Want A New Way To Transform Communication? Try Story Facilitation

Effective communication skills are listed as a must-have on most job applications. And this is for good reason. A study conducted by The Harris Poll found employees spend as much as 88% of their workweek communicating. Of the 1,002 knowledge workers and 253 business leaders surveyed, 100% said they experienced miscommunication on a weekly basis. Poor communication causes a decline in productivity and an increase in stress and missed deadlines.

When we don’t say what we mean or mean what we say, we also lose the opportunity to connect, collaborate, innovate and transform. To improve the communication skills of our teams, we must all practice being authentic and trustworthy and facilitate the opportunity for others to do the same.

You might be familiar with professional development for improved communication skills such as corporate storytelling training or storytelling coaching. And you might be wondering how story facilitation is different?

Story Facilitation Defined

Story facilitation turns building communication skills on its head. I define story facilitation as the practice of guiding, empowering and listening to others so they can uncover and share their own meaningful experiences. Instead of focusing primarily on telling your own stories, you become a supportive host, creating an environment where people feel heard, build trust and uncover stories they may not have realized were there.

But story facilitation goes beyond helping people tell their stories. It can also uncover ideas, knowledge and opportunities that no one knew were possible. Instead of asking leaders to communicate what they already know more effectively, story facilitation asks them to get curious about what they don’t know and involve others effectively in discovering it.

That can feel counterintuitive. Many leaders believe their job is to have the answers, know the direction and persuade others to follow. Story facilitation expects something different from leaders: enough confidence to admit when you don’t know, enough curiosity to ask questions you genuinely don’t have answers to, and enough trust in others to see how their stories might help. Sometimes leadership calls for being the sage on the stage. Story facilitation helps leaders recognize when it’s more useful to become the guide on the side.

Why Story Facilitation Is Needed

Here’s an example of impact of story facilitation from my recent book Winning Without Persuading:

When Gayla applied for a grant to fund an educational program for a rural school district in Georgia, it was declined. She asked for a meeting with Jake, the CEO of the foundation. The grant application hadn’t left room for storytelling, so she created it herself. Instead of pleading or restating the facts on her application, she told a story: How President Jimmy Carter forged an enduring bond between a struggling Georgia town and its Japanese sister city, and how students from families who’d never owned passports were transformed by visiting places like Hiroshima. Jake was surprised that his first impression of the program (through the grant application) had not captured the full picture. He started asking questions and, ultimately, decided this program couldn’t afford NOT to be funded.

Because Gayla and Jake made room for story, one of Carter’s legacy projects was saved and students from rural Georgia continue to learn and grow through his cross-cultural exchange program.

But I argue that we don’t need to wait until the stakes are so high to make room for stories. If we practice story facilitation regularly we will be able to make sure we are communicating effectively before a crisis unfolds.

How To Lead With Story Facilitation

Facilitation isn’t timekeeping or agenda management. And it certainly isn’t commanding the room with predetermined answers. Instead, it’s knowing how to minimize lengthy and unproductive conversations in team meetings and turn them into meaningful and productive connections. To be a successful story facilitator, you must practice three key mindsets.

You must be others centric

The most skillful communicators don’t need to be talkative. Instead, they are grounded in service. They are willing to share the spotlight and admit when they have something to learn.

What this looks like in practice: Eugene Toh, a senior leader in Singapore’s energy sector, describes his approach to mentoring as “teasing out leadership dilemmas rather than offering advice.” He shares stories that put younger leaders inside difficult choices, then asks what they would do without offering his own answer. Instead of telling mentees what good leadership looks like, he lets them wrestle with competing values and discover their own leadership compass.

You must be comfortable with uncertainty

The best story facilitators are even willing to seek it out and embrace incomprehension as a starting point, part of the journey, and the destination.

What this looks like in practice: Corporate trainer Reggie Polk builds uncertainty into his training. In one exercise, participants are dropped into an unscripted customer scenario involving a complex problem. Rather than starting with the right response, they have to ask questions and discover what the customer actually needs before deciding what to do. The point is to practice communicating when you don’t yet have all the information, and learn how to uncover what you need to move forward.

You must be pragmatic, not dogmatic

Skillful facilitators have a healthy detachment to any particular worldview, or way of knowing or doing.

What this looks like in practice: Erin Porteous, CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver, noticed that years of leadership experience could sometimes work against her. When someone proposed an idea, her instinct might be, “I’ve seen that before. We’ve done it that way.” She began practicing a different response: becoming quieter, asking more questions and resisting the urge to immediately decide whether an idea would work based on what she already knew. In her words, she learned to turn off “I’ve got the answer” in favor of curiosity and reflection.

Eugene resists giving his answers so his mentees can discover their own moral values. Reggie uses uncertainty to help his training participants discover information they need. Erin is an expert in her field but stays curious so as not to prematurely close off what might be possible.

The common thread is not only curiosity, but also knowing when leaders’ own knowledge should lead the conversation, and when it might get in the way of discovery. This distinction matters a great deal because story facilitation isn’t expecting leaders to become passive. Quite the contrary, it gives them another way to lead.

The Power of Story Facilitation

When the farm’s tomato surplus couldn’t go to food pantries, the manager shared the problem with the farm crew: “We have too many tomatoes and no buyer. What should we do?”

Out of that open space came an idea no one predicted: spaghetti dinners on the farm, with the community bringing picnic gear and the farm supplying pasta and sauce. Seventy people showed up the first week, a hundred the next. The farm crew turned a potential loss into a new revenue stream and a way to build community. The biggest plus: everyone on the farm felt so proud of this accomplishment.

That’s facilitation’s power: the team felt safe enough to brainstorm freely. When one intern mentioned her grandma’s spaghetti sauce recipe, the idea clicked. And the group built the plan together. The manager didn’t need the right answer. He only needed to give his team room to talk, dream, and discover what they were capable of.

Story Facilitation As A Leadership Communication Skill

What these stories reveal is that effective communication doesn’t always revolve around delivering the perfect pitch, telling the perfect story or having the right answer. Oftentimes, knowing how to uncover other people’s perspectives and experiences can lead to far better outcomes.

That is the skill at the heart of story facilitation and skilled communication –  knowing when your own knowledge should lead and when to make room for someone else’s story, perspective, insight or idea to change what happens next.

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