Start With A Win - The Power of Storytelling in Business

Starting point is 00:00:00 And you can't orchestrate a situation for everybody to learn every lesson they need to learn experientially. But you can tell them stories about people who did, and they'll learn it almost as well. Any leader, any company, need dozens and dozens of stories. The people who think they only have one story, that's their problem. Nobody wants to work for somebody like that. Most of the stories you tell should be about other people. Welcome to Start With A Win, where we unpack franchising, leadership, and business growth. Let's go. And coming to you from Area 15 Ventures and Start With A Win headquarters,

Starting point is 00:00:41 it's Adam Kantos with Start With A Win. Have you ever wondered how the power of storytelling can elevate your business game? Today on Start With A Win, we're joined by Paul Smith, a true guru in the world of organizational storytelling. With a background that spans from consulting at Accenture to a 20-year tenure at Procter & Gamble, Paul's insights are not just theoretical. They're grounded in real-world experience. Named one of Inc. Magazine's top 100 leadership speakers of 2018, Paul has dissected over 3,000 business stories and interviewed over 300 CEOs and executives across the globe. His expertise has been sought by major players like Google, Walmart, Ford, and his best-selling books have made waves in the business world. From Lead with a Story to the 10 Stories Great Leaders Tell, Paul's work has reshaped how we

Starting point is 00:01:32 approach communication and leadership. Join us as we delve into the power of storytelling with the man who literally wrote the book on it. Paul, welcome to Start With a Win. Yeah, I'm very excited to be here. Thanks for having me on. Awesome. Say, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and how did you get into storytelling and how you help companies? Yeah, well, it certainly wasn't on purpose. I mean, yeah, I didn't finish my college career and think, you know, I want to go be a storytelling trainer. You know, that was not the plan at all. I just, I went into business and, uh, had various levels of leadership roles at, um, at Procter and Gamble. And along the way, I've, I just finally probably took me 15 years, realized how important storytelling was

Starting point is 00:02:16 if I wanted to be a better leader. And that, uh, you know, that frustrated me because they didn't teach me that in school. You know, they didn't teach me that in school. They didn't teach me that in undergrad. They didn't teach me that in business school. They didn't teach me that at P&G. So I kind of set out on my own little personal learning journey once I realized this is an important skill to have if I wanted to be the most effective leader I could be. And I read all the books I could find and still didn't really feel like I knew how to do it. And, you know, and that's when it kind of hit me. If I wanted to know this that badly, maybe other people did as well. And that's when it stopped being my own little selfish learning journey and became an idea for a book. Maybe I should, because I've learned a lot in the last, you know, two years of my life back then, a decade ago, you know, trying to learn about this.

Starting point is 00:03:03 And if other people did as well, then, you know, trying to learn about this. And if other people did as well, then, you know, maybe they'd be interested in a book on the topic. And it turns out they were, uh, it's become a very, um, hot topic, I guess, among a lot of executives. Wow. Well, I mean, it's, it seems to me like we got into this mode of just feature dumping, you know, on people or features and benefits, features and benefits. Here's what our company does. You know, look how great we are. But you're right. Once you get this storyteller in the organization who has a really great story around the service or the product in the business, it seems like people connect so much better to it. So why are we more likely to connect to a story than a feature or a benefit?

Starting point is 00:03:51 Yeah, you know, that's probably a better question for a psychologist. I don't know the real reason why. What I do know is what you just said is that we are. As human beings, we are for some reason, in fact, maybe it's a better question for an evolutionary biologist than a psychologist. For some reason, we are hardwired to appreciate stories better than just facts and features and benefits, as you said, if it was a sales or marketing call or something. For some reason, we get it. We are motivated by it. We remember it better. It works better for us as humans. And so those leaders that you mentioned that are good at it and use that skill well will end up being more effective than the leaders who don't. You know, the sales and marketing people who use that skill well will

Starting point is 00:04:38 sell more than those who don't. So it works kind of in all aspects of the business world. It's fascinating when you look at it. And I remember a painting that a friend of mine commissioned who's really into storytelling. And it was of a Native American tribe and the storyteller in that Native American tribe teaching via story. And there was no, there was, there was no written documentation. That's how they carried along their traditions and how they hunted, how they gathered, how they live their lives. So it, it seems like we had stories and then we moved away from them and now we're moving back to them. Really the effective people are, uh, where are you seeing the effective use of story in business um you know really being used to the

Starting point is 00:05:27 utmost yeah well so first of all i i agree with that observation i think historically um the in historical ancient human civilizations the teachers the leaders the politicians uh were great storytellers in fact that's why they become they became the leaders, the politicians were great storytellers. In fact, that's why they became the leaders and the politicians and the priests and the shamans. And those were the people who kept the history, his story, right? That's where we got that word for history. They were the great storytellers. And so they became the leaders. Now, I think it was probably not until the 18 or 1900s when we kind of lost that skill in the business world. I think it was always present.

Starting point is 00:06:18 But I think it was when we had the professionalization of the business profession. You know, when we started having master's degrees in business, which I'm not slamming, I've got one myself, right? But at that point, being a professional business leader became more of a science than an art. And you had to know all the right words and do all the right analysis and have the right lingo and use the right leadership processes. And we turned it into a science and it probably got much better as a result of that. But what that made us lose is the storytelling component, I think. That's when, you know, if you were to say in the 1940s, find yourself as a leader telling stories around the boardroom, you might just be identifying yourself as not part of the avant-garde of new business leadership. And so I think it waned for

Starting point is 00:07:11 a while. And it wasn't until probably the 1970s or 80s when it started, maybe even actually 90s, early 90s when it started to make a comeback. So we're in the second dawn, I think, of, of storytelling in the business world. Wow. A new Renaissance, I guess you could say. So, um, obviously a powerful tool in leadership and you've done a ton of research, researching many, many stories on this. Uh, can you share a story of transformative storytelling that you've experienced and how it's taken, you know, how it's helped a business or a leader? Yeah. You know, I think one of the first times I saw storytelling happen right in front of me that was really effective. In fact, it was one of the

Starting point is 00:07:57 pivotal moments for me that made me realize storytelling was important. And I wanted to start researching myself. It was at P&G and I was at a big company event, three or four hundred people in the audience. And the speaker that got up there, there's a guy named Jason Zoller, a friend of mine now, got up and shared a story about something that happened in college. And this was a group of researchers, consumer researchers. And he got up and shared a story about something that happened when he was in college, his senior year. The professor broke the students up into groups of five or six. So you're going to get to hear the story that he shared that made the difference to

Starting point is 00:08:34 me. The professor broke the students up into groups of five or six each, and they each had a research project for the semester. But one of them had a more interesting project than all the others. And it was this. How could you improve the jury deliberation process? All right. So literally, literally their job for the semester was to work for the local district judge and figure out how to improve the jury deliberation process. So they did all the kind of things that you probably would have done. They interviewed all the other judges in the jurisdiction and they interviewed prosecuting attorneys and defense attorneys, but mostly they interviewed jurists themselves, right? People who'd actually served on juries. And they asked them all the same kind of questions you probably would have asked them if you'd been

Starting point is 00:09:11 on this team. You know, what was the trial about? How long did it last? What were the instructions that they gave the juries? What kind of information were you allowed to have in the jury room? They even asked them silly questions like, what did they feed you, you know, during the day? And how late did they make you work into the evening and stuff like that? Well, at the end of the semester, they concluded that none of those things mattered. The only thing that seemed to matter was the shape of the table in the jury room. They concluded that in jury rooms that had rectangular tables, whoever sat at the head of the table, even if they weren't the jury forming, tended to

Starting point is 00:09:45 dominate the conversation. And they felt like a less than robust and egalitarian debate of the facts ensued. But in jury rooms that had round tables, it was a more fair, egalitarian, everybody got to talk. They felt like a more reasoned verdict was rendered. So end of the semester, they're very excited to make their recommendation to the head judge, you know, because it was such a simple solution, right? Just replace the tables in the jury room. They're very easy to, and cheap to execute. They make the recommendation of the head judge. The head judge is very excited. He immediately issues a decree. In all the courthouses in my jurisdiction, anywhere you've got any of those round tables in the jury rooms, get rid of them and put in rectangular tables.

Starting point is 00:10:26 All right. I did not just misspeak. In direct contradiction to the recommendation, he said, get rid of round tables, put in rectangular ones. Why on earth do you think you would have done that, Adam? He wants the jury foreman to run? I don't know. That's a great question. Yeah. Because the judge's definition of an improved jury deliberation process wasn't a more fair and accurate one as those students had naturally assumed. It was a faster one. He wanted to reduce the backlog on his court docket, right? He wanted them to get to a faster conclusion, even if it wasn't a better conclusion, right? So I just imagine for a moment that you were one of those five or six

Starting point is 00:11:10 students on that project. How would you have felt at that moment when you saw what he did by doing the opposite of your recommendation? Wow. Yeah. I would certainly question the fairness of the judicial process. Right? Right. How would you feel emotionally? How would you feel like the moment you found out what he did? Pretty let down by your discovery, I guess. I mean, I mean, it's, it's difficult, you know, you're uncovering something that is causing harm that is being implemented. Right. And I'm sure they felt like that. The other things they felt at that moment were anger, right? They were angry at him for doing that, but they were also angry at themselves. And the reason is because the truth is it was kind of their fault.

Starting point is 00:11:49 Here's the mistake they made. They weren't clear on their objectives before they started their research project. They didn't realize that that was the whole goal the whole time because they didn't ask, right? And that is why Jason told that story to a group of a bunch of researchers was to convince them of this lesson that it's very important to be clear on your objectives before you start your research project, not after. If you wait till after, you may be sorely disappointed in the outcome, right?

Starting point is 00:12:20 Now he could just have stood up there and folded his arms and looked at them all condescendingly and said, well, you know, in my 20 years in this business, I've learned that it's very important to be clear on your objectives before you start your research project. And that'd be a nice piece of advice from the boss. Right. But start a research project, are going to make darn sure that they know what the objectives are. And the next time and the next time and the next time, because that story is going to be ringing in their ear. Like they're going to be able to feel the anger and remorse and regret that those students felt like when they learned that lesson. So, I mean, what I learned at that moment was that experience is the best teacher, right? Those five or six students learned that lesson

Starting point is 00:13:10 better than anybody else. But a story is a close second and everything else is a distant third in terms of its ability to convince somebody of something or to deliver a leadership message, right? And you can't orchestrate a situation for everybody to learn every lesson they need to learn experientially, but you can tell them stories about people who did,

Starting point is 00:13:29 and they'll learn it almost as well. Wow. So, I mean, given that example, biggest misconception about storytelling, what would you say it is specifically? Well, one would, I guess that you just have one. I mean, I constantly get phone calls and emails from people who say, hey, Paul, we need you to come help us with our story. Our story. And I say, well, what story? Well, you know our story, our company story. And I say, you just got one? I can already tell you, first problem. You only got one story. I mean, any leader, any company, you need dozens and dozens of stories. The people who think they only have one story, that's their problem. You know, I coach people, you know, out of the dozens of types of stories you need, there's probably, here's a group

Starting point is 00:14:18 of 10 or five that you need to start with. I mean, in fact, I'll just give you four right off the top of my head and I think you'll be able to see, oh yeah, I need lots of stories, right? So the first four stories that most companies need are stories about the direction the organization needs to go. So those four are where we came from. So that's a founding story. Why we can't stay there. So that's a case for change story. Where we're going, which is a vision story, and how we're going to get there, which is a strategy story, right? Because a strategy is about how you're going to get from where you are now to where you want to be. But those are four different stories. But you can see how, you know, any leader who can articulate those four stories

Starting point is 00:14:58 is more likely to get his or her organization to go where they want them to go, right? Because they can easily articulate in a storytelling human fashion where we came from, why we can't stay there, where we're going, and how we're going to get there, right? And that's just four, right? So that's the first thing I need to do with most of my clients is disabuse them of this notion that we've just got this one story that we just, if we really nail this one story, everything's going to be great. No, no, no. You need lots and lots of stories. And that's the first thing we're going to do is brainstorm which ones you need. Wow. I've, I've heard a lot about, you know, what you're talking about companies trying to make up stories to fit their current strategy or their premise of why they

Starting point is 00:15:42 exist. But ultimately it seems like those that win have the people in the company involved in the story in some way, shape, or form, or the history of the company or something like that. I mean, how do you take a leader and say, you just can't go come up with a story. You have to craft the story with the organization, the heart and soul of this company and the people,

Starting point is 00:16:04 things like that. Because everybody wants, I mean, like what you said, you know, we go to these seminars of creating the story around your business or whatever it might be. Um, how, how do we change that, you know, flip that paradigm a little bit so that we become the story instead of the story being fabricated in a falsehood. Yeah i guess i'd say a few things to that um first is uh people's definition of a story a lot you know a lot of these seminars that you're talking about people really don't mean a story what they're talking about is their brand equity like you know our companies our brand equity we need to work on that what do we really want it to stand for and mean and like fine go work on that that What do we really want it to stand for and mean? And like, fine, go work on that.

Starting point is 00:16:46 That's a great thing to go do. But don't think for a minute that what you're creating is a story. You're creating a brand equity. Yeah, we stand for quality and value and low price. Great. Those are great things. Now, if you want a story to help explain to people or convince them that you really are high quality, now let's go develop a story around that. And the second thing I guess I would say is

Starting point is 00:17:08 anytime people talk about developing a story, oftentimes what they mean is making one up. Right. That's not, the stories I traffic in are not made up stories. And that gets to the third part of your question, which is why you need the rest of the organization involved. Because what the first thing you need to go do is go find real things that happen to real people, real stories, to develop further, to improve and create a structure around and have the right emotional engagement to it and create a surprise ending in the story. So you can improve stories, but you've got to start with an actual story that you get from the, not just a

Starting point is 00:17:47 story, many stories that you get from the organization, as opposed to let's sit in a room and make a bunch of stuff up until we've got a good story. That's, that's not the way to develop a good story. Start with real things that happen to real people. Awesome. Yeah. It seems like a lot of these stories that are, you know, the made up ones have people protected in their egos and things like that. But the true stories behind the company have authenticity and vulnerability and humility, things like that. Talk to me a little bit about that. I mean, what, what really endears somebody to a story? Are there key components to that that we should be looking for? Yeah. So, well, first of all, vulnerability is a key part of leadership storytelling for sure. And that's because these are typically true stories. The one exception, by the way, is vision stories.

Starting point is 00:18:44 If you're telling a story about the future, by definition, it's made up. It hasn't happened yet. So those are stories you should be making up. But most of the other stories you typically should be to protect somebody's name or reputation. If you're telling a story about somebody else and they wouldn't appreciate you telling it because it was a mistake they made, yeah, fine. Make up a name for them or to protect the anonymity of the people involved. But stay true to what actually happened. When you're telling a leadership story and you want it to be the most authentic and genuine, which I think getting maybe more directly to your question. First of all, it needs to be something that actually happened. You can't tell a genuine, authentic story about something you made up. Right. Okay. So start with that. But secondly,

Starting point is 00:19:39 the vulnerability piece of that comes from sharing failure stories, right? If all of your stories are about this awesome thing that you did or why you succeeded or why you got promoted five times in a row or why you became the best salesperson in the company, like those are success stories and there's a place for those, but that doesn't show any vulnerability at all, right? It doesn't take any vulnerability to stand up and brag about yourself. It takes vulnerability to stand up and talk about the three biggest mistakes you ever made in your career, right? And those are exactly the stories that everybody wants to hear. They don't want to hear how you became the best, you know, whatever, whatever. Like, I can probably find my own ways to success. I'd like to hear how you did it. I might do it. I might not. But what I really want

Starting point is 00:20:22 to know are the three biggest mistakes to avoid. And that takes vulnerability. And that takes, you've got to be comfortable sharing your mistakes, right? So, so one is be willing to share your failure stories because that's what people want to hear. In fact, well, and the other thing is you need to be willing to share stories about other people, right? So if every story you tell is about you, what kind of leader would people take you as? An arrogant, self-centered, narcissistic leader. Nobody wants to work for somebody like that. Most of the stories you tell should be about other people.

Starting point is 00:21:01 So you need to collect a repertoire of leadership stories to tell. And most of those are going to be things they did great, right? And some of them may be their failure stories, in which case you might, like I said, change the name of the person or omit it for anonymity's purposes. But half the stories about yourself, at least, ought to be your failure stories. And that's the mark of a real leader who's leading with vulnerability. Wow. I mean, you've interviewed hundreds of CEOs and looked into so many different companies. Is there any specific thing that really jumped out to you? Aha moments. And maybe we've already gone through that in this conversation already, but specific aha moments that you saw as a major consistency in the successes of these businesses and leaders?

Starting point is 00:21:51 Well, one would probably be what I just mentioned. Like every leader who's gotten to a certain level of the company has figured out at least that they need to use storytelling. And, you know, it's rare that you would find a vice president of a company who just doesn't tell stories. But the ones who make it to the C-suite are the ones who use that vulnerability and tell stories about other people and tell stories about themselves, their failure stories. I mean, I remember when I was at P&G, I used to love to go to these, like, basically, the chairman of the board, John Pepper, at the time, would have these kind of fireside chats, where he'd get invited by each brand group to come talk to our group. And he'd usually show up with a, you know, a speech or he was wanting, you know, was going to make.

Starting point is 00:22:28 And it almost always within a few minutes, he just, he abandoned his notes and he just started telling stories about, you know, 30 years ago when he was an assistant brand manager on Tide or whatever, and they did this and, oh, it was terrible. It didn't work. And they tried this and it didn't work. And, you know, then they finally, you know, found something that really worked and, and people just loved hearing that because it was, you know, it was 30 years of wisdom. This guy had successes and failures. Um, and that's what people showed up to hear. They didn't show up to hear his scripted

Starting point is 00:22:58 remarks. They couldn't wait for the point that we go, he would go off script and just tell us stories about, you know, mistakes that he'd made along the way. Awesome. You know, it's so interesting. And, you know, you mentioned earlier, we've not been taught this in our undergrad or our MBA or anything like that. And I teach executive MBAs and I know they're not taught this in the class because I've been through it. Um, as a grad school student. It is a huge component of what is missing in business education. I would say even at entry level. And I had a, I always remember I had this president of a company that I worked for and he always said, what do we do? We walk, we talk, we tell the story. And it doesn't resonate with you until

Starting point is 00:23:47 you understand why the story is so profound and important to the organization and to the customers for that matter, because they want to connect with your story. So thank you for sharing that wisdom with us. I wish, I mean, this should be something in high school that people get, and then in undergrad and in grad school. I mean, this should be something in high school that people get and then in undergrad and in grad school. I mean, for crying out loud, by the time we get into the business environment, we should know how to tell stories and recognize those stories and the value that they have. So Paul, you're, you're doing us a, you know, a great service in helping us understand these things. Where can our listeners find you online if they want to check

Starting point is 00:24:25 out your books or your speaking or you in particular? Yeah, thanks. Probably my website's easiest. All those things are in one place. It's leadwithastory.com. Awesome. Leadwithastory.com. Make sure you check out Paul at that location. Paul, I have a question I ask all the great leaders on this podcast, and that is how do you start your day with a win? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So two things. One is I try and start it in the gym instead of with a cup of coffee. Right. So that's my way to wake up is with exercise or for much of my adult life. it was. And I find that those times were better than when I don't start that way. But the other thing I think I do is I typically start with my work with the task that I'm most or least looking forward to in the day. And I get that out of the

Starting point is 00:25:19 way right up front. And that way, like the rest of my day, and it's important. I'm not going to start with something unimportant, but of the important things I have to do each day, I do the least, least pleasurable one first thing in the morning. And then the rest of the day is like downhill. It's just, it's easy. And I look forward to it and I'm not like dreading. I'll have to do that thing that I know I don't really want to do, but it's important for me to do.

Starting point is 00:25:40 And that, that pattern makes me, I don't know, it makes me happier most of the day. Right. Man, you've already won. I mean, you know, you got the exercise out of the way and you got the worst thing of the day. I mean, you could call it quits at that point. Yeah, by nine o'clock in the morning, man, it's gravy from there on out. So yeah, it's a good practice.

Starting point is 00:25:57 That's awesome. Paul Smith, you've done so much for so many companies and really enlightened our listeners on storytelling in the business. This has been incredibly powerful and very valuable to us. So thank you for being on Start With A Win and thanks for all you do. You're welcome. Thanks for having me on. you

Start With A Win - The Power of Storytelling in Business

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