The Leader's Guide to Storytelling

by Stephen Denning

  It can also be effective to ridicule the authors of bad news as a class or group. Talking about one's opponents as a class rather than as individuals is what dissident staff do to their bosses: they talk about “the system” and “them” rather than about “Mr. Jones” and “Ms. Smith.”27 Such criticism is difficult to defend against because it's hard to pinpoint what exactly is being criticized. However, the good news is that leaders can adopt the same tactic and satirize their detractors as a class and in the process avoid sounding personal.

  Bill Clinton Gets a Tax Cut

  Former President Bill Clinton did this brilliantly in his address to the Democratic Convention on July 27, 2004, when he satirized “Republicans” rather than George W. Bush personally: “At home, the president and the Republican Congress have made equally fateful choices, which they also deeply believe in. For the first time when America was in a war footing in our whole history, they gave two huge tax cuts, nearly half of which went to the top 1 percent of us. Now, I'm in that group for the first time in my life. And you might remember that when I was in office, on occasion, the Republicans were kind of mean to me. But as soon as I got out and made money, I became part of the most important group in the world to them. It was amazing. I never thought I'd be so well cared for by the president and the Republicans in Congress. I almost sent them a thank you note for my tax cuts until I realized that the rest of you were paying the bill for it.”28

  Managers can do the same thing to cynics and skeptics by ridiculing the general position they represent.

  Don't Be Mean-Spirited

  It's important to use satire appropriately and sparingly. Mean-spirited ridicule can generate a well-deserved backlash. Finely tuned and appropriately timed satire is a blend of love and truth. It is not merely putting someone down in an isolated comic event. It is directed at all and everyone, including even the storyteller. But satire has a point, which makes it effective. It is important to be sure that you are making a valid point through your satire without causing cruel laughter or blame.

  Consider Karl Kraus's satire of psychoanalysis:

  Psychoanalysis is that mental illness of which it regards itself as therapy.29

  This definition works because it addresses a field of serious study but makes a point about the ambiguity of what can be known. It is gentle and self-effacing.

  In the following ad, however, the humor is too aggressive to be effective:

  One fur hat: two spoilt bitches. Don't let fur creep back into fashion.30

  Here, the verbal attack on the target of the satire—the woman wearing the fur hat—is excessive. The risk is that the satire will rebound on the satirists.

  Use Self-Deprecatory Humor

  One reason that humor is a dangerous tool is that satire is about the exposure of truth—and the truth can wound. Self-deprecatory humor is one of the safer forms of satire, because you are the target. Laughing at yourself shows that you've mastered the issue; it hasn't mastered you. Better yet, deprecating yourself gives you a right to deprecate others.

  The Case of JetBlue

  Thus, in August 2010, when flight attendant Steven Slater grabbed a couple of beers and slid down the emergency chute of a JetBlue plane, he became an instant folk hero, with several hundred thousand followers on Facebook. As David Zax noted in Fast Company, “JetBlue itself is in an increasingly tricky position. If one of their employees became a folk hero for quitting, then didn't that make them something of, well, a folk villain?”31

  So how did JetBlue respond? For two days, not at all. Then, on the third day, JetBlue issued the following single post on its company blog, Blue Tales:

  It wouldn't be fair for us to point out absurdities in other corners of the industry without acknowledging when it's about us. Well, this week's news certainly falls into that category. Perhaps you heard a little story about one of our flight attendants? While we can't discuss the details of what is an ongoing investigation, plenty of others have already formed opinions on the matter. Like, the entire Internet. (The reason we're not commenting is that we respect the privacy of the individual. People can speak on their own behalf; we won't do it for them.)

  While this episode may feed your inner Office Space, we just want to take this space to recognize our 2,300 fantastic, awesome and professional Inflight Crewmembers for delivering the JetBlue Experience you've come to expect of us.

  David Zax noted: “It's a wily little post, expertly done—mixing cheeky self-deprecation, ostensible privacy concerns, an apt and funny YouTube link (to the Office Space movie), and only the tiniest dose of PR pablum.” Thereafter, the tide of opinion shifted more positively toward JetBlue. Its message was: if we can laugh at this, then it can't be very serious.32

  Who Can Be a Storyteller?

  Here's an example of self-deprecatory humor from my own work. My challenge as a speaker is to quickly overturn the widespread presumption of my audiences that they are not, and cannot become, good storytellers. I seek to achieve this by making gentle fun of my own taciturn character:

  Who can be a storyteller? I cite in evidence—my wife! She says: “Here you are: Steve. Australian! Monosyllabic! Never tell me stories! Never tell me jokes! But here you are, going around the world, making a living out of being a storyteller! If you can do it, anybody can.” And of course that's the point: Everybody does. We're all storytellers.

  It makes fun of me, but it also makes fun of the audience. The implication is: “Hey! Wake up! If even a taciturn person like me can do this, then so can you!”

  Don't Ridicule a Rumor or Bad News That Is True

  The trick is to work with, not against, the flow of the vast underground river of informal communication that exists in every organization. Of course, you can't ridicule a rumor into oblivion if it's true or at least reasonable. If that's the case, your only real option is to admit the rumor, put it in perspective, fix it if you can, and move on.

  “They're Launching Another Reorganization!”

  Given the universal propensity of embattled corporate managements to launch a major reorganization when they don't know what to do, a rumor of a reorganization is hard to satirize because it is inherently so plausible. It's exactly the kind of thing that a weak management does when in trouble. So it's tough to satirize the bad news itself as implausible. The fact is, it's very plausible!

  And if the rumor is anonymous, one cannot satirize the author of the bad news.

  What can you do? In some situations, you may be able to satirize yourself: “What a knucklehead I was to try all those previous reorganizations that bombed!”

  That might work to a certain extent—if you're in charge. But someone other than the CEO can't kill the rumor by satirizing the CEO; it might even strengthen the rumor. When it comes to killing the rumor, the satire has to come from the top.

  “We're Going to Be Taken Over!”

  Assuming that the rumor isn't true, one possibility may be to satirize the feasibility of the idea itself. If, for instance, the company rumored to be behind the takeover lacks the capability to make a satisfactory offer, then one might be able to satirize the rumor in terms like these: “How could we be taken over by a company whose financial condition is even more critical than our own!”

  Remove the Cause of Negative Rumors and Criticism

  When you're thinking about what to do about gossip, rumors, and criticism, keep in mind the possibility that your own behavior may be contributing to the talk. If it is, you may be able to change the talk by changing the behavior.

  Suppose you find yourself being ridiculed for being insincere or less than fully frank with your staff. You might want to check out why this is happening. For example, “When one manager videotaped himself talking about different topics, he realized that his voice tone and lack of eye contact caused his audience to think he was insincere. With practice, he was able to relax and send the messages he intended to send.”33

  Top managers are often unaware of how intimidating they can be. Given the
perceived likelihood of sanctions for speaking out of turn, it is unsafe to assume that inviting people to share their thoughts will be enough to elicit open conversation. On the contrary, it may generate a storm of underground criticism. Active efforts to open channels of communication can help:

  A large bank's IT manager encouraged initiative by having staff suggest their own solutions to business problems. At first, people were silent for fear of seeming stupid before a highly educated boss. Realizing this, he schooled himself to listen thoughtfully, with a serious, inquiring demeanor, even when he knew their ideas were flawed. When they felt taken seriously, his staff became willing to tackle larger projects knowing he would support them. Eventually most people started suggesting, refining, and implementing their own ideas. Dealing with them as equals, both verbally and nonverbally, helped him reinforce the attitudes and behaviors of initiative-taking.34

  Taming the Organization-Wide Grapevine

  Once a decision is made at the top to proceed with a change, it can be risky for members of an organization to oppose the change openly, as top management may see this as putting their authority in question. So opposition tends to go underground. The skeptics and the cynics feed the grapevine with gossip and rumors, waiting for the moment when some adverse circumstance or setback enables them to bring their opposition to the surface.

  Psychologists have found that people often wait for years to get even with others who had themselves probably forgotten the offense, plotting until they have an opportunity to torpedo their enemy's career.35 The shadow side of an organization remains in place as long as the organization is alive. The workforce remains a battleground of competing stories, each struggling for supremacy in the fight for the organization's soul.

  Beyond the Grapevine

  If you see widespread and open opposition to the officially announced change, then you're dealing with more than the grapevine, an underground guerrilla movement of skeptics and cynics. You're dealing with a large-scale rebellion, and you have a different and larger task on your hands. You are facing a pitched battle.

  Such pitched battles generally involve three main groups:

  The enthusiastic champions who willingly lead the charge for change—generally on the order of 20 percent of the population.

  The resisters who launch the counterattack—again, probably no more than 20 percent of the population.

  The fence-sitters and laggards who wait and watch to see which way the organizational wind is blowing—usually the majority, around 60 percent.

  The following steps can be helpful:

  Use positive stories to win the set battles.

  Assemble the rational case for change.

  Use ridicule to fight the rumor mill.

  Help your supporters tell your story.

  Bring in big guns to help in set battles.

  Put in place structural measures to reinforce your story.

  Positive Stories

  Winning the big battles will depend less on skirmishes with enemies and more on inspiring the top of the organization and your army of champions to carry the message of change throughout the organization. The principal storytelling instruments for this task are springboard stories (Chapter Three), future stories including business models and scenarios (Chapter Ten), and stories to inspire innovation (Chapter Eleven).

  The Rational Case for Change

  The rational case for change isn't going to win the day for you, but it can lose the day for you if you don't have it. You need to have answers to relevant questions. You have to be able to respond to critical arguments with supporting facts and analyses that show that your change makes sense in conventional terms of costs, benefits, risk, and time lines.

  Ridicule

  At the same time, you shouldn't neglect the rumor mill, which will be going full tilt, at a more aggravated level than appears in the open debate about change. The arguments that are too extreme and derogatory and scandalous to make in open discussion will be whispered in private and transmitted along the grapevine. You fight story with story and satirize the critics—they are so ridiculous that they can't be right.

  Counterstories for Your Supporters

  Once you have prepared your weapons of persuasion, make it easy for your supporters to find out what is being said and make sure they have the positive stories and the defenses against the negative stories. This is developed to a high degree in U.S. presidential campaigns, with almost instant e-mailing to supporters of the defense to be used against attacks.

  In an organization, it can be done by making available PowerPoint presentations on the organization's intranet, which make it easy for your supporters to tell your story.

  The Big Guns

  After years of skirmishing with skeptics and critics, you may not be a hero in your own company. If you bring in people with big reputations, even world experts when you can get them, to review what's going on, they can help defeat determined attacks.

  Structural Countermeasures

  You are unlikely to win the war without structural help. You need to put in place structural measures that will eventually compel compliance, such as budgets, incentive systems, and measurements of progress. These measures won't win the war by themselves. They won't inspire the champions, and they won't win over the passionate resisters, but they can do something else that's important: they can prod the majority of fence-sitters and laggards to get with the program. And they can make it costly for opponents to keep resisting.

  The Driving Force Behind the Grapevine

  What drives the grapevine is uncertainty about the future. People are desperate for news, and more informed news, that will shed light on the future. Similarly, management efforts directed toward neutralizing bad news and rumors in the grapevine are essentially about reducing uncertainty about the organization's future. But the organization can also be more proactive in clarifying the future through narrative. And it is to this challenge that I turn in Chapter Ten.

  Template for Stories to Tame the Grapevine

  When constructing a story aimed at taming the grapevine, take the following principles into account:

  1. Before trying to satirize a rumor or bad news, make sure that it is untrue or unreasonable. If the rumor or bad news is true, admit it, remove the cause of it if you can, put it in perspective, and move on.

  2. If you know the author of the rumor, explore whether it is possible and appropriate to satirize that person.

  3. Assess the inherent plausibility of the rumor or bad news to determine whether it can be satirized as lacking inherent credibility.

  4. Explore whether your own relationship to the content of the rumor or bad news can be exploited to show its inherent improbability; self-deprecatory humor is often the most effective tactic.

  5. To avoid a potential backlash, make sure that any satire you attempt is not mean-spirited.

  10

  Create and Share Your Vision

  Using Narrative to Lead People into the Future

  “All human action occurs in time, drawing on a past which cannot be undone and facing a future which cannot be known.”

  J. M. Barbalet1

  We have no difficulty telling ourselves stories about the future. In fact, scientific studies show that the human brain is constantly engaged in this activity.2 Every moment of our lives, we instinctively create action plans and programs for the future—anticipating the moment at hand, the next minutes, the emerging hours, the following days, the ongoing weeks and anticipated years to come.3

  The process is familiar to us all. As we make our way through the day, we run through potential simulations. For instance, as I write, I am also thinking: If I continue writing this chapter, I will be delayed in getting out my newsletter. If I help my daughter with her homework, I won't be able to read the book that I was planning to read. If I undertake that engagement in Germany, this will extend the message of storytelling to new territory, but I will be unable to attend Richard's party. Unless I make a booking
now for that ski holiday, the flight may be full. If I open that bottle of Chateau Montrose today, I won't be able to taste it at maturity. And so on. The simulations are sets of potential actions and their consequences. They are time paths into the future.

  For most of the human race's existence, these future imaginings took place within a fairly stable context. Tomorrow was seen as an inevitable continuation of today, which in turn was not very different from yesterday. People knew and kept their places, geographically as well as socially. Tradition was largely undisturbed by innovation. Overall change proceeded at a pace that was barely perceptible. Each generation was a replica of its predecessor. The central element of wisdom was seen as permanence.