Storytelling, Leadership and the Wiggles

I had the honour to conduct an interview with Warren Huxley from Warren Huxley Consultant, you can also listen to te atcual conversation on our podcast episode #3.

People often asked me what I do for a living and I always find it difficult to put a name to it. So the best way I've come up so far is this: most people who get promoted in any organisation do so because they're really good at the work that they are currently doing, the technical role or whatever happens to be the level they're working at. And then they get promoted into a place where they now expected to lead and manage people.

 And of course, the skill sets between being a technical expert at one level and then having to manage and lead teams and organisations at another level are two completely different things.

 And that's the nature of my work, I help people work into a new set of skills, becoming technical experts at managing and leading people.

 And I use those two words differently. My belief is that management is a subset of leadership. And we need to be able to do both of those.

The other thing I often equate myself to is the Wiggles. The Wiggles, they get a new set of children every 12 months, often their songs are the same and lots of colour movement, and then they get a new set of kids next year, I get a new set of aspiring leaders every year or two or three.

Okay, so I hardly can sum up two minutes in one word, but you're definitely a leadership coach, and help team members to become team leaders

Incredibly succinct, I think I'll steal that. And when someone asked me, and then I can tell them, that's what I do.

We worked on several workshops together to actually get people from A to B with several tours in the online world as well as in the real world. But what I was impressed the most with is that you  always take them up by their  hand and lead them somewhere with either a metaphor, or a story.

My understanding is that you also use a storytelling to train your new wiggle children, as you call them, which is really funny. I haven't heard that before. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

Yeah, sure. I'll start with the first premise that I train people and I don't actually do that, what I do is help people learn. And people learn best when the experiences they're going through can be related to what they already know in their lives.

 And what I also  try to do is build stories. Add relevant and congruent with what's going on. I learned how to do this by watching other facilitators, other leadership coaches, if you like.

 And I was listening to one fellow who I thought was an absolutely sensational character. And he could weave a story like no other, until I realised that all of his stories were taken out of movies. So you know, if you saw this movie, then you'd know the story. There was no real life experience that he could bring to bear on his storytelling.

So what I like to do is highlight what I'm doing around things that I've actually experienced myself, and draw out the stories of the people what they've experienced.  That is the intent behind how we learn by stories.

Movies are well crafted stories, because there's a whole theory behind that, going back to Aristotle where you always try to get the person to identify themselves with what's happening on stage and it is through this identification, you actually grab their attention,, at least make yourself understood by that by that person.

Coming back to that you base your work on process stories, to make it authentic to use one of these buzzwords out there to tell a real story, a personal story, but how much you then invite the team member to share a story that their  team is listening to follow and to be loyal to that new team leader?

Look, the way I go about that, firstly, is to if I'm telling my story, is to be really vulnerable about it. I will tell people things that really leave me open for “Wow, is that the case?, you really did that?” And I would usually start the process, particularly in a group setting. You go around in a circle and introduce yourself? Most people in groups that I work with already know each other. So I might pose the question a little differently. And it might be, we all know each other pretty well. I ask: Is there something you can tell us that either might be they don't know about you yet, or something that you might think that they would find interesting.

 So rather than “Look, I've worked in the organisation for three years, and I work in the sales department, it might be I do that, but I also breed dogs or might do other things. “

 And you get some remarkable responses from people. I think one that just set me back on my heels once was a woman when we're going through this process said: “I have been the egg donor for friend of mine who couldn't have children.” And that just opened a whole different conversation, it was remarkable. So just by creating the right atmosphere and the right question, allowing people to tell bits of their story, rather than just a chronology of what they've done in their career, you get some really wonderful vulnerability and create a great way to move forward with whatever you're doing.

With this incredible process you just described, you create a safe space so that people are able and  willing to share their story and  then have a different way of connecting with each other and the next time when they have to meet a deadline at at 10pm at night ,they might say okay, we are now understand each other a little bit better. We tapped into this empathy or compassion for each other. So let's, do this together. You're actually fostering togetherness in a way if I understand you, correctly?

Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that happens too, is that as people share their stories, they find a lot of commonalities about each other. You might find three or four people in a room that are musicians that they didn't know, or like cooking, and they get together and bake things. Or it might be thatthey breed particular animals. So you get a group of people who have a collection of common interests that they weren't aware of.

 And again, that fosters a sense of likeness as opposed to difference. So we're closer to being like each other than we are different from each other. If people see things about each other, that are like each other, that breaks down those barriers. So from a leadership perspective, the more people know about each other, and the more they see the commonalities, the better it is,

 Likewise, through sharing stories, people discover that I see the world differently to you. And that difference of perspective is one of the great strengths of working in a team, because we come to the same problem from a different approach, and we get a better outcome. So storytelling is integral to this process.

So you might find out that someone's playing the saxophone and someone else is playing a guitar. And then you're actually creating your orchestra in that in that team, and even if they don't play an instrument, you're still creating an  orchestra, because everybody resonates or sounds differently, but still, they have one goal, they want to play the symphony in the best way they can.

 I'm always going for the audience, it is always about how do I connect with the audience. And that goes with either the feeling for Oh, great, I would like to have what they have, or Oh, crab, I’m glad I don't have what they have. It is about this empathy; the identification always goes through emotions. And that is what you just said,  in inviting people tapping into that identification, and then you're on a completely different level for team building.

That is really important. In a sense, the  audience will dictate the story, or certainly dictate the language of the story. So if I was working with a group of children, I would use an entirely different language than if I was working in a university with a group of professors or PhD delegates. If I was working in a coal mine, it would be very, very different to if I was working in hospital. So both the nature of the stories and the language use to construct that story with brings me closer to the audience, as opposed to something different trying to impose a different sort of view on it. This is really critical for me, being really in touch with where the audience is, and what sort of story might connect with them, the cognitive history, the way they can deconstruct a story.

 So if, if the language is either too extreme or too simple, for where they are, then you've lost them. Constructing the story around the your understanding of the audience is actually a critical part of the whole process.

I want to quote you: “It's the audience whi dictates the story”.  This is my Credo as well.

And on that note, I would like to thank you so so much for your time, and I also would like to invite you to come back next time and continue discussing with you about life and storytelling and leadership and team building,

 Well look, delighted to be here. It's fabulous. You know, just just think about the wiggles and how successful they've been. You know, there's not much new out there. It's just we don't know it yet. Wanting to seek and find that. So being curious about the world around us seems so beneficial, can't be overstated. So thank you and talk to you next time.

Thank you very much, Warren for your time.