Day #694 - Story of You

And of Others

An idea we have talked about before is the ‘story of you’. If I just met you today, talked to you, and walked away, what story would I carry? And how would that story have been told?

We rely a great deal on context to navigate our social and structural landscape: the way that I encounter you will frame and contextualise how I understand you (including how I conceive your power, status, ‘importance’, trustworthiness, knowledge, and so on).

One thing you can do as a Social Leader is to help people in your team, or simply people who are more junior than you in your Organisation, to find, and share, their story (rather than leaving it to chance). It’s not as hard a writing a cv, but in some ways is more important.

A good way to do this is to ask someone to write 100 words about themselves, their capability and drive, and you write 100 words too, then compare the stories: in the gaps (the bits they feel good about, laugh about, or are surprised about) you may discover how stories shift or are misunderstood.

Use your sixty seconds today to think about this: how we hold people within ‘stories’. And perhaps to think about the story of you, and whether you know what it is, and if you like it.

We can all change our story: making it clearer, simpler, more direct, or more aligned to our own sense of purpose and value. But it requires deliberate attention.