How to Turn CEOs Into Storytellers

A corporate mantra often heard today is, “We need to tell our story.” Two significant problems stand in the way of that noble goal.

• CEOs don’t know what a real story is.
• CEOs don’t know how to tell a story.

Fortunately, CEOs can learn. This article cracks the code on storytelling by defining “story” and sharing a simple 1-2-3 storytelling framework that CEOs can use to capture the imaginations of employees, boards, customers, media and other audiences.

If executed authentically, the 1-2-3 storytelling method has the neuroscientific power to change people’s brains in ways that make them remember the intended message. Even the slickest charts, graphs, and factoids on a PowerPoint slide can’t rewire your brain the way a simple story can.

For some CEOs focused on numbers and facts, storytelling can be like learning a foreign language. But it’s not that hard once they get the hang of it. When CEOs learn and practice simple storytelling, it’s no longer a laborious chore but a fun, 1-2-3 waltz with their audiences.

With so much upside, storytelling may be the most talked-about yet misunderstood tool in a CEO’s communications toolbox. I say this as a communications specialist who has helped CEOs give speeches and prepare for media interviews and as a humbled former journalist who once thought I wrote good “stories” until a storytelling guru bluntly revealed my arrogant ignorance.

What is a story?

I will answer that question with my embarrassing story.

I sought the help of Jack Hart, a writing coach at The Oregonian newspaper in Portland, where I then worked. Jack was nationally known for practicing and teaching a literary genre called “narrative nonfiction” or “creative nonfiction.” This genre employs the classic structure of a novel but with scrupulously well-researched facts.

We agreed to meet weekly. My first assignment was to bring three of my best “stories.” I handed them to him with some pride. One had won an award.

My stories were news, not narratives. They were dutifully written in the “Inverted Pyramid” style drilled into me in journalism school, with the most important facts first and the least important last. I was like Detective Joe Friday of the old “Dragnet” television series, presenting “just the facts, Ma’am.” You could say I wrote like a stereotypical CEO, getting to the point quickly by starting with “the bottom line” conclusion instead of an introduction.

I waited as Hart read.

"These aren't stories," Hart said bluntly. "These are reports."

Huh? I was incredulous and momentarily speechless.

"Then what is a story," I asked Hart.

Hart quoted a definition from two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Jon Franklin in his classic book, “Writing for Story:”

"A story consists of a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation that he confronts and solves." 

This narrative structure has most likely kept audiences spellbound since the first caveman protagonist sat around an open fire in front of family and friends to act out the story of how he bravely overcame scary complications to hunt down the large animal roasting before their very eyes as a fresh contribution to their Paleolithic diet.

Hart expanded a bit on Franklin’s definition in a Q&A interview with Nieman Storyboard:

A classic story narrative has the narrative arc that you find in a novel. An initial section is devoted to exposition, in which you introduce a protagonist. The protagonist engages a complication. You move through a section called rising action, in which the protagonist grapples with the complication. Eventually you reach a point of insight, in which the protagonist sees the world in the new way that finally allows resolution of the complication that sets up the climax, and then leads to a final wrapping-up-of-loose-ends section called falling action or denouement.

Three essential ingredients

Let’s make this super simple, as promised.

If we break down Franklin’s definition and Hart’s expansion to their bare-bones essence, we see that a story requires three essential ingredients:

1. A protagonist.

2. A complication.

3. A resolution.

Below is a cutout recipe to create the secret sauce of CEO storytelling.

Comedies and Tragedies

The 1-2-3 method dates back to the Stone Age. Still, the ancient Greeks took storytelling to new levels of entertainment at the Great Dionysia, a drama festival in which stories were acted out in amphitheaters with happy resolutions called “comedies” and sad endings called “tragedies” in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine.

Once you learn the 1-2-3 of storytelling, you see the three essential ingredients in a wide range of communications, ranging from epic Russian novels to corny jokes like this:

"A man (protagonist) walks into a library and asks a librarian for books about paranoia (complication). She whispers, 'They're right behind you (resolution)."

Bada-boom!

The best TV story ad in history?

Many consider a 1979 TV ad by The Coca-Cola Company the best television commercial ever. Why? It’s a 1-2-3 story featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers Joe Greene, then known as “Mean Joe Greene” because of his on-the-field toughness.

The emotional arc of this story took a mere 30 seconds, sold lots of Coke and changed the image of “Mean Joe Greene” to Kind Joe Greene overnight.

Challenge: Can you identify the ad’s 1) protagonist, 2) complication, and 3) resolution? Is it a comedy or a tragedy?

My first try at real storytelling

The 1-2-3 method felt unnatural, like riding a bike backward or golfing left-handed. Would hurried readers stick with me for such delayed gratification?

I wrote about Troy Thompson (my protagonist), who slowly acquired the symptoms of incurable Lou Gehrig’s Disease (complication) until he could only move his toes and eyes to communicate with his wife. Through faith in God and each other, they still experienced dignity and even joy (resolution) as he died with an active mind but no ability to move.

I started with the beginning, not the conclusion, this way:

Troy and Marilyn Thompson, walked out of the doctor’s office stunned and speechless, silently praying that what they knew in the pits of their stomachs somehow wasn’t true.

They walked into the elevator and stood there in quiet panic as the lights flashed four, three, two, one. 

They squinted in the bright spring sunlight outside the Oregon Health & Science University’s Neurological Sciences Center Building. Neurological Sciences Center Building. Troy Thompson moved easily -- his legs were still fine. Just his upper body- his arms, shoulders and back- ached slightly, muscles twitching uncontrollably.

The newlyweds remember walking hand-in-hand through the parking lot toward Troy’s white Toyota pickup. Troy used the same truck to haul shrubs, trees and plants, handling the greenery with a tenderness unusual for a 6-foot-4, 240-pound man.

Troy took the driver’s seat and rolled down his window. Marilyn did the same. A breeze blew through the cab, cooling their sweaty faces.

Their eyes met, sharing the fear and desperation that threatened to overwhelm their lives. They reached for each other. Sobs cut the silence.

To my amazement, the method resonated.

Readers let me know in calls, emails and letters. On one handwritten note, a water stain appeared to be a tear. I was dumbfounded. None of my investigative articles connected with readers like this. That’s because stories touch hearts and, according to neuroscience, minds.

Stories have a unique ability to trigger emotional centers in the brain. When we connect with characters (protagonists), we release oxytocin, the “bonding hormone.” Our brains make us care about human struggles (complications) and triumphs (resolutions), fostering empathy.

The stronger the connection, the more we remember and are motivated to take action, according to a LinkedIn article by Sorav Singh, who nicely summarizes the key findings from “Wired for Story,” a fascinating book that applies the growing knowledge of brain science to storytelling.

During my weekly sessions with Hart, a big learning point was that storytelling is more about finding your 1-2-3 structure than agonizing over clever turns of phrases or perfect word choices. Once you have a protagonist, complication, and resolution, it’s as if you are dancing the waltz with the story taking the lead in an attention-getting 1-2-3 across the ballroom.

Case study: Domino’s gamble

CEOs often avoid communicating complications, fearing that any acknowledgment of a problem implies that they lack what it takes.

One head of an organization I worked at years ago told me, with irritation, “Don’t give them a nanosecond to think anything negative about us.” That approach skips the second essential ingredient of storytelling. Faking perfection is B.S., and your audience knows it. People identify with CEOs who share real problems.

In 2010, Domino’s Pizza’s CEO, Patrick Doyle, took the risk of revealing a problem at the core of the company’s product. It repeatedly came up in customer research: “Your crust tastes like cardboard.” Doyle knew change was necessary. He could have repeated the tired messaging of a “new and improved” Domino’s pizza crust, not admitting any problem.

Instead, Doyle went shockingly public with the company’s failure. “Worst excuse for pizza I’ve ever had,” said a Times Square billboard ad. Doyle invited the public to help solve the company’s problem and promised to “work days, nights, and weekends to get better.” At first glance, Doyle may have missed the third ingredient of a story: resolution. You could say he risked going public before he knew what the ending would be. The resolution, however, was a change in corporate culture. Domino’s became like a new company when it learned to listen to its customers. That facilitated trust. End of story. But here’s the epilogue.

Sales soared. The “Domino’s sucks” campaign launched in 2009. In Q1 2010, the company saw a 14.3% increase in revenue over the previous quarter. From December 2009 to December 2010, Domino’s stock shot up 130%.

Business Age ran a headline touting “Domino’s miracle turnaround. The description of Doyle should encourage CEOs who think they need a charismatic presence to tell stories.

Nothing Doyle said was particularly inspiring. He isn’t a great performer. He doesn’t look mercurial. He wasn’t projecting power. He didn’t walk onto a stage wearing a black turtleneck sweater, like Apple’s Steve Jobs delivering his legendary “one more thing” keynotes. He didn’t do a TED Talk. In the videos, Doyle wears a polo shirt rather than a designer suit or a silk tie. He looks like the person in the office cubicle next to you, not one of Tom Wolfe’s Masters of the Universe. If he lived next door to you, you would not notice him. But Doyle had a great plan. He laid it out clearly. He didn’t bullshit his people.

Find your 'Lenny Skutniks'

Ronald Reagan, the former president, Hollywood movie star and “Storyteller in Chief,” was nicknamed “the Great Communicator” for good reason. No matter what you thought of his politics, he knew how to connect with his audiences. As president, Reagan found a way to tell stories during long and tedious State of the Union addresses.

It started in 1982 when Reagan wanted to illustrate “the spirit of American heroism at its finest.” He introduced a government worker in the gallery, Lenny Skutnik (protagonist), who witnessed Air Florida Flight 90 crash into the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. (complication). Skutnik jumped into the river and saved the life of Priscilla Tirado (resolution). It was real. It was authentic. And it worked. Republicans, Democrats, and Independents were moved and unified.

Since then, the term “Lenny Skutniks” has been used to refer to individuals invited by presidents to sit in the gallery during the State of the Union address, enabling the president to break up the usual blah-blah-blah with a more significant point made through the story of a single individual. Unfortunately, recent Skutniks have been more contrived and polarizing than the original.

If you are a CEO, tell your communications specialists to find some Lenny Skutniks so you can tell their 1-2-3 stories to make points about your organization and its mission.

A Business Storytelling Experiment

Do businesses really need to tell stories? Aren't the facts enough?

The Harvard Business Review described the power of corporate storytelling this way:

"Your story can transform your organization by shaping attitudes and beliefs, starting with your own," wrote Frances Frei and Anne Morriss, bestselling authors and cohosts of the podcast Fixable. "The story you tell yourself sets the stage for the organizational change you’re envisioning. And when you share it skillfully with others, your story starts to become their reality."

The late Steve Jobs, former Apple and Pixar CEO, described the importance of storytelling this way.

"The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller," said Jobs."The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come."

Do you want to get started as a CEO storyteller? Then try this experiment.

On a message large or small that you want your audience to remember, ask yourself (and your team) these three questions:

1. Is there a real-person protagonist (your Lenny Skutnik) who can illustrate your point?

2. Is there a complication or problem your protagonist faces?

3. Is there a solution your organization can provide to resolve the problem?

If you answered "yes" to all three, you have the makings of a story. Follow the simple 1-2-3 method, and see what happens.

Don't be surprised if:

• Your audience leans a little forward, with some on the edge of their seats.
• You get positive feedback (maybe even a tear-stained, handwritten note).
• Many in your audience are so inspired that they want to take positive action.

These are sure signs that you have taken the first successful steps toward becoming a storyteller, "the most powerful person in the world."

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