Teams face continual communication challenges as they grow: silo-thinking, mission-creep, and simply not knowing what others are thinking and doing. A radical disruption of these common patterns is needed for sustainable, long-term growth. In his Storytelling for team building webinar, Narativ’s CEO Jerome Deroy talks about how Narativ’s method provokes teams to change their communication patterns through: open listening (and how to *actually* do it!) a practical way of uncovering and leveraging individual voices creating quick and efficient pathways to understanding and innovation Narativ’s listening and storytelling method has a 10 year history of successfully transforming team communication. Jerome will talk about our success with Medium in its startup phase as an example.

1. Storytelling for Team Building

2. Audience Question
What is your experience of storytelling for team building?

3. • 25 years of experience
• Our method has had a proven, measurable, and transformative
effect on teams, culture, and individuals
• Capturing and sharing mission-critical knowledge
• Improve listening skills
• Increase cross-team collaboration
• More than half of all of our clients come to us for team building
About

4. • Dictionary: the action or process of causing a group of people to
work together effectively as a team, especially by means of
activities and events designed to increase motivation and
promote cooperation
• What we hear from clients: activities and events bond people and
give them an experience, but they can be fleeting if they’re not
followed up with long term practices to implement
Defining Team Building

5. Addressing a disconnect
Clients point out two main communication breakdowns that
impede collaboration:
• A disconnect between team members
• A disconnect between leaders and their team

6. Why stories connect
We are hardwired for story
Neuroscience shows us that story
is a function of the brain. When we
listen to a story, we cannot help but
be engaged.

7. Audience Question
What are the team-related challenges you have?

8. • Empathy
• Emotional connection
• Humanize each person and bridge cultural, language, hierarchal,
and other relational barriers
• Work through interpersonal conflict by giving a method to relate
what happened
• Uncover hidden narratives that are disruptive to the team
• Uncover voices previously unheard that could spark innovation
Does Storytelling Improve Communication?

9. Team building begins with listening

11. Case Study: Leading Luxury Brand
• Why Story? Why Now?
• To improve collaboration and better serve the business
as a whole
• Belief that the way to connect with anyone is through
the heart
• Storytelling leads you to the heart

12. Challenges
• Different communication styles and cultural gaps led to silos.
• How do we bridge gaps for better collaboration?

13. Challenges
• Perception was an obstacle: team
was seen as transactional, more
like an adversary than a partner
• Cerebral group, so how do you
reach the heart as well as the
mind?

14. What We Did
• Identify and release obstacles to listening
• Fear of looking bad in front of others
• Fear of public speaking
• Preconceptions and stereotypes

15. The Story
• Ken’s story: how a terrified, silent
member of the team found his
voice and transformed
communication in the team

16. Key Principles Implemented
• The individual impacts the collective: team building starts with you.
• Create a wide listening net to support the storytelling process.
• Let the stories speak for themselves instead of pre-determining what you
think your team needs to hear.
• Connect the stories to each person’s role, clarifying for each member of
the team who they are in relation to one another and how they can work
better together.

17. Parting Message
• Putting in place these principles takes time and practice.
• Invest the time needed and be patient with yourselves and your team
members… but don’t wait to begin!
• Clients who follow this process report improvements not only in
collaboration and team effectiveness but in the overall culture and
productivity of the enterprise.

18. Our Training
• Group training: 5 modules to address your team-related communication and
collaboration challenges
• One-on-one coaching: package of 4 one-hour sessions or individual sessions
• Foundation in listening and storytelling skills; application plan for personal
stories in team settings
• Delivered on-site, and / or online, live and / or on-demand, with use of the
Narativ Storytelling Practice Platform

19. Contact us:
Email: Jerome@Narativ.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/narativ
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Narativ/

20. Questions and Answers