Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Resources:

To learn more about Paul and access his free resources for leading (and for parenting) using story, check his website at https://leadwithastory.com/.

Paul’s books include:

• Lead with a Story (paperback at https://amzn.to/4quEDq4, audiobook at https://amzn.to/4quEDq4)
• Sell with a Story (paperback at https://amzn.to/4q5MWJc, audiobook at https://amzn.to/4qFG4SN) and
• Parenting with a Story (paperback at https://amzn.to/3N2HBE1, audiobook at https://amzn.to/4q3JdM9).

Our host Maureen Metcalf posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI, or check out the Kindle version at https://amzn.to/44buVz8. The audiobook version is now available at  https://amzn.to/4dTCleZ.

Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

– Tales from the Top: How Leaders Use Stories with Tanvi Gautam

– Using Storytelling to Elevate Leadership with Chris Nolan

– How Great Leaders Are Made: Insights from “The Economist” with Andrew Palmer

Guest(s):

Guest(s) Bio:

Paul Smith is one of the world’s leading experts in business storytelling. He’s one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers of 2018, a storytelling coach, and bestselling author of several books on the art and science of storytelling. As part of his research on the effectiveness of storytelling, Paul has personally interviewed over 300 CEOs and executives in 25 countries and documented over 3,000 individual business stories. That has allowed him to reverse-engineer what works in storytelling and what doesn’t.

He’s a former executive at The Procter & Gamble Company and a consultant with Accenture prior to that. A 20-year veteran of P&G, Paul worked most recently as vice president of consumer and communications research for the company’s $6 billion global paper business where he led a research team across four continents. He also held leadership positions in corporate finance and at manufacturing plants and sales offices working closely with major global retailers like Walmart, Costco, Asda, and Sam’s Club.

Paul holds bachelor’s degrees in both astrophysics and economics and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript
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Maureen: [00:00:00] Today I’m really excited about our guest, Paul Smith. He’s one of the world’s leading experts on organizational storyteller. He’s a keynote speaker, storytelling coach and author of the books Sell with a Story, parenting with a Story, and the best Seller Lead with a story already in its eighth printing and available in six languages around the world.

Paul is also a former consultant at Accenture and a former executive and 20 year veteran of the Procter and Gamble company. As part of his research on effectiveness of storytelling, Paul has personally interviewed over 250 CEOs, executives, leaders, and salespeople in 25 countries, documenting over 2000 individual stories, leveraging those stories and interviews.

Paul identified the components of effective storytelling and developed templates and tools to apply them in practice. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine Time. Forbes, [00:01:00] the Washington Post PR News and Success Met Magazine among others. So now let’s shift to the purpose of the show in the context of a world that is changing dramatically.

So, Ray Kurzweil from Google suggests that the technology change this century could be 20,000 times that of the last century. So as we think about how do we as leaders keep up with this volume of change as human beings in our behaviors as leaders and how we run our organizations. It’s imperative that we continue to innovate how we lead, and my hope is in each of these shows that you are able to hear something that you can implement in the next week that will give you an immediate return on the investment of time that you’re spending listening to the show.

So as the outcome for this show, as part of our Thought Leader series, Paul will talk about the power of story for leaders. [00:02:00] He will share his insights about what works, why it works, and how you will be more effective as a leader if you can master and use story as one of your skills. So Paul, welcome. I’m delighted that you were able to make time to join us.

Paul: Yeah, thanks for having me on.

Maureen: So you’ve written about leading the story and selling the story along with parenting with Story. Um, let’s start by explaining what you really mean by storytelling.

Paul: Yeah, because that’s a good question because I, I think the word story and storytelling has probably, uh, grown beyond a really, um, useful and meaningful set of definitions in the last decade or so.

It seems like just about everything now is a story. You know, our, our marketing plan is a story. Our vision statement is a story. Our brand logo is a story. Everything’s a story now, and, and I think when everything’s a story. Nothing’s a story, right? I mean, it’s, uh, uh, it, uh, it, it needs to mean something more specific than that.

And, um, so let me give give you an example of [00:03:00] what I mean by a leadership story. Uh, so, for example, one of my, my favorite examples is from a colleague of mine named Jason Zola. Um, and he, he shares a story that he heard when he was a college student 20 some odd years ago at the University of Central Florida.

And, uh, what happened was the professor had told the class about a few years earlier, he had, uh, created, uh, several groups of teams among the students, and each of them had a research project for the semester. And one of those teams had a more interesting project than all the others. And that was this, it was to work for the local judge.

And figure out how they could improve the jury deliberation process. And so they did all the kind of things that you or I or anybody listening to this probably would’ve done if they were on this team. They, they interviewed all the other judges in the jurisdiction. They interviewed prosecuting attorneys and defense attorneys, but mostly they interviewed Juris themselves.

People who’d actually served on juries and they asked them all the same kind of questions. You, I probably would’ve asked, they asked them what was the trial about and how long did the trial last? And, and, uh, [00:04:00] what were the, what was the information they were allowed to have in the jury room? And at, at the end of the semester, they concluded that really none of those things mattered.

It turned out the only thing that matter. Was the shape of the table in the jury room, and they concluded that jury rooms that had rectangular tables, whoever sat at the head of the table, whether it was the jury, foreman or not, tended to dominate the conversation and they felt like a, a less than robust or egalitarian debate of the facts.

Had ensued, but in jury rooms that had round tables or oval tables, they felt like a more egalitarian debate of the facts ensued. And so probably a more fair and and accurate verdict was rendered. So they’re super excited. At the end of the semester, they, they make their big presentation and recommendation to the head judge, and the judge is super excited as well to hear the, these findings.

The judge immediately issues a decree. He says, in all the courthouses in my jurisdiction, anywhere we’ve got any of those round tables, get rid of them. Really put, put in rectangular tables, right? So I didn’t just misspeak in, in [00:05:00] direct contradiction to their recommendation. He said, put in rectangular tables.

Now, why do you think he would’ve done that? Just has a guess. He wants to

Maureen: be in control, but he’s not in the jury rooms. He wants to picks in control.

Paul: Well, sort of what, what he wants is he wants faster verdicts. Okay. Uh, so the, the judge’s definition of an improved jury deliberation process wasn’t a more accurate one or a more fair one.

It was a faster one. Right? He wanted to reduce the backlog on his court docket. Right? Now, I imagine you’re one of those five or six students on that team. How would you feel at that point?

Maureen: Betrayed.

Paul: Exactly. Betrayed. You’d feel awful. I mean, I’m sure they got an A on their report card, but they felt betrayed and defeated and they probably felt remorseful and some of ’em probably regretted even taking part.

In the whole project, right? Mm-hmm. ’cause here they are, these young 20 something idealistic co college students thinking that this project was their way to make the world a better place, right? And, and what they had done was make it a worse place in their mind. So, [00:06:00] so they, they got burned. And, and so here’s the lesson that they learned and the lesson that Jason wants to impress upon his new hires when, uh, he’s hiring them into the company he works for in a research function.

And that is that it’s very important to be clear on your objectives before you start your research project. And not after, right? If you wait till after, you may be sorely disappointed in the result. Right now. He could just stand up there and lecture to them and say, look, and you know, my 20 years in business tells me that you should be very clear in your objectives before you start your project, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Right? And that might work, but probably not because that kind of advice goes in one ear and out the other. Because it sounds like common sense. Well, of course I should be clear on my objectives before I start my project, but people aren’t all the time. And once you’ve heard that story, you can kind of feel in your gut the angst and remorse and regret, and as you said, betrayal, that those five or six students must have felt.

And so it’s impossible then to almost impossible to forget that lesson every time you start a new research project. But if you’re just lectured and told and and bossed around [00:07:00] by the boss, you can forget that very quickly. So the story that my, my point is, this is an example of a leadership story, of a story that’s designed to communicate a message, to get people to change their behavior, uh, which is what leadership is all about in a way that will be impactful and engaging and remembered.

For a long time as opposed to just wagging your finger at people and telling them what to do. So, so leadership stories are supposed to be not just silly warmup exercises or an icebreaker at the beginning of a meeting or something before you get to your, your main leadership content. Leadership stories are, are the kind of thing that can replace your normal lecturing and bossing people around and, and, and do so in a much more effective manner.

Maureen: So you’ve just given us the why, so let me repeat it back and see if there’s anything you wanna build on. So I should learn stories so that I can change people’s behaviors, be impactful, and be remembered for a long time’s. The story will be [00:08:00] remembered, not I will be remembered.

Paul: Right. And you might be remembered.

Remembered as well. Yeah. So those are three or three or four of, of the reasons. So that, that’s an example of a story. I, I, I think the reason why storytelling works is an another set of whys. You know, you can dig into the. As, as far as you want. But, um, I, I, I think the reason why stories like that are so effective is because mainly because human beings make decisions, uh, really in one place in their brain.

On a more emotional, subconscious and sometimes irrational basis, and then we justify those decisions later afterwards in a, in, in the logic processing part of the brain. You know, this is what we’ve, we’ve learned from, you know, the last 30 years of cognitive science. And, and if you, so if you want to influence people’s opinions and decisions and behaviors, which is essentially what leadership is, it turns out you need to influence them more emotionally.

Stories like the one I just told you have an emotional component to them that facts and logic and data just don’t and will never have. So that’s, I think, the underlying reason why, [00:09:00] um, storytelling works so well.

Maureen: Interesting. So it’s really about brain science.

Paul: Yeah. Yeah. At its foundation. That is, that is why storytelling works.

I mean, that’s not gonna help you tell a better story. I mean, you know, we, we can talk about what are the components of a great story and how do you do it, but, but fundamentally, that’s why, um, it also does things like. It, it makes you remember facts much better. I mean, there’ve been a number of studies that show mm-hmm.

That, um, that that facts are something like 22 times more likely to be remembered if they’re embedded in a story than if they’re just given to people in a list. And, and you don’t have to believe any of the studies ’cause you can kind of prove it to yourself right now. You know, for example, you know, you and anybody listening to this right now knows that by, by this time tomorrow, you’re not gonna remember this list of three or four reasons why storytelling works.

But you will remember the story of the jury tables.

Maureen: That’s why. Yeah. That’s why I’m taking notes.

Paul: Yeah. And you know that next week and next month and probably a year from now, you know that you could probably tell that story mm-hmm. And get most of the facts right. But you wouldn’t [00:10:00] remember any of the list of the three or four things that we’re talking about right now.

So that’s, that’s the power of storytelling.

Maureen: So then let’s tie that to leadership challenges. So, so again, you’ve said a little bit about as a leader, why I do this so people can emotionally connect and remember what I’m trying to get them to do. So I’m not bossing them. I am encouraging, motivating, persuading.

So what kind of leadership challenges can storytelling help leaders navigate more successfully?

Paul: Yeah, so this is where the, the research for the book really paid off because I, I assumed going into this, uh, that there was five or six situations where a leader might find him or herself in where they needed to tell a story.

And, and the reason I assumed that is ’cause most of the literature before had said there’s five or six reasons why leader would whatever needed to tell stories. So I just believed it. And so I, I, I start interviewing, uh, literally hundreds of CEOs and executives and leaders at companies all over the world and, and finding out when they’re telling stories and what stories they’re telling.

Did they work or not? And I’m kind of, [00:11:00] I did it to reverse engineer my way into what is it that makes a story effective and, uh, a leadership story not effective. But what I also found out, of course, was when they’re telling stories. And I ended up with a list of 21 different leadership challenges where leaders need to tell stories.

And, and the truth is, I, I don’t think that there’s only 21, but that’s about how many, that’s how many I got to when my publisher said, stop. Right? Like that’s, we can’t fit anymore in, into a book. Um, so it it’s things like setting a vision. And getting people committed to your goals and leading change and defining what success and failure looks like in the organization.

Um, but it’s also more environmental things like defining the culture and the values of the organization, or getting people to value diversity and inclusion or just follow the rules of, of the organization. Yeah. Um, some of the more obvious ones I think are to inspire and motivate the team or have people build their courage.

Uh, you know, that they’ll have, um, you know, some odds of success or help them be passionate about their work. Or maybe just teach them how to do their job, providing coaching and [00:12:00] feedback, that kind of thing. Um, but even things like getting people to be more creative and innovative, um, or get them to be, to, to delegate more or just to earn the respect of your colleagues.

I mean, so, you know, and I probably just mentioned about 15 of the 21. There’s there, there’s more, but I’m convinced there’s more and more and more. It, it, mm-hmm. Amazes me. Every time I turn around, I’m finding a new use. Um, for, for storytelling in a leadership or sales or a parenting context.

Maureen: You know, I used it, uh, I was leading a change initiative, uh, with a large company several years ago, and they were a drug manufacturer and we got someone, uh, they were, the issue was quality of, of a specific drug.

And we got someone to tell her story about how coincidentally the drug they were making, uh, was used to. To treat one of her brothers who had terminal cancer and one who was recently diagnosed, and by the time she got done telling the story, uh, about how [00:13:00] this drug and its high quality would likely save the life of her brother.

It was a very different conversation than thou shalt produce quality stuff. Mm-hmm. So, so for me that it has been incredibly powerful to help people connect their work to the impact,

Paul: right? Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s a, a very common use of storytelling that, uh, that people maybe don’t know that they’re using it for that until they find themselves telling a story and they go, oh yeah, I guess, uh, I guess that did work.

Maureen: At least in our case, it was a significant impact. So Paul, you’ve got a story in your first book about the former CEO of Proctor and Gamble, Bob McDonald. Can you share, uh, that one as an example of storytelling to hold people accountable for business results?

Paul: Yeah, so, so Bob, of course, uh, he, he, he was the CEO of p and g.

Now, he’s, uh, I, I believe the Secretary of Veterans Affairs in the Obama administration. And, um, he, he [00:14:00] learned one of his most important lessons about being accountable for the results that you’ve been, you, you’re committed to. Literally 40 years ago when he was a, a cadet, a freshman cadet at the US Military Academy at West Point, and he said what they, what you learn very quickly in your first week there is that there’s only four answers you’re allowed to give to any question asked to you by an upperclassman or an officer.

And those four answers are, yes, sir. No, sir. I don’t understand, sir. And no excuse sir. And he said, so for example, you know, I’m, the whistle blows and I’ve gotta run out in formation in my, you know, dress uniform. And, and I’m standing there at attention and somebody runs by and splashes mud all over my trousers.

And, you know, one of the upperclassmen comes by and gets in my face and, and says, like, McDonald’s, why is there mud all over your trousers? You know? And he says, okay. So I’ve, I’ve gotta think through the four things I’m allowed to say. Um, yes sir. Well, that would just be restating the obvious. So that’s not very helpful.

I could say. No, sir. But that’s like lying, not helpful. I mean, it’s obvious that I have rise up. That’s, that’s not helpful. I could say I don’t, don’t understand, sir, but that would just make me look like an idiot. And he said I was [00:15:00] doing a good enough job of that my first week already. So he said, so I was stuck with number four, no excuses, no excuse.

And he said that turned out to be the most powerful one of the four ever. And he, he said, you know, he, he relearned that lesson. Uh, as a young parent when he and his wife had their first child and their, uh, a daughter named Jenny, he said, when she was about six or seven years old, we were having trouble getting her to clean her room.

And, uh, so if she wouldn’t do it, she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t do it. And he, and as first time parents, they, they consulted all the Dr. Spock books or whatever, and they, they literally had scripted out how they were gonna admonish their little Jenny for this infraction. And they, they walk up to her room with their, both of them had their scripts in hand, and they’re ready to launch into this, you know.

Diatribe or whatever, and he says, Jenny, your mother and I would like to talk to you about the condition of your room, and she looks up at him and with all the seriousness of a West Point, cadet says, no excuse dad. It won’t happen again. Oh, wow. And, and I mean, he’s just, he’s stymied. I mean, everything he’s written on his script is now completely useless, right?[00:16:00]

I mean, because there’s no need to say anything because she’s taken, uh, accountability for the problem and promised to, to fix it. Right? And he said that is exactly what that answer does for you. It, it, it tells the boss if it’s at work or the parent at home that, look, I get it. I know I’m responsible for doing this, and I didn’t do it.

And I’m still committed. I’m going to do it, but, and that’s what it does for the boss. It lets them know you’re still gonna get this done. They don’t have to reconvince you to do it, but what it does for you is it spares you the chewing out, right? There is no reason to chew anybody out after they’ve said those words.

And so it’s just this brilliant tool to get people to be, to hold themselves accountable for work. And see, he used that with all of his presidents at the company, and I’m sure he does it at the Veterans Administration. I mean, it’s just a brilliant tool. Now, he could just tell people. If I ask you why your business results aren’t what they are, just tell me no excuse, uh, that won’t do it right.

But he tells them all that story about West Point and then the second story about Jenny, and then they get it, [00:17:00] and it just, it, it just works amazingly well no matter where you are. I.

Maureen: You know, I’m thinking as you say that how helpful it would be with some of my clients who respond with defensiveness.

Mm-hmm. I didn’t, I couldn’t, I shouldn’t, it wasn’t

Paul: fair. It wasn’t my fault. The dog ate my homework. Economy went south, our competitors did something awful, you know? Yeah. Like, you know, that tells ’em, uh, I don’t wanna hear that.

Maureen: Well, yeah. And so this story would be beautiful in helping to eliminate the defensiveness, right, which

Paul: serves no good purpose.

Well, you’re welcome to share that with your clients.

Maureen: Thank you. I probably will next week for anyone who has not heard the show. Okay. So what separates a good story from a simple or a great story? From a simply good or average, or in my case, possibly be boring one.

Paul: Oh yeah. So I, I think, and this probably doesn’t just go for leadership or sales stories, but any story, I mean, a, a movie or a novel or, or, or whatever, three things that any great story is gonna have is a hero.

You care [00:18:00] about, a villain you’re afraid of. An epic struggle between them, right? I mean, I think Star Wars with Darth Vader and the Bad Guy and the Luke Skywork good guy, and the struggle between them, right? I mean, those are the classic hallmarks of a compelling story. Now that definitely sounds a bit Hollywood.

So if you’re to translate that into business, business language, the hero you care about would simply be a relatable main character. Somebody you can relate to, not just somebody, not the always the CEO of the company, or a football hero or, you know, I mean, somebody that you can relate to whose job you might see yourself in.

The, the villain that we’re afraid of becomes a relevant challenge. The, the kind. So your audience needs to see that the hero in the story is facing a challenge that they might face themselves or maybe they have faced and they know they’re gonna face again. So a relevant challenge. And then the, the epic battle between them just becomes.

An honest struggle. I mean, a, a a a business or leadership or sales story, you’ve got to be able to see some kind of a struggle. Everything can’t work out [00:19:00] rosy with no trouble at all. Or if, if, if there’s no struggle, then there’s no story, right? Um, but for, for a business story like this, you, you have to add one more thing to that, and that’s simply a worthy lesson, right?

If you’re telling stories that are interesting and engaging. But there’s no lesson or, or, or action that people would be prompted to take as a result of it. Then all you’ve done is entertained them. Right. And, and that’s, that’s cheap and easy and, and really won’t get you much other than, you know, they might like you, but, but you’re not gonna get what you need out of them.

So the, the story needs to be well chosen so that there’s a worthy lesson for them to learn.

Maureen: Walk us through the example of, um, the story with Jenny. Is she the hero or the villain?

Paul: So she’s the hero. Well, so with Jenny, um, well, well, let’s back it up. One to, to Bob at, at West Point. Right. So he’s the main character.

Okay. Somebody has come by and splashed mud on his [00:20:00] trousers. That’s the, the challenge in the story. So if, if I were to walk you through the, uh, the structure of a story, it starts with the context and where, which is where you learn who the hero is. Uh, then the challenge, which is the problem that they confront, that’s where, that’s the villain.

Then the struggle between them and then the resolution. So for, for Bob, um, the, the challenge was when somebody splashed the mud on his trousers. So that was in essence, the villain of the pro of the story. His conflict was his internal struggle with what to do about it. Do I answer number one, number two, number three, number four, right?

The yes or no, sir? I don’t know, sir. Whatever. He finally decided on number four, and that was in fact, the resolution to the story was that he decided to answer the fourth way. No excuse sir. Then at the end of a story that then is time for the lesson and the recommended action. So the lesson that he learned was that the, the best answer to give in cases where somebody’s told you you’re doing something wrong, is no excuse, sir.

And the recommended action is that you, and now that you’ve heard the story, [00:21:00] you should be doing that too. You should be taking more accountability to more responsibility for the things that you’re accountable for. Right? So, um, so in that case, the, the villain wasn’t a person. It was a situation. The situation was that he got mud splashed on his trousers, and, and yes, he was the hero or the, i, I probably shouldn’t use the word hero, that’s probably throwing you off a little bit.

Hero in, in my context, really means the protagonist of the story, the person, the story is about right. You, you could end up being the bad guy in your own story. But you’re still a protagonist. You’re still the main character of the story, even if you do something bad. Okay? Right. So Bob was the main character in the story, and the bad guy was the splashing of the mud on his trousers, right?

And his conflict, uh, the struggle was his internal struggle with what to do about it. How do I decide to respond to the situation? Make sense? Cool.

Maureen: Yep. Got it. So, yes, I’m diligently taking notes. [00:22:00] Um, and I assume some of our listeners are doing the same as I’m thinking about how to apply something interesting tomorrow.

Okay. So as leaders, we are selling so. Exactly. Um, so what exactly is a sales story? So I’m selling ideas to projects, getting people to change, um, getting people to be accountable. Can you give us an example of, um, how to do a sales pitch as a leader?

Paul: Yeah, so, so for sales. Um, the, the structure of a story and those kind of things are gonna be largely the same.

You still need a, a hero and a villain, and a resolution and a struggle and all those kind of things. The, you’re gonna be telling stories about different things with a different objective in sales. So, um, for example, I’ll let give you an example of a, of a sales story. So, and this was something that actually happened to me last year, so my.

My wife and I were at, uh, Coney Island in Cincinnati, Ohio at an art fair. And my wife’s an artist. She loves, uh, [00:23:00] art and, uh, the truth is I was just kind of there carrying the bag, walking behind her and go, going where she wanted to go. And she was looking for a, a piece of art for one of our, our son’s bathroom at home.

And she gets to one booth of this, uh, underwater photographer. He, he, this guy named Chris, be. Takes these mesmerizing pictures of cese and coral reefs and you know, you’ve seen these kind of things. They’re just, they’re just beautiful. Yeah. And she’s flipping through his pictures and she just gets really emotionally attached to this one picture that, to me, looked about as outta place as a pig in the ocean.

And the reason is because it literally was a picture of a pig in the ocean, right. Which just made no sense to me at all. And I just thought it was silly. And so she’s talking to him about it. And when it finally got to be my turn to ask a question, I was like, dude. What’s with the pig in the ocean? Like how did you get the pig to swim in the ocean to get that silly picture and that marine is when the magic started, he said, oh yeah, it was the craziest thing.

See, that picture was taken off the, just off the beach of an uninhabited island in The Bahamas called big, major K. And [00:24:00] he said, apparently a few years ago, a local entrepreneur decided to start a pig farm, I guess, to raise for bacon. And he was, I guess, was being cheap and he found this island that nobody lived on where he could keep the pigs for free.

And he said, but if you look in the picture, look back behind the pig up on the beach. He said, what do you see up there? And I kind of squinted my eyes and looked at it and said, well, not much other than maybe some cactus. And he said, yeah, that’s a problem. Uh, pigs don’t like cactus. Right.

Maureen: They’re probably not very tasty,

Paul: right.

As well. Yeah. The entrepreneur had not fought very far ahead on his plan, right? And he said the good news was though, not long after that, a local restaurant owner on a neighboring island started boating his kitchen. Refuse every night over to big major Kay and dumping at a few dozen yards off. So pretty soon these hungry little pigs start smelling the food and one of ’em is like brave enough to, to brave the ocean to go get it ’cause you know he’s starving.

Well. And then pig number two and pig number three goes and swims. And so, you know, here it is two or three generations of pig later and all of the pigs on big major keg can swim. [00:25:00] And he said, in fact, they, they, they’ve been so well-trained, uh, with this food getting dumped off shore, that anytime a boat approaches the beach, they swim right out to it, just assuming they’re gonna get fed.

He said, I didn’t even have to get outta my boat to take this picture. He said, normally I’ve gotta get all this scuba equipment on and it’s this big ordeal and takes me hours. He said, I just leaned over outta the boat and took a picture. Right. It was awesome. Easiest picture I ever took. So of course before he is even done telling this story, I’ve got my credit card out and I’m like, we’ll take it.

You know, but because honestly, two minutes earlier that that picture was worth nothing to me. But two minutes after that, after he told the story, I totally wanted to, to buy the buy the picture, because now it wasn’t just. A, uh, a picture. It was a story, right? A story I could tell other people every time they come to my house.

Maureen: That’s cool. I, I’m a big art collector and most of my art also has stories. Whether it was, uh, today’s the day after nine 11, something I bought at a nine 11 benefit or. A glass blower who had [00:26:00] this super cool toothbrush that was six feet tall. Mm-hmm. And the bristles were made outta glass. And so he told the whole story about something that happened as he was getting older and dealing with oral hygiene.

But yeah, those are things I remember. And I end up similarly buying art from those people. Because they’re more interesting than, yeah. A poster that’s the right colors,

Paul: right? And of course, it doesn’t just work with art. And, and in fact that’s, that’s just an example of one kind of, of sales story. I, I, I lay out in the book 25 different types of stories that all salespeople or anybody in an influential type role needs to be able to tell.

And that particular one is, uh, I call it a value adding story. So it’s a story that makes the thing that you’re selling more valuable to the person. Buying it, but there are other types of sales stories that you ought to be able to tell. You know, like explaining what it is I do for a living, easily for your prospective buyer to understand or, um, or, or stories about you know, [00:27:00] who you are and why you do what you do, which is part of the rapport building, uh, component of a, of a sales process.

Um, stories about the founding of your company and of the, the invention of the product that you’re selling. Um, and you can actually have stories in a sales, in the main body of the sales pitch itself. And those would be stories like, um, uh, a story to illustrate the problem that your product or service is designed to fix.

Right? Or a success story, which is that same story except with the added ending that somebody. You know, bought your product and now they’re happy because it solved their, their problem. So you can see how, you know, each of these, you know, you know, this is, that’s like four or five of the, of the 21. But, you know, there, there are more creating a sense of urgency to, to close the sale or, um, or getting people to be more loyal after the sale.

So there’s a, there’s a specific type of sales story in each of the elements or in each of the phases of a full sales process that, that most salespeople really need to have in their repertoire.

Maureen: So I use these in sales and many of us as leaders are. [00:28:00] Selling to our clients, whether it’s, uh, relationship selling, that I’m the key relationship manager, right?

Uh, so they’re not just for sales quote salespeople, right? But all of us really need to know how to do this.

Paul: Yeah. And I, and I admittedly, I wrote the, I wrote the, the latest book Sell with the story specifically for professional salespeople. And I wrote the first one, lead with the story specifically for leaders.

But there are clearly, you know, half at least of the stories. Laid out in the sell of the story work, not just for salespeople, but for anybody in a leadership position who, who part of their leadership is they have to convince people to, to do something or buy something or, or, or, or to bring in new clients or something.

I mean, most of us, when you get to a certain level of leadership, it’s not just about, uh, leading a, a, a department of getting the payables done or something. You’re, you’re, you’re actually responsible for. The, the long-term success and health of the business, which almost always has some kind of a revenue component to it,

Maureen: at least in my role.

There’s a big part of that. It’s, it’s helping [00:29:00] influence people. It so part of it’s keeping them motivated and engaged and, and heading in the same direction that I see as our vision.

Paul: Right.

Maureen: Yeah. So some of that feels like I’m selling. When I’m going in one direction and they’re going in a different one.

Paul: No, that’s okay. I I, I, we’ve been selling since we’ve convinced our mom at the age of five to give us, you know, 50 cents for the ice cream truck coming down the street. Right. It’s, it’s just a part of life.

Maureen: Yeah, I remember that. Ice cream truck. So how long should a leadership story be versus a sales story?

Is there a distinction?

Paul: Yeah, so that’s one of the interesting things I, I found out in, in doing the research, I, you know, with, uh, probably 250 or 300 executives and salespeople and leaders that I’ve, I’ve interviewed in the last six years, uh, probably collected eight or 10 stories from each of them. So if you do that math Oh wow.

Literally probably over 2000. Stories I’ve documented in the last, you know, five or six years. So I’ve got a pretty good database now of, of, of how long these stories should be. And what I found was for leadership stories, [00:30:00] the average story length is about four minutes when told orally. And, and humans speak at about 150 words a minute.

So, um, so, and they can range from, say, three to five minutes is probably kind of full standard deviation around how long these stories should be. So maybe 450 words to 750 words if you were writing them. But speaking them, it’s, it’s around four minutes for a leadership story. And then when I went in to do the research for sales, I, my assumption was that sales stories would be a little bit shorter.

But I had no idea how much. And so after I’d finished writing the book and writing all the, you know, all the stories up, I kind of went to do the math and it turned out they are, they are shorter by exactly half. So sales stories on average are half the length of a leadership story. And, and the reason I think that makes sense is because when you’re the boss and you’re telling a leadership story to your organization, you, you’re in a more forgiving situation, both hierarchically and socially and, and physically, right?

So, a. Nobody’s gonna tell the boss to [00:31:00] shut up and move on. Right, right. Or, or, and you’re sitting in your office probably, or their office or the lunchroom where you work and, and you see these people every day that you know you’re, and you’re gonna see them tomorrow. There, there’s no hurry. Right. But for salespeople.

They’re talking to a buyer who’s probably got 30 other sales calls, they gotta sit through that day. They’re, they’re in a hurry. You’ve only got 30 minutes in their office before you fly home to Poughkeepsie or wherever, and you’re not gonna see them again for three months. So every second counts in sales calls.

Uh, and so that, that’s kind of my explanation for why I think it is that these sales stories tended to be, uh, half the length of a, of a leadership story

Maureen: and more compelling or just

Paul: tighter. Yeah, I wouldn’t say more compelling. I think they’re, they’re obviously shorter, um mm-hmm. And, uh, but, but, but I wouldn’t say necessarily more compelling.

Um, you, you, you can, you want to have different versions of each story. Like you want to have a 32nd version of a story, a, a. You know, in fact, I, I, I coach people in the, in this this last book on, on sales stories [00:32:00] to, you wanna have a, a one minute version of your story, a two minute version and a four minute version, right?

So, a short, an average, and a long version. And the the longer ones are gonna give you more of a chance to be more compelling, to give more reasons why, you know, they should follow your advice or whatever. Um, but sometimes you’re gonna be in a situation where you don’t have that much time or they’re in a hurry or whatever.

And so you need to be able to modulate between the long, medium, and short. But on average, these sales stories just tended to be shorter. And so salespeople have just learned to tell their stories in a more succinct manner. But I think because they’ve had to,

Maureen: so you’re saying for salespeople, it’s good to have basically a, a list or a repertoire, uh, of stories that I’ve practiced.

Paul: Not just salespeople. Leaders too. In fact, that’s one of the main reasons why I wrote both of these books is I wanted to give my readers a database to start with, right? So there, there’s literally over a hundred stories in the, the lead with the storybook leadership stories, and almost all of them you can add to your [00:33:00] repertoire and tell them to other people, right?

Some of them are, are so personal that it just wouldn’t make sense coming from you, but most of them are there for that reason, for you to start your database of leadership stories. Uh, the, for the, the sales one. They’re, they’re all gonna be unique. Like, you can’t tell my sales story because you don’t sell my product.

So that doesn’t make sense. You need to build your own repertoire, but yes. Mm-hmm. Salespeople and leaders need to have a repertoire of stories in their brain, ready to whip out at a moment’s notice when they need it. And, and, and yes, you probably should spend some time practicing them as well if you know you’re going to be.

Telling them.

Maureen: Okay, so that brings us to an interesting question. If I’m using your story, is it okay to make up a story? Do I reference Bob McDonald? I I obviously didn’t go to West Point, so I can’t say it was me,

Paul: right? Yeah, yeah, good question. So, so, um, you can make up a story, but only in only one condition, right?

And that, that condition is that you tell your audience that you made it up. Right Now, if you tell the Bob McDonald story, you’re not making up the story. That’s a true [00:34:00] story that really happened. But it’s just not you. So it’s like I, I’m not Bob McDonald either, right? But when I told you the story, I said, here’s a story about a guy named Bob McDonald.

And then I tell you the story. So it’s a completely true story. It’s just not about me. And most of your stories, by the way, shouldn’t be about you. Like what would you think of me if every story you ever heard me tell was about me? I think I was an arrogant SOB, right? Right. So, and you don’t wanna be that person unless

Maureen: they’re really funny.

Paul: Well, I, I suppose, but even if they were really funny, if every story I ever told you was about me, I mean, how self-centered would I have to be? And so you, you, you, you just should not have every, and in fact, I don’t know anybody who’s, every story they would ever tell would be about them. But you, you need to have stories about other people or you would come across that way.

And some of the stories about you need to be ones where you made a mistake. So you’re not the hero, you’re the goat in the story. I mean, leaders want, people want to work for a leader who will admit their own mistakes and tell you about them so that you won’t have to make that mistake yourself.

Maureen: For many of us, [00:35:00] those seem to be the real, that seems to be what is more compelling and true.

We, we seem to be taught to cover up our mistakes, and yet to your point where I am more compelling, especially with grad students, is talking about where I did something that went off the rails and clearly I’m still successful, so I’m not an idiot. But boy did I do some things that I would not want published.

Paul: Yeah. Right. But you don’t mind telling them in a group of five people as a personal story over the water cooler. Right. Yeah. And, and, and people want to work for a boss like that who cares more about their growth and development than they, the boss cares about their own personal ego. Right. That’s the kind of boss you wanna work for.

Maureen: Yeah. So that’s a great point that some of the stories have to be where I am vulnerable.

Paul: Yes. Absolutely.

Maureen: And again, back to the formula that there is a story, uh, there’s, there’s a lesson, there’s an ask of them [00:36:00] or a, a suggestion that they do something different than they’re doing now. The action lesson.

Paul: Yeah. So well on that. Um, if you tell a great story, they will learn the right lesson anyway. And in fact, that’s one of the benefits of, of telling stories is that when you’re done, you don’t have to beat them over the head with. Now, so like I told you, please put all those round tables into that, you know, whatever, you know, or buy my picture of this pig.

I mean, if you tell a great story, it will create the behavior that you’re after. If, if you see that your audience didn’t get it, then certainly you have an opportunity at the end to clarify. Here’s the lesson that I learned when this happened to me, or when I first heard this story. Or here’s, here’s what I would do if I were you, as opposed to just telling them what to do at the end.

’cause if you’re just gonna boss people around, don’t waste your time telling stories. Like that’s the, the whole purpose for telling stories is so that you don’t have to boss people around. You will inspire them to do the right thing on their own accord,

Maureen: which makes perfect sense. And, and again, back to Jenny.

I don’t have to tell [00:37:00] you to do something. I, I’ve given you the example where Right. It works. What are some of the most common mistakes you see?

Paul: Yeah, so there, there are a lot. Um, uh, uh, probably the. The first one you’re likely to see is right at the beginning of of a story. People don’t know how to start their stories.

In fact, that’s one of the most common questions I get in the training classes that I teach, is how do I kick off my story? And it’s because, you know, people get nervous when they’re starting to tell a story where they don’t get nervous if they’re gonna give you their opinion. Or tell you the results of their analysis or do the whatever else it is that we normally do at work.

But when we tell a story, we get kind of nervous and we, there’s this nervous pattern around about, oh, the story and well, here’s how the, well, okay, so here’s how the story goes. So, so the story starts, well, well, no. Okay, so here’s how it goes, right? I mean, so here’s two things not to do. Never apologize or ask permission to tell a story.

This is the most common mistake I guess I see people do right off the bat, and you’ve seen this happen in meetings all the time. You be in a [00:38:00] meeting, five or six other people in the room, somebody raises their hand and says, uh, I’m, I’m sorry to interrupt, but uh, can I just tell a quick story? I promise it’ll just take a minute.

Right now, what does that communicate to the rest of the people listening about how important you think the story is?

Maureen: Or my sense of insecurity,

Paul: right? So either you’re insecure about you or you’re insecure about the story. One of the two or maybe both. The bottom line is neither are

Maureen: helpful.

Paul: Neither of those things are good.

They’re not helpful to you, so, so don’t apologize or ask permission to tell a story, right? I mean, leaders don’t ask permission to lead, right? They just lead. Never ask permission or apologize for telling a leadership story unless you really don’t believe that the story is very good. In which case, please shut up.

Don’t tell it up. Yeah, get back to the bullet points on slide number 72, but mm-hmm. If you do think it’s important, just tell it. The other thing I would say that people, people make mistake is, is they, they tell people before they tell ’em a story, that they’re gonna tell them a story. They’ll say, okay, well hey, uh, so lemme just tell you [00:39:00] the story.

How would you react if, if you and I were in a meeting, say Monday morning, or five or six people in a room, I come in to kick off the meeting and I, I say, okay, uh, well let’s get this meeting started then. Um, well, I thought I’d kick it off, uh, by telling you a story. Wasted. Wasted words. Exactly. Well, those words I’ve said are wasted.

But tell me how excited are you to hear about what’s gonna come outta my mouth next. Honestly,

Maureen: I may be more excited about your story than your slides.

Paul: Well, maybe, but, but I want you to put yourself in this situation. I’ve just come into the room and I’ve said, well, I thought I’d get this meeting started off by telling you a story mean Yeah.

Like blah, blah,

Maureen: blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. That’s what you’re thinking.

Paul: You’re, you’re thinking, can you just skip the story and get to the facts or the data or the point, or, I mean, we got, you know, time’s burning here, right? Like nobody wants to listen to a story when you tell them you’re going to tell them a story, right?

I mean, children do. Mm-hmm. But not, but we’re grownups. Right? I mean, it’s, it’s like a, it’s like a [00:40:00] five-year-old kid telling ’em it’s time to stop playing and come in and take a bath. Right? They, they never want to do it, but once they’re in the bath and they’re having fun with the rubber ducky, they don’t wanna get out.

It’s the same with grownups and stories. No grownup ever wants to, to at work during the workday. Wants to listen to a story. Once you’re telling them a story and it’s a good one, they love it and they don’t wanna get out, right? So don’t, don’t ruin it for yourself by telling them upfront, I’m gonna tell you a story, right?

So imagine it’s that Monday morning and instead of saying that, I say, Hey, I, I wanted to get this meeting kicked off and you know, I noticed something really important happened last week and it’s completely changed how I think about running this department. I thought I’d tell you about that. Now, marina, what do you think about, how interested are you in hearing what I have to say next?

Maureen: Because you’ve started this way? I am more. Engaged.

Paul: Right? Uh, now in both cases, I’m gonna tell you exactly the same story, but in the first case where I said, I’m gonna tell you a story, your eyes are rolling already. I can see them through the microphone, Maureen, right? Like, nobody wants to hear that. But if I just tell you, Hey, something really important just happened and has really affected me, [00:41:00] I wanna tell you about that and I can’t wait to hear it.

Right? So that’s the way you should start off. Your stories is just, and I call that a hook. I’ve got a whole chapter on the hook. In this latest book, because so many people butcher that first sentence, that really is either the death nail of the entire story or gets your audience so engaged, they wanna listen to every word outta your mouth.

So that, that, that first sentence really is important.

Maureen: So let’s shift then to what stories business or personal have especially touched, influenced, or inspired you.

Paul: Yeah. Oh gosh. Yeah. Well, there’s one that is responsible for me being here. Today, um, as opposed to back in my old job at, at Procter and Gamble.

So I, I like, like you said earlier, I spent 20 years at p and g and had, had written a first book and had fancied myself, an author and a speaker someday. But you know, that that’s not a very, uh, financially secure thing to do when you have, uh, family and kids to get through college and all that kind of thing.

Mm-hmm. So I was struggling with the decision of, of do [00:42:00] I quit my, my corporate gig? With the steady paycheck and the benefits and all that kind of stuff and try and do this for a living. And I’d convinced myself I wanted to, but I just didn’t have the guts. And I finally decided I’m, I’m never too old to learn from somebody older and wiser.

So I literally, um, asked my dad, who was 80 years old at the time for advice, but, but I, I, I can’t talk to him on the phone anymore ’cause he’s, he’s 80 and he’s hard of hearing, so I have to write him letters. And so I wrote him a letter and I told him my situation and I was hoping he’d write me back and just give me some advice like either.

Absolutely. Son, you should go pursue your dream. There’s nothing more important. I think you can do it. You know, gimme a pep talk. Or tell me, are you insane? I mean, you’re 45 years old, just wait another few years and you can retire, and then go play around with that silly, you know, pipe dream or whatever.

Like, I just, I assumed he would tell me one of these things and I was, I was thinking about just doing whatever he told me, but he didn’t do that. He didn’t give me advice. He, he, you know, as fate would have it, he just wrote me back and told me a story about himself when he was five years old that I’d never heard before and neither had any of my siblings.

He said, when I was five years [00:43:00] old, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. He said I wanted to be a singer. You know, like Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett or Sammy Davis Jr. Right. I mean, he’s 80, that’s his, his genre. And he said, and I knew that for sure on the first day of the first grade. He said I was five years old.

Um, and the teacher asked us all on that first day if anybody had any special talent, you know, like dancing or magic tricks or something. And he said, I raised my hand. And I said, I can sing. You know, despite the fact that he, he’d never sung in front of anybody other than his mom in the kitchen before.

But he said, I raised my hand and said, I can sing. And so, of course, what, what do you think she did? She made him sing. Absolutely. She said, all right, well Bobby, get up and sing us a song. So a little five-year-old Bobby stood up and he said, I belted out my favorite song right there, acapella in front of everybody.

And he said, I nailed it. He said, I got all the words and the melody right. I was so proud. And he said, when I was done, the teacher and the other students stood up and they applauded me. Like my first standing ovation, my first time to ever sing in front of an audience. And he said, unfortunately, that turned out [00:44:00] not just to be the first time I ever sang in front of an audience.

It turned out to be the last time I ever sang in front of an audience. He said, the truth is I just never had the courage to pursue that. And he said, son, that was 75 years ago. There is not a month that goes by that I have not regretted that decision. And he said, someday you’re gonna, you know, as if that wasn’t enough.

He said, someday you’re gonna wake up and you’re gonna be 80 years old like me, and it’s gonna be too late. And he, he, he closed this letter that I’m just like, you know, shaking reading at this point. He closed the letter letter by saying, I’d love to see you achieve your dream, but that doesn’t mean in your lifetime, son.

That means in mine. And I mean, oh, TikTok, right? And he was 80. So literally Maureen, two days later, I walk into my boss’s office. I resigned from my 20 year career to do this for a living. Absolutely the best decision I’ve ever made. It was three years ago. Haven’t looked back and I, I’m sure I would’ve done this at some point, but I would not have done it that day if it were not for my dad’s story.

Maureen: That is a beautiful [00:45:00] story. Paul, what also is your website?

Paul: Yeah, lead with a story.com. You can get, uh, both, uh, both books there.

Maureen: Great. Thank you everyone. To our listeners, I hope you do pick up Paul’s books, and I hope you’ve heard something today that you can apply in your work in the next week. Come up with a story, test it out, and see the difference between how you persuade with story and or without story.