To hell with facts! We need stories!
In the public relations business, we spend a lot of time talking about, developing, honing, and conveying messages (sometimes known as sound bites). They are the words and ideas we want our clients’ audiences to remember, the ones that will resonate and (hopefully) inspire them to change their attitudes, beliefs, and actions.
We typically talk about messages in terms of a triangle, which is nothing more than a device for developing three messages and then building upon them to create a full-fledged messaging platform. While it’s unclear who invented the message triangle, my firm credits communications consultant Michael Sheehan. Sheehan helped to develop Bill Clinton’s message triangle during his successful run for the presidency in 1992. It looked like the one shown in Figure 3.1, and candidate Clinton was relentless in driving it home during that campaign. (By the way, this message triangle may look familiar. Barack Obama used a very similar one on his way to the White House in 2008.)
FIGURE 3.1 Bill Clinton’s Message Triangle
When he ran for president in 1992, Bill Clinton was relentless about conveying the three messages depicted in this message triangle. No matter where he was or what he was doing—participating in a debate, appearing in a campaign ad, or hosting a town hall meeting—Clinton always talked about universal health care, the need to focus on getting the economy going again, and the need to change party control of the White House after 12 years of Republican rule.
Barbara Longsworth
The device is a triangle, not a square or a pentagon, because research shows that most people can hold no more than three independent thoughts in their minds before the information begins to muddle together and becomes overwhelming. It’s the law of diminishing marginal returns: at some point, too much information confuses more than it clarifies. Research also shows that this point comes much sooner when people are angry, worried, and suspicious.
Messages are important; in Chapter 10, we’ll talk about the role they play in my firm’s model for answering difficult questions in tough situations. But after more than 20 years in the PR business, I’ve come to the conclusion that my profession puts a little too much emphasis on locking into the repetition of messages and sound bites. You can see the effect every weekend on the Sunday-morning talk shows: politicians and political consultants have become so relentlessly focused on conveying messages or talking points that they rarely, if ever, actually answer a question. They’ve become robotic and predictable. I know exactly what someone representing Democrats and someone representing Republicans is going to say. So I tune out.
The phenomenon has filtered into the business world as well. CEOs and other corporate spokespeople often use the same messages endlessly to defend their companies. The messages may be well researched and true, but the way they’re used has become cliché. No matter what the question, the respondent always bridges to a message (more on the art of bridging in Chapter 8). However, the response should come more often in the form of a relatable story. In some cases, the answer only needs to be yes or no—particularly in response to one of those “fact questions” we touched on in Chapter 2.
I’ve pounded home the preeminence of staying on message hundreds of times myself. I freely admit I’m part of the problem, but with this book, I hope to make you part of the solution. Rather than focusing exclusively on repeating messages, people who hope to convince an angry, worried, and suspicious audience—whether one person or many—should embed their messages and other important information within compelling stories as well as within genuine answers to questions. In tough situations, when facts and data rarely penetrate because people are thinking with the emotional portions of their brains, stories get through.
In an August 2012 New York Times Magazine article about storytelling and changing minds, author Maggie Koerth-Baker makes the point succinctly:
People change their minds all the time, even about very important matters. It’s just hard to do when the stakes are high. That’s why marshaling data and making rational arguments won’t work. Whether you’re changing your own mind or someone else’s, the key is emotional, persuasive storytelling.
To illustrate the point, let me tell a story of my own.
David Axelrod, one of President Obama’s senior political advisers, is a frequent guest on the Sunday-morning talk shows. It’s clear that before each appearance, he huddles with a couple of Democratic Party operatives to review the messages of the day. When the camera’s red light comes on, no matter what the interviewer asks him, he repeats those messages one after the other after the other.
I’m sure that’s what he was trained to do—and trained well. No doubt Axelrod is a message master. But after seeing him a few times, I got tired of him constantly spouting the party line. First I disliked him, and then I simply stopped listening to him. (I’m picking on Axelrod, for reasons that will become apparent later in the chapter, but many of his Republican and Democratic colleagues are just as guilty of engaging in “message-speak.”)
I continued to feel this way until one Sunday in the midst of the 2012 presidential campaign when Axelrod appeared on ABC’s This Week. I had the show on in the background while I was doing the dishes. I knew the topic was health care, but I was adhering to my no-Axelrod policy and not paying attention. Then something he said caught my ear (I’m paraphrasing here):
My daughter Lauren has suffered from epilepsy her whole life. So my family and I know all too well the stress that comes from caring for a loved one and not knowing what we were going to do when our health insurance ran out. Thankfully, Lauren is doing well now, but I remember those dark early days when we worried almost as much about reaching the lifetime cap on our insurance policy as we did about her . . .
Suddenly he had me hanging on his every word. After telling the story about his daughter, Axelrod went on to explain how the Affordable Care Act removed the lifetime cap on insurance payouts. Never again would families have to worry about running out of insurance, as he and his wife had worried many years ago.
He conveyed a message, but he made it orders of magnitude more powerful by telling a story rather than parroting a sound bite. Not only did I learn something (I had had no idea the health care law passed in 2010 removed the lifetime cap on insurance payments, nor had I known he had a daughter with epilepsy), but Axelrod also accomplished something I never thought he could. He turned me into a fan. That one anecdote, told simply and concisely, completely changed my mind about him. He became more human, and once he did, I was more interested in what he had to say. I liked him, so I was more willing to listen to him. It also happened to make me a little more supportive of President Obama’s health care law, which of course had been Axelrod’s goal all along. He accomplished it not with facts or messages or sound bites, but with a story.
Why? Because his story resonated with me as a parent. I have two teenagers, a son and a daughter. Thankfully, they’ve always been healthy. Unlike millions of Americans, I’ve never had to worry about a lifetime cap or, even worse, going without insurance at all. But after listening to Axelrod, I could sure understand what that must feel like. Because of that story, I related to Axelrod in a way I never had before. He broke through and won me over. That’s the power of storytelling, and it’s a lost art that you need to revive in order to become an effective communicator in tough situations.
Storytelling, like any other art form, is a skill. Some people have a natural affinity for it. Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Martin Luther King Jr. are just a few well-known examples, though even they put in a lot of hard work to hone their natural skills (see Figure 3.2 for an example). Fortunately, you don’t have to rise to their level to succeed—though that’s a great goal to set for yourself!
FIGURE 3.2 Even Natural Storytellers Need Practice
Some people are natural storytellers, but even they had to hone their natural-born abilities before they became great communicators. Ronald Reagan was not a particularly compelling storyteller before he took a job as a pitchman for General Electric. He traveled the country for years, speaking to different groups and promoting GE products. Over time, long before he became a politician, he learned how to connect with an audience and tell stories to which they could relate. It served him very well when he first ran for governor of California in 1966, and it continued to pay dividends right through the end of his presidency. One of President Reagan’s greatest stories, told in West Berlin near the end of his second term, contained perhaps his most-remembered line: “Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” I still get chills when I hear it. In fact, I just got chills as I wrote it.
While my firm continues to spend time developing and perfecting messages and helping our clients convey them with impact, we now spend just as much time working with clients to sharpen their storytelling skills. If you do an Internet search for “tips on how to be a good storyteller,” you’ll find enough information to fill a thousand books. While you’re welcome to do so, I’ll try to save you a little time by sharing the basic storytelling rules that my firm emphasizes with our clients.
If part of your job is to communicate, especially in tough situations, you must have stories to tell. We’ll spend more time on how to get some stories in the next chapter, but let me give you an example here.
One of my partners was fired early in his career. On the few occasions when we’ve had to let someone go from my firm (a situation where we’re very definitely dealing with someone who may be angry, worried, and suspicious—often all three), we let my partner take the lead. He happens to be a very empathetic and comforting person, but even more than that, he can relate the story of when he lost a job. That immediately resonates with the employee, which always makes a very difficult conversation much easier for everyone involved.
Telling any old story won’t do. It has to be a relatable story, and one that your audience finds credible. David Axelrod’s story worked because it was relevant to the topic at hand. Not all stories are gems. During his one debate with Republican candidate Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter responded to a question about nuclear weapons by referring to a conversation he had had the day before with his daughter, Amy. He told the brief story because she answered “nuclear proliferation” when he asked what issue she thought was most important. It fell flat; indeed, he came under a lot of (perhaps unfair) criticism for supposedly basing his policies on his then 12-year-old daughter’s opinions.
Business executives often make the same mistake. Tony Hayward, former chief executive officer of BP, did so in the wake of his company’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill in April 2010. In his response to a reporter’s question about the impact of the spill on the people who lived along the Gulf Coast, he said, “We’re sorry for the massive disruption it’s caused to their lives. There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do. I’d like my life back.”
While it wasn’t much of a story, it was clearly an attempt to empathize with and relate to average people—one that failed miserably. Tony Hayward is a very wealthy man. The life he wanted back included a mansion, a yacht, and a private plane. Whatever happened in the gulf, however long it took to clean up the spill, he was going to be fine. Thousands of shrimpers, boatmen, and other people along the Gulf Coast were not going to get their lives back for years. Many were ruined forever.
The people with whom Hayward was trying to connect couldn’t relate to his story at all. Less than two months after he uttered that statement, he left BP in disgrace.
Though stories penetrate much more successfully than facts and data in tough situations, the rule about the amount of information people can process still applies. Less is more. Keep your stories short and to the point. The shorter the story, the less chance you’ll go off on confusing and unnecessary tangents and lose people in the process. David Axelrod told his story in less than a minute. We encourage our clients to cultivate stories that last no more than two minutes, for reasons that will become clear later in the book. If your stories are running longer than two minutes, you’re breaking this rule.
Again and again, we’ll come back to the importance of keeping your story simple. In tough situations, the people with whom you’re communicating rarely know as much as you do. It’s your job to find a way to break through and win them over with simple stories (as well as messages and, ultimately, facts). Trying to convey complicated information by using a lot of technical jargon won’t work; instead, it will make things worse.
Simplicity is a key part of relevancy. You want to tell stories that resonate with the greatest number of people, so the way to go is to use simple concepts conveyed in simple words. Axelrod didn’t go into great detail about the nature of his daughter’s condition or the fine print of his insurance policy. Nor did he try to explain the intricacies of the ultracomplicated Affordable Care Act. My daughter was sick. Our health insurance almost ran out. Thanks to the new health care law, no one will ever have to worry about that again. Perfect.
The importance of honesty may seem obvious, but it’s worth mentioning. In Chapter 2, we discussed the S = B+ equation. It can be easy to go too far in an attempt to emphasize the positive, especially when we’re trying to win over people when they’re angry, worried, and suspicious of everything we say. We’re all inclined to cover up or downplay bad news, or at least to put the best spin on it that we can. That’s a mistake, particularly in a tough situation.
When it comes to telling stories, you might feel compelled to embellish a little, especially if you’re under attack. Don’t. In a tough situation, your audience will assume you’re not being truthful. They’ll be looking for any sign, whether verbal or nonverbal, that you’re exaggerating, fudging, or outright lying. If you are, they’ll know it. Think of dishonesty as a trap. Once you fall in, you won’t be able to climb out. In contrast, as the example in Figure 3.3 illustrates, a straightforward approach is refreshing.
FIGURE 3.3 Honesty Is the Best Storytelling Policy
Several years ago, a client called us in to help with the sale of two big manufacturing plants that were close to 50 years old and fairly expensive to operate. At the price being offered, they still represented a bargain, because they faced no competition in their market. The company CEO wanted to avoid talking about the plants’ age and expense and instead to focus on the positive. We told him we saw it another way: be honest and address the negatives right at the start. We counseled him to begin his presentation to potential investors this way: “I’m here to sell you two five-decade-old factories that need a lot of maintenance and are expensive to operate. Why would anyone want to buy them? For one reason: to make a lot of money.” He jumped at the idea, and the plants sold quickly, for the price he wanted.
And what’s wrong with being honest? People—even those who are angry, worried, and suspicious—are generally pretty forgiving creatures. We’re all human. We all make mistakes. We all say dumb things from time to time. If you acknowledge a mistake, most people will give you the benefit of the doubt, even in a tough situation. I opened this book with President Clinton’s lie about his sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky. What would have happened had he simply owned up to the mistake and apologized for it? He would have taken hell, for sure. Would he have been impeached? I doubt it. After all, he wasn’t impeached for having an affair. The charges against him involved perjury and obstruction of justice—in other words, lying.
How about Tony Hayward? What if he had said something along these lines?
We obviously made a big mistake here. Something went horribly wrong, and we’re going to do whatever it takes to figure out what happened, clean up the mess, and make sure it never happens again. And I’m not going home until that is done and the people who were affected by the spill get their lives back.
I bet he’d still have his job.
One last example that many more of us will face in our lives: Several times, I’ve referred to letting an employee go as a classic tough situation. In some cases, perhaps the fault lies with you, rather than the employee. Maybe you hired someone without the right skills for the job. If so, say so. Disarming candor is a great way to win people over.
I once read an article that described PowerPoint as “technological cocaine.” If that’s true, it’s time to break the addiction. My firm counsels against using it (or any similar program) in most situations, and forbids it for clients heading into tough situations. In Chapter 5, I’m going to introduce you to a client I’ll call Mr. Malone. Here’s a little preview: Mr. Malone needed help preparing for a very difficult meeting with an auditorium full of outraged citizens. When we first met, he shared the PowerPoint he intended to present. It included dozens and dozens of complicated slides. Our first recommendation: chuck the whole thing. Don’t overwhelm people with data and facts and charts. Just talk to them, one human being to another. And tell a story. We’ll see how that worked out for him.
My partners and I have seen it many times. We’re sitting in a conference hall watching speaker after speaker run through their PowerPoint bullets and data. Meanwhile, everyone around us is reading the newspaper or thumbing through their smartphones or dozing off. Then a new speaker steps up to the podium and says, “Let me tell you a story,” and every head in the room jerks up to listen.
I encourage you to avoid PowerPoint for several reasons:
The very programming itself is anti-story. With PowerPoint, there’s no beginning, middle, or end—just a bunch of statements with supporting data in no particular order. Sure, most presenters include an “introduction” slide and a “conclusions” slide, but those do not a story make. Stories have arcs. They start off by introducing characters and defining the challenge those characters face. They chronicle the journey that the characters must take to face the challenge. And they conclude with lessons in the form of what the characters learned along their journey and how they have grown.
It’s very hard to do it well. Done right, PowerPoint presentations can add to a story arc. The right word or photo can enhance the power of the story. In more than 15 years of watching hundreds and hundreds of PowerPoint presentations, I’ve seen that happen once or twice. All the others, including too many of my own, detracted from the story by incorporating too many words or too many features and by destroying the story arc. On numerous occasions, I’ve actually watched as presenters simply read the words on their slides one after the other, as if they were giving a speech. Better that they had. In the end, the best and safest way to use PowerPoint is not to use it at all.
It puts the focus on the screen and the slides, rather than on you. Communicating in a tough situation is all about establishing trust and credibility by connecting with people in a human way. That’s very hard to do when your audience is staring at a screen rather than listening to—and watching—you. Not only are the audience members not watching you, but you’re also not watching them. Chances are you’re turned away from them to look at the screen or looking down to read off your computer or a prompter. Two of the most important nonverbal signals that you send in tough situations are eye contact and posture. To paraphrase Edward Tufte, perhaps the nation’s leading expert on the graphic depiction of information, PowerPoint corrupts trust and credibility. It also contributes to the problem of information overload. Researchers in Australia and elsewhere have found that most people absorb information if it’s delivered orally or in written form. Doing both at the same time makes it almost impossible to absorb either.
Too often the technology fails. It’s almost inevitable. Your computer crashes or runs out of power right in the middle of a presentation. Or one of the features you incorporated to make the words slide across the screen doesn’t work. It’s also common to lower the lights so people can better see the screen. You might as well hand people a pillow.
I’m picking on PowerPoint because it’s by far the most well-known and widely used presentation software on the market. Ultimately, any software is going to bring the same disadvantages, so the best approach is to avoid them all.
Ultimately, PowerPoint and other presentation software like it represent crutches that communicators rely on far too much. The software becomes an excuse not to be fully prepared, and when you’re trying to break through and win over people when they’re angry, worried, and suspicious of everything you say, not being fully prepared is a recipe for disaster.
Keep these tips in mind as we move forward, because the ability to tell a good story will become very important when we discuss the criteria by which people judge whether you’re a trustworthy and credible person.