– RICHARD SAUL WURMAN1
Stories bring information to life by making it actionable, memorable, and lifelike. Stories bring back the context, color, feeling, and meaning of our work. By showing people how to have success and where the pitfalls are, stories help people understand what it feels like to be “in the situation,” and they learn by the examples of others’ decisions. Adding stories makes communications “stickier”—the degree to which our communications are memorable and actionable.
In my work with leaders and stories over the past ten years, I have found that leaders are hungry for a different way to engage their people. I have also found that a leader’s own stories of success and failure are the most potent for improving performance. It is the leader’s ability to translate his or her experiences into stories that gives that leader a performance advantage.
NATURAL RESOURCES
Stories combine two elements that make them truly powerful tools: utility and significance. Many of the tools that we currently use in organizations have one or the other, but not both. From our cell phones to our CRM systems, our technology tools have tremendous utility. They are packed with features; the Swiss Army knives of our time. But they lack significance—a connection to what we as human beings care about, what builds relationships and motivates us to perform better.
The tools in our organizations that do connect with what we care about, the tools that we use to enhance performance and motivate people, have significance but limited utility. The pay packages and incentive systems, benefits, vacation policies, training conferences, and awards dinners that help us show up and perform, don’t “scale.” They often are one-use-only tools whose effect is felt and then dissipates quickly.
Stories don’t dissipate. They hold their utility and significance long after the originator of the story is gone. Anyone who has worked for a large organization like the Red Cross or IBM, or even an entrepreneurial business that has some staying power, knows that some stories never die. The legends have utility long after their namesakes have disappeared.
Unlike other tools, techniques, consulting services, and systems that we have to purchase, stories are natural resources. They lie just under the surface of any organization, like an aquifer. Just as countries tap into their natural resources in order to create wealth, leaders must do the same in our organizations. We must tap into this well of stories and share them, because they eventually evaporate into the atmosphere only to come raining down again and again. After all, they are our stories.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
This book is about panning for gold. Not gold in the real sense, but the gold we find in our work, our communications, and our relationships. Gold that people share with each other and that illuminates ways to perform better and have more fun.
It is my hope that you use this book both as a set of ideas and as a set of tools. The book is a paperback by design, and as such it is meant to be carried around, written in, and referenced. The stories in this book are meant to ignite your imagination—to get you thinking about your own stories, why they matter, and where they will help you take positive action.
The book is organized into four parts. Part One begins with a description of the “problem” leaders face, followed quickly by a solution in Part Two. That solution is then put into action in Part Three by a powerful set of tools—the Win Book, Story Matrix, and Story Coach. In Part Four, I focus in on the techniques of using stories in three particular contexts: leadership, sales, and motivation. I believe that these are the three most critical skills in business. We all need a solid combination of these three skills. Think of it this way: Can you think of a great leader who was not also a great salesperson? Or a great salesperson that wasn’t a leader or strong motivator?
The best way to read this book is, predictably, from start to finish. That way, you are certain to see how each part builds on the preceding one, and you will get your arms around “the whole story.” Reading one part only is certainly an option, but you run the risk of missing some key stories and concepts that you can apply immediately.
FIGURE 0.1 How to Use This Book
That said, each part explores a concept in its entirety. In addition, the story tools described in Part Three function independently of one another. Although I use them as a complete set, you may find one of the three much more in tune with your personal style, and I encourage you to run with that.
The book has several other features to which I want to draw your attention. There are, of course, lots of stories. I have used stories to elucidate certain concepts and simultaneously provide a demonstration of why stories “work.” You will find many of these stories set apart from the main body of the book with a special gray background. You will also find several definitions that I use to frame the problems we face as leaders. Similarly, I have included many pictures that are designed to provide another way to access and think about these ideas. Pictures are just stories too. I’m fortunate to have a mentor who always draws me pictures to help me understand and make sense of what is happening, and so in that spirit I share these pictures with you.
“And if a picture is worth a thousand words, a metaphor is worth a thousand pictures.”
—DAN PINK2
The final page of the book is your Story Matrix, which is discussed in-depth in Chapter 5. This personal Story Matrix is designed to be completed as you progress through the book.
Finally, as I’ve immersed myself in the study of what makes great leaders, the many leaders I have met in my travels and the many authors whose books I’ve read have inspired me. You will find many of their thoughts in the margins of this book. All of these different elements are also indexed in the back of the book for ease of reference. I hope you find these additional features helpful in further exploring these ideas.
This book is not an empirical exercise. The ideas, stories, and tools have grown out of firsthand experience working with leaders and their organizations to capture and tell stories in order to enhance performance.
It is my sincere hope that you have at least several “aha!” moments as you read this, as that is the standard for which I read and recommend books and ideas. And because this work is not empirical, I encourage you to let me know if these ideas fail (or succeed!) in practice.
Finally, I have several other hopes for you. I hope you enjoy this read. Some of my favorite stories are here. I hope they make you laugh and cry and think. I hope this book inspires you to turn your stories into a competitive advantage. And I hope that you use your stories to build better relationships and have more fun.
Be a source of stories. This is the best way to succeed, and the best way to live well.
PART ONE: PROBLEM
PART ONE
There is a problem we are all facing, and it’s sneaky and subtle and hard to see, even though it’s right in front of our faces. The problem is information and its effect on how we communicate and how we live.
You have heard this before. Many pundits, from Neil Postman to Richard Saul Wurman and even Ted Koppel, have decried “information overload”—how technology and media saturation continue to fill every crack and crevice of time, and how it is becoming increasingly difficult to determine what is truly important in our communications. They have pointed our ever-diminishing attention span to how our access to, and facileness with, information has increasingly segmented our time into smaller and smaller pieces. Our lives (and even our children’s lives) and our work are overly scheduled and fragmented.