Story-telling has become one of the most sought-after skills in driving business transformation. The technique can be used to motivate teams, to improve sales, to help colleagues transition through change and to offer fresh ways to tackle deep-seated problems. 

This is why we suggest you understand art of quality story-telling and why we chose to challenge you, as ERG / Network leaders, allies and champions to make time to help your people think hard and prepare well in the art of story-telling when it comes to disability inclusion. 

Disability and ill health can be challenging human experiences and that means it can take time for colleagues to make sense of and articulate an experience that they may prefer not to have. This fact alone has a direct impact on the number of people who share information about their disability, the way you communicate with your people and the take up of your workplace adjustment / accommodation process.

However, there is good news! When ERGs / Networks systematically use the technique of story-telling and deliver high-quality story-telling campaigns the impact can be significant. We hear how good use of story-telling:

• Helps organisations to secure more accurate data about the number of people who chose to share information about their disability / ill health
• Supports people to feel less embarrassed in asking for a workplace adjustment / accommodation
• Encourages colleagues to bring their authentic selves to work
• Fosters a culture of trust and support

This month’s theme is about how you can improve your approach to story-telling and build the capability of your people to deliver high standards in story-telling to build disability confidence from the inside out. As we approach December, one of the most important months of the year, now is the time to think about what you can do to help your people tell better stories when it comes to disability and ill health.

Learn from the best.

There are hundreds of thousands of on-line learning materials you can draw on to create more meaningful ways by which you encourage people to share their story of disability. They are available from LinkedIn Learning, YouTube, Blinkist and TEDX talks. We are great fans of using free and low-cost learning already available to help you drive change. Here we offer you some reminders to help you refresh the work you do promoting story-telling.

Check out this YouTube video with Patrick Bet-David where he offers a master-class on the art of story-telling. 

Here are the three key takeaways from the video:

• Those people who are winning, be that actors, writers or politicians are those people who are good at story-telling. We would add ERG / Network leaders, allies and champions to that list! We see at first-hand how organisations improve workplace culture by consistently delivering well-executed stories to help their colleagues understand the experience of disability and how barriers, internal and external, can be removed.

• You have to nail the key elements of a great story in order to deliver well: that includes creating anticipation, building curiosity, offering enough of the key details, getting the audience involved, creating energy, painting a picture of the situation, offering feelings and creating a climax to the story – a great story is one that is re-told. We see numerous examples of how colleagues with disability are learning the skills they need to deliver powerful stories in the pursuit of culture change.
  
  

• Be clear about when stories are affective as you undertake your work. That could be in moments of tension [when, for example, you might be persuading colleagues in the need to invest more time to improve the workplace adjustment / accommodation process], or indeed when nothing else works. Whatever it is, be in no doubt that those of our members that are driving disability confidence from the inside out are those who invest in their story-telling techniques. 

What if I chose to improve our story-telling techniques? 

At PurpleSpace we’re all about leveraging the experiences and insights of our incredible community of disability employee resource group / network leaders. By doing that we support you to learn from each other about how you can unearth the great stories from your own people. When did you last circulate Purple Stories? We produced this publication in order to help employees with disability to share their story. Check it out now and consider sending out to all those in your network. Don’t forget we don’t licence our material and it is freely available for our members to draw on, to re-write and to cascade. 

Why don’t you try the following in November?

Here are some suggestions as to how you can maximise your PurpleSpace membership this month:

1. Engage in real time with the PurpleSpace community by joining one of the three Peer Group Learning Sessions where we will ask you to share your ideas as to what works, and what doesn’t work in creating story-telling campaigns. These sessions are taking place on 9th November at 4pm BST, 17th November at 3pm BST and 24th November at 11am BST. 

• Learn directly from an extraordinary ERG / network leader in our ‘Spotlight On’ series as we talk to another member of the PurpleSpace community. 

1. And with next month’s #PurpleLightUp looming close book a place on the next #PurpleLightUp reference group meeting on 25th November at 2pm BST. You will hear the latest information about the Leader2Leader worldwide conversation between CEOs and ERG / Network leaders.

And finally…

We leave you with this quote from Brandon Sanderson, the fantasy and science fiction writer:

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”