Here is an excerpt from a keynote I recently gave in front of top Managers and their families in a lovely Location in Bavaria. I hope you enjoy it.
Create your own story
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I believe I found one topic and as an introduction into that topic I invite you to participate in a little experiment. One question upfront: Do you feel good right now? OK, that is no surprise. We have a great location, the wine tastes excellent, the first course was great and all of us are keen for the main course – which by the way doesn´t make my life as a speaker easier – we enjoy great people around us. How can we not be happy right now?
So, let´s take away one of the things making you happy. Let´s imagine we are not here in this lovely venue but in a standard business hotel, US-style in Munich. Service is good, the wine and food taste well. Your fellows are exactly as here. How would you feel in this described setting? I assume, your answer would be, you still feel happy. Now let´s take away the wine. There is only water. This is a serious drawback but still I guess you would be happy.
So let´s ask the question in a different way. What is the key factor the one ingredient that would totally spoil the evening if taken away? I am sure that the vast majority of you would answer: The others! And if we look closely it is not just the presence of others, there is more. What would happen if we take away the stories we share in our conversations? The colorful bouquet of anecdotes, life stories and experience sharing.
Sitting here with all the fine stuff nice people but no exchange of stories? That feels weired. The idea that we are together but do not share our stories makes us feel uncomfortable, it makes us feel unsecure.
Sharing stories is a key ingredient for any group of humans. In stories we share our experiences, values and guidelines. Stories are the social bond every group needs to identify itself as a group. They make our social life meaningful.
After becoming aware that stories have such an importance for social interaction, the entrepreneurs in this room may ask themselves what this insight may mean for business. Looking for the actual top headlines the discussion is dominated by Brexit, 3D-printing, self-driving cars, Artificial intelligence etc. Looking deeper it is not technology that is driving business. Even the best technology or product can not create success. It is something different. Success very often results from the story behind technology or the entrepreneurs life. Could we imagine the success of Apple without the life story of Steve Jobs or Watson without winning Jeopardy? Can you imagine a company being successful without a great story behind it?
This is not new. It remained the same for centuries. Basically we still do business as our ancestors did. For example, 500 years ago Hanse merchants formed the Assembly of an Honorable Merchant in Hamburg. They defined values and rules, how an honorable merchant acts when trading wood with Norway, iron from Novgorod or English wool. They created a picture of an ideal merchant and the underlying values are still valid today. But a picture is static, the stories told about honorable merchants bring the concept to life and create the trust needed to do business.
When I have been invited to join the Assembly some time ago at first I hesitated because the whole concept looked a bit fallen out of time. But I soon learned that it is the perfect place to be because sharing the same values creates a bond between the members. Just knowing each other and knowing we are sharing the same values makes everyone of us more trustworthy. And it even fosters social activities. For example many of us, including myself, are acting as mentor to students at the Hamburg School for Business Administration. This mentorship creates more social bonds and a global network, since many students at HSBA are from foreign countries. It creates a stronger social relation, adds to each person´s reputation and helps to spread the idea of being an honorable merchant.
If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, your success depends on several factors but the most relevant one is the stories others tell about you! That is what we call reputation. So if you want to stay successful in business closely monitor the stories others share about you and start to create your own story!
How can we create our story? Although we tell and listen to stories all day, most of us did not really learn how to do so. So let´s take a short look on a format which uses storytelling as a key element and may be considered as a benchmark for excellent stories and inspires many people around the world. I refer to TED the US institution committed to “Ideas worth sharing”
I guess most of you already know TED since the videos of the TED talks have been viewed more than 3 billion times. Every day we have approximately 10 TEDx conferences worldwide and the community of TEDsters grows quickly. Why is TED that successful? The first factor is what it is all about: Sharing ideas. We humans not only want to be part of a group, we want to learn. We want to be inspired. That is what TED talks are created for. The second factor is visibility. Via the internet TED Talks are easy to access and even the conferences are open to everyone. The third factor is well-set technology. We have at least three cameras and professional audio equipment to create great videos. The speakers go through an intense speaker coaching and follow a set of rules intended to help the audience to understand the idea. For example no TED Talk is allowed to be longer than 18 minutes.
Anyway, the technical part – as the setting here – is not the key. It helps to nurture inspiration. But the setting does not inspire by itself. The inspiration only comes from the speakers. It´s their ideas, their stories, that inspire the audience. Therefore professional speaker coaches invest a lot of time into the creation of great stories. A story reveiling the inner self of the speaker, his bright and dark moments and thoughts, the break-throughs and the down-falls. The story is what we as an audience connect to. It is our bond to the human being on stage. Only if this bond is made we are willing to follow the speaker into his world and trust his idea. If we trust the story we trust the speaker, we allow his idea to enter our minds and influence our thinking. That is how inspiration works.
Chris Anderson, the actual curator of TED compares TED to a virtual campfire. In a TED conference we are coming together to listen to others stories. And it does not matter whether the speaker is a well-known celebrity like Al Gore or Bill Gates. They have spoken at TED and did very well but the real inspiration mostly comes from others. The everyday people, people like you and me, daring to climb on stage to share their ideas are the real heroes of TED.
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What can we learn out of this? It is all about stories. We enjoy a glass of wine, the signature dishes of a star chef and an excellent venue. We enjoy it but we don´t need it. What we really need is assembling with others at the campfire, the others being close and listen to their stories. Stories that tell us who the other person is, what he or she stands for and how we are united as a group. Stories build our reputation.
This evening is still young, and this is our chance to share more stories and you additionally may look forward to tomorrows evening where you will literally assemble at a campfire and listen to even more great stories of great companions.
Enjoy the stories and constantly create your own story!
Note: If you want to learn more about TED or how to create your own Talk: http://www.springer.com/de/book/9783658095727 (in German)