By Nneka Orji

“Over the years I have become convinced that we learn best—and change—from hearing stories that strike a chord within us…Those in leadership positions who fail to grasp or use the power of stories risk failure for their companies and for themselves.” John Kotter

The idea that storytelling can be a powerful tool to convey important messages and inspire is not new, but its impact in a business context is only more recently gaining traction with the wider management community. While data and analysis go some way in convincing audiences of the need to act, on their own they have limited impact on inspiring the audience to act.

Make an Impression, Make an Impact
According to Paul Smith, author of Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives that Captivate, Convince, and Inspire, stories are a powerful tool which leaders can use effectively to inspire an organisation, set a vision, teach important lessons, define the culture and values, and explain who the leader is and what his / her beliefs are. Smith provides examples where organisations have not only acknowledged the importance of storytelling, but have invested in developing storytelling skills across their leadership team. For example, Proctor & Gamble brought in Hollywood movie directors to teach their executives and a number of Motorola’s leadership belong to improvisational or theatre groups. By formulating their messages as stories, executives were in a stronger position to lead organisational change and influence delicate issues like diversity and inclusion.

Storytelling can also be instrumental in improving employee engagement, both in the short and long term. For organisations looking to identify and develop the next generation of leaders, the leadership’s ability to engage and inspire must be at the core of their talent strategy. In a 2002 article for the MIT Sloan Management Review, Douglas Ready states that “storytelling by a company’s senior executives is a way of providing potential leaders with the necessary context from respected role models.”

Uri Hasson’s research with his Princeton team also demonstrated the power of storytelling; when telling a story, the storyteller can directly influence the brain activity of each audience member to map the storyteller’s brain activity. In the study, when the storyteller’s insula (emotional brain region) was activated, activity was also seen in the insula of the listeners. Paul Zak’s work on oxytocin-rich environments also highlights how personal connections through storytelling and other means evoke empathy across employees and customers, leading to “better business.”

What does this mean for leaders who are trying to influence organisations through periods of change? To ensure employees join their executives on the organisation’s change journey, leaders must take their employees on the emotional journey too. And they can do this through storytelling.

Don’t Just Tell, Do
While storytelling by leaders has been shown to be successful, Ty Montague (CEO of co:collective) argues that storydoing^TM is the differentiator. In addition to telling the stories, leaders and organisations need to engrain the stories in their organisation through their strategies and direct action. Based on Montague’s studies (during 2007-2011), storydoing^TM organisations see improved performance; annualised revenue growth rate is 4.3% higher than those of storytellers, social media mentions for storydoers was twenty times greater, and share price growth between was positive compared to negative for storytellers. Storydoing^TM companies such as Red Bull, TOMS shoes and NIKE are outperforming storytellers like Dr. Pepper, Reebok and Adidas.

If a leader or an organisation cannot reflect the ideals or key messages of their story in their action, the story cannot have the intended impact. Blake Mycoskie, CEO of TOMS Shoes – a storydoer, also highlights that a good story and corresponding action, will lead to further sharing of the story: “I realised the importance of having a story today is really what separates companies. People don’t just wear our shoes, they tell our stories.”

Telling a Good Tale
According to Jeremy Hsu’s Scientific American article, 65% of our conversations are made up of personal anecdotes and gossip. If this is indeed the case, we all need to ensure that the stories we tell, and more importantly the stories others tell of us, reflect ourselves and our goals.

So, how do we tell a good tale in a business context?

In a video on the Lean In community, Professor Jennifer Aaker, Stanford Graduate School of Business states that stories are twenty-two times more memorable than facts. This encourages us to use stories, but just as a good story will be remembered more than a fact, likewise a bad story will also stick.

According to Aaker, a good story has four elements: goal (why tell the story), grab attention (why would the audience listen), engage (why would the audience care), enable action (why would they share the story). By ensuring your story includes all these elements, you can narrow the gap between the way in which others view you and how you view yourself. To assess the success of your story, confirm whether your audience has changed their view of you, whether they better understand your position on the subject, or empathises with you and your cause.

If your story has not had the desired impact, take the time to work on it and practice it. Like all skills, especially leadership skills, good storytelling is the result of practice.

Read more

By Mary Chung

Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, was ranked the eighth most powerful woman in business by Forbes in 2013. Not too bad for a 38-year-old self-professed technology geek from Wausau, Wisconsin, who took the helm of Yahoo in July 2012, while she was six-months pregnant. Although there has been much written about her golden girl looks, her workaholic schedule, and her blinding ambition as she climbed her way up in a male-dominated industry at two of the world’s biggest technology companies – Google and Yahoo – nobody has ever described Mayer’s personality or leadership style as “too nice.”

In fact, the technology industry and the media were in an uproar when she banned remote-working from home privileges at Yahoo and, in doing so, she came under intense scrutiny for this huge shift in Yahoo’s corporate culture. A lot of anger and criticism was directed towards the fact that Mayer was a woman who just had a baby and somehow that meant, as a female CEO, she had a greater responsibility to be – how shall we put it – more understanding, more flexible, possibly, nicer?

Mayer chose business goals over personal feelings when she eliminated remote working privileges and while this may not have been considered a “nice” business decision to some, it is unfair to say Mayer wasn’t being ”kind” to her employees. After all, it is unlikely that if a male CEO chose to make the same business decision as Mayer he would have faced the same amount of scrutiny.

Leading with Kindness, Demanding Respect
Societal stereotypes of the sexes have made it difficult to view female leadership decisions as we would male leadership decisions. Women leaders like Mayer have the extra burden of not sacrificing business goals to avoid hurt feelings, but also showing a level of decency and kindness towards others. The pressure women face to balance these stereotypes remains a challenging task.

Read more

Nneka Orji

Are you no longer motivated by the work you were once very passionate about? Are you experiencing shortness of breath? Has managing your work-life balance become an impossible task? According to psychologist Sherrie Bourg Carter, if you answered yes to the above questions, you are likely to be on the road to burnout or already burned out.

Dr. Bourg Carter groups the signs of burnout into three main categories: physical, psychological and behavioral. Heart palpitations, increased anxiety and reduced appetite as a result of high stress environments are all signs that we might have pushed passed our physical limit.

Why is this important in the women’s leadership discussion?

Harvard researchers found that women in highly stressful jobs are at a 40 percent increased risk of heart disease. Arianna Huffington recently cited a study which found that women in stressful jobs were at 60 percent greater risk of Type 2 diabetes compared to their peers in less stressful professions. This correlation was not found in men, only women – not positive news for our female talent pipeline.

While burnout is not a female-only experience, high achieving women tend to have more expectations placed on them at work, home and in their communities. Already in high pressure jobs, the additional pressure women experience means that they struggle to balance demands and tend to burnout. Captivate Network also showed that women are less likely to address the factors leading to burnout compared to their male counterparts: “[m]en are 25% more likely to take breaks throughout the day for personal activities, 7% more likely to take a walk, 5% more likely to go out to lunch, and 35% more likely to take breaks ‘just to relax.’”

Why should leaders of our organisations take burnout seriously?

On an individual level, the impact of burnout can be devastating. Even more concerning, however, is the significant impact leadership burnout can have on organisations and economies. One of the key consequences of burnout is reduced engagement and in extreme cases, constant dread of going to work. Gallup’s 2013 State of the Global Workplace found that only 13 percent of the global workforce was either “not engaged” or “actively disengaged.” Actively disengaged employees cost economies $450-$550 billion in the US and £52-£70 billion in the UK annually. Of course burnout is not the only contributor to this drain on economies, but if individuals and organisations can mitigate the risk of disengagement by avoiding burnout, it is worth addressing.

Passing the torch to the next generation

By exhibiting the behaviours that lead to burnout, female leaders are setting the wrong example for the next generation. Working to the point where health is sacrificed sends the message that to succeed young women need to “work harder” rather than “work smarter.” The danger in female leaders burning out is twofold; firstly, fewer women remain in leadership positions and therefore fewer role models are available, and the second issue is that young women reflect the behaviours they see in their female role models, including those who exhibit signs of burnout.

Read more

By CEO and Founder Nicki Gilmour

The 35th Annual Simmons Leadership Conference held in Boston last week had an amazing roster of speakers, as always, including opening speaker, Denise Morrison CEO of Campbell. However, it was the anticipation of Hillary Clinton’s closing keynote that had over 3,000 women and men securing their seats, waiting to hear this accomplished leader speak. She didn’t disappoint and the themes she chose –intelligently as always – aligned well with the topics we discuss on a daily basis here on The Glass Hammer.

Women’s Participation in the Global Economy
In her role as US Secretary of State, Clinton got to see first hand how women are not being treated equally, and she commented on how almost twenty years has passed since she spoke of women’s rights as human rights at the UN 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Clinton endorsed the usefulness of the annual Simmon’s Leadership conference, stating it was important to be part of conferences like this one.

“I believe that advancing the rights, opportunities and full participation of women and girls, here at home and around the world, is the great unfinished business of the Twenty-first century. I saw that very personally, as Senator of NY, as First Lady and most recently as Secretary of State.”

Clinton discussed the participation of women in the global economic workforce and reminded us that progress has been stagnant over the last three decades.

She stated, “We have made important progress since that conference. We have seen progress. More women do serve in public office, but it’s a glass half full at best, because in too many places there are too many women who are still facing ceilings.”

“You might think that this is only a problem in faraway places,” Clinton said as she referred to some of the cognitive dissonance around diversity issues being exclusively outside the US that we have written about, and have heard –from women and men alike – in companies that describe a fantastical post-bias world.

“Here in the US, we still have our own barriers,” said Clinton. “For every success story of a woman making it, whether it is Mary Barra or Denise Morrison, who you heard from this morning, there are so many stories of dreams deferred.”

Clinton went on to reference the fact only 17 percent of US board seats are filled by women, and that we are “far behind many other developed economies.” When discussing under-representation of women directors on boards –specifically women comprising only 11 percent of technology company boards – she said, “It is a real problem when America’s most cutting edge companies are so far behind the curve.”

Hillary clearly gets it, and she shared her story of how she got into politics and became a leader in her own right. She recounted when people approached her to run for the Senate for NY when she was First Lady. At first she refused, not wanting to be the sacrificial lamb to run against Rudy Giuliani, but then one day when she was in NY at the launch of a documentary film called “Dare to Compete”, she found herself receiving advice that she had spent a lifetime giving.

At the event, she was introduced by the captain of the school’s women’s basketball team, and as the young lady was about to leave the stage, she bent down a little while shaking Hillary’s hand and whispered in her ear, “Dare to compete, Mrs. Clinton, dare to compete.” This really got her thinking and she did end up running for the Senate.

Read more

By Jennifer Keck

According to the 2013 Nonprofit HR Solutions employment trends survey, 40 percent of nonprofits indicated an increase in staff size in 2013, and 44 percent had plans to create positions in the upcoming year. This percentage follows an increasing trend, up from 33 percent in 2011 and 43 percent in 2012. As the nonprofit world continues to expand, many women have made the transition, using their for-profit experience to succeed in their new roles.

Like most organizations, a nonprofit’s ability to deliver results depends more on the quality of leadership than any other factor, a Bridgespan study on the nonprofit leadership deficit reports. Yet a growing number of organizations, the retirement of managers from the baby boomer generation, and a lack of intermediaries to help with recruiting and developing managers has led to a leadership gap. It is within this gap that executive women are increasingly finding their niche.

What drives top female talent to leave behind a profit-driven business for the challenge of managing a nonprofit, sometimes but not always, for less pay?

According to Mary Lee Montague, Executive Vice President of DHR International, a top five global retained executive search firm, “The [nonprofit] sector offers all people the opportunity to be a servant leader within a mission driven organization while benefiting both personally and professionally to make the world a better place.”

Montague has already placed numerous female CEOs in nonprofit leadership roles including: Shannon Block of the Denver Zoo, Merri Ex of Family Focus (Chicago), Heather Alderman of the IL Children’s Healthcare Foundation, Robin McGinnis of the Infant Welfare Society (Chicago), and Barbara Mosacchio of Chicago Youth Centers.

While there are many success stories, Montague stressed that executives who make the transition to the nonprofit sector understand that an effective nonprofit leadership style differs from traditional leadership. “It’s about ‘servant leadership’,” she noted.

Servant leadership emphasizes the importance of soft skills such as listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, commitment to the growth of people, community building, and stewardship. Montague explained, “Servant leaders don’t have to have all of these characteristics, but they all help to create the right atmosphere – the right culture – within an organization.”

The Challenges of Nonprofit Leadership
Nonprofit organizations require leaders who can motivate both staff and volunteers to work toward a central mission – often despite financial and human resource restraints. Additionally, a Bridgespan Group article on transferable skills highlights the importance of adapting to a different leadership style. The top down, more authoritarian-style of management tends to be ineffective in a nonprofit setting. Executives who have a proven ability to persuade others and a collaborative style are best suited to this industry.

Experience working with employees across various levels of an organization, from the sales floor to the executive suite, also lends itself to a smoother transition into the nonprofit world. Knowing how to get people to do things when you don’t have authority over them is especially important when you are working with volunteers.

However, it takes more than good management to lead a nonprofit. These organizations rely on local governments, community centers, public schools, and even neighborhood residents for grassroots organizing and funding. Collaboration with key stakeholders is a vital part of any nonprofit organization’s efforts to affect social change, and don’t forget about the board.

“Some of the biggest challenges are making sure the board is happy, raising the money necessary to carry out goals, and working with mission driven stakeholders,” Montague said.

Executives must know how to align all their constituents around a common initiative in order to obtain the funding and resources needed to achieve a nonprofit’s goals. The ability to manage a wide range of activities such as finance, human resources, and communications is critical.

Work experience in a resource-strained environment is also a key factor in making the transition into nonprofit. Anyone who has started her own business or has had a leadership role in a startup will be well prepared to face the challenge of maximizing resources, and doing more with less.

Transitioning from For-Profit to Nonprofit
If you haven’t honed all the skills listed above, don’t worry. This is simply a guideline to help you determine if a career in nonprofit leadership is right for you. Before you make the jump, Montague suggests you take a few things into consideration.

“It’s important to know you need to embrace the following: the care and feeding of the board of directors, the ability to do ‘an ask’, believe in the mission of the organization, understand the passion of the volunteer stakeholder, and the joy of being a servant leader…the ability to drive from the back of the bus,” she said.