Whose Story Is It?
On the first day back to school from summer break, we learned a classmate’s name changed.
Not legally. They had picked up a nickname, Boomer, that just…stuck. I mean, really stuck. They were rarely ever addressed by their first name again. Right through high school. Teachers and classmates started calling them Boomer, and that was that.
Certainly, there may have been some griping behind the scenes from someone, not that we ever saw it. What I recall, is that this name was adopted and had the stickiness of marshmallow on your fingers after a good round of s’mores.
Anyone in the storytelling business, by which I mean sharing stories in a public forum, written or spoken, knows the dance of determining whose story is really being told.
Rarely do we ever have a story that features only ourselves. Start to finish with no other cast of characters. So, what do we do with the real people that feature in our stories?
In my case, many of my stories surround moments of professional growth. Encounters, positive and negative, and how I handled them. Or how I experienced them. While it is my perspective being centred, the fact remains that a good portion of the story involves at least one other human being.
If I were a reporter, I would get everything on the record, so I could speak openly using everyone’s exact names and/or pronouns. Clearly, though, I’m not a reporter.
To offer a level of privacy to both people and organizations, I apply a specific set of steps to my stories.
A few years ago
My professional reflections always take place ‘A few years ago’.
My current career spans more than 20 years. Yikes, creeping up on 25 - long before I moved to the London area. Some of my stories are decades old and some might be two months old. I practice, and intentionally repeat, ‘A few years ago’ as the timeframe regardless. There are times I want to be specific, so I go for it. Sharing a story about working at the Barrie Public Library when I was a teenager. It is a funny, nostalgic look back at who I was then.
The main reason I don’t include the exact timeframe is that my story is a moment in time at an organization that no longer exists as it did at the moment I’m describing. For example, I started my career at EnWin Utilities in 2001. If were to share a story specifically about my experience there, good or bad, would it reflect the current work culture? No. I don’t think it would be fair to an organization, especially if the story is not positive, to call them out for something that happened before the current administration even graduated.
Middle Management
My role at the time was in middle management…is another repeated statement. Occasionally, if the reflection is process-related, I may give more details as they are relevant to demonstrate expertise. Signalling the distinction between my data-centric vs change management vs operational roles. If the story is more focused on people, interactions or team building opportunities or growth, I’m back to being in middle management.
It’s no stretch of the truth. Depending on the organizational structure, middle managers might include people with indirect reports, project managers, senior managers, directors etc. So, once again, I practice stripping out the irrelevant details to focus the story on the people. What was their journey to professional growth? For less positive stories, perhaps about poor business decisions, the mask of ‘middle manager’ hides the identity of those I worked for.
They
Unless gender is relevant to the story, I use they.
Truthfully, it saves people the guesswork of trying to figure out who the heck I’m talking about. I am aware that some folks have lots of time on their hands and are hoping to reverse-engineer a story so they can get all gossipy about it. I don’t have time for them. If I am comfortable identifying someone, for example, I’ve spoken about my first ‘real’ boss - John, I use the gendered pronoun.
Does following the above three rules get in the way of good storytelling?
On occasion it definitely does. I have more freedom to create richly described narratives when my personal anecdotes are front and centre. Finding ways to keep all the “theys” unique inside a professional story is challenging and forces a different type of creativity.
I’ve heard some feedback that people wish I’d just name names, usually for organizations. But guess what? It’s not their story to tell. It isn’t entirely mine either (see above, not a reporter) so I know I don’t owe them anything.
But it is good practice for my storytelling.
Public Speaking
As a public speaker, not everything is rehearsed. When I am on a panel, responding to a Q&A or in front of a classroom, I don’t have the luxury to stick to a script.
An anecdote might pop into my head, based on the question asked or prompted by another panelist’s comment. Spending years applying the three practices listed above, creates a healthy practice of defaulting to this approach – even in the moment, in front of a live audience. At the very least, I am conscious of the words I am speaking in real time.
We all know, those off-the-cuff remarks tend to be what gets people in hot water.
Why share this with you?
Maybe you’ve been curious why I switch it up between the various approaches in my writing recently. Now you know.
Maybe you’re bothered by my use of ‘they’ instead of him/her. At least now you understand the intention behind the practice and how it helps me.
Mostly though, I wrote this because I was thinking of Boomer the other day. I have no idea what happened to them. I recall that they were a genuinely nice person at a time in our lives when we kids weren’t always that way. I recall that no one seemed to blink twice when an adolescent gave themselves a new name. Not their classmates, not their teachers. No one’s parents showed up at a school board meeting to complain.
Imagine that.
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