This boss was the biggest jerk in the world

I’m 23, and I’m getting married today. 

But that’s not all I’m doing: I’m also going to work. 

My team hasn’t had the best of weeks, and I’m not convinced I can leave them alone all day. 

It’s not that I don’t trust them but… trust but verify, right? 

As soon as I get to the office, I realise my concern was justified: 

The whole team is hanging outside the building, talking to each other, having a smoke. They’re not even pretending to work! 

They see me coming, but before they can say anything I lay into them: 

“Why are you not on the phones selling, your shift started an hour ago!! I’m out of the office for a moment and you’re already slacking off, what the hell?!?”

Melissa, one of the senior agents, opens her mouth to say something but I cut her off.

“I don’t want to hear it, Melissa. You know you should all be selling, we’re already behind our targets for the week, damn it. I’m docking everyone’s hours and I don’t wanna hear any complaints about it.”

“Fran–“, she tries again. 

“What, Melissa?”

“We heard you were arriving now and we came outside to congratulate you.”

“Congratulate me?”

“On your wedding?”

“Oh.”

“We actually made a card…”

They hand me the card, signed by the whole team, tap me on back and give me somewhat awkward best wishes. I try to mumble an apology, but I can barely get the words out. 

They file back into the office, and I stand there on my own for a while, feeling like the biggest jerk in the world. 

I’d love to tell you that’s when I learned to stop jumping to conclusions and to give people the benefit of the doubt–but I can’t. 

It still took a while for that lesson to sink in. 

Which is probably why my first marriage lasted as little as it did…

Never say “and that’s why you should…”

I’m teaching storytelling at an MBA here in Barcelona this week, and here is something I keep trying to get into my students heads: 

Stories should never end with a call to action.

Having lived through a problem doesn’t give you authority to preach about it, or tell anyone how they should live their lives. That never works, and it’s also annoying as hell. 

All your story shows is that you understand the problem, and that you (hopefully) learned something from it. Something that other people might find useful–in their own time. 

Say this instead

When you get to the end of your story, tell us 

• What you learned 

• Something you realised 

• What you started or stopped doing because of it

In other words, tell us how you changed. 

And then, in the name of all that’s holy, shut up. 

Either the story has done its job, or it hasn’t. If you start trying to boss people by telling them what to do, you’ll lose them. 

That won’t make you the biggest jerk in the world… 

But it will be close 🤘

-Francisco 

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Getting clarity through your story to stand out from all the other coaches, speakers and entrepreneurs out there 

2. If you dream of speaking on the Red Dot, take this Scorecard and instantly discover how likely your idea is to be accepted by a TED-style organizing committee

3. If you (or your team) got any storytelling challenges, I’m sure there’s something we can do together ;-)

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