Archive for the ‘storytelling’ Category

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Getting out the stories of Burmese prisoners–an heroic feat

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

George Packer’s Interesting Times blog from The New Yorker yesterday discussed Human Rights Watch’s honoring of a Burmese hero, Bo Kyi. Mr. Kyi had been held as a prisoner by the Burmese government, enduring the brutalities of that unique brand of confinement. Upon his release, Mr. Kyi moved across the border to Thailand and founded an organization, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma, the mission of which includes “report[ing] on the military regime’s oppression of political prisoners who are presently detained in various prisons.”

My Kyi’s remarks on accepting his award were powerful, and are excerpted in Packer’s post. I found this passage particularly striking:

We have a way to communicate with the prisoners and get their stories out. I cannot tell you how we do this. I do not want the Burmese regime to find out. But I can tell you that these stories fill the pages of our reports and those of Human Rights Watch.

The media use these stories. So do political leaders around the world. Over time, the stories of these prisoners generate pressure on the international community to take a stand.

Burmese dissidents are outgunned and outmanned. But they have ideas and stories on their side. Who doubts they will win someday?

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Posted in change, communication, dissent, leadership, protest, storytelling | Comments

"Sesame Street simple" communication with a story

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

My first reaction to this Bob Sutton post–”Sesame Street Simple: A.G. Lafley’s Leadership Philosophy“–was a slight recoil. Perhaps because I thought we had tapped out on learning from A.G. Lafley (can’t we let the man run his company in peace?). But also because my natural communication style is not “Sesame Street simple.” Unsure of that? Read this blog for a while.

But, after letting it sit a few weeks, I’m starting to get what Sutton is saying. He’s onto something important about communicating with and influencing large numbers of people:

…although executives who talk about many ideas and complex ideas will be viewed as smarter — wiser and more effective executives pick just a few simple messages and repeat them over and over again until people throughout the organization internalize them and use them to guide action. Constantly changing messages lead to the “flavor of the month problem” where people don’t act on the current message because they have learned that, if they wait a few months (or days) the message will change (managers in such organizations become very skilled at talking as if they are acting on the flavor of the month, but not actually doing the thing that senior executives are pushing at the moment.) And making things overly complicated may make the senior executives seem smart and feel smart , but if a message is too complicated to understand, it is also means that the implications for action are impossible to understand as well.

Managers “talking as if they are acting…but not actually doing” recalls the damaging “false urgency” that inflicts many companies, as John Kotter discusses in his new book.

There’s a way to do “Sesame Street simple” in a way that provides powerful insight and direction. Telling a story. Stories can be understood by everyone. They can be retold and honed for a particular group (”what’s our ‘the consumer is boss‘ story?”). They can convey complex lessons and spawn deep discussions about meaning.

That’s a “Sesame Street simple” approach even I can understand.

(Photo: Hokey Pokey Elmo from Toys R Us)

Related Posts:
On John Kotter’s “A Sense of Urgency”
More on “A Sense of Urgency”
A.G. Lafley: “The Consumer Is Boss”

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Posted in change, communication, innovation, leadership, management, storytelling | Comments

Your voices needed to help a worthy project

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Can the sharing of stories bring a community together?

It worked in the olden days, but has become a lost art in the age of television, internet, and videogames. Robert Putnam’s book “Bowling Alone” described a society where isolation reigns and communities are frayed.

My friend and colleague Cynthia Kurtz has applied for a Knight News Challenge grant to develop web2.0 software precisely to facilitate the gathering, sharing and passing on of stories that used to go on around the campfire or village square. The Knight folks want the public (that means you) to review and comment on the applications. It would be doing a great service if you would visit the site here and weigh in on Cynthia’s application.

Here’s how she describes the project:


Long ago, story caretakers tended the diverse stories of the community: eliciting, understanding, maintaining. But those traditions have declined as commercial storytelling rose and community coherence fell. The physical-digital split means that today older people tell stories in community centers while younger people tell them on Facebook. People still tell stories, but no one is bringing all of the stories together into community-wide patterns, making sense of those patterns, and helping the stories get to where they need to be in times of need. We are building a free and open source software package called Rakontu (”tell a story” in Esperanto) that will help communities share and work with raw stories of personal experience for mutual understanding, conflict resolution and decision support. By supporting and bridging online and offline storytelling, Rakontu will help communities regenerate the sustaining functions of story caretakers so that they can take better care of their stories again.

An important part of the project is how this would bring benefit to communities. Cynthia explains it this way:


Rakontu will help communities tell, annotate and connect stories; discover insight-creating patterns in them; and use stories to resolve conflicts and make decisions together. This degree of support is only available today through the help of experienced narrative practitioners. Rakontu will embody understandings about narrative in communities so that people will not have to know anything about narrative to benefit from its use. Some possible outcomes are better understandings of opposing perspectives, a greater diversity of voices being heard, better consensus on tough choices, more problems dealt with before they get worse, safer streets, fewer footholds for extremism and paranoia, and greater common strength in times of crisis.

I’ve written in this blog, over and over, about the use of stories for knowledge sharing, learning, and creating insight. You’re probably tired of reading about it. But think about this: we should be using every tool at our disposal to help bring our communities together, to combat the “bowling alone” syndrome, and make our neighborhoods a better place to live. That’s what Rakontu can do, and I hope you’ll visit the Knight News Challenge site and support Cynthia’s application.

(Disclosure: I have worked with Cynthia on this grant and will be conducting community trials of the software if the grant is awarded. Therefore I have a vested interest in getting the grant approved.)

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Posted in community, narrative, sensemaking, storytelling, virtual communities | Comments

In search of Postal Buddy – the power of the negative story

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

Once at EDS, way back when, I worked on a really big proposal. It was one of those that got you to Hawaii if you were successful, and we were, and so I spent a memorable week in Maui.

When we were working on the proposal, my boss would tell us, “Be careful. We don’t want this to end up like Postal Buddy.” He said it over and over again, though I had to admit I didn’t really know what Postal Buddy was. It apparently was a deal in which EDS had taken on a bunch of risk that ended up badly. That much I knew.

Postal Buddy stuck in my brain all these years. Finally, in an effort to satisfy my curiosity, I called my old boss a few months ago. My goal was to get him to tell me the Postal Buddy story once and for all. “Oh, yeah,” he said when I called him. “Postal Buddy….hmm… I remember the name but can’t remember the story at all.”

I was dumbfounded. Postal Buddy had become a fossil, the name the only remnant of the full experience (which, for people dealing with its aftermath, must have been excruciating). But it still retained its potency.

Many times since I heard the story, even though I don’t know a single detail, when confronted with a risky scenario, I would think to myself, “Don’t do a Postal Buddy here,” and I would take a second, or third, look before making a decision.

So, the lesson: a story, even shorn of all its ornamentation, only a title and a memory, still carries emotion and resonance.

Postscript: I used a tool with better recall than me or my old boss, Google, to research Postal Buddy. There’s nothing about the EDS experience, but you can find the overall story here (go to page 3).

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Posted in failure, narrative, storytelling | Comments

Power of story

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

For men (this one anyway), sports stories are incredibly resonant. Just saw this Visa advertisement about the Derek Redmond story from the 1992 Olympics. I remember seeing that live. It still made me cry sixteen years later.

Stories engage the heart, essays engage the mind. See how two minutes of moment-to-moment narrative can inspire hours of conversation:

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Posted in narrative, storytelling | Comments

What in hell do stories have to do with innovation?

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

Regular readers may be tiring of the constant barrage of story-related posts, or at minimum be trying to figure out how they relate to the title of this blog. Here are some words that I hope tie it together.

More and more products are launched and evolve in an iterative fashion. Version 1 does this, version 2 does that, and version 3 finally hits the mark and becomes the standard (exhibit A: Windows). Those iteration windows are becoming tighter, so good information as a basis of planning product changes is invaluable. Google in particular has turned this approach into an art form.

There are more and more ways to get feedback directly from users. Forums, call centers, social networks, Twitter, etc., etc., allow users to communicate their likes and dislikes about a product.

Now, to storytelling. Most business applications of storytelling focus on communicating outward–developing a story that helps communicate the essence or benefits of your product or company. Steve Denning, in his recent book “The Secret Language of Leadership” calls these indirect stories–stories that inspire stories in the mind of the reader or listener. Indirect stories are necessarily incomplete–they are not meant to immerse the listener in an experience (like, say, Harry Potter does). They are meant to create empathy and consensus.

What I’m talking about (as are Shawn Callahan & Mark Schenck of Anecdote, Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge and others) is inverting that model.

In addition to crafting stories and sending them out toward customers, staff, etc., what if we listen to the indirect stories coming from them? They are also necessarily incomplete–mere anecdotes–but if you gather a few dozen, a few hundred, or a few thousand, common themes and threads will become evident. To invert Denning’s language, there’s the possibility of inspiring stories in the mind of the company.

These stories might say things like:

  • People find our product really hard to use.
  • Feature X of our product is proving more valuable than we expected.
  • A group of people are using our product in an interesting way that we didn’t anticipate.

As a product manager, the above stories are very important to me. They help orient me toward things I should do to improve product packaging, add or delete features, alter its marketing message or improve its customer service or technical support. Also, the user stories are pre-hypothesis, meaning that they are free of bias that can come via hypothesis-based approaches such as surveys. They are not adulterated by groupthink, as can happen with focus groups. They are the voice of the customer.

None of the individual anecdotes may send clear messages about where innovation is working and where it isn’t. But the accrual of them can do so.

Companies don’t use this resource to improve innovation. They should.

And that’s what I’m talking about.

(For a powerful example of the accrual of “indirect” stories to create a compelling, nuanced, overall story, please refer to this earlier post on Haruki Murakami’s “Underground.”)

Related Post:
Stories that people tell about products are invaluable

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Posted in complexity, innovation, narrative, product management, sensemaking, storytelling, what-in-hell-is | Comments

"Once Upon a Nation" teaches history through storytelling

Monday, July 14th, 2008

My family went to Philadelphia for the US Independence Day weekend. Among other activities, we visited thirteen storytelling benches arrayed around the historic district. At these locations, storytellers told us tales about Revolutionary War-era figures and other notable people and events from Philadelphia’s history, including:

  • The first bank robbery in the US
  • A Philadelphia witch trial
  • The invention of bubble gum
  • The escape of one of President George Washington’s house slaves
  • The hiking and camping adventures of a young boy who became a renowned artist and horticulturist.

Of all the cool things we did that weekend–visiting the Liberty Bell and touring Independence Hall (where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated), eating at a tavern where Jefferson ate–the stories were the most memorable part of the trip. Our five-year-old insisted that visiting all the benches was our highest priority for the weekend.

We attended several events featuring performers playing characters from the period–Ben Franklin, a Patriot soldier, a young aristocrat. You could hardly walk down the street without running into a printer, militia officer or milkmaid–in character always.

At night, we recounted the stories we’d heard that day. As we toured, we looked for references to story characters in the historic buildings.

All of the above are a product of Once Upon a Nation, a group charged with creating a “living history” of Philadelphia. And they’ve succeeded. The stagings and stories intertwined beautifully with the historic sites to create an fun, immersive, reiterated experience that “Brain Rules” author John Medina would approve of completely.

A real testament to the power of stories at work.

[P.S., The storytelling benches are open all summer till 4:30pm.]

Related post:
“Brain Rules” rules

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Posted in history, learning, storytelling, travel | Comments

Twitter and "Every Minute Accounted For"

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

I’ve been using Twitter for the last several weeks and I find it interesting, though I’m not yet at the point where I see breakthrough applications for it. They may be out there; I’m just not experienced enough to see them.

(For the uninitiated, Twitter is a micro-blogging tool that allows you to send 140-character notes from your PC or mobile phone, and for others to view them. You are asked a simple question: “What are you doing?” and your answer is broadcast to the community. You can also subscribe to others’ Tweets.)

It’s such a simple and open tool that the possibilities for using it are almost limitless. It may go without saying that most of the applications will be better at wasting time than improving productivity. Yet, Twitter has real potential to increase connectedness.

For example, I work with a team of people that are spread out across the US, UK and Ireland, and frequently shift from one location to another. It would be helpful to have Tweets updating where they are so that I can know when to call them (given that there is a 6-hour difference between Chicago and England), or when they’re in transit.

You can imagine a million such applications. And right now hundreds (thousands?) of people are doing just that.

I find it fascinating that answering the question “What are you doing?” over and over again can create a life narrative–an autobiography of trivia, as it were. Which reminded me of an article I read in Harper’s Magazine more than ten years ago about a guy, Robert Shields, who kept a moment-to-moment diary for more than twenty years (”Every Minute Accounted For” by David Isay–access free with magazine subscription). A sample is below:

10:00-10:05 I groomed my hair with a scrub brush
10:05-10:10 I fed the cat with tinned cat food
10:10-10:20 I dressed in black Haband trousers, a pastel-blue Bon Marche shirt, the blue Haband blazer with simulated silver buttons, both hearing aids, eyeglasses, and the 14-degree Masonic ring.

Two thoughts occurred to me. One: Shields could really have benefited from Twitter. And two: is Twitter growing more Robert Shieldses? How many people out there are notating their lives down to the minute and sharing them with the world?

The last paragraph of the Harper’s article poignantly explains why anyone might want to leave such a record. (It is from a passage in the diary where Shields describes an interview with Isay, the author.)

I said I did not know why I kept it, especially since it is doubtful if anyone would ever read it. It is a compulsion. [Isay] asked whether I intended to keep it up until I die and I said yes. It is impossible for me to give any motivation for it, except that when I am gone, the words that I have written will be the only thing that survives.

Another article about Robert Shields is available here.

Related post:
Everyday stories hold great insight

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Posted in Twitter, connection, narrative, social networking, storytelling | Comments

The value of not caring in the workplace

Friday, May 16th, 2008

I was with a company that went through lots of changes through its early history–many of them good changes. High growth, successful IPO, ultimately getting acquired for a huge sum. And of course some bad changes too–good people leaving, lots of interpersonal conflict. Early in 2000, when it looked like another tumultuous year upcoming, a senior manager that I respected a lot asked me my goals for the year. I thought for a while and then said “equanimity.”

The shock and confusion registered on his face immediately. He expected me to say “sell lots of products” or “sign up lots of new partners” or whatever, but instead I said “equanimity.” In that moment of thought I had decided I was not going to let changes and turmoil get to me, but that I would ride them out as unemotionally as I could.

And it worked. I had a really good year. Lots of changes happened, virtually all out of my control, and I dealt with them.

I was reminded of this story when viewing this video of Bob Sutton from the 50 Lessons people (I’ve been raiding their material for mistake stories recently). In the video, he talks about the genesis of “The No Asshole Rule,” his acclaimed book, but also tosses in a provocative idea at the end. When discussing advice of how someone should deal with assholes, he said: “Very often in life, there’s times when learning not to care, to be indifferent is incredibly important, and it’s something we don’t teach people enough…. If you’re in a situation where there’s nothing you can do about changing it, you might as well just ignore it and do what is best for you…. One of my goals as an adult is to get better and better at figuring out what doesn’t matter to me, and ignoring it.”

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Posted in equanimity, indifference, narrative, organizational behavior, storytelling | Comments

Everyday stories hold great insight

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

If you’ve visited this space at all before, you’ll know that I believe the stories we tell of our lives hold vast riches of information–and that information can be used to inform decisions on strategy, management & leadership, among other areas.

Today, the invaluable Harvard Business School Working Knowledge website features an article by Julia Hanna discussing creativity in the workplace and its place in innovation. The whole article is wonderful and worth reading in full. But I was fascinated by this passage regarding the research of Harvard professor Theresa Amabile:

As a way to delve deeper into the link between motivation and creativity, Amabile and her husband, psychologist Steven J. Kramer, conducted a three-year study of 238 professionals from seven companies in the high-tech, consumer products, and chemicals industries. Without revealing the focus of their study, they asked the subjects (all of whom were working on projects requiring creative effort) to fill out a daily electronic diary form that required numerical answers to questions about their work that day, as well as their emotions, motivation, and work environment. They were also asked to describe what they’d done that day and to include a brief description of one event at work that stood out in their minds [emphasis mine]. (Participants were asked to refrain from discussing the diary content with colleagues.) By the end of the study, Amabile and Kramer had collected nearly 12,000 entries, what she describes as a “wonderful treasure trove of data.”

“We have a window into how concrete events affected knowledge workers’ thoughts, perceptions, emotions, and motivations,” Amabile says. “We call this ‘inner work life,’ and we found that it directly influences creativity and other aspects of performance.”

The mundane, quotidian stories (the events the subjects documented) were an integral part of the study data. By leveraging these, Amabile and Kramer were able to evaluate a trait–creativity–far more deeply than could have been done by numerical analysis alone. I’m convinced that capturing and sorting through stories can add incalculable wisdom to the business world. We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the possibilities.

On a side note, I’ve been thinking about how Twitter and like tools will be involved in this arena. What are all those tweets telling us about ourselves?

But that’s a topic for another post.

(Photo: “Old Diary” by Race_Eend via stock.xchng)

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Posted in HBS Working Knowledge, assessment, creativity, evaluation, narrative, sensemaking, storytelling | Comments

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