Table Of Content
Lead with a Story
A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives
That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire
Paul Smith
American Management Association
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The story “Special Olympics” in chapter 18 is from The Imagineering Way© 2003
by The Imagineers of Disney. Reprinted by Permission of Disney.Hyperion, an imprint
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, Paul, 1967 July 3–
Lead with a story : a guide to crafting business narratives that captivate, convince,
and inspire / Paul Smith.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-8144-2030-0 (hbk.)
1. Communication in management. 2. Storytelling. 3. Leadership.
4. Organizational behavior. I. Title.
HD30.3.S5774 2012
658.4'5—dc23 2012005591
© 2012 Paul Smith
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Printing number
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to David M. Armstrong (1957–2010)
for starting this revolution.
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1 Why Tell Stories? 8
ENVISION Success
2 Set a Vision for the Future 14
3 Set Goals and Build Commitment 20
4 Lead Change 27
5 Make Recommendations Stick 36
6 Define Customer Service Success and Failure 45
[HOW-TO] 7 Structure of a Story 54
Create an ENVIRONMENT for Winning
8 Define the Culture 66
9 Establish Values 74
10 Encourage Collaboration and Build Relationships 82
11 Value Diversity and Inclusion 91
12 Set Policy Without Rules 100
[HOW-TO] 13 Keep It Real 108
[HOW-TO] 14 Stylistic Elements 118
v
vi Contents
ENERGIZE the Team
15 Inspire and Motivate 131
16 Build Courage 140
17 Help Others Find Passion for Their Work 148
[HOW-TO] 18 Appeal to Emotion 154
[HOW-TO] 19 The Element of Surprise 167
EDUCATE People
20 Teach Important Lessons 176
21 Provide Coaching and Feedback 187
22 Demonstrate Problem Solving 196
23 Help Everyone Understand the Customer 204
[HOW-TO] 24 Metaphors and Analogies 210
EMPOWER Others
25 Delegate Authority and Give Permission 217
26 Encourage Innovation and Creativity 224
27 Sales Is Everyone’s Job 230
28 Earn Respect on Day One 237
[HOW-TO] 29 Recast Your Audience into the Story 243
30 Getting Started 251
Appendix 268
Index 276
Acknowledgments
FIRST AND FOREMOST, I’d like to thank the people whose names and
stories grace the pages of this book. For some, it was your noble actions
that inspired me to write a story. Others were generous enough to share
your stories with me. Either way, I am grateful to over 100 of you for
contributing to this effort.
For most, your names are already included elsewhere in the book,
so I won’t repeat them here. But I am just as humbled by those who
contributed to these stories in some way without showing up as a
character. You include Shaun Adamec, Kelly Anchrum, Amy Anthony,
John Burchnall, Ann Calcara, David Casterline, Steve Cooper, Mary
Lynn Ferguson-McHugh, Kim Fullerton, Tony Gardner, Kyle Garner,
Dan Geeding, Chuck Gentes, Tom Glenn, Anand Jayaraman, Greg
Kurkjian, Tim McKenna, Surya Menon, Prabhath Nanisetty, Lenora
Polonsky, Ed Rider, George Sine, Lisa Smith, Shawn Spradling, Jim
Stengel, and Mariela Vargas.
I am also indebted to the many authors on storytelling who came be-
fore me, most notably David M. Armstrong, Annette Simmons, Margaret
Parkin, Evelyn Clark, Peg C. Neuhauser, Stephen Denning, Lori Silver-
man, Mary Wacker, Richard Maxwell, Robert Dickman, Craig Wort-
mann, Doug Stevenson, Doug Lipman, Jack Maguire, Ryan Mathews,
Watts Wacker, T. Scott Gross, Michael B. Druxman, Robert Shook, Tom
Sant, Grady Jim Robinson, and Peter Guber, among many others too
numerous to mention. You blazed the trail I now follow. I’ve been influ-
enced by each of you and hope I’ve contributed in some small way to
what you started.
Special thanks to my editors, Christina Parisi and Erika Spelman,
and my “secret agent,” Maryann Karinch, for leading me through the
publishing process. And a very special thanks to Chip Heath and Dan
Heath for their invaluable support and advice along the way, and to Steve
vii
viii Acknowledgments
Blair for the many conversations that inspired me to begin this journey
in the first place.
Lastly, I’d like to thank the brilliant and creative people at Procter
& Gamble I’ve had the privilege of working with for the past 19 years.
Thank you for putting up with my awkward stumbling toward an under-
standing and practice of leadership, one story at a time.
Introduction
“Long before the first formal business was established . . . the six most powerful
words in any language were Let me tell you a story.”1
—MATHEWS& WACKER, What’s Your Story
WHEN JAYSON ZOLLER WAS A COLLEGE STUDENT, one of his fa-
vorite professors told the class a story so compelling Jayson is still
retelling it two decades later. Apparently the professor’s students from a
previous class had an unusual project working for a local district judge.
The assignment: Investigate the jury deliberation process and determine
how to improve it. As young, idealistic college students, his young team
was excited to tackle such a noble mission.
The students interviewed dozens of judges, attorneys, former jurors,
and other court officials around the district. They asked all the questions
you would think a smart group of would-be consultants should ask. How
many men were in the jury versus women? What was the mix of ethnic
backgrounds? How many older jurors were there versus younger ones?
Were there differences in the instructions given the jurors, or what kind
of information they were allowed to have in the jury room? Did the trials
last days, weeks, or months? They even asked how late the jurors were
made to work into the evening and what kind of food they were fed.
To their surprise, none of those things seemed to matter much. What
did matter, it turned out, was the shape of the table in the jury room! In
courtrooms where there was a rectangular table, the juror sitting at the
head of the table (even if that person wasn’t the jury foreman) tended to
dominate the conversation. This kept some jurors from sharing their
points of view as openly. But in jury rooms that had a round or oval table,
the jurors tended to be more egalitarian and their debate of the facts was
1
