Stories That Inspire: Leading with Influence, Clarity, and Joy with Julie Lancaster

Cloverleaf is an AI-driven coaching platform grounded in the validated behavioral assessments you already know and trust, like disk, anyagram, and 16 types, delivering deeply personalized, science-backed coaching that meets your people right where they work and drives real behavior change. Trusted by 45,000 teams to help leaders improve communication, collaboration, and performance, with 86% reporting more effective teams in as little as 30 days. Cloverleaf turns talent data into practical coaching insights that scale across your organization. Learn more at cloverleaf.me/podcast. Welcome to ATV's Talent Development Leader podcast featuring monthly conversations with the greatest influencers in the talent development field. We cover the latest trends, hot topics, and future-focused ideas that current and aspiring TD leaders need to know. Learn more by visiting www.tv.org and searching for talent development leader podcast. Julie Lancaster is the CEO and head leadership development expert for Lancaster leadership. For the past few decades, Julie has been invited to work intimately with leaders and their teams, and from this, she's discovered one of the most underutilized influence tools, storytelling. Her clients often openly admit to not telling stories at all or being long-winded over talkers. Beyond coaching and training 75,000 clients, Julie has now created a book to give bite-size research-based strategies paired with relevant storytelling that cuts through the noise and inspires real action. Beyond words, how are stories and strategies inspire action? This book helps leaders to tackle 31 leadership challenges. What's more, a personal priority of Julie's is to help teams operate with productivity and joy. Julie's had a multifaceted career, including time as a rock climbing instructor and outdoor education and garden director, Peace Corps volunteer, and Professor and Dean of Education who taught courses on the psychology of motivation and interpersonal communication. She's found herself writing 900 performance evaluations, teaching 38 sections of the psychology of motivation, and working with 75,000 business leaders who want connection and results. Hi, Julie. Thank you for joining me today. I'm so happy to be here. I'm happy you're here. I'm happy to talk today about storytelling. This is such a big topic right now, and I see how it's affecting the talent development field, and I see the appetite that our listeners, talent development leaders have for storytelling. So I'm super excited to just dig into this with you. Specifically today, we're going to talk about the kind of storytelling that influences others, moves the needle in your leadership, and creates the impact you need for your talent development strategy. So as we're recording this, we're still in the new year, part of the year. So I think it's super pertinent to think about that when we're thinking about how we set ourselves up for success this year. I did too. And being that they're calling 2026 the year of leadership storytelling. It feels exciting because it's like this thing that used to be just for I don't know sitting around the campfire or something like that. And now it has a real important place in the leadership world and in circles of influence and connection. And that's what we're wanting to do at work anyway. Most of the time is influence and connect. It's wonderful. I'd love to ask a question to come off here. For all of our listeners, I want you to think about this and reflect as we talk about the year of storytelling for leadership. How much are you currently telling stories at work during your team meetings and one-on-ones? How frequently do you use storytelling to set vision, gain buy-in, and engage your people in shared goals? Now Julie, I know when I did this personal reflection, I'm a little embarrassed to share the results. But I think it's helpful to level set, right? Where are we personally in this process? Can you share some research, some thinking about why this is so important? Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you asked that because that is the first place to start. Isn't it? It's like who cares? So what? Not in a judgmental way, but does it actually matter? What you and I know just like in our guts, but now the research supports it is that stories turn feeling into action. Research shows that it increases our willingness to act by 261%. Which is quite a bit. If we truly think about what we're trying to do in leadership, it's encourage other people to act. And we know that the only thing that exists is self-motivation. We cannot motivate other people. We can get up as close as possible. But then they have to take the baton. One thing that I find super interesting is that I will ask roomfuls of leaders this question. So I'm curious what your listeners would also say. The question is, are you sure that you have been inspired some time or many times within this last year? I'm curious and for you, what would your answer be? Yes, no, maybe. You're sure you've been inspired. Yes, I'm often inspired during a Peloton run or a ride. Those instructors inspire me and they tell good stories. Oh, I love that. I love that. And so you're trending with what most people I interact with say they say, yes, I am sure I've been inspired. And then I flip it. And so here's the second question to everybody. Who is sure that you have been inspiring? Without a doubt, you are sure that you've been inspiring to other people. Not just one person, but many people many times. What would you say for that? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I hope so. Perfect answer. And I'm guessing that's what the listeners are saying too. That's what roomfuls of people say. They're like fingers crossed because that's my goal. But that is why this storytelling thing is so valuable and important because of course we want to be influential, have positive impact. But we haven't totally figured out how to do it. So we know that whether it's with a group of 20 people or it's with a group of 2,000 people or if it's with one person storytelling is a way to be inspiring without being pushy or bossy or forceful. We give people the opportunity really to pick up what we're putting down and take action. They won't always. But this is a tried and true strategy. So we don't have to be like, oh, how might I inspire somebody? This is something to do. And it reminds me of the sales world where we know that in sales, part of the sales 101 is do telling instead of selling. Share your experience instead of trying to strong arm somebody. So the other part that I really hold on to from the research is that inspired people are apparently twice as productive or engaged. So as leaders, of course, we want people to get stuff done all the while having positive work culture all the while, all these other things, but we want to get things done. I'm guessing a lot of your listeners are thinking about AI these days. So especially in an artificial intelligence age, human stories are more precious than ever because they are our own true lived experiences. To follow up on that, we talked about even at the very beginning the idea of building influence and connection. Can you talk more about this even beyond inspiring people and getting things done? What is this idea of connection? And I think that's especially important when you think about culture, right? And as a leader of the kind of culture or team you're building and how you want to influence people in that sense. It's interesting because when I tell people what I do, when I'm like, oh, I'm a leadership coach or a trainer or I help leaders at the leadership game, it is so common that people will say, oh, could you work with my, whomever because they want me to influence somebody? Could you work with my husband? Could you work with my boss? Could you work with my peer over that cubicle over there because they're wanting to impact change? These folks are like, I would like to see some change either in terms of motivation or organization or planning or productivity or generational awareness or emotional intelligence or all of these different kinds of things. So it's clear that we want to influence other folks. But if we're trying to figure out how to do it, we know that we need to have connection at the same time that we influence. It's kind of old school philosophy to think that forcing or pushing is effective. But the other thing, and I think this speaks to your point when you are asking the question how frequently are people telling stories? What I have found with the leaders that I've worked with and I've had the absolute pleasure to work with so many leaders across so many industries. So I have this good kind of like cross-section of folks that I've been able to study. People fall to two different polls. And I'm curious which it is for you because I have a guess from what you already said. The one side is no stories ever. It's like where do stories even fit into the workplace? What are you talking about? Now we get our stuff done. We have our meetings. We move forward. So no stories at all. The other side is the long-winded hostage-taking storyteller that's here. relevant that everybody avoids they walk 20 minutes out of their way to avoid walking by that person's office. I see folks on these two sides and that second one especially is quite alienating. It's not building connection. There is definitely not influence or maybe there is influence but in a very unintended direction. I'm curious for you which side do you tend to fall on? Definitely more toward the no stories at all. I'm always cognizant of taking up too much of people's time. Yes. Oversharing because I've been stuck in those rooms or those teams meetings where someone just won't stop talking about themselves. Personally you're a personal story. I am always curious about how a well crafted story and we'll get into this later because it does feel a little intimidating to think about. It's almost like English class. I have to write or design or craft this story. There must be a formula to follow and am I going to screw it up? That kind of thing. You and I are cut from the same cloth or they have my life until I was 40. I grew up thinking that I hated storytelling because for some reason I was like this magnet. Maybe because I was a good listener to people who would tell these long winded stories and I would think what does this have to do with me? Why are you telling this right now? I'm not interested. How can I feign my own death? Until I learn. Oh wait a minute. Storytelling done well. I love storytelling done well but we often aren't trained at it and for some folks if they've got a captive audience they think that's permission and interest. For me it was no I'm just too polite to be like please please stop. I hear that I feel that. I would love to get even more practical or in the nitty gritty. Can you give us an example? Good story Julie or ingredients to this exercise beginning middle and end or whatever. I love that you just said that about beginning middle and end. That's the thing I'm with you about like English class. I don't have the time to compose some draft and then a second draft. In the work world what I kind of support or see to be effective is you don't have to spend a lot of time thinking about what's the beginning middle and end. There's just a few components that have it seem a bit more natural or easy to prep even as we're doing the seven minute walk to get to the meeting. We've got to have more than 25 seconds I think but maybe the seven minute walk we could crack it in our heads. So let me share this story with you and just to be crystal clear what we mean everybody by storytelling is not a made up story. It has to involve you and it has to be true. That's what we're talking about to be influential and to connect. So several years ago I was sitting in our medical lab and I was about to host a monthly meeting for 20 faculty were all crammed into this little medical lab. I'm curious have you ever worked at or been part of a group where you don't have an official room for the official thing. No. Oh my goodness. I guess I'm lucky. That's incredible. Yes. Well here we are. We're having our monthly faculty meeting and we're crammed into a medical lab because that's the space that we have. I'm the dean of education and I'm about to run the meeting. So this lab is the same room where I've been asked to do things that are not in my job description like give blood for the phlebotomy students that were learning to use needles for the first time. Wow. The funny things I loved it because it was helping the students to learn. So anyway I had 30 minutes with this group once a month and I had so much to share in these meetings every single time and a typical meeting would look like this. Here's my 45 things on the agenda. I want to cover all of it. I'm efficient. I'm fast-paced. Even my nature is very much let's get right into it. Oftentimes I'll have to back up an email and be like, oh yeah, hi. Good morning. And vulnerable sharing right now. I thought the best meeting was when nobody was talking but me. Not a proud moment. I've learned a lot along the way. So anyway there were these two folks I can see their faces. Each of them would raise their hand during the half an hour meeting. They would raise their hand and interject and say something like, I have an idea. What about if we. and I would secretly seed the other one would raise their hand and it would be the questioner. Like, why do we even need to do that? And same thing. And I thought clearly they don't understand that the purpose of this meeting is for them to listen. Decisions have already been made. I don't have time to explain. Just get on board. I would try and smile a little bit but give everybody else the anti-permission to ask or contribute anything more. And so since then I have learned a lot. So that's my story. That's my story part. The lesson part for me is that I learned meetings or my time that I'm with other people. The best and highest use of that time is not information sharing. I was also a professor. I taught classes like interpersonal communications. If you can believe that because here I learned a word. I was proud of my teaching but I didn't even recognize that I could transfer that exact same skill of getting people to engage to how I ran a meeting. And one day when I was reading books and learning more about leadership I was like I cannot believe that I have overlooked this very important crucial detail that when we have people together can we build rapport and can we utilize the creative minds for new ideas for moving forward together. Because if we do that, this guy's the limit. If we don't do that, it's like pushing rope. Every one of us has stories like that. I'm almost guessing that even as you're listening to the story, you can I don't know, think of other things from your life that are the moments where you've tripped up. Unless you've been perfect your whole life, I'm not sure. No, not at all. We all have those. And those are the stories that people relate to more. Typically is when we can share about a time that we struggled and it's relatable. Here are the pieces. Can I share with you the recipe or the cocktail? Yeah, and I'll tell you what was happening in my mind when you shared that story. 100% relatable. And I could picture that room. I could picture the group of people in it. You set it up in a way that I felt like I was there with you as you walked through it. I think the fact that you said these are lessons learned for you. So it's this kind of moment of I wasn't perfect. And here's how I messed up or how I reflected and learned and grew in my career as a leader in where I am now. So anyway, for me it was effective. Because it did illustrate even visually in my head. Where were you going? It means a lot to me to hear what's happening in your mind as I'm sharing that because that's what I think we all want to know. That's why you and I haven't been the long-med destroy teller in the past because we're afraid of taking up too much time because what are people thinking? Are they appreciating this or they connecting? Does it make sense? Is it helpful? So to hear that, that's really helpful. There are just four components and they're in this crafty acronym which is REST like R-E-S-T. The first thing is that we want our stories to be relatable or relatable. It sounds so simple but this piece is do the people actually care? Can I stop and use the weight acronym W-A-I-T? Why am I talking? The great. It's an important first step. If I'm just trying to take up airspace or feel important, can I recognize that and stop? Turn the airspace over to somebody else. So really, are they interested? It's not just because you have a captive audience so it's simple. It's to relate. The second is to engage while you're telling the story. So in my line of work, I have the opportunity to work with groups in an engaging way and in a non-engaging way. What I mean by that is the non-engaging way is like a one-hour keynote with a big room full of people and it's hard to engage in that kind of way because I've got a microphone in front of everybody. I can't be like, "Hey buddy, what do you think?" The other is when it's a smaller group of people and we can engage. I'm going to encourage every time, 100% of the time, whether you're the person on the stage or whether you're the person with 20 people to try to engage, which doesn't mean turning over the mic or the floor. It's just a tiny question which might even just elicit a nod or a hand raise. Like, can you relate to this? Has something like this ever happened to you? Does this make sense? Anything like that? It's a tiny check-in. Just to share with you for a moment, I recently have been involved with The Moth, which is this program around the world where it's five-minute storytelling on a stage, true real stories. It seems to be a really wildly popular growing event to participate in. And I've done it a couple times and afterwards. I watch the video back to see how many times the audience responds with a laugh or a sigh or something. Because I'm somehow engaging and in the five-minute story, it was 25 times. And I had to do a little pump the air just to pump to myself, whatever to be like, okay, that's the goal. Because we don't want to just hold people hostage. So it's the check-in. That's engaged. Okay, then we have two more. S is short. Make it short. Robert Chaudini, I want to call him like the Godfather of Influence. He's written lots of books. He's the first leadership book I ever read and took notes in a word document was written by him. I recently got to meet with him and I was trying not to fangirl too hard, but he's amazing. And when I asked him about storytelling, I said, tell me what's your advice about good storytelling. He said short three minutes or less. That's doable for leaders. Right, three minutes or less. We're not talking about 20 minutes. There's a quote that sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, which is, I'm sorry, I didn't have the time to write you a shorter letter. That's good. That's the idea. Okay, the last, the last. And I'm curious. And which of these four seem the most interesting or helpful to you to remember. Is it the relate and gauge short or the last one is theme theme, tea theme. What are you actually trying to convey? What's the point of what you're talking about? Is it accountability? Is it how to have a courageous conversation? Is it how to pick yourself up from your bootstraps? Is it how to have resilience when things are hard? So mine was really, if I was to try and assess what it was about and clarify the theme, it's, it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to not have been perfect our whole lives, but it's mostly about how can we shift once we notice and put a highlight on rapport building, relationship building, team building, instead of this notion that I've had my whole life that efficiency, hard charging is the way to get things done. And a lot of times it's not. I love when there's an acronym. It makes this make sense in my head via rest and wait, that was a good one too. I think for me, it almost seems like the tea is the why, right? Do you have to start there? You have to figure out what your theme is. And then you back into the other parts of that. I think that for me is most interesting where I could do the relatable piece. Obviously I get why it's important to engage and I'm sure there's skills there on how to engage when you're telling a story. Short makes total sense to me, but understanding as a leader, the point of it of this story. And it's interesting for me, I either start with a tea or I finish with a tea. Sometimes it's like I have to teach a workshop on a stress management. So what story can I think of that involves me doing good or bad stress management? But sometimes it's like, oh, that interesting thing happened today. Let me think how I can try and form it into a story. And later the less as I'm working it, the lesson of it comes. I'm like, ah, that's the takeaway, moral or message or lesson. It's interesting though, because talk about the keynote, so the chances to practice and then also it's easier to engage with people in small group sources when you're on a stage. But I can remember those key notes, those big conference room presentations when speakers did a good job at telling stories that followed the rest process because you remembered them. You remembered what they were saying. The point, the theme of what they were driving home was just made so much more real. I do think it's possible in that setting too, which is encouraging. Yes. And then we don't tune out as much, right? Like some text, someone's drowning on for an hour with slides and data. I'm not going to remember any of this six months from now, but a story. There's a good chance somebody will. To put this in the context of where the field is, talent development right now, and some of the challenges that TD leaders are facing. Certainly it's a challenging economy. There's a lot of uncertainty in organizations. Folks are facing layoffs or outsourcing. Often in that environment talent development becomes a nice to have, not a must have. That's right. How might listeners lead most effectively through these uncertain times and even use storytelling as part of that process? I love that. Here's what I think. Right now people are saying we have a lot of uncertainty. Actually, that's one of the things people will call up often and say, can you do a workshop on how to lead in uncertain times? And sometimes when they say back to their team, well, guess what everybody, we're always leading in uncertain times. It's demotivating because they're like, you don't get us. You don't get it that it's extra hard right now. There's extra lack of clarity. I don't know if X, Y, or Z will exist tomorrow. But sometimes it is motivating. And I want everyone to capture the difference here because when it is motivating, the leader is focusing on we've been here before. You've been resilient before and you've made it through. So that nuance is really important. It's either alienating or it's unifying and it's confidence building. What I've seen is that people are taking cues by anyone who's willing to give them especially in uncertain times. So whatever we're putting out, people are noticing and they're picking up their paying attention. What I would encourage, the first thing is to have a theme of the quarter. It's one of my favorite things to do. I started doing this maybe 15 years ago when my first coach, she challenged me to do this and I've been doing it since. A theme of the quarter is thinking, how do I want to show up? Personal life, professional life doesn't matter for a quarter. It's not a strategic plan with specific goals and deadlines and deliverables. For me at times, I've had risk taking as my theme of the quarter. At times, I've had ease. At times, I've had chasing joy. So it's like a core value to keep coming back to. That's the first thing. That's at everybody's disposal. So a leader could even lead a session with their team on saying, everybody choose your own theme of the quarter. Now tell us why and where is it going to be challenging to do that? And how are you doing now with that? First, we should use the resources that we already have. And the most powerful resource that we already have is momentum. And the momentum that we have is with our current employees. Our current employees are here. Our current employees are somewhat seasoned. Our current employees are staying. It takes a lot of money, energy, and time to bring on new people. You've seen this. So we have my team, my Lancaster leadership team. We work 150 different event days in a year. So we've had a chance to see what people are struggling with and where they're thriving. And right now, where they're thriving when they're doing this, is they're putting a lot of effort on succession planning. And what I mean by that is that they're building the bench from within. They're preparing team members for the next role, even before they reach it, even if that's not the plan, which goes to the theme of this podcast, right? Talent development. How do you develop your talent? One time I was working with someone and he had 60 direct reports. I don't really know how that works to have 60 direct reports, but that's what he had. And when I asked him, so who are you training up? Who's going to be ready for your position when you leave? Who knows when? Who knows why, but he said, are you kidding? None of them. And I thought, hmm, is that arrogant? He's like, I'm the only one who could do this job. Maybe, but actually more of what it said to me is he's not taking the time to prep anybody to get them ready, because nobody's born ready. The number one obstacle that I see and maybe you see as well, is it people are like, I don't have the time. You see that? No, yeah. So here's my hardcore advice. If people are like, what are the steps? What do I do? The first is to make a to don't list. We all have our to do list. What can we really slice? Like it keeps strolling up on our someday maybe list and we keep pushing it back on our to do list. It's actually, oh no, no, I'll get to that next week. Like, cut it. So you're going to maybe do it next quarter, but cut it off the list for right now. But we really have to be strategic and prioritize. Figure out what needs to be deprioritized. The second is figure out how to be more efficient with what needs to be done. And I think this can be so fun as a team, because if you ask your folks on a scale of one to a hundred, how efficient are we at all the things we need to get done? A hundred is like the best ever. Zero is we don't even know what we're supposed to be doing and we eat ice cream all day. I don't know. Nobody's going to say a hundred and then you get to say, okay, why wasn't it zero? And why wasn't it a hundred? Where could we be more efficient and people love to get to share this? Where could we be more efficient? I think people have creative enough minds that they can identify these areas. So then we work on those so that we create space because the goal is to create space so that teams can make a people strategy plan. Not just strategic planning to get the tasks done, but a people strategy plan, which is about developing your team. So then that's the third step. Where do you want to put effort into your people? Is it mentoring, cross-training, taking or even leading little micro-learning courses, having systems of positive and constructive feedback, identifying gaps and growth area assessments? I mean, there's lots of space. Once we have the space, there are lots of things to do because you and I both know that a tooled up future-ready culture never happens by accident. This is Julie's super inspiring for me. See it's working! Your story tells Look at that. I wrote down two don't lists. The first thing I'm going to do that definitely resonates with me. Going back to your story at the very beginning too when you treat meetings or interactions with your team like this kind of hustle, that to get this done rather than your role as a leader being one to connect and motivate and inspire. And so how do you create the space that you can do that? I mean, even when you mentioned having a quarterly theme, my first thought was, I don't have the time. That seems like a creative space or a place that I just never go because my excuse there is I don't have the time. But I think when you shift your mindset as you're saying to be like, this is what's actually going to move the needle for you and your teeth. This work. Not the get this done, get that done mentality. I want to share this with you because this is something for me too. I want to use all my time super effectively and get the most important work done and sometimes like the email the quarter. Does that feel like important work? That's the stuff that doesn't in quotes need time because we can do it. It's creative thinking time. It doesn't mean we're sitting at our desk for 45 minutes staring into space. It's when we're on that peloton. And then if we can be okay with progress instead of perfection to be like, I'm going to go with this one. I don't know if it's the perfect most exact right one. But let me try it out. Next quarter's here before we know it for better or worse. Let me try a new one. Here we get to be, it's kind of corny, but the captains are very in journey and our own lives. And so we're in charge of what we can be in charge of. The sphere of influence. We are definitely in charge of how we show up. Another through line for this profession, for talent development through the years that I've worked with them is the idea of impact and telling a story of impact. So super helpful for you to talk about how do we communicate in uncertain times, lead to uncertain times. I think another perennial challenge is this idea of what impact is talent development having on the business and what is the story I can tell about that in a way that shows talent development's value proposition to my leaders, to my entire organization. Totally. And this is where we have to get comfortable pausing because storytelling can only happen because we're reflecting backward. And when we stop and reflect backward, we also have the power to turn a telling into a storytelling because it's got the rest components. It's not just a report. So that's where we have to actually stop and think. What is the value proposition? It's scary because sometimes it's easier to just do, do, do. What do they say that being the human doing instead of the human being? It's the most important work. Like, why am I here? What are we doing? What's important? Why does it matter? It's interesting you mentioned that, and because I was just today earlier talking with a group that's going to be hosting a transportation summit. And they were asking if I could do a keynote on exactly what you're talking about. How can we use storytelling to explain our value proposition? Because whether they're lobbying at a governmental kind of level or they are trying to communicate with their partners or their collaborators or even their team, we all want to be able to be compelling. You know, I once, this was such a shock. This was like 20 years ago when I still remember this. I went to this yoga retreat and a psychologist. He was teaching it and he said, can you remember that he said, I work with the aging community, the geriatric community. And I think that the reason that so many of us forget the details of our lives is because we weren't present in the first place. Now whether that's true or not, it's a very provocative statement. It had me stop and think like, how present am I in all of my moments? Or am I often thinking about the next thing? Am I standing up at lunch thinking like, okay, let me shovel this in because after lunch I have to do X, Y and C. So Matthew Dix is a strong leader in the storytelling space and I was listening to his audiobook. And there's a particular strategy in there that he talks about that is hands down, one of my favorite strategies now and it's called homework for life and it forces us to pay attention and it's so simple. It's each day for me, it works at the end of the day for others. It might be the beginning of the day where you stop and reflect what was something noteworthy, somewhat interesting that happened today. And that's easy because sometimes my struggle is, oh my gosh, what was I doing 10 days ago? But I can remember what I was doing today for me, this might sound silly, but I do it while I'm brushing my teeth because I'm already captive. So I can think of it and then you just jot it down. Whatever your strategy is, I think he uses an Excel document. I just use the notes app on my phone. You can use old fashioned paper and pencil. That becomes your story bank so that when the one day you're like, I'd like to be able to tell a story to my team about accountability or about how it's better to build relationships than just pushing hard, charging meetings. You can go back to that list and be like, I could flesh this out and turn this into a story. So that's a concrete strategy. But the other piece to your question is, I love this quote that art can be made on the clock, which I think of storytelling as being an art, meaning that sometimes we have a deadline. So if we've got a meeting or something, I want to tell a story by that meeting or I'm going to have a meeting with a donor. I'm going to have a meeting with my boss who's going to determine if I still have a budget or not. It's possible to do that. Now I have the story bank that has like a thousand topics in it. But the first thing for each of us to start with is the question, what do I stand for or what do I want to be known for? But I want to make it broader than I, meaning if I am the human resources department, if I am the talent development department, if I am talking about a talent development budget, it's what do we stand for? What do we want to be known for? And that's a really exciting, I think, exercise to do with your team. And from there, once you're like, we want to be known for our exceptional service to our clients who are whatever. Then we get to think backward, think of one moment where that actually was happening. And of course, we should hopefully be able to think of moments because that's in theory what we're doing all day. And from there, we start to flesh it out. Okay, what else is interesting about that? What else is it? Can I remember the specific details to the point earlier about, do we need to think about the beginning, middle, and end, and really craft it? I think just two things that are important in the beginning to think about are start with a time and a place. If not, it becomes advicey and vague. But if it's I was rushing into the medical lab for the faculty meeting, there's a time and there's a place. What do you think about any of that? Well, I think what's interesting and I think listeners will resonate with them in all of this is that we've in talent development for years talk about data, tracking data. What are some leading and lagging indicators of your success? It's a conversation and a nut we can't crack because that's not really telling a story or showing impact in the way that telling a story can. So when you're meeting with your boss or you're talking to a potential client, knowing what's most important to them or what you need to communicate and then being able to back into that with the story, I just think that comes across so much more effectively than here's my spreadsheet or even my PowerPoint with a several slides showing how many people attended our training this quarter, which doesn't really mean much to them. So that's what I'm thinking. And certainly data, the metrics have a time and a place, but I think we'll talk about really communicating impact and value prop. This is the meat of it. I agree. And because we're trying to get people to feel and when they feel, they'll take action. And I don't know if you have been exposed to the same kind of commercials that I've been exposed to, but when I think about a home art commercial or like a UNICEF commercial where they're telling the story, they're showing the impact, I'll get tears sometimes and I'm like, what am I doing? Tears on a commercial. And I'm like, oh, it's because they're telling the story. I've seen organizations nail this like at their all hands quarterly meeting. They'll have something called in quotes mission moments and they'll have someone tell a story where they were having the chance to live the mission, the mission of the organization. And it involves nine times out of 10 serving a client and this is the impact it made on the client or the patient or the constituent or whomever and it's powerful. Julia, I know we're getting close to the end of our time together, but want to close with this final question. How might folks leverage the stories that already exist within an organization? When we talked about culture a little bit earlier, those stories that are indicative of its culture when crafting their own stories. So I think with this really wanting to understand what's the best way to play to context? And maybe that's that relatable piece, right? And making it something that an organization can really relate to. I love that. Okay. We are going to start simple because we know the only things that we actually do are when we can see the very next step forward. I mean, that's kind of a gross exaggeration. But this is the homework that I want to give to everybody, including myself, including to you and but it's doable. So at your next meeting, can you share a relevant story to illustrate a point? What I mean by that is if we try and create a story that's going to be a great deal of the perfect thing for the perfect moment. I want to be able to have a great story that's going to shift the mindset of all the people or get our impact increased by 500%. It's too scary. It's too daunting. It's too big and we end up not doing it. So if it's, tell a story, five minutes or less, three minutes is probably better. At your next meeting, you're going to figure out some point to make. You're going to look at the agenda and be like, okay, we're talking about this, we're talking about this. What even is a story? Well, I guess yesterday I did have a meeting where the person that's in relation to this thing that's on our agenda. Let me think, could I try and flesh that out? Could I try and retell and then turn it into a storytelling and then start with a time and a place? So I think the first place to start is being scrappy and trying it out. At the end of your meeting, you could even say, hey, everybody, I was trying a new thing. What did you think about that story? Did you love that I told it or did you hate it? Was it a waste of time or was it helpful? Then we can start to hone the craft. This is how we might want to tell the story of our organization. This is how we might want to tell the story of what we do. But start simple at the next meeting and what do you think about that idea? It's good. I'm thinking of a meeting where I feel safe. With teammates who I feel like I can experiment within this sense and it would be something that we could do together. Let's go there for a second. We need some training wheels and we're like, ah, five minutes of dominating feels like too much. You can in your mind be like 45 seconds and don't say that you're going to tell a story. You just start talking. Okay. Because quite frankly, that's what we're doing when we're recounting something. And then later afterwards, you get to Ruffiel. This is what I was doing and how did it land? I could 100% do that. We started out talking about research. I would love to hear from you as we wrap up today. And it doesn't have to even be about storytelling, but it can or leadership. But something that maybe you've read or researched or come across lately that has just really excited you or brought you a new epiphany or that you want to share with listeners. Yes. I do have that. So I feel like I am an inspiration junkie. That's a term my sister first started using one time and I was like, oh, okay, I think I get what you mean. Like I love to be inspired. I look for opportunities. And here's what inspires me this quarter. It sounds so simple, but it's so advanced, I think, is that change actually is possible. For people who are like, I don't tell stories. I've seen so many examples of people's changing. For people who used to be those in my family or the long-winded storytellers that I'm like, oh man, I have seen change and it drastically improves things. To that point, there was an instructor that I was watching to teach a class. He was teaching a radiology class. My job was to observe him to see how effective he was as an instructor. My first data point is looking at the eyes in the room. How many people have eyes on him? Because that's one indication that people are interested in paying attention. And it was two people out of 30. And I was like, oh man, we've got a long way to go. All of a sudden, he must have noticed it. And he switched and he started telling a story. And he had good stories because he had seen lots of broken bones. And he started telling a story about a boy who was skateboarding and essentially the arm broke. And it looked like his arm was put on backwards and came into the ER and then he asked the students, you want to see the slide? I have this right here with me. And they were all so excited. And I had to even catch myself in that moment because I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm supposed to be taking notes on how effectively he's teaching. Not get all sucked up in the story. I got sucked up in the story because it was so good. The reason I share that is because it ties in this kind of epiphany that I've had that for people, change is possible. If we first just recognize that we want to change, secondly, we're brave enough to try it out, not knowing what the results will look like. And then here's an example where somebody made the tiniest change, starting to tell a story. And it was a game changer. And I am sure that those students that he was teaching, they learned better in that class. So then they retained things better. And once they got out into the work role, they performed better at their jobs. I really think that moment changed their lives. And he didn't even know that was going to happen. Thank you so much for sharing that. For listeners for myself, when I think about change, even the work of becoming a storyteller is something that, like you said, for a step believing it's possible, right? The leading I can incorporate this in my own personal life, my own professional life as a leader, and then having the courage to do it. And that's a big takeaway I've had from this conversation. So thank you so much for your time with me today. I'm so glad. I'm so glad. I'm so glad. This has been wonderful. How can folks get in touch with you to learn more, to continue the conversation? I would love anybody who's listening and you're hungry to grow. I would encourage you to reach out. You can find me through my website, which is lambcasterleadership.com. There is no D-L-I-N-C-A-S-D-R-L-L-L-I-D-S-I-C-P. And I often set up just a discovery call with people to do a needs assessment. How are things, what's working, what's not, and what's possible? So we could do that. And then we've got a lot of cool things coming up. We've got an author, lead me being the author, book club coming up that's starting soon. We've got a women's summit in Arizona for leadership that's coming up soon. We've got a lot of strategic planning that's happening right now. Groups are reaching out for that. But my favorite, if anybody's hungry for this, this is my favorite. So let's do this, is doing group coaching for leadership teams because it's where leadership teams who lead the organization take the time out to actually focus on what's important. Maybe one of the pieces is storytelling. Maybe the other is how to hold people accountable. Maybe it's also how to have a culture that's healthy and meets our mission, how to have a courageous conversation. It's all the things. So that's how fantastic. Thank you so much again for being here. And I look forward to chatting again soon. Great. Thanks so much, Anne. Thank you to our sponsor, Cloverleaf. Thank you for listening to this podcast by the Association for Talent Development. If you found this show insightful or useful, please be sure to like, subscribe, and share it with a colleague. (upbeat music)