What's in a Story?

Transcript

Richard Sheridan (CEO and Chief Storyteller at Menlo Innovations): While my title at Menlo is Chief Storyteller, I have found that, by encouraging storytelling throughout our team, we can get the reinforcing effect of storytelling as a means to propel our culture forward, even when I'm not in the room.

Storytelling at Menlo has become an important part of our success story. I found that the most compelling stories are the stories that get retold, not by the original storyteller, but by someone who heard a story and wants to retell it to others. It's actually a sign of a good story is that the people who hear the story can convey that message to other people. That draws people back into our doors. That makes people want to come see us, to see this place where these stories came from.

And so now, we're up to the point where we're getting 4,000 visitors a year just coming to see Menlo. Many of them have heard the stories secondhand. They wanna see the stories firsthand, and this has become such an important energizing effect to our culture internally, as well as to our efforts to get the word out about our company to the world.

I think the best ingredients of any story... always start with the best ingredients of what it takes to make a good leader. The stories need to be authentic. They need to connect to a mission and a purpose, to something that's bigger than ourselves, something that will inspire a team to pursue a worthy goal and to work together as a team. And, if we can tell a story that attaches a team's energy to that mission and purpose of the organization, that is a story that can actually help move the team along.

One of our favorite stories at Menlo is the story of the Menlo babies. Eight years ago, Maggie was born, and her mom came back after three months of maternity leave and didn't know what to do because the daycare that she was planning to use was full, and grandparents lived too far away to help. So I looked at Tracy, her mom, and I said, "Bring her into work," and she was stunned. She said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Bring her into work," and she said, "All day?" and I said, "Sure." She said, "Every day?" and I said, "Yeah, why not?"

And, in that moment, a new story at Menlo was born. Well, that was 13 Menlo babies ago. It's been a tremendous addition to our culture. So the story there is really about let's run the experiment. Let's try something before we're defeated in our thinking about the idea, and then see what happens and then adjust as you go. It's been a delightful addition to Menlo's culture, and it's one of our best stories.

About Richard Sheridan

Richard Sheridan is CEO, co-founder and Chief Storyteller at software design firm, Menlo Innovations. To discover more about the story behind Menlo Innovations, visit menloinnovations.com.