I was shivering in response to an over-enthusiastic air-conditioning system. It was a typically humid day in Chicago’s northern suburbs and as soon as I walked through the doors of the dark-tinted, chilly office building the goosebumps sprang to life. I hadn’t expected to see a former colleague. There is a certain sense of relief from finding you’re not alone, that others are going through the same experience as you. It’s a rather selfish feeling when that experience is something you wouldn’t wish on others.
Both Annie and I were attending an outplacement session, in her case to find a new job, and in my case to pivot my career. She was a quality assurance expert and when asked to cite her capabilities by our coach for the morning, she began to describe her job. About sixty seconds in to her list of attributes our coach interrupted her.
“Tell me something you did in your job that was hard.”
Annie thought for a moment and then began her story, slowly at first, but then picking up speed. She had to test a new piece of technology but she hadn’t been given much notice. Her team wasn’t big enough to do the work. She asked for an extension but it was denied. Short of options she had to fly halfway around the world to train another team to help. This new team had never done this sort of work before, so Annie had to put systems in place to gather data to check their work and give them feedback. By the end of the project that team was so successful they became an extension of her own team.
Our coach listened without interruption until she had finished. “When you initially began to describe the skills of your job I heard nothing that distinguished you from anyone else who does that kind of work. But when you shared your story I heard other qualities. You were a problem solver, you know about feedback mechanisms, you know how to build processes, you know how to build a team, and not only do you know how to build a team, you know how to do it at short notice and can work under pressure.”
It can be hard to identify our own skills, usually because if we’re good at something we don’t even give it a second thought. Moreover, if we’re good at something we tend to undervalue it, and even assume others can do it just as easily as we can. Even our own stories can seem seem inconsequential to us. Annie had taken a moment to recall her own tale, and even when she finished she just shrugged, but I was blown away. I guess I could add humility to her list of traits. Could I do what she did?
Because we can overlook our own stories it can helpful to ask our friends to tell us our stories from their point of view. Sometimes these will be the same tale, but told in a different way, and sometimes it will be something completely different.
“We were at that party and you were chatting with Amit when you found out that he loves sailing. You knew I loved sailing and you felt we needed to meet. You do that all the time. You’re a connector!”
“I know you love hosting parties but you do more than that. How many trips have you organized for our group? And then there was that fun run you put on. You’re an organizer, and a coordinator. You have that drive to make things happen.”
“Share trading might be a hobby for you but you come alive when you talk about technical trading. It reminds me of the excitement I saw in you during art class at school – you literally loved creating geometric shapes. You’re like a patten recognition magician.”
Telling a story is only part of the solution to finding our strengths, we sill need to interpret them. I find it helpful to focus on skills over knowledge. We have Google for knowledge; skills are harder to acquire. Those that come most naturally to us are where we ought to look first.
I majored in a science, graduating with a chemistry degree and then became an accountant. This was a confusing transition for some to fathom. Accounting has nothing to do with inorganic compounds, valence bonds, or the laws of thermodynamics that we find in chemistry, but it has everything to do with reporting data, drawing conclusions from numerical information, and developing repeatable processes.
Telling our stories to help us understand our strengths also has a supplementary benefit, namely that it requires us to practice the art of telling a tale. We might hear our friend’s version of events and pick up on a piece of color we had missed. Maybe they didn’t add enough drama or build enough anticipation, and we might feel compelled to remedy that. Cultivating empathy is also an important component. Before long you will have worked with your friend to enhance the tale and turn it into something others will want to hear.
The reasons why we respond to a good story are being increasingly understood. The importance of being a good storyteller are being increasingly shared in business, from selling your product and improving decision making, to generating momentum and managing change. In using storytelling to divine your existing strengths you may just be cultivating another.
