Anecdotally Speaking

One of the most important stories a leader can tell is one that provides insight on how to tackle problems in new ways. I call them intervention stories and some of the very best ones are from outside the business world. In fact, if you look back on the stories we’ve already shared on this podcast you will see most are set outside the world of work yet make a good business point.

A good intervention story gives you a process for doing something differently. You can have all the goals you like, but unless you have a process to achieve those goals you’ve got nothing. In addition to the process a good intervention story inspires action.

I first read this story in Chip and Dan Heath’s book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. It’s set in Vietnam in the 1990s and the protagonist sets out to tackle a systemic and tragic problem of country-wide childhood malnourishment. It doesn’t get more difficult that this.

The approach is called Positive Deviance or Bright Spots. You can find more about this approach on wikipedia or from the book Jerry Sternin co-authored.

Pascale, Sternin, & Sternin. (2010) The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems. Harvard Business Press.

Today’s story illustrates the strong link between great work and what can been seen, heard, and felt in the workplace.

You can tell this story to help your team understand how top performers appear and get a conversation going about what your workplace looks and feels like.

It’s also a great model for an excursion you can take your team on to experience what great look and feels like.

This is our first episode with a guest, Anecdote’s chairman, Paul Honeywell. Paul was over from the UK so we asked if he might share a story on our show that you could add to your story repertoire.

The story is set in the world of Formula One racing and it’s about a stroll Jackie Stewart, three-time world champion, takes with his friend Sir Charles Masefield through a series of Grand Prix pits.

Have you ever had an employee who just didn’t fit, who wasn’t quite cutting it, and your boss suggests you should let them go? Helping people find what they are truly good at is one of the many jobs of a leader and firing someone should be your last resort. So it’s good to have a story or two in your back pocket about those times when someone flourished when they found the thing they were made to do. The right story might just give you the time to find something better for your fish out of water. That’s what’s this week’s story is all about.

While our story is not from the realm of business it has the same message. It’s what I called an analogy story.

We often get asked “does storytelling work with finance folk, scientists or engineers?” There's an assumption in their question that some professions only care about the numbers, the facts, and they don’t have time or an interest for stories. Well, nothing can be further from the truth, everyone tells and listens to stories--it’s a human condition. But as a business storyteller it’s important to understand that if you are talking to engineers then they are most interested in engineering stories. And these stories are often laden with data.

This show features an engineering story. It’s about a little known near-disaster from the centre of New York City that was averted through the good work of engineers, lawyers, clients, insurers and city officials. I sometimes tell this story to engineers to get them thinking about what does it mean to be a true professional.

I first learned of this story from an article in the New Yorker. Contrasting the written version by Joe Morgenstern with my oral retelling gives you a good example of how much is left out. Select the moments to tell is perhaps the most important decision you will make when translating from written to oral. There are some events that just must be told such as receiving the phone call from the student, the retesting of the wind models, the realisation that the student was right, the discovery of bolts instead of welding, telling the client, fixing the problem. The rest become choices of dramatic effect such as the trip to his cabin.

How to remember a written story

You might think this is a lot of work just to tell a story. This view if common if you haven’t read a story and then retold it off the top of your head, no notes. But here’s the thing, when we ask participants to do just that in our workshops they find the exercise remarkably easy. We seem to be hardwired to make sense and remember a story.

A good way to get a written story converted to an oral story is simply to read it and really picture what’s happening, hear the sounds, take in the smells and tastes. Use all your senses. Then read it again and note the facts and figures, the names of people and places (you have to rote learn these). Then put the written version aside and tell the story to someone and notice what you include. That’s your first version. Now work out the point of the story and then tell it again prefacing the story with your point.

Morgenstern, J. (1995). The Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis. The New Yorker, 29/5/1995, pp 45-53.

The way leaders react in times of high stress is a good measure of their character. And it is in these times of strain everyone is taking note of what the leader is doing. The leader’s reaction creates new stories that make the organisation’s culture. You can’t underestimate how important these moments are.

Our story today is one of these moments. It happened in a law firm.

So why do the stories of our senior leaders’ actions get retold? It turns out that we are very mindful of the actions of anyone with power because powerful people can affect our lives. Power can come in many forms, there is hierarchy power, money power, expertise power, beauty power, celebrity power, and the power that comes from knowing powerful people. If you want to tell a story people will sit up and take notice then share one featuring a powerful person.

Most people think that stories are merely about events that have happened in the past. When people share stories of their leaders it is also an indicator of how they might respond in the future. If they have behaved well in the past it’s likely they will do so in the future. Each story retold becomes a data point that helps factor the organisation’s psychological safety.

And as Google discovered, psychological safety makes for the most productive teams.

A story type we love here at Anecdote is the story of a scientific experiment. It has the double benefit of giving you a story with a good business point and it’s based on peer reviewed research. An experiment story has authority, especially with people who value evidence and science.

This week’s story is the street corner experiment. It’s based on a study done in the 1960s by psychologists Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence Berkowitz. You might remember Stanley Milgram from his infamous experiment that demonstrated that people will electrocute strangers (they didn’t really kill anyone but the subjects thought they did--wouldn’t pass the ethics committee today) if you are told to do so by someone in authority. You will be pleased to know the street corner experiment is benign by comparison.

The main point of this episode’s story is that people are highly influenced by what other people are doing. Psychologists call it social proof. This is especially true if things are uncertain.

In business we are constantly trying to influence others to do something that seems like the first time. This experiment story illustrates that we should find examples of what other people are doing and make it visible in order to persuade people to action.

Apple did this when they introduced the iPod. They knew it would mostly be in people’s pockets so how could they make it visible to show that lots of people were listening to their music this way? So they included a set of white headphones with each iPod. People started to see white headphones everywhere which gave them social proof to do something similar.

On the show Mark and I discussed how it would have been useful to know what city the experiment was held in. So I had a look at the published paper (citation below) and here is what they said:

“The subjects were 1,424 pedestrians on a busy New York City street who passed along a 50-foot length of sidewalk during thirty 1-minute trials. The study was conducted on two winter afternoons in 1968.”

Some nice details there to add to the story. See our story bank suggestion below.

If you have any comments or this story helped you at work or reminded you of another great experiment story, please let us know below.

Milgram, S., Bickman, L, Berkowitz L. (1969), "Note on the Drawing Power of Crowds of Different Size," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13(1), 79-82

The idea of social proof is one of 6 principles of influence in Robert Cialdini’s seminar book of the same name.

Cialdini, R. B. (1993). Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. New York: Quill Publishers.

And the Milgram study where he ‘electrocutes’ experiment participants:

Milgram, S. “Behavorial Study of Obedience.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67 (1963): 371– 78.

For your story bank

Relevance statement: People are highly motivated to do what other people are doing.

Three psychologists Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence Berkowitz ran a simple experiment to illustrate this.

It’s 1968.

The researchers asked a single person to stand on a busy street corner in New York City and look into a spot in the sky for 60 seconds. The researchers track who else followed their gaze.

Then put a group of 5 people on the street corner and it quadrupled the number who looked up.

With 15 people standing and staring at a single spot in the sky, 45% more pedestrians stopped to join them.

This is called social proof. We tend to do the same things we observe other people doing.

This week’s episode features a small story that’s versatile and really delivers. It’s about a bathroom renovation of all things. Sometimes business stories can come from your personal life and make a good business point. The beauty of many of our personal stories is that they are often relatable. Similar things have happened to the listeners so the story is plausible and makes sense.

This story is about appreciating the good work of others before being critical. It also says something about getting the full story before making too many assumptions. Lastly, it’s a nice illustration of having a partner who can help you reflect. Please let us know if you see other good lessons in the bathroom story.

We are now settled on Monday morning Melbourne time to publish our episodes. That means our American listeners will get your show Sunday afternoon and Europeans will see it Sunday night.

Thanks for all your comments and ratings on iTunes so far. We are humbled by the support. Please keep them coming as it really does help others find the show.

And please subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher so you get the latest episodes as soon as they air.

We will soon have a way to sign up to the podcast email list so you can be notified of when the podcast episode has been published. And anyone who signs up will automatically get a 4-part lesson on the essential tips for great business storytelling. We will keep you posted.

For your story bank

Busy executive and wife are renovating their bathroom.

Executive is travelling when bathroom is being completed.

He comes home late Friday night and wife shows new bathroom

He walks into the bathroom and immediately notices unfinished grouting but no mention of beautiful bathroom.

Wife takes him by ear back to front door and says “Shall we do that again?”

Back in bathroom husband says wow! and appreciates bathroom. Learns what's happening with grout.

Later that night wife asks “I hope you don’t do that at work.”

Husband realises he does. Red pens everything.

With all the stories you'll learn here in Anecdotally Speaking you will need a place, and an approach, to keep track of them so you can find good ones when you need them. So in this episode Mark and I run through some tips to create your own story-bank and give you some important advice on what to do and what to avoid.

Our feature story is about how a CEO helped his company focus on one big thing and in the process helped everyone get an enormous amount of good work done. This example is particularly important as a tonic against complex strategies where no one has a chance of understanding what needs to be done let alone remembering it.

Thanks for all your comments on iTunes. It really does help others find the show. Keep them coming.

We would also love to hear your comments and questions. Just pop them in the comments.

And please subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher so you get the latest episodes as they air.

Our story was sourced from Duhigg, C. (2012). The power of habit: why we do what we do and how to change. London: William Heinmann.

We’re reading The Power of Moments by Dan and Chip Heath and they talk about creating memorable first days. This episode features a story with a very memorable first day which you wouldn’t wish on anyone. And wrapped up in the story are insights about confidence, decision-making, the role of social networks and the limits of process and procedures. A terrific business story to share.

Thanks for all your comments of support on social media. If the moment takes you please head over to iTunes and write a sentence or two as a review.

As a thank you to anyone who leaves a rating or review we will send you a digital version of Putting Stories to Work. Just send us an email to [email protected]. We hope it inspires you to find and tell great stories at work.

We would also love to hear your comments and questions. Just pop them in the comments section below.

And please subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher so you get the latest episodes as they air.

Our story for today was sourced from: Margaret J. Wheatley. 2003. Leadership and the Power of Chaos. Presentation at Leadership & Learning: A Design Media Discussion Forum. 27 June. San Francisco.

We’re reading The Power of Moments by Dan and Chip Heath and they talk about creating memorable first days. This episode features a story with a very memorable first day which you wouldn’t wish on anyone. And wrapped up in the story are insights about confidence, decision-making, the role of social networks and the limits of process and procedures. A terrific business story to share.

Thanks for all your comments of support on social media. If the moment takes you please head over to iTunes and write a sentence or two as a review.

As a thank you to anyone who leaves a rating or review we will send you a digital version of Putting Stories to Work. Just send us an email to [email protected]. We hope it inspires you to find and tell great stories at work.

We would also love to hear your comments and questions. Just pop them in the comments section below.

And please subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher so you get the latest episodes as they air.

Our story for today was sourced from: Margaret J. Wheatley. 2003. Leadership and the Power of Chaos. Presentation at Leadership & Learning: A Design Media Discussion Forum. 27 June. San Francisco.