Season 3; Episode 3: Storytelling is Our Most Powerful Tool for Change with Holly Gordon

Holly Gordon is the Chief Impact Officer at Participant Media, overseeing the company’s social impact strategy and campaigns, furthering Participant’s mission to create storytelling that inspires positive social change. Prior to Participant, Holly co-founded Girl Rising, a global campaign for girls’ education. Holly was also an Executive Producer for Girl Rising, the film at the center of the movement. Forbes Magazine named the Girl Rising campaign the #1 Most Dynamic Social Initiative of 2012. Holly was selected by Fast Company as a member of the League of Extraordinary Women and named by Newsweek/Daily Beast as one of 125 Women of Impact. Earlier in her career, Holly was a producer at ABC News.

Key Takeaways from this Episode:

The Power of Storytelling 

·       Use the power of storytelling to make the world a better place by inspiring, empowering, and connecting community leaders on the front lines of change. 

·       Stories live inside you, they become purpose when they are expressed outside of you. Change happens when you share that story with someone and you make an agreement to do the thing, it is not an individual sport. Storytelling is our most powerful tool for change.

·       In everything we do, we’re telling ourselves a story about what is fixed versus what is changeable. They are powerful stories that are usually reinforced by society. Think about the story you're telling yourself, and then challenge yourself with a different way of thinking.

·       You can move people from their seats to the streets with amazing stories. 

Inspire, Empower, Connect

·       Emotions are really important in leadership. Activating emotions are hope and inspiration that make you feel activated towards something. They are a motivating force.

·       Empower: before we do anything, we ask ourselves, can I do it? You need to create the tools, opportunities, or pathways for people to move from inspired to action. 

·       Connection between people is core to making change in any organization or structure. The question that you're answering is, what is everyone else doing? People who believe the same things, catalyze them, give them an opportunity, and then connect them to each other. And then you've got a movement!

·       Persuasion vs. Telling: Persuasion is often confused with telling. Persuasion is what happens between sharing a vision and then waiting, listening for the response. It’s hearing people, their fears and hopes, and listening enough that you have persuaded them to join the fight.

Leadership

·       I wake up and I ask, how can I be of service? If you ask yourself that question, you never go wrong, because your incentives are oriented towards setting a vision and listening to what others need in support of it. 

·       Leadership is about understanding what people are afraid of and trying to make a consistently supportive environment. Does everyone on the team have what they need to bring their full gifts to our work?

·       The history of leadership has been very much about who's holding power, being right, and who has the answers. In the 21st century, leadership is all about choice. Our employees have many choices about where they can work. Leadership becomes a more humanistic-focused effort about communication and understanding. It’s a re-imagining of capitalism, from a shareholder perspective to a stakeholder perspective. 

·       Leadership leans into vision. It is about telling a story of possibility that other people can imagine and buy into (e.g., Martin Luther King, Jr.). A challenge to achieve something that's just out of reach, but possible.

·       Management is the process, systems, structures, and the operational nuts and bolts of getting multiple people to achieve that vision. It's the marriage of vision and management that goes from being a single actor to a leader of an organization. Leadership is about relationships and partnership. 

Books

·       Immunity to Change

·       The Athena Doctrine: How Women (and the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future

People & Organizations

·       Participant Media

·       Girl Rising

·       Hello Sunshine: Reese Witherspoon

·       ARRAY: Ava DuVernay

·       MACRO: Charles King

·       National Domestic Workers Alliance: Ai-jen Poo

·       Civic Georgia

·       Lara Galinsky

To learn more about my work in executive coaching, leadership development and team effectiveness check out my website, connect with me on LinkedIn or email me at winnie@winnifred.org.  

Reach out and tell me what was helpful about today’s episode or any suggestions you have for my show.

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I look forward to sharing another transformative conversation with you next week!

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