Retell Your Story

Let's face it. Life happens, and it doesn't always go the way we want things to. There is always that situation that we thought we had under control...or maybe someone else thought they had it under control, and it fell apart. Maybe we planned for it to fall apart, so we could see it for all of the nasty bits and pieces that it contained. When things fall apart or get messy or don't go our way, we have two options to communicate what happened. We can tell what actually happened, or we can retell the story.

Now, I am in the "Tell it like it is" camp.  Tell the dirty details, send the long email, several text messages, whatever it takes to arrive at the truth. Get the real story out there or find out what the real story is. It's about being real and transparent. Everyone knows where everyone else stands, and there are no questions of loyalty or what happened, it's just raw and exposed and true. At least someone's version of the truth.

Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Then, there is the "fake it till you make it" camp. In the marketing world, this is called "spin." In the financial world, it is called mitigating risk. In this situation, the story is retold to paint everyone in the best possible light. The story is carefully crafted with fewer words, text messages, well thought out ideas, hours of planned meetings, all to make sure the exact right message is communicated in the exact right way. In this way, the aggreged parties get to retell their stories.

In healthcare, we do the same thing. We place a spin on the stories. Patient recidivism in the emergency department continues with the same number of "frequent flyers." These chronically acutely ill patients are driving up costs and lowering outcomes. However, if we retell the story, patient admissions are up, and outcomes in our outpatient settings are improving dramatically. There are always so many things going on each day that turning a negative into a positive is easy.

The problem with always retelling the story in the best way is that it doesn't get at the heart of the matter. The story shifts to the bottom until it is dredged up when too much silted truth causes the banks to overflow. Then, when the truth does come out, it is painful and shocking and surprising and leads to backlash. Strong relationships are destroyed and infighting ensues because someone didn't find a need to be honest or transparent. Instead, they chose to tell the story in their own way.