Facts are about being right or wrong. McDonald’s believed it was wrong for McVegan to have infringed the trademark. But narratives aren’t as concerned with who is right and who is wrong; they’re focused on who’s more interesting.
Facts are by definition grounded in logic. Narratives, however, are based on emotions. McVegan wasn’t about whether it’s logical to eat a beef burger or a soy alternative. It was simply declaring that the alternative was fun. McVegan was powerful in the same way that a clown in a circus has power, or a jester in a royal court. A jester could mock the king by distilling one attribute, twisting it, and giving it a new (and funny) interpretation. Reggie McVeggie gave a new spin to Ronald McDonald: what if healthy eating were fun?
Facts need to be verified in order to have utility. But narratives gain power merely by spreading. Each punk-rock kid who put a McVegan sticker on his or her bike to protest commercialism spread the narrative; as did each McDonald’s employee who did so as a joke. Thus McVegan mutated and could be both a critique of fast food and a good-natured spoof.
Unlike facts, no one expects narratives to be exacting. They are derivatives of the truth, not pure versions of it. Thus they’re allowed to be more flexible and agile, because they spread by being interesting, not necessarily by being accurate. They don’t have to be scientifically on point; they just need to have a compelling plot.
This brings us to the core of the issue. Facts depend on expert validation to persist, while narratives simply need to be retold. That means that you can’t win a narrative battle by simply proving that the opposing narrative is in some way inaccurate. A narrative battle is won by drowning out the countermessage.
Imagine if instead of viewing McVegan and Reggie McVeggie as adversaries to be silenced, McDonald’s had taken a page from Shakespeare’s King Lear, who noted that “jesters do oft prove prophets.” In other words, what if McVegan was onto an emerging trend?
Indeed, while Ori hasn’t done any work on McVegan since 1995, the concept endured. In 2015 industry publication AgWeb posted an article with a title that would have seemed impossible two decades earlier: “McVegan: Former McDonald’s CEO Joining Board of Beyond Meat” (a veggie burger maker). Don Thompson, former McDonald’s CEO, had turned veggie burger enthusiast.
It wasn’t necessarily that Thompson had a philosophical change of heart about burgers—rather, he was following market demands. He wasn’t the only business executive who warmed up to veggie burgers. Bill Gates joined a version of the McVegan campaign as well. More on that later. The point is that veganism, thanks to inclusive narratives, is no longer on the fringe of society. In fact, just a few weeks before this book went to press, news broke that McDonald’s itself was testing a new vegan burger. Its name? The McVegan.3
What if McDonald’s had amplified rather than tried to squelch McVegan, and what if it had developed the veggie burger first and capitalized on that market potential?
The argument here isn’t that we should welcome various ideas—even those that are seemingly clownish and out of left field—for the sake of being “nice.” Rather, through inclusion companies can both react to market forces that are demanding a voice and stay competitive. Think how much easier it would have been for McDonald’s to tap its marketing team instead of its lawyers, boosting the McVegan message—even celebrating it—and bringing the narrative under McDonald’s own tent.
| Facts | Narratives |
| Right or wrong | Interesting or boring |
| Logical | Emotional |
| Verified | Spread |
| Stay rigid | Easily mutate |
| Precise truth | Approximation of truth |
| Objective | Subjective |
| Depend on experts | Depend on retelling |
| Countered by disproving | Countered by drowning out |
| Tendency to exclude | Tendency to include |
This idea of broadening one’s scope to be more inclusive in the quest for greater effectiveness is what led to this book. It’s what led General Dempsey to reach out to a peace-studies-Berkeley-teaching-tofu-eating person like Ori to get his help improving the U.S. military’s ability to function effectively.
The Resolute Desk
Presidential administrations have come and gone, but the same desk—crafted from the timbers of the British ship HMS Resolute and gifted by Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880—has remained a fixture of the Oval Office since the days of JFK.
Kennedy sat at the Resolute desk when he deliberated how to deal with the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, and it was at that desk that he famously authorized the embargo of Cuba; it was at the same desk in 1987 that Ronald Reagan negotiated the terms of a nuclear disarmament deal with Russia.
It was there, in 2013, that President Obama faced an issue no less challenging than the ones JFK and Reagan had to overcome.
Just a few days before that Tuesday afternoon in April 2013, spring announced itself with the full glory of the cherry blossoms in bloom. But now the mood in D.C., and in the country as a whole, had shifted dramatically.
It had been less than two hours since the terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon.
The president immediately assembled his closest national security advisers at a closed-door meeting.
As he waited for the president to enter the Oval Office, General Dempsey looked to his right at Chuck Hagel, the secretary of defense. Hagel was straightening his tie, and when he caught Dempsey’s look, he slowly shook his head and sighed heavily. National Security Advisor Susan Rice, on his left, buried her nose in her briefing book, poring over the intelligence reports she had recently received.
Every administration has its ups and downs, but the nine months leading up to that meeting in April had seen one vexing national security issue after another. Dempsey knew that there would be intense interest in determining the motivation behind this new attack on American soil.
He had received news of the bombing when his executive officer, Colonel John Novalis, interrupted his preparations for his testimony before Congress, scheduled for the next day. Novalis had just completed a tour of duty as commander of an attack aviation brigade in Afghanistan. He had been selected because he was combat tested, virtually unflappable, and an exceptional leader. Dempsey knew Novalis would interrupt him only with something important.
“Sir, there’s been an incident,” Novalis said.
From his executive officer’s demeanor Dempsey could tell that what he was working on would have to wait.
“There’s been an attack on the Boston Marathon,” Novalis continued, then explained as concisely and clearly as possible that there had been two explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon and that the attackers were still at large. The Joint Staff Intelligence Officer and Joint Staff Operations Officer were meeting and would come to him with their assessment