I had an interesting call with a contractor today. I said "you're really good at the numbers/analytical side but there are two sides to this: Numbers and emotion/storytelling. If you were as good at the storytelling as the numbers I'd pay you twice as much. And if I'd pay you twice as much I suspect any other employer would too." The contractor seemed to be very surprised. "Really? Can I bring this up in the future when I want a pay raise?" "Absolutely. I'm looking high and low for people who can do both numbers and storytelling."
Is this surprising for you to know? I'd be interested to find out. Maybe I haven't communicated the need to tell stories well enough (for other contractors they have the most room to grow on the numbers side, but that's for another post). And of course Numbers+Stories isn't everything you need: the trifecta of any candidate is skills (in this case numbers+stories), work-ethic/energy/enthusiasm and integrity. The bare minimum is skills. But without work ethic all the skills aren't put to use. But integrity is the most important. A person with skills, work ethic and no integrity is a dangerous person that I run away from.
But back to the point. This contractor could double their pay in 6 months if they put their mind to it. Or it might take 10 years (or never happen) if they don't.
But all this philosophizing does you no good without some course of action so I'll tell you that right now.
Here are a few things to read that will change the way you tell stories (and yes, if you apply them, double your pay at the very least--not only will your base pay rise, but you'll win more funding which is money in your bank)
This is a variation on a theme we use at our organization - our version is we all need to be prepared with 'three threes' - 3 facts, 3 stories, and 3 things you want a new friend/donor/guest to know about our organization. You never know if someone is a data person, heartstring person, or structure person so you need to be prepared to engage everyone who visits. Work ethic and integrity are essential for moving the whole initiative forward. Thanks for the reminder.
Practice. Include in staff meetings monthly/quarterly with review by colleagues. New/younger staff usually keep it simple, more experienced staff sometimes really embellish. But at least they all have the concept of 1) the expectation to talk about the org and 2) notice if someone is a drawn to heartstring or data and proceed from there.
Thanks for asking. We work with under-resourced individuals and families. So 3 data points might include - Federal Poverty level in the US is $30,000 for a family of 4; rent in our community has jumped to $1800 for a 1 bedroom apartment with 11% of local residents living below the FPL, and 21% of the 1450 households who contacted us last year were homeless for all or part of the year.
Stories could be the couple with 3 children who have been living in their car for 3 years and now have a home, providing a bus pass for someone to get to work but they declined a second bus pass to come home because they would have their paycheck and not need additional help, or helping someone who's tent washed away to replace their birth certificate and social security card to secure a new job.
Organization info might include that for 45 years we've never accepted government funding, programming evolves from listening at the street level to the changing needs, and we take a micro and macro approach to addressing needs - micro is to help the individual family in crisis while macro is engaging the community in larger systemic challenges so we don't keep doing the same things for the same people with no work towards positive change.
This is a variation on a theme we use at our organization - our version is we all need to be prepared with 'three threes' - 3 facts, 3 stories, and 3 things you want a new friend/donor/guest to know about our organization. You never know if someone is a data person, heartstring person, or structure person so you need to be prepared to engage everyone who visits. Work ethic and integrity are essential for moving the whole initiative forward. Thanks for the reminder.
Oh. That's a good idea. I like that. How do you make sure your staff is ready for that? Is there a test? :D
Practice. Include in staff meetings monthly/quarterly with review by colleagues. New/younger staff usually keep it simple, more experienced staff sometimes really embellish. But at least they all have the concept of 1) the expectation to talk about the org and 2) notice if someone is a drawn to heartstring or data and proceed from there.
that's so cool. structure/things? please tell me more, perhaps an example or two.
Thanks for asking. We work with under-resourced individuals and families. So 3 data points might include - Federal Poverty level in the US is $30,000 for a family of 4; rent in our community has jumped to $1800 for a 1 bedroom apartment with 11% of local residents living below the FPL, and 21% of the 1450 households who contacted us last year were homeless for all or part of the year.
Stories could be the couple with 3 children who have been living in their car for 3 years and now have a home, providing a bus pass for someone to get to work but they declined a second bus pass to come home because they would have their paycheck and not need additional help, or helping someone who's tent washed away to replace their birth certificate and social security card to secure a new job.
Organization info might include that for 45 years we've never accepted government funding, programming evolves from listening at the street level to the changing needs, and we take a micro and macro approach to addressing needs - micro is to help the individual family in crisis while macro is engaging the community in larger systemic challenges so we don't keep doing the same things for the same people with no work towards positive change.
Hope that helps.
Am learning a lot from this, especially for someone like me who is poor in storytelling.
Thank you.
you're good at storytelling. You just don't know it yet :D