Digital Tsunami. Is your workplace boring?

Do you look forward to being back at work on a Monday morning? Do you look forward to being in a place surrounded by inspiring colleagues? Let me put it simply. Is your workplace boring and devoid of personality? I can tell you a simple way to find out.

When you joined the organisation, was your first day at work a “story-worthy” experience? Did the organisation make you feel that you are joining a team of storytellers who inspire each other? Or did you find yourself being told about a million rules and a shown a million organisation charts that you could not care less about? When the day was over did you wonder if you had made the right decision or did you walk out of the office delighted that you chose the right place to be?

Organisations that are boring have no stories. Do you know why? Anything normal is not a story. Nothing exciting happens in a boring organisation. Everyone does what they are supposed to. No one challenges anyone. People work like automatons. If robots came and replaced their colleagues, no one would know the difference and no one would complain.

All the colleagues look like clones of each other. They laugh at the same jokes. They have all studied in the same colleges. On weekends they all socialise with each other at the same club where they are all members. Chances are that they play the same game. You can guess which one. The CEO wants the organisation to be innovative. It is a business need.

Every innovation needs a story

Prof Bill Fischer is the Professor of Innovation at IMD Lausanne. He says stories drive innovation.

“At its heart, innovation is a profoundly social phenomenon. More often than not, it is the story that makes the innovation, rather than the other way around. Want to be successful at innovation? You need to convince others to buy into your idea. If you are an aspiring innovator, or a project leader, you need to be able to tell your story in a manner that captures the imagination of investors or business unit leaders. If you are an investor, or business unit leader, you need to know what to listen for in an innovation narrative." Organisations need to be fertile grounds of innovation. To do that the fences need to allow many kinds of individuals into the workspace. Those individuals must feel psychologically safe to be able to retain their individuality. It must have the environment where traditions can be questioned. That is when stories are born. Innovations thrive in organisations when storytellers and story listeners hang around. The cafeteria is not just a place to eat lunch. It is a place for ideas to collide and for mavericks to be celebrated.

Thomas Edison - the storyteller

We all know Thomas Edison as the inventor of the light bulb. When someone spoke to him about the affordability of the light bulb, Edison told the sceptic something only a storyteller can do. His response was — “We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.”

So, is storytelling all about making grand statements? Absolutely not. A story is truth told in an interesting manner. Edison focused his energy on making a bulb that was efficient, affordable and a source of consumer delight. His style of working was what most creative set-ups look for — an open-office layout to build speed. His team was always encouraged to deliver “a minor invention every ten days and a big thing every six months or so.” Innovation happens when people produce a body of work. Edison produced 1,093 patents. Mozart wrote 600 pieces. Beethoven wrote 37 plays.

Satyajit Ray published seven volumes of short stories. Each volume had a dozen short stories. He created three popular characters and wrote many novels and stories around them i.e, Feluda, Professor Shonku and TariniKhuro . He created fonts, composed music for his films, wrote the lyrics, illustrated his stories and, of course, directed films.

A great idea by itself cannot be called innovation. It needs to be executed well. And a story must capture the attention of the audience. While many analysts have talked about the growth of Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple, it takes a Scott Galloway to make a story out of powerpoint slides. The stories are all backed by deep research. Yet, what makes it stand apart is the way he delivers the story. He often starts by saying, “I have 900 seconds and 90 slides ... so fasten your seat-belts.” According to him, the core competence of Amazon is storytelling. While they offer value, convenience, selection and speed, it is the storytelling skills of Bezos that gives them an advantage.

The final word

As organisations start moving towards designing experiences, they will need more storytellers and designers. You may design the best product, if the narrative is not appealing, it will never pull the consumer to adopt it. The graveyard of failed products will tell you the story of many CEOs who tried to sell features, price, etc, and forgot to tell the story. Boring workplaces encourage boring leaders who believe that work is a chore to be performed. People have to earn a living and so they must work.

The storytellers believe that work and the workplace must be a place of joy. Creative spots need to nurture the maverick. The soil and seeds that produce a cactus plant do not produce a delicate orchid.

To drive innovations, first ensure that enough stories are generated in the normal course of work. Make sure all the stories are not about the same few people. It is easy to be boring. It is very hard to be a workplace that generates stories every day.

Abhijit Bhaduri is a talent management expert, a popular columnist and author of “The Digital Tsunami”

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