Just now Hannes Steiner said goodbye. We brainstormed how we could bring some interesting ideas to life together, and now I'm sitting down to make this blog post.
Hannes is a great guy. He founded Ecowin-Verlag as a one-man operation, published a whole series of bestsellers by renowned authors in the years that followed, thus selling 1.5 million books and finally his publishing house - the most successful Austrian non-fiction publisher.
TOO LAZY TO READ ON? THEN LISTEN TO ME:
In the blogcast, I read this recent blog article to you. With emphasis, of course!
In the meantime, his entrepreneurial heart was beating flames again, and that's why there is the story.one project, which is already exceeding expectations after its first few months in the world. About this platform, which Hannes launched with his business partner Martin Plank, the long-time boss of Puls 4 and Servus TV, Hannes writes: "I have to say, I'm a real story junky. I've always found people and their stories very exciting. As a book publisher, a certain frustration crept in on me. Good stories were becoming scarcer and scarcer, I was reaching my limits more and more. At the same time, countless manuscripts were piling up in my office, not all of them suitable for a classic book, but almost all of them full of great stories. More and more, the dream arose in me to publish all these extraordinary life stories and experiences one day, but how? Martin and I went in search of unknown and untold stories. Unsuccessfully. No place for stories?
So with a portion of courage and a lot of idealism, we decided to try it ourselves: To give people a platform so that they can make a book out of their great stories as easily as never before and with a lot of joy."
Do we really just want to tell?
It seems to me that story.one is another lively beacon on the way to where more and more people are moving: they want to tell their personal story(s), i.e. not just post the photo of their breakfast.
Tell your story? Really?
If we think more carefully, we understand: it only looks like that. In reality, they want something else. An important piece more. Each of us wants that.
In the noisy clatter and chatter to which we all expose ourselves almost day and night as highly active participants, an elementary basic human need has quietly emerged from the rubble of communication and now beckons for attention with a thin hand. This basic need is at the root of our desire to tell our story. This basic longing triggers everything.
We want to be heard.
We tell stories so that we can be heard, and we want to make a difference.
Because if you are heard, you are noticed, you get attention and reactions. In the best case, positive ones, but in any case the certainty: I am.
In the case of repetition and with time, there are also precious answer pieces to his original question: "Who am I?"
Whoever is heard enters into a relationship and acquires meaning. Whoever is heard transforms from an anonymous object into an individual. That is me.
Storytellers need ears.
Listening is an artful cultural technique that everyone demands, but hardly anyone has mastered. And this despite the fact that "a good listener" is always considered a particularly positive attribution to a person's character profile. Good listening is a vital part of empathy.
I don't know if I am a good listener. Certainly I am a curious, attentive and passionate listener, especially since I understood early on in my work as a consultant: Listening is the basis for (creative) service.
Listening, not to answer, but to understand.
I can remember extensive briefings after which I was asked by potential clients, somewhat irritated: "Why don't you say anything?"
Quite simply: "I want to understand first, and I can't do that if I speak."
Listening means recognising subtext.
Listening means asking questions.
Listening means hearing what is said and understanding what is meant.
Listening means entering into a relationship with the other person and giving them meaning.
There are, however, a lot of counsellors whose self-confidence can be summed up in the maxim: "I don't know what it's all about, but I'll tell you now how it's done." The explosive mixture of disrespect and know-it-all attitude.
In the process, the bright idea that everyone in the room quickly falls head over heels in love with, jumps off their fat lips, and then we have the salad. Such ideas are hard to get rid of, even when everyone has already understood that the idea is there, but not good. A phenomenon that we also know from shit on our shoes.
Or maybe the idea is even good, just not right, or just not really good, but there it is. Misery has many faces, some are unfortunately pretty.
Answers - what for?
What is called social media makes you think you have to put your two cents in on everything, even if you are the sausage. The quick comment, the pointed remark, the immediate reaction. What's the point? Just because it's possible?
As soon as we post something, we check its reach, impact and echo. Yes, we don't just want to post, we also want to be heard, and gratefully confuse likes with love.
But why do you have to have an opinion on everything at all before you can have another one, and share it too? Wouldn't the generously applied combination of gobbling and ear-tipping be a behavioural pattern that could sometimes bring about spectacular improvements in terms of communication and living together? I think so. Not only online.
When ideas are presented in my creative meetings, there are therefore the following three rules that I warmly recommend you imitate:
- In general, there is a no & but prohibition. "But" is in fact a devilish curse. The spell "But-Cadabra!" works like the reverse Midas touch and turns gold into dirt.
- After an idea has been presented, the others in the room are only allowed to ask questions about it, not to criticise anything and, at best, to comment additionally with "Yes, and ...".
- Those who presented their idea are not allowed to answer, but write down the questions and discuss them further internally in their group afterwards.
Repeat the process as often as you like, with appropriate time intervals. You will be amazed at the growth of ideas that this simple method of disciplined listening, free from criticism and supposed need for defence, can trigger.
Before we apply Steinbeck's iron rule for successful storytelling "Your story has to be about the listener, otherwise he won't listen", we have to understand that our own listening is necessary first. Or, to paraphrase Joe South's "Walk a Mile in My Shoes":
If I could be you, if you could be me
For just one hour
If we could find a way to get inside
Each other's mind
If you could see you through my eyes
Instead of your ego
I believe you'd be, I believe you'd be surprised to see
That you've been blind
This also makes it clear that the storytelling buzzword gurglers who drive themselves through every village do nothing but confuse karaoke with rock'n'roll, i.e. are convinced that Helene Fischer has the same profession as Bob Dylan.
Man, homo narrans, is a narrator and forgets all too quickly that he is also a listener, because otherwise he mutates into a caller in the desert.
That's why I never tire of pointing out the difference between storyfying, storytelling and storysharing.
Storyfying is the skilful packaging of facts in the context of relevant stories, because this is the most effective way of conveying them.
Storytelling is the art of telling a story, the narrative, the gripping plot, the skilful dramaturgy, the gripping build-up of tension, the surprising twist, the redemptive punch line as a liberating moment of insight ...
Storysharing, on the other hand, is what makes stories strong and effective. The shared mileage in each other's shoes, the shared view of the world, the realisation that only a shared story acquires meaning and gives meaning to the world; fully aware that listening does not have to mean agreeing and understanding is more than getting it.
On the other hand, every success-minded Story-Midas knows: "Share, don't tell!" and "Pull, don't push!".
You can read more about this in this article or in this one.
Storytelling first means: open your ears, close your mouth!
Antoine de Saint Exupéry was probably right when he said: "One sees well only with the heart". What is absolutely certain is that you can only hear well if your heart is open. I am all ears.
People who have something to say want to be heard. Therefore, give your audience as many opportunities as possible to tell (positive) stories about themselves and, above all, to get reactions to them, because only then can meaning be created. The most effective way to do this is to share your story, because that is the best, indeed the only, official guarantee of story growth.
Every person has a story and wants it to be heard, to be heard. Regardless of whether it is a global corporation, an SME/small and medium-sized enterprise or a heroic lone fighter as an EPU - every brand, every company has and needs at least one archaic value that meets the story of as many people as possible. Because if you don't have a magnetic value as a living theme, you're left with only one other: price. And price in this case is just another word for incorporated, not agreed.
So to all those who say, "It doesn't apply to me and my brand!", I would like to recommend the words that my grandmother, old Story Dudette, wrote to Joe South on the soles of his worn-out seven-league boots: "No Story. No Glory."