3 Stories that Drive Growth
Key highlights and inspiration from our inaugural LookUP event...
In January, we ran our inaugural LookUP Event, the Year of 3 Stories. It was a wonderful morning, full of inspiration, and a sense of togetherness.
We had lots of requests for a summary of the event, and footage from the sessions…and today, we are delighted to share it with you.
We believe that the art of storytelling in business has got lost.
Storytelling should influence every aspect of a thriving organisation - its direction, how it builds culture, and how it communicates its value to the world. Somewhere along the way, that broader application has been overlooked, and storytelling feels like it’s been locked into a tactical marketing bubble.
But that’s underestimating just how powerful story is in bringing people together.
Storytelling is innate to people. From the moment we can talk, we engage with and understand the world through stories.
And yet, in a business environment focused on short-term performance, it’s become too easy to dismiss storytelling as ‘the fluffy stuff.’
But storytelling is not a soft skill. It’s one of the hardest and most essential skills today. At a moment where setting a clear vision feels hard, where aligning teams feels like an uphill battle, and where selling anything requires instant connection with your customer, good storytelling is absolutely indispensable.
We see three stories as fundamental to the success of any organisation.
Future Story. How do we get our organisations moving in the right direction? How do we use storytelling as a tool to make decisions and as a filter for what we do, and what we don’t do?
Culture Story. What are the stories that teams tell each other? Not just the official narrative handed down from leadership, but the lived stories that shape the organisation’s culture from within?
Selling Story. How do we take our story to the market in a way that resonates? How do we ensure that it’s not just about what we want to say, but also about what our audience wants to hear?
These are the stories that define a business. They interweave with each other. They influence everything, from internal decision-making to external brand perception. They are the foundations of a successful, resilient, and compelling organisation.
We also think that different kinds of organisation have a huge amount to learn from how others approach them. If you watch the panels, you’ll see that drawing connections between these different worlds can be really powerful.
Here is the full event introduction from Matthew and Caroline. There were a few sound issues at the otherwise lovely venue, 180 Studios, so apologies for any booming sound or awkward edits…
How do we make the future feel as real as the past?
Talking about the future is easy, and often quite exciting.
But the present and the past exert a heavy pull. If you don’t connect your vision of the future to the right-now, it will never materialise.
We brought together three brilliant people with very different perspectives to put Future Story development under the spotlight: Charlotte Matier from the Alzheimer’s Society, Kian Bakhtiari, Founder of THE PEOPLE (and author too), and Chris Gough, Director of Brand and Marketing at 3 Mobile.
These brilliant people are working with very different Future Story challenges: getting society to engage with the seemingly impossible task of beating to dementia; getting organisations to open up to fresh perspectives of young change makers; wrestling with integrating an organisation that is simultaneously building 15 years in the future and under pressure to deliver sales every single day.
But there’s also commonality to how they are approaching these challenges:
Creating visions of the future that are really relatable and believable
Recognising how hard it is to let go as an incumbent, and listening to other voices
Breaking the journey down into stages, and multiple stories along the way
What emerged from our discussion felt like a new attitude to building organisational vision. One which is less strident, and more empathetic, less theoretical and more tangible. The best Future Stories will bring people along for the ride.
Here is the footage of the Future Story panel. Connecting these perspectives generated great thinking in the room. Hopefully it will inspire you too…
There’s a cultural crisis in the workplace
In our work, we often find that here’s a growing disconnect between what leadership teams think culture should be, and what employees actually experience.
Gone are the days where companies can dictate culture from the top and expect people to follow. There’s been a fundamental shift in expectations.
Right now all of this is being put to the test with some pretty hefty challenges:
The many successive chapters of the return-to-office melodrama
The patchy but insidious rollback of DEI initiatives
The early tremors of AI-driven transformation
These are not easy issues to confront, and we were lucky enough to have a diverse panel of wise heads with nuanced perspectives: Nishma Patel Robb (Founder of Glittersphere and ex-Google marketing leader), Marcus Orme (CEO of leading independent media agency, Medialab) and Sue Todd (CEO of NABS, the advertising and media industry’s mental wellness charity.)
While there are no simple one-size-fits-all solutions to culture creation, there were some powerful themes that emerged from the conversation:
Big policy changes need to come with evidence and strong storytelling
Rich cultures are built intentionally, not by luck and osmosis
Top-down and bottom-up culture stories need to connect at a community level, not just at the level of individual difference
At the end of the discussion, it was clear that this is a time of opportunity, for leaders that want to build the next wave of great cultures.
Here is our Culture Story panel. It won’t give you a silver bullet hybrid working pattern - but it will give you a sense of optimism about the opportunity to rebuild culture…
Our stories have become disconnected from our customers
Business has been through a period of intense introspection, and there’s perhaps a sense that in some cases, what the actual customer needs has got lost in the process.
We had the chance to hear from three people who have certainly not lost that art.
Lucy Goff, whose rapidly scaling wellness brand LYMA has achieved incredible traction by selling a feeling of empowerment that her customers love.
Karen Stacey, CEO of Digital Cinema Media, who had a unique opportunity to look at cinema advertising afresh after 16 months of COVID closures.
Holly Maguire, Chief Growth Officer of Design Bridge, who is leading all global growth efforts for a business with incredibly diverse needs and expectations.
Our discussion zeroed in on the point of tension that exists in a great Selling Story, being sensitive to the customer and their most important needs, AND authentic and honest what you have to offer.
Some of the key principles to remember:
The art of Story Listening, not just StoryTelling
The importance of consistency in how you make people feel
The need for brutal honesty about what problems you can and can’t solve
All three of our speakers reminded us of the importance of drive and optimism, combined with a reflective ability to put yourself in your audience’s shoes.
Here is the final panel, on Selling Story. It’s a powerhouse group, and packed with smart insights that will help you sell better through better storytelling.
That’s it! This was our first big event, and it was hard work. But it was an amazing experience, with great discussion in the room as people joined the dots between our truly inspirational speakers.
If you enjoyed this summary, please do share - on LinkedIn, Substack, or with your teams and networks…it really makes a big difference to the number of people we can reach with our thinking.
We have more events planned for later in the year, including:
An event focused on charities, non-profits, and purpose-led brands, focused on StoryTelling in a headwind
An event for global / remote-led businesses, with a focus on building alignment, collaboration and engagement across borders
An event for start-ups and scale-ups, focused on scaling your story (and building the plane while you are flying it…)
Each of our events is invite-only in order to maximise the quality of the experience for everyone who attends - but if you’d like to be involved in the future, or have ideas of areas you think we should focus on, please get in touch via matthew@wearelookup.com or caroline@wearelookup.com.
Thanks and see you soon!
