Every single industry is going through a major business model and technology oriented disruption.
Aaron Levie – Entrepreneur
Story: It’s almost impossible to illustrate a work model for today’s organizations. They are complex with diversified product and service supply chains. However, the Handy work model shows in simple concentric circles what organizations face in VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) time. Continue reading
Not everybody is a student of Greek mythology but many of us will have heard of Icarus and his fall to fame after flying to close to the sun. In the myth, as recorded by the Roman poet Ovid, the beeswax that held his wings together melted, gravity took over and after landing in the sea he drowned.
Icarus’ father, Daedalus, was a skillful architect and craftsman and invented the feathered wings. He was also portrayed as a symbol of wisdom and knowledge, and he gave fair warning to his son about the risks of flying too high.
But as with many warnings, particularly from parents, it’s only afterwards that most people realise that they should have been heeded. Icarus was no exception. In the intoxication of the excitement, and enthusiasm of experiencing flight, at least in the short-term, he ignored the fatherly advice, went too far, and paid the ultimate price. It’s always easy to be wise after the fact.
But that’s the nature of human beings, some heed warnings and others don’t. The common fact is that even if the risks are known some will suffer the consequences when they happen while others may reap rewards if they don’t. It can be a fine line between success and failure.
Edges & Margins
In business, having a competitive edge often produces good (profit) margins. If that edge is lost, then margins are eroded, and loss can result. The CEO of Nasdaq, Adena Friedman, said “You can’t be successful in business without taking risks. It’s really that simple” `but for those who may have failed then, being “once bitten twice shy”, they fear failure and may well be overly cautious.
Risk seekers, to succeed, will, with no apparent regard for the possibility of failure, seek out the margin and work at the edge of acceptable behaviour. For extremists they may push the limits of such behaviour. The profits may be spectacular, but the resultant losses are egregious; just consider some of the rogue traders over the past thirty years.
For the risk averse then rather than seeking a profit margin they create a wider and wider safety margin and may miss the boat. As the business man John A Shedd said “A ship in harbour is safe, but it’s not what ships are built for” and sometimes ships must sail close to the wind to move.
Too Close
“Too close for comfort” is one of several idioms related to the proximity of some sort of danger or other which creates feelings of nervousness or worry. If there is only a narrow margin for error, we may be “too close to the edge” and there will be a fear of falling and failing. Similarly, when things start to go wrong, we may find ourselves being ”too close to the wind” and in danger of taking a risky course of action to correct things.
Being close to danger results in a fight-or-flight response and adrenalin is produced in an ‘adrenalin rush’. But it’s not just produced in life-threatening situations but also when there is an unexpected situation or when the risk of grasping an opportunity needs to be taken.
For some people, the experience is pleasurable and even addictive while for others it results in anxiety. In the aftermath of a “close shave,” emotions are experienced. There can be the euphoria of omnipotence having eluded danger on one hand. On the other there may be the realisation that one’s throat could have been cut with subsequent feelings of doom and post traumatic shock.
Far Enough
So how far away is ‘too close’? For the risk averse it’s as far away as possible while for the risk seeker it’s right on the very edge.
If success is just “out of reach” it means that the adopted safety margin is too wide and there could well be a case of defeat being grasped from the jaws of victory. However, with a reduced margin for error and corresponding reduction in the profit margin, then there could easily be a case of victory being seized from the clutches of defeat.
For the pragmatic ‘far enough’ is just short of “So close yet so far” so that achievement is just within reach. Playing too close to the edge can require a degree of luck and when comes to pushing one’s luck, as my grandfather used to say, “you can go one far lad, but you can’t go too far”.
Conclusions
Success and failure are all about risk and opportunity and the appetite of people and organizations to take a risk or seize an opportunity. This also depends on how prepared they are to accept failure and trusting to luck and probability, or playing safe, being careful and having plenty of contingency.
For risk seekers they may crave for the ‘rush’ that comes with pushing the limits, as long as it’s at the expense of somebody else. We may well see the traits of Icarus Syndrome with overconfident despots who are arrogantly reckless and only see the benefits rather than any pitfalls and damaging consequences.
There are also those who have tried and failed and realise that risk is something that doesn’t just happen to other people. For those who have experienced risk they may have suffered some personal trauma as exemplified by Ovid, the poet who brought us Icarus, who wrote, “The man who has experienced shipwreck shudders even at a calm sea”. As with religious converts who can become fanatics, any newly bitten risk-averse brethren can become risk shy and ignore opportunity. Success and failure can be matters of opinion but if success is expected all the time there may well be disappointment if (or when) failure occurs. “You win some you lose some” goes another idiom and while success can be “so near and yet so far” it ultimately depends on how risks are taken, and opportunities are not only recognised but seized.
Bio:
Malcolm Peart is an UK Chartered Engineer & Chartered Geologist with over thirty-five years’ international experience in multicultural environments on large multidisciplinary infrastructure projects including rail, metro, hydro, airports, tunnels, roads and bridges. Skills include project management, contract administration & procurement, and design & construction management skills as Client, Consultant, and Contractor.
Imagine it’s a crisp and sunny fall morning. You just left your local coffee shop, ready to start your day.
Out of the corner of your eye, you catch a glimpse of something moving in the bushes. Is it a squirrel stashing acorns for the winter? A robin fattening up for migration? As you get closer, the image becomes clear and you unconsciously hold your breath.
It’s a black cat out for its morning stroll.
You pause for a second to decide your next move. Cross the street so the cat can’t cross your path? Muster the courage to walk past it, or even crouch down to pet it? Rationally, you know the idea that a black cat is bad luck is just a silly superstition … but you have an important meeting this afternoon and don’t want to jinx it.
This superstition about black cats and other black animals in general has shaped people’s preferences about animals. It’s left its mark on things such as lower adoption rates for black cats and beliefs that black cats are more aggressive. Yet, these biases are unfounded.
As two biologists who focus on human-wildlife interactions, what we find scary is how superstitions, lore and myths can shape your subconscious – particularly biases toward the animals people are trying to conserve and protect.
Of course, animal fur, feathers and scales come in various colors across the visible and invisible-to-humans spectrum. These colorations play a significant role in the survival of wildlife by functioning as a form of concealment, temperature regulation or communication. In white-tailed deer, for instance, a flash of a white tail can indicate danger is near, while the sharp red breast of a male cardinal attracts females that are ready to mate.
Within species, color variations are found throughout the animal kingdom, including melanistic animals with more dark pigmentation and leucistic animals with a reduction of pigment. There are black panthers, a melanistic version of a leopard, Panthera pardus, or jaguar, Panthera onca. On the other side of the spectrum are white spirit bears, a leucistic version of an American black bear, Ursus americanus. There are also albino animals that lack most or all pigment.
Scientists recognize these color variations as extreme abnormalities within the natural world. Being all black or all white is a rare phenomenon, unlikely to persist in the wild because it’s a selective disadvantage. These animals often have a tougher time blending into their habitat – a challenge for predators trying to ambush their prey, and for prey trying to conceal themselves from predators. They may also struggle to regulate their temperature and to communicate with others in their species.
A suite of genes that can change in many ways is behind this rainbow of wildlife coloration. One of the most well-known and studied genes is MC1R. In animals, loss-of-function mutations in the MC1R gene can result in light, yellow or reddish coat color. In humans, redheads have up to five loss-of-function mutations in MC1R, leading to hair that ranges from strawberry blonde to copper.
Recently, we explored how charismatic coloring, including melanistic and leucistic or albinism coloration, affects the conservation of animals in the United States. As we read through local laws and found news stories of wildlife being protected or culled, we noticed a trend: Many albinistic and leucistic animals are protected.
Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin laws protect albino/white deer from being hunted. In Marionville, Missouri, white squirrels are protected and given the right-of-way on all public streets, with a penalty of up to US$500 or 90 days in jail for failing to abide by the law. In Louisiana, it’s prohibited to take white alligators from the wild, with a fine of at least $10,000 and six months in jail. The World Wilderness Congress recently adopted a resolution: Making Space to Protect White Animals, Messengers of Peace.
We also found white animals readily celebrated. Brevard, North Carolina, hosts a yearly festival called “White Squirrel Weekend.” People often release white doves at weddings and funerals as symbols of purity and peace. The California Academy of Sciences’ famous albino alligator named Claude has a whole book written about him. And members of the Olney, Illinois, police department wear a patch on their uniform with a white squirrel.
We found similar laws and celebrations do not exist in these jurisdictions for the white animals’ melanistic/black counterparts. We did identify a few cities and schools, including Marysville, Kansas, and Goshen College, that made the black squirrel their mascot.
This discrepancy surprised us because the genetic mutation that causes melanism occurs less frequently than the one that causes albinism/leucism. Pure black animals are more novel. We thought the more rare melanistic animals would pique human interest for being more unusual and trigger more protections.
For many thousands of years, people have shared with each other stories, lore, tales and myths that attempt to explain the world.
Sometimes these stories provide cautionary advice about the dangers that lurk around us. As our early ancestors sat around fires, telling thrilling stories, they sought refuge together from the darkness that concealed looming threats. The partiality evident in our history can linger for significant periods of time, making it difficult to unlearn.
Many human biases developed as a survival response – one reason a darkly colored nocturnal predator would be fearsome is that it’s so hard to see at night, for instance. Modern preconceptions, though, can be based on harmful ideologies. Somewhere, way back when, white became synonymous with “good” and “pure,” while black aligned more with “evil” and “unclean.” And even now these unconscious affiliations influence how people celebrate and protect – or not – rare animals.
Perhaps more chilling than a black cat darting past you is the thought of how much in your subconscious mind goes unquestioned. Ideologies – whether detrimental or benign – permeate human society, influencing people’s perceptions of reality and informing how they interact with the world.
This Halloween, rather than the spooky proposition of goblins and ghouls, consider whether the more horrifying specters are the unacknowledged and dangerous biases we humans possess.
BIO: PROFESSOR CARLEN
I am a Living Earth Collaborative postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis working with Dr. Jonathan Losos and a former National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow. My postdoctoral research focuses on the impacts of urbanization and environmental racism in Eastern Gray Squirrels.
I received a PhD in Biological Sciences from Fordham University in New York City, where I worked in the Munshi-South lab. My PhD work, on how urbanization affected the evolution of feral pigeons in the Northeastern Megacity (Boston, MA to Washington, DC), was featured on Saturday Night Live and led The New York Times to refer to me as the “Pigeon Stalker”. In addition to my dissertation research, I am a co-founder and editor of the urban evolution blog Life in the City: Evolution in an Urbanizing World.
BIO: PROFESSOR TYUS
My research takes an exciting approach by looking at the intersections of human-wildlife interactions and species competition (resulting in interspecific killings or intraguild predation) under human-dominated landscapes and how these two are mutually exacerbated due to the stressors within these environments. With the world rapidly changing it’s crucial that we ask questions about the role anthropogenic influences play on wildlife communities around the globe to understand how human-wildlife conflict issues and species competition will unfold in the future and what these implications ultimately mean for human-wildlife coexistence and ecosystem stability.
My current research for my first chapter examines the effectiveness of shoreline exclusion zones on mammalian mesocarnivores in East Bay Regional Shorelines to understand how varying mesocarnivore species are utilizing these diverse landscapes as corridors to their advantage and what that implies for temporal overlap between species, avoidance behavior, and habitat utilization for species potentially occupying these shoreline locations.
During its current revision, the Baldrige Excellence Framework®, the core document of the Baldrige Program, is undergoing revolutionary change—being reorganized, simplified, and refocused—to make it as easy to use as possible and to expand its value and reach. The revision aims to provide clear guidance for organizations of all types and at all maturity levels, including more value for organizations beginning to establish processes and activities to help them achieve a competitive edge and long-term success.
Change takes time to ensure proper reviews, the correct content, and the intended product. Given the significance of the proposed changes, the Baldrige Program is building in additional opportunities for review by and input from key stakeholder groups.
As part of the Baldrige Reimagined effort, the Baldrige Program refocused the award process on its primary purpose: evaluate high-performing organizations to identify role models from which others can learn. Award process changes included streamlining the award criteria and evaluation rubric—both derived from the framework. These changes have created the opportunity to similarly focus the framework on its primary purpose: guide organizational development and performance improvement.
The goal for this framework revision is to clearly articulate the progression of process maturity in all areas addressed by the framework. The content will be presented in a way that will be easier for an organization to (1) understand, (2) recognize its level of maturity, and (3) determine the next steps to improve and progress. Another important goal is to revise the framework to be not just a tool for organizational improvement but also a tool for organizations to achieve world-class results and identify their paths to Baldrige Award recognition as U.S. role models.
Since 1987, the Baldrige Criteria booklet served as both the Baldrige Award application and as a guide for overall organizational improvement. For 37 years, new concepts and themes were added to remain current with proven leadership and management practices that enable high performance, and the Baldrige Criteria booklet became the Baldrige Excellence Framework.
During this revision cycle, more than 75 contributors have offered detailed feedback, and multiple focus groups have provided recommendations that focus on both content and structure. In addition, leadership trends and challenges have been studied and vetted for relevance. All feedback was added to other suggestions, including from Baldrige advisory bodies, on ways to improve the framework.
The revised framework will still be the best resource of proven leadership and management practices for organizations seeking a comprehensive tool that speaks to wide ranges of best practices. Use of the framework for a systems approach to performance improvement and organization-wide assessments will lead organizations to resilience and long-term success.
For more information on any of the framework publications, contact the Baldrige Program at baldrige@nist.gov or (301) 975-2036.
Persuasion is the centerpiece of business activity. Customers must be convinced to buy your company’s products or services, employees, and colleagues to go along with a new strategic plan or reorganization, investors to buy (or not to sell) your stock, and partners to sign the next deal. But despite the critical importance of persuasion, most executives struggle to communicate, let alone inspire. Too often, they get lost in the accoutrements of company speak: PowerPoint slides, dry memos, and hyperbolic missives from the corporate communications department. Even the most carefully researched and considered efforts are routinely greeted with cynicism, lassitude, or outright dismissal.
Why is persuasion so difficult, and what can you do to set people on fire? In search of answers to those questions, one of the world’s best-known and most respected storyteller, at his home in Kanata, Ontario. An award-winning writer and director, after studying for his Ph.D. in Occupational Safety & Health at Aston University, Dr. Bill Pomfret, then taught at McGill University, before forming his own company, Safety Projects International Inc, to take his lectures on the prevention of accidents and ill-health through storytelling worldwide to an audience of senior executives, directors, producers, and boards of directors.
Pomfret believes that executives can engage listeners on a whole new level if they toss their PowerPoint slides and learn to tell good stories instead. “fulfill a profound human need to grasp the patterns of living—not merely as an intellectual exercise, but within a very personal, emotional experience.”
A big part of a CEO’s job is to motivate people to reach certain goals. To do that, he or she must engage their emotions, and the key to their hearts is story. There are two ways to persuade people.
The first is by using conventional rhetoric, which is what most executives are trained in. It’s an intellectual process, and in the business world it usually consists of a PowerPoint slide presentation in which you say, “Here is our company’s biggest challenge, and here is what we need to do to prosper.” And you build your case by giving statistics and facts and quotes from authorities. But there are two problems with rhetoric. First, the people you’re talking to have their own set of authorities, statistics, and experiences. While you’re trying to persuade them, they are arguing with you in their heads. Second, if you do succeed in persuading them, you’ve done so only on an intellectual basis. That’s not good enough, because people are not inspired to act by reason alone.
The other way to persuade people—and ultimately a much more powerful way—is by uniting an idea with an emotion.
The best way to do that is by telling a compelling story. In a story, you not only weave a lot of information into the telling but you also arouse your listener’s emotions and energy. Persuading with a story is hard. Any intelligent person can sit down and make lists. It takes rationality but little creativity to design an argument using conventional rhetoric. But it demands vivid insight and storytelling skill to present an idea that packs enough emotional power to be memorable. If you can harness imagination and the principles of a well-told story, then you get people rising to their feet amid thunderous applause instead of yawning and ignoring you.
What is a story?
A career story is a narrative of your professional journey. It includes details about you, such as your work experience, skill set, values, and goals, to help prospective employers and industry professionals get to know you better.
Essentially, a story expresses how and why life changes. It begins with a situation in which life is relatively in balance: You come to workday after day, week after week, and everything’s fine. You expect it will go on that way. But then there’s an event—in screenwriting, we call it the “inciting incident”—that throws life out of balance. You get a new job, or the boss dies of a heart attack, or a big customer threatens to leave. The story goes on to describe how, to restore balance, the protagonist’s subjective expectations crash into an uncooperative objective reality.
A good storyteller describes what it’s like to deal with these opposing forces, calling on the protagonist to dig deeper, work with scarce resources, make difficult decisions, take action despite risks, and ultimately discover the truth. All great storytellers since the dawn of time—from the ancient Greeks through Shakespeare and up to the present day—have dealt with this fundamental conflict between subjective expectation and cruel reality.
How would an executive learn to tell stories?
Stories have been implanted in you for thousands of times since your mother took you on her knee. You’ve read good books, seen movies, attended plays. What’s more, human beings naturally want to work through stories.
Cognitive psychologists describe how the human mind, in its attempt to understand and remember, assembles the bits and pieces of experience into a story, beginning with a personal desire, a life objective, and then portraying the struggle against the forces that block that desire. Stories are how we remember; we tend to forget lists and bullet points.
Businesspeople not only have to understand their companies’ past, but then they must project the future. And how do you imagine the future? As a story. You create scenarios in your head of possible future events to try to anticipate the life of your company or your own personal life. So, if a businessperson understands that his or her own mind naturally wants to frame experience in a story, the key to moving an audience is not to resist this impulse but to embrace it by telling a good story.
What makes a good story?
You emphatically do not want to tell a beginning-to-end tale describing how results meet expectations. This is boring and banal. Instead, you want to display the struggle between expectation and reality in all its nastiness.
For example, let’s imagine the story of a biotech start-up we’ll call Chemcorp, whose CEO has to persuade some Wall Street bankers to invest in the company. He could tell them that Chemcorp has discovered a chemical compound that prevents heart attacks and offer up a lot of slides showing them the size of the market, the business plan, the organizational chart, and so on. The bankers would nod politely and stifle yawns while thinking of all the other companies better positioned in Chemcorp’s market.
Alternatively, the CEO could turn his pitch into a story, beginning with someone close to him—say, his father—who died of a heart attack. So nature itself is the first antagonist that the CEO-as-protagonist must overcome. The story might unfold like this: In his grief, he realizes that if there had been some chemical indication of heart disease, his father’s death could have been prevented. His company discovers a protein that’s present in the blood just before heart attacks and develops an easy-to-administer, low-cost test.
But now it faces a new antagonist: the FDA. The approval process is fraught with risks and dangers. The FDA turns down the first application, but new research reveals that the test performs even better than anyone had expected, so the agency approves a second application. Meanwhile, Chemcorp is running out of money, and a key partner drops out and goes off to start his own company.
Now Chemcorp is in a fight-to-the-finish patent race. This accumulation of antagonists creates great suspense. The protagonist has raised the idea in the bankers’ heads that the story might not have a happy ending. By now, he has them on the edges of their seats, and he says, “We won the race, we got the patent, we’re poised to go public and save a quarter-million lives a year.” And the bankers just throw money at him.
“If you can harness imagination and the principles of a well-told story, then you get people rising to their feet amid thunderous applause instead of yawning and ignoring you.”
Aren’t you really talking about exaggeration and manipulation?
No. Although businesspeople are often suspicious of stories for the reasons you suggest, the fact is that statistics are used to tell lies and damn lies, while accounting reports are often BS in a ball gown—witness Enron and WorldCom.
When people ask me to help them turn their presentations into stories, I begin by asking questions. I kind of psychoanalyze their companies, and amazing dramas pour out. But most companies and executives sweep the dirty laundry, the difficulties, the antagonists, and the struggle under the carpet. They prefer to present a rosy—and boring—picture to the world. But as a storyteller, you want to position the problems in the foreground and then show how you’ve overcome them. When you tell the story of your struggles against real antagonists, your audience sees you as an exciting, dynamic person. And I know that the storytelling method works, because after I consulted with a dozen corporations whose principals told exciting stories to Wall Street, they all got their money.
What’s wrong with painting a positive picture?
It doesn’t ring true. You can send out a press release talking about increased sales and a bright future, but your audience knows it’s never that easy. They know you’re not spotless; they know your competitor doesn’t wear a black hat.
They know you’ve slanted your statement to make your company look good. Positive, hypothetical pictures and boilerplate press releases work against you because they foment distrust among the people you’re trying to convince. I suspect that most CEOs do not believe their own spin doctors—and if they don’t believe the hype, why should the public?
The great irony of existence is that what makes life worth living does not come from the rosy side. We would all rather be lotus-eaters, but life will not allow it. The energy to live comes from the dark side.
It comes from everything that makes us suffer. As we struggle against these negative powers, we’re forced to live more deeply, more fully, So acknowledging this dark side makes you more convincing?
Of course. Because you’re more truthful. One of the principles of good storytelling is the understanding that we all live in dread. Fear is when you don’t know what’s going to happen. Dread is when you know what’s going to happen and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Death is the great dread; we all live in an ever-shrinking shadow of time, and between now and then all kinds of bad things could happen.
Most of us repress this dread. We get rid of it by inflicting it on other people through sarcasm, cheating, abuse, indifference—cruelties great and small.
We all commit those little evils that relieve the pressure and make us feel better. Then we rationalize our bad behavior and convince ourselves we’re good people. Institutions do the same thing: They deny the existence of the negative while inflicting their dread on other institutions or their employees.
If you’re a realist, you know that this is human nature; in fact, you realize that this behavior is the foundation of all nature. The imperative in nature is to follow the golden rule of survival: Do unto others what they do unto you. In nature, if you offer cooperation and get cooperation back, you get along. But if you offer cooperation and get antagonism back, then you give antagonism in return—in spades.
Ever since human beings sat around the fire in caves, we’ve told stories to help us deal with the dread of life and the struggle to survive. All great stories illuminate the dark side. I’m not talking about so-called “pure” evil, because there is no such thing. We are all evil and good, and these sides do continual battle. Dr. Bill Pomfret says wiping out people’s jobs and life savings was unintentional. Hannibal Lecter is witty, charming, and brilliant, and he eats people’s livers. Audiences appreciate the truthfulness of a storyteller who acknowledges the dark side of human beings and deals honestly with antagonistic events. The story engenders a positive but realistic energy in the people who hear it.
Does this mean you have to be a pessimist?
It’s not a question of whether you’re optimistic or pessimistic. It seems to me that the civilized human being is a skeptic—someone who believes nothing at face value. Skepticism is another principle of the storyteller. The skeptic understands the difference between text and subtext and always seeks what’s really going on. The skeptic hunts for the truth beneath the surface of life, knowing that the real thoughts and feelings of institutions or individuals are unconscious and unexpressed.
The skeptic is always looking behind the mask. Street kids, for example, with their tattoos, piercings, chains, and leather, wear amazing masks, but the skeptic knows the mask is only a persona. Inside anyone working that hard to look fierce is a marshmallow. Genuinely hard people make no effort.
So, a story that embraces darkness produces a positive energy in listeners?
Absolutely. We follow people in whom we believe. The best leaders I’ve dealt with—producers and directors—have come to terms with dark reality.
Instead of communicating via spin doctors, they lead their actors and crews through the antagonism of a world in which the odds of getting the film made, distributed, and sold to millions of moviegoers are a thousand to one. They appreciate that the people who work for them love the work and live for the small triumphs that contribute to the final triumph.
CEOs, likewise, must sit at the head of the table or in front of the microphone and navigate their companies through the storms of bad economies and tough competition. If you look your audience in the eye, lay out your scary challenges, and say, “We’ll be lucky as hell if we get through this, but here’s what I think we should do,” they will listen to you.
To get people behind you, you can tell a truthful story. The story of General Electric is wonderful and has nothing to do with Jack Welch’s cult of celebrity. If you have a grand view of life, you can see it on all its complex levels and celebrate it in a story. A great CEO is someone who has come to terms with his or her own mortality and, as a result, has compassion for others. This compassion is expressed in stories.
Take the love of work, for example. Years ago, when I was in graduate school, I worked as an insurance fraud investigator. The claimant in one case was an immigrant who’d suffered a terrible head injury on a carmaker’s assembly line. He’d been the fastest window assembler on the line and took great pride in his work. When I spoke to him, he was waiting to have a titanium plate inserted into his head.
The man had been grievously injured, but the company thought he was a fraud. Despite that, he remained incredibly dedicated. All he wanted was to get back to work. He knew the value of work, no matter how repetitive. He took pride in it and even in the company that had falsely accused him. How wonderful it would have been for the CEO of that car company to tell the tale of how his managers recognized the falseness of their accusation and then rewarded the employee for his dedication. The company, in turn, would have been rewarded with redoubled effort from all the employees who heard that story.
How do storytellers discover and unearth the stories that want to be told?
The storyteller discovers a story by asking certain key questions. First, what does my protagonist want to restore balance in his or her life? Desire is the blood of a story. Desire is not a shopping list but a core need that, if satisfied, would stop the story in its tracks. Next, what is keeping my protagonist from achieving his or her desire? Forces within? Doubt? Fear? Confusion? Personal conflicts with friends, family, lovers? Social conflicts arising in the various institutions in society? Physical conflicts? The forces of Mother Nature? Lethal diseases in the air? Not enough time to get things done? The damned automobile that won’t start? Antagonists come from people, society, time, space, and every object in it, or any combination of these forces at once. Then, how would my protagonist decide to act to achieve his or her desire in the face of these antagonistic forces? It’s in the answer to that question that storytellers discover the truth of their characters because the heart of a human being is revealed in the choices he or she makes under pressure. Finally, the storyteller leans back from the design of events he or she has created and asks, “Do I believe this? Is it neither an exaggeration nor a soft-soaping of the struggle? Is this an honest telling, though heaven may fall?”
It’s not a question of whether you’re optimistic or pessimistic. It seems to me that the civilized human being is a skeptic—someone who believes nothing at face value. Skepticism is another principle of the storyteller. The skeptic understands the difference between text and subtext and always seeks what’s really going on. The skeptic hunts for the truth beneath the surface of life, knowing that the real thoughts and feelings of institutions or individuals are unconscious and unexpressed.
The skeptic is always looking behind the mask. Street kids, for example, with their tattoos, piercings, chains, and leather, wear amazing masks, but the skeptic knows the mask is only a persona. Inside anyone working that hard to look fierce is a marshmallow. Genuinely hard people make no effort.
So, a story that embraces darkness produces a positive energy in listeners?
Absolutely. We follow people in whom we believe. The best leaders I’ve dealt with—producers and directors—have come to terms with dark reality.
Instead of communicating via spin doctors, they lead their actors and crews through the antagonism of a world in which the odds of getting the film made, distributed, and sold to millions of moviegoers are a thousand to one. They appreciate that the people who work for them love the work and live for the small triumphs that contribute to the final triumph.
CEOs, likewise, must sit at the head of the table or in front of the microphone and navigate their companies through the storms of bad economies and tough competition. If you look your audience in the eye, lay out your scary challenges, and say, “We’ll be lucky as hell if we get through this, but here’s what I think we should do,” they will listen to you.
To get people behind you, you can tell a truthful story. The story of General Electric is wonderful and has nothing to do with Jack Welch’s cult of celebrity. If you have a grand view of life, you can see it on all its complex levels and celebrate it in a story. A great CEO is someone who has come to terms with his or her own mortality and, as a result, has compassion for others. This compassion is expressed in stories.
Take the love of work, for example. Years ago, when I was in graduate school, I worked as an insurance fraud investigator. The claimant in one case was an immigrant who’d suffered a terrible head injury on a carmaker’s assembly line. He’d been the fastest window assembler on the line and took great pride in his work. When I spoke to him, he was waiting to have a titanium plate inserted into his head.
The man had been grievously injured, but the company thought he was a fraud. Despite that, he remained incredibly dedicated. All he wanted was to get back to work. He knew the value of work, no matter how repetitive. He took pride in it and even in the company that had falsely accused him. How wonderful it would have been for the CEO of that car company to tell the tale of how his managers recognized the falseness of their accusation and then rewarded the employee for his dedication. The company, in turn, would have been rewarded with redoubled effort from all the employees who heard that story.
How do storytellers discover and unearth the stories that want to be told?
The storyteller discovers a story by asking certain key questions. First, what does my protagonist want to restore balance in his or her life? Desire is the blood of a story. Desire is not a shopping list but a core need that, if satisfied, would stop the story in its tracks. Next, what is keeping my protagonist from achieving his or her desire? Forces within? Doubt? Fear? Confusion? Personal conflicts with friends, family, lovers? Social conflicts arising in the various institutions in society? Physical conflicts? The forces of Mother Nature? Lethal diseases in the air? Not enough time to get things done? The damned automobile that won’t start? Antagonists come from people, society, time, space, and every object in it, or any combination of these forces at once. Then, how would my protagonist decide to act to achieve his or her desire in the face of these antagonistic forces? It’s in the answer to that question that storytellers discover the truth of their characters because the heart of a human being is revealed in the choices he or she makes under pressure. Finally, the storyteller leans back from the design of events he or she has created and asks, “Do I believe this? Is it neither an exaggeration nor a soft-soaping of the struggle? Is this an honest telling, though heaven may fall?”
Does being a good storyteller make you a good leader?
Not necessarily, but if you understand the principles of storytelling, you probably have a good understanding of yourself and of human nature, and that tilts the odds in your favor. I can teach the formal principles of stories, but not to a person who hasn’t really lived.
The art of storytelling takes intelligence, but it also demands a life experience that I’ve noted in gifted film directors: the pain of childhood. Childhood trauma forces you into a kind of mild schizophrenia that makes you see life simultaneously in two ways: First, its direct, real-time experience, but at the same moment, your brain records it as material—material out of which you will create business ideas, science, or art. Like a double-edged knife, the creative mind cuts to the truth of self and the humanity of others.
Self-knowledge is the root of all great storytelling. A storyteller creates all characters from the self by asking the question, “If I were this character in these circumstances, what would I do?” The more you understand your own humanity, the more you can appreciate the humanity of others in all their good-versus-evil struggles. I would argue that the great leaders Jim Collins describes are people with enormous self-knowledge. They have self-insight and self-respect balanced by skepticism. Great storytellers—and I suspect, great leaders—are skeptics who understand their own masks as well as the masks of life, and this understanding makes them humble. They see the humanity in others and deal with them in a compassionate yet realistic way. That duality makes for a wonderful leader.
Bio:
Dr. Bill Pomfret of Safety Projects International Inc who has a training platform, said, “It’s important to clarify that deskless workers aren’t after any old training. Summoning teams to a white-walled room to digest endless slides no longer cuts it. Mobile learning is quickly becoming the most accessible way to get training out to those in the field or working remotely. For training to be a successful retention and recruitment tool, it needs to be an experience learner will enjoy and be in sync with today’s digital habits.”
