Building Deeper Relationships Through Storytelling

Challenge & Selection

Storytelling has become an integral tool that I use to be successful in my role as a Talent Development  coach. I work at a consulting firm that employs Certified Public Accountants to provide Accounting and  Finance services. Prior to joining our company, many of these individuals were focused primarily on their  professional growth and did not take the time to focus on their personal growth. As a result, many of  these individuals do not understand the importance that their personal growth outside of the workplace  has on their career growth. I utilize storytelling as a strategy to connect with individuals on a deeper  level by encouraging them to open up and become “comfortable being uncomfortable” with myself and  others around them. By doing this, I am able to identify the areas where these individuals exhibit the  most room for growth which allows me to focus in on those areas to help these individuals reach their  highest potential both within the workplace and in their personal lives.

Application

I have a story about using storytelling. While at a conference with my fellow Talent Development  coaches many years ago, one of our newer coaches expressed that he was having difficulty with team  members opening up to him. I explained to my co-worker that the key to building a deeper relationship  with your team members is to find something personal that you both have in common and show your  vulnerability by sharing your experience. I told a story about a time when I was struggling to connect  with a team member. Shortly after moving into my role as a Talent Development coach I was assigned  five team members. I scheduled meetings with each of these individuals to introduce myself and start  building our relationship. Out of the five team members, I was able to develop a really strong  relationship with four of these individuals within a couple of weeks. However, there was one team  member that I could tell was struggling to open up to me. Our conversations were always pleasant, but I  could feel that he was holding back. One day while meeting for lunch I asked him what he considered  the toughest life event that he had experienced. He hesitated for a minute, but eventually shared with  me that he lost his mother when he was 20 to cancer.

Insight & Approach

It was at that moment that I realized that we had something very personal in common and I needed to  share my experience with him. I told him how when I was 23 I found out that my grandfather had  Alzheimer’s. I was extremely close with my grandfather and he was someone I grew up idolizing. At first,  I was in shock after hearing the news because I always looked at my grandfather as someone who was  invincible. As time went on, I watched my grandfather grow sicker and sicker before he eventually lost  his battle to the disease. This event put me in a very dark place in my life and for years I struggled to  open up emotionally to people which really hindered my ability to maintain relationships that were  important to me. He shared that he still struggled to open up to people and asked my advice on how I  was able to eventually get back to my “normal” self. I explained that my way of recovering from this was  to quit holding in the hurt and anger I felt and to share my feelings with others and that he had just  taken the first step in the process. This individual left the company a couple of years later, but we have  stayed in touch and maintained a very close relationship over the years. What started out as my

toughest relationship to build ended up being one of my strongest relationships as a result of sharing a  simple story.

After sharing this story at the conference, my fellow co-workers were in awe and thanked me for  opening their eyes to a new method of building strong relationships. My story is now used as a learning  tool at all new hire conferences and storytelling has become a widely used method of building  relationships within the Talent Development group at my company.

Storytelling has become something that I utilize on a regular basis and I had lost sight of how powerful it  really is. This course helped me reflect on the power of storytelling and how this tool has changed my  life and the life of others around me.

