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Ever been spellbound by the reminiscences of a founder or senior manager of your company? Reminiscences of how, for example, in the early days the original owners forfeited their salaries to pay employee bonuses, or how developers pulled off some seemingly impossible product launch. Such anecdotes display the tremendous power of storytelling. What is surprising is that few executives consciously use this ready tool for creating corporate culture, imparting principles, fleshing out a vision, or even demonstrating their own trustworthiness. Let me elaborate by starting with a tale about a young businessman I know: Skip looked into a sea of suspicious stockholders of the firm his company had just acquired and wondered what might convince them to follow his leadership. He was 35, looked 13, and was third-generation rich. "My first job," he told them, "was drawing the electrical engineering plans for a boat-building company. The drawings had to be perfect because, if the wires were not accurately placed before the fiberglass was poured around them, it might cost easily a million dollars to fix the mistake. "At 25, I already had two master’s degrees, I had been on boats all my life and, frankly, found drawing these plans a bit mindless. One morning I got a call from a $6-an-hour worker asking me, ‘Are you sure this is right?’ Irritated, I snapped, ‘Just pour the damn thing.’ But, arriving at the site, I found the worker looking at my plans with his head cocked. Being left-handed, I had transposed starboard and port so that the drawing was an exact mirror image of what it should have been. "Talk about cockeyed. Thank God for that $6-an-hour worker! The next day, I received a box containing a pair of tennis shoes for future reference. There was a red shoe for port and a green one for starboard. To this day, those shoes help me to remember to listen even when I’m certain I know what’s going on." Skip then held the shoes aloft before the stockholders, who had settled back in their chairs, calm and relaxed. People really don’t want more business information. They are up to their eyeballs in it. They want faith—faith in you, your goals, your success, the story you tell. It is faith that moves mountains, not facts. Faith needs a story to sustain it—a meaningful story. Skip’s story shows that even a powerful young businessman has to earn the trust of those he would lead. Oh, he could have tried to impart the same message by saying, "Yes, I’m rich, young, and I just bought your company. But don’t worry. I’m not a know-it-all. I can be trusted." But that method is doomed from the start because there is no substance to it. Nor could Skip have maintained trust for long through manipulation or phony stories. It takes constant energy to get people to believe a story that isn’t quite true, and the ethics are bothersome to get around. Authentic, persuasive storytelling is the most effective source of influence. In my experience, there are six types of stories that are essential to leadership. They involve:
WHO I AM: Getting back to Skip’s problem, those whom we wish to influence begin with two big questions: Who are you? Why are you here? Until those questions are answered, no one trusts what you say. You can answer through personal stories, like Skip’s. Or, you can show your values through stories of universal significance. In other words, someone might, through a story about Mother Theresa, reveal his humility and willingness to learn from others. WHY I AM HERE: The next question to answer is not what you are going to do for those you hope to influence, but, rather, what is in it for you. Interestingly, people don’t mind selfish goals as long as they aren’t exploitative. A businessman I know openly says he loves being rich. He came to America from Lebanon, he tells listeners, and worked in a restaurant as a busboy. He admired people who had big cars, fancy clothes, and happy families. Ultimately, he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, and, with a glint in his eye, he will tell you his more lavish ones. Sure he is vain, but he isn’t hiding anything. His story makes him trustworthy. MY VISION: Once you have assured listeners of the who and why, you can move into vision. A chief executive’s dream might be to increase his company’s revenue to $2 billion a year and to have 10,000 employees. But that dream won’t get anyone else up in the morning. You need to paint a compelling word picture. A perfect example is the well-known tale of the three bricklayers. Asked what they were doing, one said, "I’m laying bricks." The next said, "I’m building a wall." The third gave an answer filled with meaning: "I am building a cathedral." TEACHING: Teaching is best done through stories, too. Telling your new receptionist where the phone buttons are isn’t going to teach her much. She will learn a lot, though, if you tell her about Mrs. Ardi, who came from Bangladesh and could simultaneously calm angry customers, locate a wandering CEO, and smile at the UPS man. VALUES IN ACTION: Besides personal example, stories are the best way to impart values. The famous story of baseball slugger Hank Greenberg is a classic of the genre. In 1934, for the first time in a quarter century, the Detroit Tigers had a chance to win the pennant. An important game was scheduled for Yom Kippur, the holiest of Jewish feasts. Greenberg, the son of Rumanian Jewish immigrants, refused to play, and the team lost. Still, he won the respect of his community. "I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THINKING": Finally, insight and empathy stories show that leaders can actually think like their followers do. These stories also can dispel fear. In a minor example, I recently heard a speaker begin by saying, "I am a statistician, and this will be the most boring one hour of your life." He read our minds and dispelled the fear of boredom with a joke. What is the moral taken from these stories? People frequently trust, learn, act, and make judgments based on subjective evidence. Objective information doesn’t always go deep enough. That is why stories are so important—and everybody has a story. As Out of Africa author Isak Dinesen once wrote, "To be a person is to have a story to tell."
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Who I am;