andrew Thorp
And I have a few models as well that I've developed and they're all in the library and you pull them out when you need to. And in a in a sort of a formal presenting situation, I call that a pip, a pre-prepared presentation. You might deliberately position some of these things in a set order in what you want to say.

00:11:22:08 - 00:11:41:07
Andrew Thorp
But in a conversation, it's more it's more spontaneous. So I call it rehearsed spontaneity. So you've used up that model, that metaphor, that story before, but you don't know when you're going to bring it out because I didn't know I was going to tell you. The the school with the school west Sorry. And that's just the brief version of it.

00:11:41:07 - 00:11:43:01
Andrew Thorp
There's a longer version and a shorter version.

00:11:43:24 - 00:11:59:04
Phil Wedgwood
So when you engage with a new client, whether that be an executive or leadership team or whoever, an individual, what's the process that you go through and typically, how long would that take to build up these libraries or however you go about?

00:11:59:19 - 00:12:35:11
Andrew Thorp
Well, it depends what the format is for delivering my input. So often I'll be asked to do workshops, you know, so there might be a full day or a half day workshop or if it's virtual, maybe a series of two hour workshops on how to use storytelling as an influencing skill. So typically they would be consultants or people who work in consulting related industries where they have to be better at winning people over, but building that trust, getting them the client side to open up and tell them their story so that they can arrive at a solution.

00:12:36:08 - 00:12:59:17
Andrew Thorp
But in other situations it might be more of a coaching relationship whereby I'm working with maybe the CEO or some of the senior salespeople to help develop their material so that the that able to use it either in that pre-prepared sense or in these more spontaneous, you know, conversational situations. So it depends on what the client wants in terms of the delivery of the training or the input.

00:13:00:12 - 00:13:14:16
Phil Wedgwood
But typically, how long might that take? Would it be one or two sessions, or would you do a program where you can allow people to go away, do some homework, and then draw upon these stories? Because that's part of the process. Presumably it's not just going to happen in a couple of hours.

00:13:14:16 - 00:13:31:12
Andrew Thorp
No, you can't learn storytelling in a day. Somebody once said, you don't learn how to ride a bicycle in a day, you know, or it's a seminar. You've got to practice it over time. So the frustration when you're delivering workshops is you may never see those people again and you don't know what they're going to do with it.

00:13:32:05 - 00:13:52:22
Andrew Thorp
So working with individuals over a number of weeks on, say, a run of coaching sessions is a better way of doing it because you see them progress, but you've got to space the sessions apart a bit like when I used to teach golf, you know, you can't have a golf lesson the day after the first one because you haven't got time to practice, but you don't want to come back a month later because you've have forgotten what you were meant to do the first time around.

00:13:53:04 - 00:14:17:09
Andrew Thorp
I know this stuff's got in the way and so you really need to have maybe a two, ideally two, two week gap or a three week gap between sessions and then I'll give them homework to be doing in the meantime. So for example, they might want a better way of introducing themselves, or they might want a better way of pitching their business in 5 minutes and produce some slides which I can then evaluate and suggest some some changes to.

00:14:17:09 - 00:14:41:16
Phil Wedgwood
It's a fascinating area, and I think we're always looking for ways to improve that connection. I like that word that you used before, because ultimately that's a big part of engagement. Isn't safety connecting individuals together, then the message will resonate. And I look at I mean, what's your take on how good you think organizations are generally on facilitating that?

00:14:41:19 - 00:14:42:18
Phil Wedgwood
The art of that?

00:14:43:02 - 00:15:03:10
Andrew Thorp
What if I introduce a model to you now? I mentioned models before from the library. I have one called the three layered cake. So you have your top layer, which I call the big picture. So that typically will be a vision, your values, your sense of purpose and so forth. That's the conceptual glue that holds everything together that you're doing in the company.

00:15:04:01 - 00:15:29:18
Andrew Thorp
Then you have your machinery layer, which is the nuts and bolts, the factual framework. If you know where you're based, how many staff you have, what do you sell? How much does it cost? How do you deliver it? That kind of thing. But on its own, it's dry, it's factual, it's useful information and probably necessary. But if that's all you talk about, very dry, and then the lower layer is the library, as I've mentioned before, all those little sort of nuggets of wisdom that you can pull out when you need to.

00:15:30:06 - 00:15:48:06
Andrew Thorp
So I think the really good communicators move up and down the three layers. There's elements of each in their message. And if you look at something like a TED Talk, for example, a TED Talk will often start with something from the library. You know, they'll start with five years ago I walked into a bar and immediately you're intrigued.

00:15:48:06 - 00:16:09:20
Andrew Thorp
Where's this going? This sounds this sounds interesting. And then they'll hook the audience with that. And then they'll say, and I mentioned this story because I think that experience in that bar to me illustrates what's wrong or good about our organization. And then they'll get to the big picture. So you go library, big picture. So they see the broader context of what that story means.

00:16:10:03 - 00:16:38:19
Andrew Thorp
And then you'll go into the into the machinery layer and maybe explain this is how it's been working in a pilot project we've been running in our Manchester office. So you got a library, big picture machine, right? That's a nice sequence to go through. And just to finish answering your question, I think most people I work with are perfectly capable of describing the machinery layer because it's tangible, factual, close to what they do every day.

00:16:39:09 - 00:17:03:22
Andrew Thorp
They're not terribly good at the conceptual layer because it's a bit fluffy and big picture stuff and can be a bit vacuous and meaningless to people on the ground. And they're usually terrible at the library layer because loads of stuff has happened to them. They're doing great things in the organization, but they can't pull something out and describe it really nicely in a condensed way, but nonetheless doing justice to the story.

00:17:04:07 - 00:17:07:06
Andrew Thorp
So the very good at the middle one, not so good at the top two in the bottom one.

00:17:07:11 - 00:17:22:21
Phil Wedgwood
Mm. I suppose it's like anything isn't it. It becomes an acquired skill that you master over time, in the more certainly something like public speaking, the more you do it the better you'll get. Well, maybe not though, right? Because you can do something badly for a long time as well.

00:17:22:21 - 00:17:39:16
Andrew Thorp
So this is saying, isn't it? We use this in the golf industry and that people say practice makes perfect, but actually practice makes permanent because you ingrain bad habits if you're practicing the same thing. So perfect practice makes perfect.

00:17:39:16 - 00:17:45:02
Phil Wedgwood
So you using the golf analogy a lot? Is that something you still do? You still play? Do you still have time to?

00:17:45:06 - 00:18:02:07
Andrew Thorp
I do play a little bit. Not nearly as much as I used to. Yeah, but I don't know. As I've got older, I've got less competitive about wanting to play well because I mean, I did play to a reasonable level as an amateur and it's quite hard to play now, not very well, because you remember what you ought to be like.

00:18:02:13 - 00:18:20:12
Andrew Thorp
And but now I'm interested in other things. Now I'm interested in people. I really have a fascination for people and for stories and for ways of humanizing what can otherwise be very cold corporate language, which just doesn't connect with people.

00:18:21:06 - 00:18:31:21
Phil Wedgwood
No. And I think you can clearly see there's a natural affinity with sport and business. And that's used a lot, isn't it, in people? People relate to it because they like sport.

00:18:31:21 - 00:18:32:04
Andrew Thorp
Yes.

00:18:33:00 - 00:18:53:17
Phil Wedgwood
And sports personalities are very is almost easy for them because they're very well known. They have usually a fascinating story to tell as well about how they've achieved the things they've achieved. And in business, you see the same you see a lot of figurehead type people that have a fascinating story to tell. So it's arguably easier for them to to to do that.

00:18:54:00 - 00:19:05:14
Phil Wedgwood
But your average person that might think, well, I don't have that lifestyle to have that type of a a success behind me. How do I tell a story that's of interest? I think that's the the fascinating.

00:19:05:20 - 00:19:35:16
Andrew Thorp
I think what you've seen certainly in the media in recent years is more of an interest in the small stories of ordinary people as opposed to the celebrity people that the very well known public figures. So you have the listening project on BBC Radio for which I really like listening to where they just have a, like a little recording studio and two people, maybe a mother and a son sitting in the recording studio and just share stuff and it's recorded and broadcast and it's fascinating, absolutely fascinating.

00:19:35:22 - 00:20:03:23
Andrew Thorp
And many people will say to me, well, I don't really have any stories. You know, I just lead a very humdrum existence. Nothing happens to me, but it does. But they choose not to see it, perhaps because they don't want to be in the limelight. You know, they may be feeling that it's it's they don't want to be the center of attention and they deflect or opt out, but actually, when when someone like myself sits down with them, I'll find things in their story which are absolutely fascinating, which they never thought were of interest to anybody.

00:20:04:02 - 00:20:06:09
Andrew Thorp
And actually, they've often forgotten about them themselves.

00:20:07:21 - 00:20:26:10
Phil Wedgwood
I think that's the thing that can have an impact certainly did for me when you did the process. For me it was quite profound. There were areas where I thought, gosh, I've never made those connections. And between this event and that event. And it was it was really enlightening to go through that process at an individual level.

00:20:26:10 - 00:20:51:01
Andrew Thorp
And things like can in job interviews where you're often asked, Well, tell me about your values. What do you believe in? You know, you can say things like, Well, I believe in fairness and justice and integrity and authenticity, but but why? That's the interesting question. Where do those values come from? And it's often because of an experience someone's had that's been a formative experience or an upbringing or a parents or a mentor, you know, someone they really admired.

00:20:51:12 - 00:21:11:16
Andrew Thorp
And that's shaped them in some way. That's very interesting. But again, the individual often hasn't reflected on that. They're just used to trotting off the line that I believe in fairness, but the why and where does it come from? Digs down, and then you get a sort of under the bonnet, so to speak. Well, under the hood for our American listeners.

00:21:11:16 - 00:21:40:20
Phil Wedgwood
Yes. Yes. I think there's a huge increase in people's intrigue around the individual. And through the COVID years, especially, we've we've gone from an environment where, you know, us Brits have been typically that sort of stiff upper lip, quite sort of private people. And so we don't necessarily engage and connect to an individual, a human level, telling our most sort of personal stories with people.

00:21:41:03 - 00:21:54:00
Phil Wedgwood
I think the I think the last couple of years a lot of that shifted and the environment is much more open now. And I think part of the challenge is getting organizations to have a culture that enables that to take place.

00:21:54:09 - 00:22:25:07
Andrew Thorp
I think people are worried about about showing vulnerability. And and I would recommend you listeners check out Brené Brown's TEDx talk about vulnerability, which is beautiful and and vulnerability, I guess if you're in a leadership or, you know, a senior position, you have to handle carefully because you don't want it to undermine people's respect for you. So it's not a case of just sharing everything, you know, putting all your dirty laundry out there for public view.

00:22:25:20 - 00:22:48:18
Andrew Thorp
It's about choosing to reveal something that people can still can therefore see you as a human being and but nonetheless, they still see you in a respectful way because they admire what you've achieved. They can see that you're a, you know, a solid individual. You're confident that perhaps there's something behind that that sheen of perfection that they can see behind are, you know, he is vulnerable.

00:22:48:18 - 00:22:54:24
Andrew Thorp
He's capable of error. And I think they can warned you that.

00:22:54:24 - 00:23:04:17
Phil Wedgwood
Do you think we have a culture in the UK that likes to find those vulnerabilities to the point where they are errors and almost look for people to be brought down?

00:23:04:17 - 00:23:27:18
Andrew Thorp
I think we have this tendency in the UK to bring people down from their high horse if they're very, very successful. Definitely, definitely. And but there's an interesting concept in, in public speaking called status management whereby if you're asked to speak on it on a public platform, there is necessarily an imbalance of status because, you know something that the audience doesn't because that's why you're there.

00:23:28:14 - 00:23:52:04
Andrew Thorp
But you can't keep it high because they'll start to think, well, he is above us. You know, he's talking down to us so often. You'll bring it down a bit with maybe a little bit of self-deprecation to them. So they think, Oh, he's he's like us. He's capable of doing something daft, but then you've got to bring it up again to justify your time on the stage and the time they've given to listen to you.

00:23:52:19 - 00:24:05:16
Andrew Thorp
But I give you a very quick example of their sit in and I gave a talk in Bucharest, in Romania a few years ago. It's a marketing conference and the guy before me was brilliant and I was thinking, No, no.

00:24:06:09 - 00:24:07:21
Phil Wedgwood
I'm going to follow him. Yeah.

00:24:08:01 - 00:24:30:21
Andrew Thorp
And then he opened with a lovely little story, said the other day, my eight year old boy came up to me and he said, Dad, we've got to we've got to bring your dad to school day coming up. And we've got to tell everybody in the school what our doubts do for a job. What is it you actually do again that work all day and it's not.

00:24:30:21 - 00:24:51:15
Andrew Thorp
I puffed out my chest and said, well, I'm that brand strategy gist, son. And he said, My son looked very disappointed at me and said, Well, actually, I think we've probably got enough dads coming along. Thanks, but I was the so the audience loved that. They all giggled. But then he went on to say, and it got me thinking, What is it that I actually do for a living?

00:24:52:06 - 00:25:08:00
Andrew Thorp
And I came to the conclusion that all I really do is I help organizations tell their story better. And obviously he's not related feel to me, but it was a lovely story because it brought down his status, but it didn't detract from the respect the audience had for him because he's there as a speaker and he knows some stuff clearly.

00:25:08:12 - 00:25:20:24
Andrew Thorp
And it's also nice and humble where we assume that wisdom is sent down from older people to younger people. But when you tell a story where it goes the other way, I think that's a really nice thing. So we opened brilliantly with that.

00:25:21:21 - 00:25:38:13
Phil Wedgwood
I think that's definitely a really good insight because people come at things from different angles. And gosh, when you look at social media and the way the likes of Tik Tok and Snapchat are being embraced by the younger generation, they're giving something back. They have a mechanism to tell a story in a way that the older generation don't.

00:25:40:00 - 00:25:54:01
Phil Wedgwood
And and that's really nice to see. And I think the challenge with the organizations is trying to foster the engagement across all levels of the organization and give the right tools for those individuals to connect and be able to share their insights and their stories.

00:25:54:19 - 00:26:11:24
Andrew Thorp
I think I think the internal storytelling, again, relates to this point that people often don't like to be the center of attention. They don't think they're doing anything spectacular. They'll often say, Well, I just do this. Yeah, it's often prefaced with the word just. And so you've almost got to give them the belief that what they're doing really matters.

00:26:12:06 - 00:26:32:22
Andrew Thorp
And it's linked with that, and it's linked with that. And that's the stuff that we do in this organization. It wouldn't happen without your, you know, link in the chain. And but again, the managers, I think of those people have to get better at spotting the small stuff because often the individuals won't put themselves forward. So, oh, look, I did that the other day.

00:26:32:22 - 00:26:48:15
Andrew Thorp
Could you talk about it? They won't do that. So the managers have to sort of tease that out of them. But as with the School West story, see the stuff that needs to be told, obviously with the permission of the subject. But that's what makes it a really lovely story from from the coalface.

00:26:49:05 - 00:27:05:19
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah, fantastic. Do you think that if you had a magic wand for an organization, is there is there something that you could ideally suggest that every organization would do? Where would you start to? Well, they.

00:27:05:19 - 00:27:42:04
Andrew Thorp
Almost need an in-house journalist and there are you know, sometimes people are red poets of residence in Heathrow Airport or something. So they are on the lookout for little stories to capture the essence of what the airport is doing, I guess as a as a as an organization, as a culture. And so the equivalent, I guess, would be somebody in-house who's really, really good at seeing these stories, but also teasing them out of people because they've got to win the trust of the people who are subjects of those stories so that they feel safe, you know, to be exposed in a way that they've done that.

00:27:42:23 - 00:28:12:02
Andrew Thorp
So it is and part of my training, I call it story listening skills, which sounds a bit counter intuitive because it actually isn't storytelling about telling, isn't it about you saying things, but it's actually about you as you are do with me asking questions, making the person feel safe to open up, building on the answers, making the person who speaking feel encouraged that what they're saying is meaningful and helpful, and then they start to be more forthcoming.

00:28:12:19 - 00:28:38:13
Andrew Thorp
And again, in consulting a little bit like the analogy of the doctor patient situation, the doctor has to make the patient feel safe, to be honest with them about their lifestyle, what they're doing at the moment, and not just present them with the symptom they think they're going to describe to the doctor. And I won't tell them all the other stuff, you know, because the doctor can't diagnose and prescribe properly unless the patient's honest and open.

00:28:38:13 - 00:29:00:15
Phil Wedgwood
We saw a great example in the media yesterday of the old lady who had to spend all day on the bus because she couldn't afford to heat her home and that, you know, that literally got the headlines and floored Boris in his tracks, didn't it, in the interview? Yeah, I think that's a great example of the media finding out about the old lady who was struggling to heat her home.

00:29:00:15 - 00:29:03:22
Phil Wedgwood
Yes. Was the story that grabbed the whole headlines and that.

00:29:03:22 - 00:29:32:15
Andrew Thorp
An exemplar of a micro story being very powerful, people extrapolate a lot of meaning from a micro story. And I think with with people who present data, typically they're presenting abstract information, which leaves people cold. But you've got to illustrate it through little examples. And you look at, you know, wildlife documentaries, the ATTENBOROUGH The many, many, many ATTENBOROUGH series, they will talk about things like climate change and environmental damage.

00:29:32:23 - 00:29:43:01
Andrew Thorp
But through the context of an individual family of creatures or a community that's been decimated by rising sea levels or whatever, and it's much more powerful than.

00:29:43:12 - 00:29:46:08
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah, if you zone in on the animal.

00:29:46:08 - 00:29:54:00
Andrew Thorp
Zooming in and zooming out, he's zoom in on a little case in individual case, but then you zoom out and set the wider context.

00:29:54:06 - 00:30:06:00
Phil Wedgwood
So just to be clear, then just give us an example or give us a little bit more color on what you really mean by storytelling, because it's bandied around a lot, isn't it? Storytelling in business. Give us a bit.

00:30:06:00 - 00:30:28:11
Andrew Thorp
For me, it's it's both beneficial and problematic is a term. It's beneficial because it's it's kind of a sexy term. It's been around the corporate world for a few years. I often get opportunities because they've heard of the word storytelling and they search for somebody who does that kind of thing, that guy does that kind of thing. So it's great in that sense, but it's also problematic because people have a very narrow perception of what it is.

00:30:28:20 - 00:30:47:22
Andrew Thorp
Do you just help people tell funny anecdotes and is that it? Do you do anything else? And then you have to politely explain, well, actually that's one element of storytelling, but it's really about how you frame a message and connect with people. So everything I mean, a movie is a piece of storytelling, a play is a piece of storytelling.

00:30:48:06 - 00:31:14:02
Andrew Thorp
Your website's a piece of storytelling in a more conceptual sense, it's conveying a message and a vibe about what kind of outfit you are and you know how you do business. And an anecdote is obviously a piece of storytelling. So although an anecdote is a narrow definition of what I mean by it, it's actually very instructive because if you get good at telling anecdotes, it actually feeds into all those other things that I've listed.

00:31:14:16 - 00:31:35:01
Andrew Thorp
It's actually a very good starting point, but it's by no means the end of what that means. And I call it applied storytelling. It's storytelling not for fluffy. I want to put kids to sleep at night with. It's actually the opposite. It's keeping adults awake rather than nodding off when they're listening to a dry PowerPoint presentation. Yeah.

00:31:35:22 - 00:31:38:05
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah. We see plenty of those bandied around, don't we?

00:31:39:00 - 00:31:53:07
Andrew Thorp
And isn't it funny that we've been talking about Death by PowerPoint for years and years and years, and there's been oodles of books written and endless workshops and YouTube clips, but it still persists to this day. And keeping keeps me busy.

00:31:53:13 - 00:32:14:11
Phil Wedgwood
MM So before you talked about your three legged cake, which makes me feel hungry, by the way, because it is nearly lunchtime and that's fascinating cause you've got the big picture stuff, you have that machinery layer, and then you have the library layer, which is which was almost a pyramid in my head because I presume there's more library layers inherently than there are big picture.

00:32:14:11 - 00:32:21:22
Andrew Thorp
Yes, it does actually get wider. Yes, you're right. The lower. Yeah. Because you've got multiple stories in the library, layer one coming from the top.

00:32:21:22 - 00:32:47:22
Phil Wedgwood
That said and then when I cross section that to the audiences that we are always trying to stimulate engagement within you've got the kind of headline level you're looking at broader communities that you want to engage and be aware of your brand, which is almost that higher level piece. Then you've got the mainstay of the the external engagement to your customers and how you enhance that through more and more improved messaging.

00:32:48:16 - 00:33:10:11
Phil Wedgwood
And then you've got that kind of base there of the organization, the internal engagement, which is all of the the getting the troops aligned. As you touched on earlier, it seems to be a a fascinating joining of that together and being able to have those those those aligned, those layers aligned. If you can if you can fire up that magic, that's hugely powerful.

00:33:10:11 - 00:33:40:23
Andrew Thorp
And again, it's about creating connection. What I've said right at the start so often, my my initial request from a client will be from the boss, the CEO, the MD, saying, look, I've got to I've got a presentation coming up in a month and I've heard you're good at this. Can you help me prepare? So it's one request for one piece of work with one person for one event, and then we get working together and we get chatting and then they'll start to say, Actually, our salespeople really ought to get involved with this because they're out there, you know, selling the company message.

00:33:40:23 - 00:34:00:19
Andrew Thorp
And they're not they're not doing it terribly well. So it could be involve them as well. And then the salespeople start to gather their own sets of stories. And then the boss says, well, actually, we need to gather more. So the micro you call them micro stories from the workforce, from the coalface. Let's get more people involved now.

00:34:00:19 - 00:34:29:13
Andrew Thorp
Let's get the whole workforce involved in getting them to see what these small stories are. Well, initially they're managers, but then getting everybody to buy in to the process. So, so, so it expands from its mission creep, I guess it expansion that initial request into something more fundamental within the organization. But they see the value of storytelling is a connective sort of tissue that's binding everything together because at the end of the day, that big picture message is the glue that holds everything together.

00:34:29:22 - 00:35:00:15
Andrew Thorp
But everybody needs to feel part of it that their individual contributions are necessary and moving things in the right direction. And one of that one of the quotes are in in the watching, there was a there's a company called Rackspace. They're in Texas, in the UK. And Graham Weston gave a talk on a TED Talk and he said the key to an engaged workforce is that you want each individual to feel that they're a valued member of a winning team on an inspiring mission.

00:35:01:24 - 00:35:02:16
Andrew Thorp
I really.

00:35:02:16 - 00:35:03:13
Phil Wedgwood
Love I like that.

00:35:04:04 - 00:35:32:12
Andrew Thorp
Because it's in threes and we like things in three. Yeah. So they need to be valued so they're recognized, appreciated and so forth, but they need to see that their efforts are moving the organization forward successfully. Hence a winning team. Because if they're valued for their work that the whole organization's struggling, that's problematic as well. But then on an inspiring mission means that the needs to be that highest sense of purpose, that the work I'm doing actually matters.

00:35:32:22 - 00:35:45:09
Andrew Thorp
You know, it's making a difference in the world. My little contribution is actually part of something that really matters. And it's not just about making a return for the shareholders. I love that model of those three things being in place.

00:35:45:10 - 00:36:04:15
Phil Wedgwood
And I like that by the way, I think you've mentioned a couple of times some TED talks. What we'll do is we'll put links to those in the description of the podcast so people can go check those out because that they, they sound really interesting. Andrew I could literally sit here all day and listen to your wonderful stories, as I'm sure many people could.

00:36:04:24 - 00:36:14:02
Phil Wedgwood
But I'd like to say thank you very much for coming in and sharing your expertize and your stories with us today and looking forward to continuing working with you in the future now.

00:36:14:03 - 00:36:15:08
Andrew Thorp
It's been my pleasure, Phil, thank you.

00:36:15:17 - 00:36:16:03
Phil Wedgwood
Thanks.

00:36:16:09 - 00:36:26:19
Narrator
Thanks for listening. To Engage In Conversation, it was presented by a CEO, so watch it for more news and updates on Engage, visit our website. Engage lesions, become.