My friend Mike is a big guy–big as in football lineman big.
A few weeks after 9/11, Mike found himself crammed into a seat on a commercial aircraft. Years of pounding had caused a bone-on-bone situation with his knee, and therefore he couldn’t sit too long without experiencing debilitating pain. So, he stood and hobbled to the back of the airplane to stretch his legs.
“I know that we’re not supposed to congregate,” he said to the flight attendant, “but my knee is killing me. Would it be okay for me to stand here for a little while?”
She smiled and told him to take as much time as he needed.
A few minutes later, an old woman approached. She touched his arm and thanked him. She said that she and her husband felt so safe with people like him on board. Her husband smiled and flashed Mike a thumbs-up sign.
“Don’t worry, Ma’am,” Mike said with his Arkansas accent. “Nobody will be taking airplanes like that anymore.”
She thanked him again and went back to her seat. But, that’s when Mike replayed the conversation in his head. Does she think that I’m an air marshal? he thought. If so, had he just impersonated a federal agent? He decided to come clean with the flight attendant.
She smiled after Mike explained the situation. “Don’t worry about it,” the flight attendant said. “We had a troublesome passenger up front. When he refused to listen, I pointed back at you and said, ‘Do I need to have that guy come and speak with you?’”
There’s always more than one story. In this example, there were at least three:
Mike’s story. A man needed pain relief
The elderly couple’s story. A husband and wife who needed to feel safe and mistook the man for an air marshal.
The flight attendant’s story. A flight attendant needed to deal with an unruly passenger.
Beginner storytellers are so focussed on the primary story, that they miss opportunities to add deeper meaning and memorability to them. Seasoned storytellers, on the other hand, know that all stories consist of multiple layers of individual wants and needs.
Think about your most recent customer story. What’s the story behind that story? And is there another story behind that? Sometimes the secret to memorability lies within the ability to see past the primary story to uncover the more meaningful secondary ones.
Photo Credit: Harris & Ewing, photographer. [Police Officer holding children]. [1922] Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/hec2013012140/.
Ten years ago, I volunteered to manage a 35,000 square foot church construction project. During the process, I learned that no matter how much planning you do, differences will always exist between the 2D architectural drawings and the way those objects fit into the 3D world. Such inconsistencies are so common, that I was required to add ten percent to my overall budget to cover “contingencies.”
My favorite contingency involved the forty foot ceiling above the Grand Hall.
“Mr. Ploof,” the construction manager said. “We have a problem. The drawings don’t specify a finish for the ceilings. What do you want to do?”
I studied the ceiling that consisted of bare plywood. “What do you recommend?”
“Drywall to cover the plywood.”
I agreed. Bare plywood wasn’t consistent with the building’s California Craftsman style. I asked the most important question. “And how much will this drywall cost me?”
She quoted me a number that made my heart skip a beat. “Okay,” I said more as a capitulation than an acknowledgment. “Take it out of my contingency budget.”
“Sure, but there’s another problem.”
“Of course there is,” I said.
“The soffits are missing too.”
“The what?”
“You see those pipes up there?” she said. “They’re supposed to be hidden behind soffits.”
“And how much do soffits cost?”
I felt the color drain from my face as she quoted a figure double that of the drywall.
I’ve stayed at the same Silicon Valley hotel for years. As with all hotels, every room is identical–all the way down to the same bathroom ”feature.” You see, all of this hotel’s toilets look like this.
If you take a closer look, you’ll see that the sill above the toilet has this notch taken out of the marble.
It’s obviously an oops–a mismatch that occurred while transitioning between the 2D and 3D worlds. Each time I revisit this hotel, I look at the notch and imagine the pandemonium that probably occurred after someone installed the first toilet. I bet the plumber called the foreman, who called the architect, who groveled with the client. I think about the cost and schedule analyses, the arguments over who would pay for the screw-up, and the ultimate decision to cut a notch in every bathroom sill rather than reordering thinner ones.
And it all happened because of an oops.
I stared at the ceiling in the Grand Hall, contemplating the huge cost of adding soffits around the pipes. Then I had another idea. “How much will it cost to just paint those pipes?”
“Much less,” she said. “You want us to paint ’em white so that they blend in with the ceiling?”
“No,” I said. “Paint ’em dark brown like the trusses.”
She looked at me quizzically. “But that’ll make ’em stand out!”
“Yes it will,” I said. “And whenever someone looks up and sees them, they’ll think that we planned it that way.”
The best stories begin with an oops–some unexpected event that interrupted a plan. It’s the reactions to these interruptions that reveal the true character of people and the companies that they work for. Research your company’s folklore. What were the oopses that revealed the true nature of what your company will do to help a customer?
Photo Credit: United States Resettlement Administration, Lee, Russell, photographer. [Untitled photo, possibly related to: Construction of houses reading plans and measuring, Jersey Homesteads, Hightstown, New Jersey]. [Nov, 1936] Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/fsa1997020951/PP/
“Why do you keep doing that?” my instructor asked as I practiced pulling the sailboat out of its slip.
“Doing what?” I asked.
“Throttling up when the engine should be left idling.”
“Oh,” I said. “To keep the engine from stalling out.”
He stared at me for an uncomfortably long time. I could see that he was trying to determine whether I was confused or just plain stupid. “Don’t do it again!”
Have you ever been in a situation where you were communicating clearly, but the other party wasn’t getting it? I knew that the boat’s engine was on the brink of stalling and was trying to make sure that it didn’t.
My motivation came from a teenage experience. I once owned a car whose engine exhibited the same repetitive blub, blub, blub, just before it konked out. The engine performed well while the car was moving, but as soon as I stopped at a traffic light, the chassis would vibrate, I’d hear that blub, blub, blub, and if I didn’t tap the gas pedal at precisely the right moment, the engine would choke out. I battled with that engine constantly.
Later that day, my instructor revisited our interaction. “Why did you think the engine was stalling out?”
I told him about my old car, the blub, blub, blub, and the constant stress of keeping it from stalling.
He burst out laughing. “Ron,” he said. “All boat engines sound that way. The engine isn’t going to stall out.”
The best storytellers understand that listeners tell stories to themselves–little stories that play out in the silence of their minds. Our prior experiences hold unfair advantages over our newer ones. They establish patterns that trigger automatic reactions–independently of whether those responses match the present situation appropriately. The best storytellers write stories that either enhance these patterns…or break them.
How do your customers interact with your product? Do they give it some gas when they should be letting it idle? If so, consider writing a story that breaks that pattern.
Photo Credit: Adams, Ansel, photographer. Bert K. Miura, pattern making, Manzanar Relocation Center, California / photograph by Ansel Adams. [1943] Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2002695300/.
I glanced around the restaurant. Three women occupied a table with a pitcher of light brown beer in the center of it. One of the women poured herself a pint and then did something that I’ve never seen before–she stirred her beer with a steak knife.
I was astonished at how casually she acted. Neither of her companions paid any attention to the odd behavior and so they just continued their conversation. But I couldn’t get over it. I found myself consumed with wanting to know why a person would stir a perfectly good beer with a steak knife. My mind raced. Perhaps it was something cultural–like a toast. Perhaps it was for good luck. I finally settled on a reason when I saw that her actions had created a frothy head. But, just when I thought that I understood her motives, she added another layer to my intrigue by piercing the newly formed foam with a black straw and began sipping beer through it.
Last Friday, a friend asked me how I created stories. She wanted to know about my process. It wasn’t the first time that I’ve been asked this question. The same question initiated the development of the StoryHow™ PitchDeck.
I described my process as more bottom-up than top-down. I build my stories upon story elements (like in the StoryHow™ PitchDeck) as opposed to top-down such as methods like Joseph Campbell’s, The Hero’s Journey).
I learned this “process” from my grandfather during countless early morning breakfast trips into Boston. Whether we were driving, eating, or walking around the city, he’d quiz me constantly. “Look over there,” he’d say. “You see that old man feeding the pigeons? What’s he doing? Why does he do that?” His questions forced me through an inductive thought process. “Do you think he sits on that bench every day, or is this his first time?”
Then, we’d discuss my answers, which covered a wide range from likely to extravagant.
My grandfather taught me the most important of all storytelling skills…the power of observation. My process is built upon noticing, studying, and then trying to understand the actions of others.
I never asked the woman why she stirred her beer, so her motivation remains a mystery. But the point is that I found a story seed through the simple act of observation. Observation is the seed of all stories. You plant them into the rich soil of human actions and water them with human desire.
Do you want to be a better storyteller? Stir your beer with a steak knife. Pay attention to the things that everyone around you ignores. You’ll likely find the seed to your next story.
Photo Credit: Lee, Russell, photographer. Cowboy drinking beer in beer parlor, Alpine, Texas. May, 1939. Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/fsa1997026146/PP/.
Martellus Bennet plays Tight End for the New England Patriots. When asked about his motivations to play such a brutal game, his response offered a textbook answer for those studying the art of storytelling.
“You can’t play this game without a chip on your shoulder…” he said.
In StoryHow™ language, a chip represents a character’s motivation–the reason why someone chooses to act in a certain way. All characters, whether fictional or a real-world, have chips. Your job as a storyteller is to dig in and find them.
The StoryHow™ PitchDeck’s Influence suit helps storytellers uncover chips:
31. Jeopardy
36. Response: Instinctive
41. Knowledge
32. Choice: Emotional
37. Choice: Moral
42. Who knows what?
33. Choice: Logical
38. Choice: Faith
43. Mistaken Identity
34. Choice: Obligation
39. Choice: Guilt
44. No Need
35. Choice: Gut
40. Throughline
45. Context
Let’s take a closer look at Martellus Bennet’s chips in StoryHow™ terms:
I play for my family first and foremost,” he said. “My daughter and my wife are what drives me to continue to go. My brothers and my mom and my dad — I play for my family. That’s why I have a different edge than a lot of guys out there, because I feel like if they’re trying to stop me, they’re trying to take food out of my daughter’s mouth at the same time.
Martellus has three chips. He’s motivated to take care of his family through Instinct (SHPD #36) and Obligation (SHPD #34). At the same time, on-field opponents place his ability to take care of his family into Jeopardy (SHPD #31).
Before you write any story, create a list of characters. Write what each wants. Then, list each chip–the motivations behind why they want those things. Audiences relate the strongest with characters whose actions align tightly with what they want and why they want them.
Photo Credit: [Football Game]. [Between 1920 and 1930?] Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2013645852/
Recently, I sat through a series of mind-numbing PowerPoint presentations jammed with complicated charts and graphs. Each slide seemed like it contained more words than a college term paper. I found the experience exhausting. With nothing to draw my attention to, my mind was left to wander in hopes of finding some tidbit of value.
One attribute separates storytellers from data-dumpers: preparation. Had these fact-spewers been storytellers, they would have guided my attention to specific points. Instead, they forced me into playing a torturous game of Where’s Waldo.
Storytellers do the heavy lifting so that our audiences don’t have to. If we want them to look at a specific part of a picture, chart, or piece of text, we make it stand out.
Take the following photograph for example.
Umbrella fact-chuggers would present the photograph as is, expecting their audiences to play Where’s Waldo to find a specific umbrella. But visual storytellers, on the other hand, offer their audiences a much simpler game to play: Sesame Street’s One of these Things is Not Like the Other.
Storytelling With Data author, Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, ascribes the success of this technique to preattentive attributes–our brain’s propensity to recognize differences effortlessly. Visual storytellers use preattentive attributes to guide our attentions to a specific place. Nussbaumer suggests that the best way for you to find preattentive attributes is to look at a visual and ask a simple question, “Where are your eyes drawn?”
The same test applies to stories told through text or audio. Storytellers must constantly evaluate their stories by asking, “Where is my audience’s attention being drawn?” If the resulting vector leads away from the story’s central point, StoryHow PitchDeck users realign that attention by drawing upon the following technique cards:
Meaning (StoryHow PitchDeck Card #47)
Shared Experiences (StoryHow PitchDeck # 55)
Symbolism StoryHow PitchDeck Card #57)
Foreshadowing (StoryHow PitchDeck Card #58)
Analogy (StoryHow PitchDeck Card #59)
Contrast (StoryHow PitchDeck Card #60)
Don’t make your audience play Where’s Waldo. Instead, have them play One of These Things is Not Like the Other.
Photo Credit: Bain News Service, Publisher. Crowd at Launch of “Florida”. [no Date Recorded on Caption Card] Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/ggb2004007996/
