Apr 29, 2019
Neuroscience experts, practitioners, research and methods for making brain-friendly organizations and healthy individuals.
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This is the third episode of the Mind Your Noodles podcast. In this episode our guest Storyteller, Park Howell. Tripp: He discusses the massive disruption in advertising/marketing that got him into storytelling. How stories have been coached out of us and how to craft a great story.
[00:00:06]
Mind Your Noodles Podcast
[00:00:53]
Par Howell: Storytelling
[00:03:00]
A Student of Storytelling
[00:03:50]
Advertising and Branding as Disrupted
[00:05:16]
What Does Hollywood Know that Park Didn't
[00:05:55]
Hero's Journey and How It Plays
[00:07:17]
Park Helps Reveal Our Story
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Education Has Beaten the Creativity and Storytelling Out of Us
[00:08:57]
The Gordon MacKenzie Story
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Orbiting the Giant Hairball
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How to Build Story - Applied Science and Bewitchery of Story
[00:15:39]
How Not to Be an MBA Zombie
[00:16:24]
The Story/Narrative Structure
[00:18:54]
Dr. Randy Olson and South Park
[00:20:33]
ABT - And But and Therefore Structure
[00:22:22]
Example of ABT in Action
[00:24:47]
Gettysburg Address is ABT
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Modern ABT Orator is Donald Trump
[00:27:41]
Dr. Olson Saw Trump's Message and Knew He would Win
[00:28:42]
Dr. Randy Olson Podcast the Day After 2016 Presidential
Election
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Jonathon Haidt - Stories for Good or Evil
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5 Things Affect People at Work Mentally
[00:40:15]
Breaking Down Fairness
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Belonging and Relatedness
[00:45:12]
Freedom.Autoonomy
[00:47:18]
My Deming Takeaways
[00:50:59]
The 5 Skills that Storytelling Helps Improve
[00:57:04]
What Park is Reading Today
Tripp: [00:00:06] Take care of the brains that take care of you. with the Mind Your Noodles podcast will keep you up to date on the latest neuroscience research and practices to keep your brain healthy. And strategies to help your organization be brain friendly. In the third episode of Mind Your Noodles Park Howell. a story teller is our guest. He discusses the massive disruption in advertising/marketing that got him into storytelling. How stories have been coached out of us and how to craft a great story.
Tripp: [00:00:53] Hi I'm Tripp Babbitt and our guest today is Park Howell of Park and company who has a business in storytelling but more importantly has a podcast on storytelling and I found his podcast really captivating because he's so interested and so dedicated to storytelling. He's had many people on that have basically shined a light on how to do storytelling and I just thought well here's a guy with a vast amount of knowledge just not only from interviewing people but but being a practitioner of storytelling that I had to have him on.
Tripp: [00:01:34] It just made sense and from a neuroscience standpoint other people that I've talked to or in class who read a book called pitch anything talks about the narrative versus the analytical if you're pitching somebody if somebody is in the analytical state that they're only using two regions of their brain and if they're in a narrative state that that they're using seven regions so there's many neuroscience things.
Tripp: [00:02:00] Normally I do more of an introduction Park but since storytelling is your thing I thought maybe we'd start with you telling your story about how you got into storytelling your background of Tripp.
Park: [00:02:14] Thank you so much for having me here. I'd always love to talk about storytelling because I am so curious about it myself and every time I'm on one of these programs I learn something new. I was just training the last two days in New Orleans I'm back here in rainy Phoenix Believe it or not and I was working with the supply association out there and 60 of their member companies and I went took them through a day and a half masterclass on how to use storytelling to engage and motivate their people as well as to sell in a very very commoditized left brain business of industrial supply and I pulled three or four nuggets away from them on how their minds work around story and not the neuroscience of it but their actual experience doing it.
Park: [00:03:00] So now I'm just I'm just I'm a student of storytelling as much as anybody. And then I like to share what I find when I find that it works really really well. My back story starts with you introduce me as part how will the founder president of parking company and you're right about that that was my ad agency that I started in nineteen ninety five and I ran for 20 years and I still have a parking company as my overall corporation but what I am really doing now is I pivoted away from that traditional slash digital ad agency world and now I can consult teach coach and speak on the power of story to help leaders of purpose driven brands clarify their stories to amplify their impact and simplify their life.
Park: [00:03:50] So that's my brochure headline what really happened. Tripp is advertising and branding as I knew it as I experienced and as I practiced it stopped working in 2006. It just wasn't nearly as effective as it had been when all we had to worry about was doing advertising and branding on radio TV billboards print your newspaper public relations events direct mail and we didn't have to deal with Yelp what happened of course is the inter webs were really starting to blossom about this time everybody was getting a Web site some of them working someone not so much in social media was starting to come around and we had experienced and saw this paradigm shift happening where brands used to own the influence of mass media those mass media vehicles I just mentioned and now it was all changing technology was changing it to where the masses the people had become the media and even more so now than ever. You know 13 years later they own the brand story they own your brand story and it has impacted how we communicate internally externally and everything about our world. Well when that happened and I didn't realize what was going on at the time I just knew we weren't as effective as we had used.
Park: [00:05:16] Had been before I started studying storytelling primarily you know precisely Hollywood storytelling. What did screenwriters in Hollywood and Hollywood executives know about knitting together a narrative in very high stakes world of Hollywood where they're spending tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars on a story. So you're thinking that total commerce play here. What did they know that I could learn from so that I could help our brands and our customers and clients be more persuasive using. These same types of tools.
Park: [00:05:55] And that's really when I started studying story screenwriting and saw the pattern the universal pattern of the hero's journey and how it played out throughout our lives throughout pop culture throughout politics throughout religion and realize that this framework to story was embedded in our psyche and we didn't even realize it. And that's when I just tapped into it and thought well what if we could be intentional about it. And I could teach business leaders and owners how to use this proven framework that's been around since literally the beginning of time that is embedded like software in the hardware or the webware if you will of our brain to help people do a better job of connecting and moving people to action. And that's how it all began. You know the rest of it is kind of history and it's completely changed the arc in the narrative and the story of my life now that I literally could still teach coach and speak on the power story around the world. I'm leaving on Sunday for New Zealand to work with a bunch of social media gurus down there and some companies and then up to Melbourne and back to Phoenix in two and a half weeks and I got to tell you I am just having a blast because I see how powerful this is and how people can really connect with it and use it in that.
Park: [00:07:17] It's not something that I invented. It's something that lies dormant or latent in all of us. And my job purely is to reveal it to people and give them the frameworks that they can become intentional storytellers to as I say somewhat theoretical theatrically or theoretically to help them nudge the world in any direction they choose.
Tripp: [00:07:43] Fascinating. I mean when I when I listen to you talk and even some of the interviews that you've done obviously reinforce this type of thinking that everybody has a story within them to share and tell kind of the world if you will about what they're about their purpose you know why they're here. How do people then draw on that. What are they missing. Maybe it would be a good place to start. Why. Why isn't everybody just doing this. I mean it sounds simple enough. I mean it's you know it's just stories. You know what you get.
Park: [00:08:19] It's coached out of us. It's coached out of us at a very young age. Think about a Tripp we were all at the tops of our storytelling games in kindergarten and we lived them. We made them up and then we got to the first grade and then the second grade and we get educated and most of us grew up in the old industrial complex of education be quiet sit in your chair draw between the lines and I can't even tell you how many times I was told Park stop telling stories when I was growing up.
Park: [00:08:57] There's a fascinating guy by the name of Gordon McKenzie and he was an illustrator creative for Hallmark cards back in the day when it was just that really family feel good. Hallmark Cards organization. He was brilliant always pushing the envelope and they were afraid and he was afraid that they were kind of holding him back and they didn't want to lose him and his team around him. So they allowed him to begin Shoe Box greetings.
Park: [00:09:26] You know that little bit more irreverent sub brand of Hallmark cards because they knew what a brilliant mind this guy had. Well he did something that he talks about in his book called circling the giant hairball which is a fabulous read about for lunch today. It's about how corporations suck you know the creative daylights out of us if you let them. Well what he does or did is he would go back into grammar schools and try to encourage these kids to hold on to their artistic abilities no matter what they were taught. And he tells the story of going into the first grade walking into the better the classroom looking around and seeing all this wonderful artwork on the wall and he would ask the class who is the artist that did all of this beautiful artwork. And every kid that room's hand would shoot up every single kid he said then he could walk two doors down on the same floor in the same school and walk into the second grade classroom look up see all the artwork on the wall and he would ask the same question who's the artist here. They did all this beautiful artwork and only half the hands of the room would go up by the third grade a third of them would go up you would see where this is going Oh yeah I got to the fifth and sixth grade he was lucky to get one two or three hands to raise to say yeah I'm an artist and here's my expression of what I do. Well I believe the exact same thing has happened to us with our storyteller.
Park: [00:10:52] We are homo sapiens. Stories are unique to us. No other organism as we know it. Tell stories in the way that we can create these fictional imagined realities to get people to live into them. But in school all the way through college heaven forbid MBA world and PHD world our education systems and then our subsequent organizations do not recognize the storyteller in us. They do not teach us how to use those storytelling tools that are innate in our bodies and they don't encourage us to do so. But I'm saying that that is starting to change and more and more organizations are realizing you know we got to bring more creativity and persuasive abilities out of people and these core elements are all based in storytelling so I can tell you from a guy that got two degrees I got a bachelors in music composition and theory where you are actually looking at the storytelling parameters of creating a piece of music. I didn't realize that at the time when I got that degree. But in hindsight I see what that's all about. It's essentially the applied science of music creation and then I also got a degree in journalism and public relations and I can tell you that the closest I got to anybody teaching me about storytelling was in the journalism side was learning the inverted pyramid which is a way to tell a story in a very structured newspaper way but not really how people sit across from each other and share anecdotes and oral stories that connect their two worlds and bring people together to move them for a more powerful future.
Tripp: [00:12:39] You know it's interesting I see a lot of parallels. I do another podcasts I do it's called Driving Eureka! and it's with a gentleman named Doug Hall and now he doesn't focus necessarily on the narrative. He he he. It's very because of my background might my listeners know that I do the Deming Institute podcasts and I'm in to the work of W. Edwards Deming that you have to have an aim you have to have a purpose associated with your business and then Doug brought in kind of the narrative that you have to have this compelling narrative in order to have innovation for people to kind of get excited about participating you know because making more money for shareholders and or for the executives doesn't or isn't always a compelling story for people to to buy into. So He came along first one that I ran into started talking about narrative and and being able to come up with a story but that's not his focus per say uses more the focus on the narrative his is more on coming up with big ideas for innovation. The parallel there is this this creativeness that seems to be how he talks about in essence the same things that it's all been beaten out of us over a period of time because of the schools that we went to and and just the way that business and education are structured in such a way that it doesn't allow for us to be very creative. So in getting to the a better narrative a better way of going about and building a narrative. What are the elements of things that need to be contained within it as you found from your interviews and and your consulting work.
Park: [00:14:37] Yeah great question. You know I call it at the business of story the applied science and bewitchery of story because you have to have both. You have to understand the magic at the applied science to cast the spell to actually be effective at it.
Park: [00:14:54] Now coming through the school and the higher level degrees we get in the bigger organizations we go into and the more we climb that chain what are we taught. We're taught to look smart sound smart lead with logic make rational arguments about changes and things you want to have to do. And yet that flies in the face of everything that we know about humanity that we are not rational creatures.
Park: [00:15:21] We are first and foremost irrational emotional creatures and I'd say if you don't even need brain science and neuroscience to look at this just ask yourself when was the last time you were bored into buying anything.
Tripp: [00:15:36] Never.
Park: [00:15:39] So I didn't need a test tube for that just test your experiences. So we are taught though from again this industrial complex approach to education is to be cogs in the industrial wheel. Wherever they plug us in I've got a program called How Not to become an MBA zombie where they can turn that data and their logical left brain that they've been working so hard with into right brain emotion because we all buy with our hearts and we justify that purchases with those purchases with our heads with the logic but where we make the mistake in business as we always lead with logic when we should lead with emotion and back up the context of that with logic and here's how you do it.
Park: [00:16:24] Here's how you hook the primal brain of any and every homo sapiens and that is think in narrative structure narrative intuition of setup problem resolution.
Park: [00:16:38] Now we're already taught this as MBA is stand up comics call about setup complication punch line Hegel the famously famous theorist said in every argument the dialectic is based on thesis someone states a claim makes a thesis the debater has antithesis. They they state the exact opposite of that. And then you have synthesis through the arguments through the debate. You come to a common ground somehow somewhere.
Park: [00:17:08] Where does this stand from you outcomes. Aristotle talked about every story has to have a beginning a middle and an end. I mentioned earlier my background in music composition and theory. I was told when I was studying this in the early 80s that Mozart's a lot of sonnet Sonata Allegro form is totally based on three act story structure of exposition development and resolution setup problem resolution. It didn't mean anything to me at the time but when I started studying story that all came back in my mind and so you even look at the power of thirds and photography our brain for whatever reason is set up in these thirds give me a setup to something then make it a complication to intrigue me and to give me a problem that I have to solve or a conflict I have to overcome and then show me what the resolution is and what we've learned by looking at anthropology and looking at some of this brain science that you talked about and believe me I'm no neuroscientist but I know enough that I read and I can kind of connect the dots in some of the stuff just totally makes sense to me is that we use this setup problem resolution mode as simply problem solving monkeys because that's what we are is problem solving monkeys. I want to know what you're going through Tripp and what hole you tripped into. Pardon my pun and how you got out of it simply so that I can live vicariously through you to learn what I would do in case it ever happens to me and I get to do it from the safety of my recliner if I'm reading your story or watching you on TV or the safety of Skype if you're sharing that with me.
Park: [00:18:54] So the basic function I want your listeners to think about the applied science to begin with the literal DNA of story is setup problem resolution and a Dr. Randy Olson Harvard trained evolutionary biologist is the one that introduced this to me. this idea of and but and therefore. And he got it from the most surprising place especially from a Harvard trained evolutionary biologist. Randy also went on to become a filmmaker. Graduating from USC film school in his mid to late thirties he produced three documentaries on climate change global warming but more importantly he wrote three books to teach scientists how to do a better job of using narrative and story to communicate their big thinking ideas to get more money in their grant proposals. And it just makes sense to the rest of us. And he's the one that taught me the end but therefore and he got it. But the most surprising place of all for this guy and it was from Southpark the TV show. The animated TV series and there's a video online on YouTube called Six Days to Air where Trey Parker and Matt Stone talk about what they do when they produce each show within six days starting with concepts and scripting and they say they do this thing called Rule replacement. They take out ads in the script and replace them with butts in their fours to keep the momentum to keep the story going forward.
Park: [00:20:33] Well when Dr. Olsen saw this he realized this whole constructive set of problem resolution has been called lots of different things but it was really plainly laid out to him when he watched this particular video. And now I teach it everywhere. It's the first step to understanding how to start. Using the structure of narrative in everything you do and the greatest place to use it is in your emails. And it's this make a statement of agreement then use an "and" to increase its importance. Then throw in a "but" to introduce conflict or contradiction that flies in the face of what you said or is out to thwart its progress and then "therefore" to resolve the situation. And you can use this in anything it is it gets you singularly focused on the theme of your narrative and the theme of your story that you can then expand on. So it's clarifying your own story. It amplifies the impact with your audiences because you're not making them work for this theme. They see it front and center and they thank you for that. And then it totally simplifies your life because it makes your communication easier. You move people faster and it like it is like the single most powerful tool in my complete story business of story tool box that I have found that anybody can apply because it's basically how our brains are wired to make sense out of the madness of being human beings.
Tripp: [00:22:01] Well let me ask you this. I mean and it seems simple. I mean we as you as you articulate it. I in my brain it's saying okay. I could do that could get. Can you give me a just a real simple example of how that plays out other than maybe watching South Park. That's you ask.
Park: [00:22:22] Sure. All right. I used it on you at the beginning of the show when you asked me about my backstory. So let me unpack it for you and how I use it. So you had asked me what is your backstory. I can tell you I've been the advertising marketing branding world for 35 years and I've helped a lot of purpose driven brands grow through the power of mass media. But in 2006 we saw a paradigm shift as a tech now technology completely leveled the playing field and now the masses are the media and they own your story. Therefore we have to communicate completely differently than we were taught. And now I consult teach coach and speak on the power of stories to help people clarify their stories amplify their impact and simplify their life. There is my total narrative moving forward caught in an and but and therefore and it can be told in a one floor elevator pitch. I don't need to go any further than the second floor to be able to explain that and everybody in the room knows exactly what I'm talking about. I have at least set the context. So again what you want to do is a statement of agreement. You don't want to come off as the experts on my case.
Park: [00:23:38] I just said I've been around for thirty five years nobody can argue with that. It's just what it is. And you want to raise the stakes to that and it helped a lot. I've been successful at it. I've helped a lot of businesses achieve using the influence of mass media so that's act 1. I don't got to tell anything anymore but in business what we then do is typically is and and and and and are our people to death. And that's when they just get this guy out of here is a bore. So you do a rule of replacement take out your next stand and get to your problem that you're solving for. But technology has changed how we communicate and therefore I teach the primal power of story to help you rise above the cacophony of communication that we all compete in today so you can see how that and but and therefore it gets you thinking in a very focused way. For example when I first saw it and I've been accused as Randy has that it's reductive and insulting it can't possibly be that easy but I can tell you it is the most powerful form and it's not easy it's something that you have to practice.
Park: [00:24:47] When I first heard about it I did some research and I I looked at the Gettysburg Address the Gettysburg Address is a perfect and but therefore "ABT" as we call it. Three I struck it absolutely is when you look at it. You know fourscore and seven years ago which is another way of saying you know once upon a time because President Lincoln was such a fantastic narrator or orator storyteller and he you know he says this this great continent this great country was formed and then he moves into the next part of however which is another way of saying but here we gather on this great battlefield with all this mass destruction that is tearing this country apart. Therefore we can't consecrate this ground we know because we ourselves have not died here. But we need to pull together as a as a country to make sure that we keep all of our rights and the Constitution together. Now I'm totally paraphrasing here but look at the. And button therefore the Gettysburg Address and you'll see that it is perfect and button therefore perfect three act structure. Now here's the question. Tripp. Who spoke before Lincoln at the Gettysburg Address. Because Lincoln believed that.
Tripp: [00:25:58] He was the second speaker Yeah. And he spoke I all I remember as he spoke for like two hours or something hours. Yeah I don't know who it was.
Park: [00:26:07] The President wasn't even the keynote. It was Edward Everett. He was the former secretary of state self-proclaimed order. He spoke for two hours and yet nobody knows who that is. Lincoln spoke for just two minutes. Two hundred and seventy words is all he. All he needed to use and think about it is probably one of the most if not the most iconic speech ever given by a leader or a president for that matter. And there is great perfect story structure and he didn't know about the ABT because he didn't watch South Park back then. But he was a natural storyteller.
Park: [00:26:47] Now who else among us of our presidents use the ABT unwittingly but had tremendous narrative intuition to get elected to the highest post in the free world.
Tripp: [00:27:02] 0h I would guess Reagan.
Park: [00:27:04] Reagan was pretty good at it but someone even more unsuspecting. And yet when you think about it very obvious is Donald Trump. OK. Well what was Donald Trump's narrative platform.
Tripp: [00:27:18] I mean immigration. Yeah. None of his support. I wonder why when one day he talked about for a long time was a I remember even being on Oprah was about trade. Was it was it was a very bad thing. Yeah. Those are two that stick out in my mind. Anyway.
Park: [00:27:37] I'm going to build a wall in Mexico.
Tripp: [00:27:40] OK yeah.
Park: [00:27:41] No that's that's all we're going to give a big tax cut to the rich. We're gonna have Reagan trickle down theory and all that but those are just support points. What he got elected on the ABT. He got elected on you go back to all of his speeches was America was once a great and mighty nation. But America is no longer great. Therefore I'm going to make America great again setup problem resolution he hammered it home over and over and over again and I can tell you I had Dr. Randy Olson on my podcast The day after the election and the reason being is he had worked with the Democrats and the Hillary group and he had worked along with you know James Carville and he told them he said You guys are going to lose to Trump if you don't get a more refined defined and compelling narrative and tried to teach them this ABT and they sort of pooh poohed him and sort of laughed him out of the room.
Park: [00:28:42] So when I called him up the day after the election we were both rather stunned. He was actually down I believe he was at NASA working with some of their scientists down there through the ABT and I said Randy I got to put you on my podcast and he said I'm just good god damn upset I am too mad to be on your show I said exactly. That's why I need to have you on air. I want that emotion to come through.
Park: [00:29:02] So I had him on the show that afternoon and we talked about it and you can sell your listeners I don't have the show number in front of me. They can go and look back the day after the allows put it in. I put on my shirt. And he talked about Trump's narrative intuition of where you know where he gets this and of course his reality TV show he's a brander that doesn't look good for the rest of us brands. He's a bit of a charlatan a bit of a P.T. Barnum but he has tremendous narrative intuition of knowing how to do a setup then you're putting the dagger into the problem and always placing himself as the resolution the narcissist he is. Here's here's why this works. But there is a great example of how narrative works on the population even though he didn't win the popular vote. He won a lot of Americans over and still has them today because of that. Now we did that show and I can tell you of all the shows I've done almost four years worth of them now. That is the only show that I got hate mail on. Oh I got hate mail from friends. They were calling me out saying why are you glorifying this guy. I'm not all Dr. Olsen I did. We're just want to reveal what's going on. And the thought to me at that time and one of my answers to them was you have to understand the magic if you're going to combat the spell. You gotta know what he's doing to you and how he does it through the stories he tells you. If you're going to combat it over you can have arguments again it gets it.
Park: [00:30:33] And now I've turned that to a more positive outlook. And I say folks if you're a leader of a purpose driven brand you have to understand the magic to cast the spell in the first place. And that's what I find. That's why I call it the applied science knowing these frameworks and The Bewitchery of story because you can literally hook the subconscious the limbic system of your audiences get them to lean into you to tell them more share an anecdote. And I can give you the next framework that I use in sharing an anecdote and then asking them to do something having a call to action or if you've hooked them so much at that point their hearts are totally into it their emotions totally into it and then finally they go whoa whoa wait a minute this just sounds too good to be true. Proof it out for me. Then you roll out your stats and your facts and your numbers and to demonstrate that now you can actually measure this stuff it works. And that's why I have found and moved away purely from being a branding guy and helping people in all walks of life how to do a better job of understanding narrative in their lives building them because my whole goal now is to bring this completely divided world that we all live in together to try to bring it together through the understanding and the empathy of being really good and just reigniting that one true superpower that we all have in our minds and our brains and our bodies. And that's the power of storytelling.
Tripp: [00:31:58] Well that's you know it's interesting that you use the analogy I usually try to stay out of the politics of things but. It's such a fascinating thing that you're talking about here because a lot of people will say that Obama was the great orator or Reagan was the great orator know know much.
Tripp: [00:32:17] But what you're saying is the messaging and the storytelling format in essence that that Trump used was more effective than than what the other two or. Or do they use the same format. In other words did Reagan and Obama use the same format but they didn't run against each other obviously. But but you know it's used in a different way. How would you assess that.
Park: [00:32:45] Yeah that is a great question. And the person the brilliant mind I would point you to to this who I just literally had on my show two weeks ago I was so honored to have him was Jonathan Haidt OK. He's one of America's foremost moral psychologists. He's written three terrific books. The Happiness Hypothesis where they looked at the ancient wisdom of everything from Buddhism to stoicism and they all related into what we know about the brain in this day and age and so this kind of intersection of today's science over what did the ancients know about this and how it comes together so that an interesting person for you if you haven't had him on the show or followed to look into. That's a great first book but a book that I'm referring to now that came out a few years ago is called that he wrote The Righteous Mind Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion and in it he talks about these six moral foundations like safety care sanctity loyalty that we all as human beings tend to lean towards to make sense out of being human and not running around killing each other.
Park: [00:33:57] But in the book he talks about how we approach these same morals from completely different perspectives where the far right will approach say for instance what's the term I'm thinking oh I don't have them right in front of me equality they will approach equality from a completely different standpoint than the left liberal leaning will approach Equality Now the left will say look at we're all human beings and we're all equal so we should all have an equal stab at everything but the right mind says there are equalities based around proportionality. It's gosh is that equality. I'm not sure I've got that exactly right. Jonathan will kill me for it but it will trigger this is it going to.
Tripp: [00:34:47] Be good reason for people listen to that podcast episode and again I put that in the show notes it's about put it link to it.
Park: [00:34:52] Proportionality you know where they look at I've done my fair share fairness that's what it's not equality it's fairness My my apologies fairness the left comes from an equality standpoint look at we're all equal to be fair everybody should have a free shot at everything no matter what the Republicans the far right come at it as fairness as proportionality you earn what you work for. So to be fair why should I give someone a handout when this other person is working their tail off so you can see the tax cut for the upper income earners doesn't fit doesn't sit well on the left because they're like look at everybody should have that tax cut on the far right they're like why should you you know penalize these people just simply because they worked hard and got ahead so they're both coming at fairness for their own reasons they're just coming at them from a completely different polar opposite way it's the stories they tell themselves the stories they grown up in nurtured in a little bit of nature is involved in this but the true expert on this is Jonathan Haidt and I have learned so much. His most recent book he came out with last. Last year I think that last spring is called the Coddling of the American Mind - Why Good ideas and bad intent or bad ideas and good intentions are setting up a generation for failure. And again it comes back to this concept of what we know about the brain and how we tell ourselves stories and in some cases we're telling ourselves the wrong stories and we're setting up people for some really potentially poor outcomes.
Tripp: [00:36:27] You know this is an issue and actually it's actually a good segue here and kind of into my next conversation conversations can be a little more forward looking but as I've studied some of the neuroscience stuff that's out there and we look at organizations and you brought up fairness and that's what kind of triggered in my head. This might be a good time to enter it in. There are five things that if you're an employee of a company that really affect kind of your mental state if you will. And this is one of the things that. I'm trying to get out in this kind of building. How do I build up brain friendly organization. But the five things are basically good faith or fairness as you would say a sense of belonging. You know you have your best friends at work that you work with on a daily basis. Those things get threatened. Layoffs have a tendency to that you have freedom the autonomy associated with the work that you do do it. Do I have a say or is everything kind of dictated to me on a daily basis here.
Tripp: [00:37:39] Here. Here's your process. Just follow the process and then if you get out of order we got a manager is going to come beat you over the head. The other is predictability. You know that there's a certain certainty about what's going on in other words no layoffs are coming. You know don't hide it. You know we're we're in a financial dire straits here associated with it. And actually that kind of feeds back into the fear fairness component because leaders these days don't do well I should. In the US especially where in Japan. If they were gonna have to take cut the first things you cut would be executive salaries you know manager salaries and then they would go to the dividend and then they would go to the employee. We don't quite follow that that that prescription. And then the fifth thing beyond the predictability is is the standing within the organization if you're standing gets compromised in an organization these are all things that can affect your daily output. And so when I'm the question I'm going to ask you Park is how can we utilize you know communication obviously is a big issue with an organization. And I see the storytelling as you know potential fix or certainly part of a fix associated with trying take to keep people and a brain friendly type of an environment.
Tripp: [00:39:12] How might we be able to communicate to employees using storytelling to keep that kind of brain friendly atmosphere with some of the things not only that I just told you which probably are going to be new to you. I expect a you know a detailed answer but but associate with the things that you've learned so far from your interviews and your own consulting work and and so forth. How might we utilize storytelling to help you know in that environment.
Park: [00:39:43] Sure. Great great question. Just think of me right now as that war torn veteran. Just come back from the front of corporate America of teaching and battling and trying to get everybody on the same page moving forward through the use of story. And I'll just share with you what I've experienced so let's just take a quickly in order. What was your very first one belonging.
Tripp: [00:40:10] Well I think though the first when we I started kind of at the bottom of my list doesn't really matter the orders.
Park: [00:40:15] OK.
Tripp: [00:40:15] Is not significant but you mentioned fairness as as part of our conversation. And so fairness is certainly one of them or good faith.
Park: [00:40:24] OK.
Tripp: [00:40:24] And that gets compromised and that's that's you know people they think that they're being underpaid or that you did something unfair to them within an organization. Boom you know that's not that's got to come back.
Park: [00:40:36] Yeah well let's start right there with fairness. OK all right. So what do stories ultimately deliver well told truthful stories deliver trust they've got to be truthful they have been well told. So even if it's bad news if you are hiding behind a fictitious story because you don't want to share the bad news your audience your employees your customers know it. They just sense it innately. So the thing that worked with a story a story delivers the trust truth that creates the trust. So all fairness is going to come out of trusting you and whether it's a positive story or a negative story as long as it's a truthful story. You've got to lead with that. So what do a lot of managers you know hide behind as my good friend Kathy Clossguess says jargon monoxide. They will come in and they'll try to buy a funeral row you know dodging questions and not answering and throwing out numbers and trying to confuse the mind versus sitting down and saying honestly folks this is what's happening. Here's the setup here's where we were. But then this does happen. Therefore we now have to have to do this. And the outcome looks like this and here's how you can be a part of that. So it goes back to basic basic narrative structure and the function of a story a story. Delivers the truth that creates the trust you are not going to develop trust any other way than to develop as a leader using your narrative instincts. All right. The one thing that I've seen out there.
Tripp: [00:42:16] Okay.
Park: [00:42:17] So what's a what was another one.
Tripp: [00:42:18] I'll give you the other ones and you just pick even don't go through it all of them. But OK you bet. There's a there's related ness or belonging within the organization. There is freedom you know autonomy associated with making your own decisions about your work. Predictability about knowing kind of what's up and coming and then they're standing your social standing associated with it.
Park: [00:42:41] Let's just take belonging for a second OK an organization and I hear this a lot from companies that I work with that are mid-market companies that have grown. They've got a terrific business model but they don't have their business or brand story pulled together. One of the angst I get from them is like geez Park we are growing so fast we're adding five or 10 or 15 new people do bodies every month and we don't have a consistent story for them to buy into to align with and to pull in all the same direction. So if a company is missing that narrative and that narrative is basically based off of their origin story why did we start this in the first place. Here's what we make. But more importantly here's what we make happen in the people and the communities we serve. If they don't have that narrative in place how is an employee going to attach their own personal story and their own narrative to the brand's narrative to create that belonging. So what happens quite often is when companies do this and they get their narrative straight and say this is truly and honestly what we're all about and we now evolve from a origin story into a quest journey story here's where we're moving into the future.
Park: [00:43:58] And here's how you can help. Sometimes they get their own employees to vote themselves off the island because they go Wow I guess I guess I'd never thought of it that way. You know what. I'm not really sure I'm the right person to be here. Nor does it really serve my narrative. I think I'm gonna go and do something else which is totally fine because you're doing them and yourself a favor. But more often not you know what happens and not are the people that go Oh my God. This is why I came here in the first place I intuitively knew this was the right place. Now you showed it to me and my own personal story my own personal narrative does meld and weave into the narrative of the greater organization and therefore I feel like I belong stories create that belonging but without a story you just have people out kind of like you know sailing in the night not in a cloudy night at that. Not really sure where they're going they know they're heading in some direction but they have not a clear picture as to where they're going. That's not the case.
Tripp: [00:44:59] That's that was such a fantastic response. Now I'm going to make you go through the other three.
Park: [00:45:04] Alright.
Tripp: [00:45:05] I'm going to put the pressure on you.
Park: [00:45:06] I don't know if you think least least relates to story.
Tripp: [00:45:12] Least that relates the story is I would say probably freedom the personal autonomy associated with your work. I mean nobody really cares about that right.
Park: [00:45:26] Right. OK. And so why. Let's look at that why don't people really care bosses really care about personal autonomy generally because they're operating from fear fear that they've got to make the numbers fear that they don't look like their leader if you're not kowtowing to them fear that they're inept if they don't have a system that you are playing in and they can absolutely measure. So that fear is is simply a story they're telling themselves.
Park: [00:45:54] Autonomy then comes from having a crystal clear vision of what the overall again the brand narrative is is where this organization is going and creating that shared imagined reality. Literally a fiction that you can get your people to buy into through the stories you tell them. But then as the leader having the courage to allow your people to be on that journey on their terms and not your terms and what has been proven out more and more is when you give them that autonomy and then you reward them for their successes through not necessarily even money recognition. It's basically a way of justifying who they are. The journey that they're on and the contribution that their journey and their story is making to the greater whole and being the social animals we are as these storytelling monkeys there is nothing more powerful than commanding and recognizing somebody who's living into their true story but that takes tremendous courage from a leadership standpoint. And that's the kind of thinking that they just simply aren't trained to do. There's been no MBA program that teaches them how to do this. Even a lot of the leadership training is all based on numbers facts stats charts and graphs. When reality more of it should be based on emotion and how do you get people emotionally connected to your story.
Tripp: [00:47:18] That's that's that's interesting. I mean there's there's so much of a parallel I know we we exchange a few e-mails before we got on for this this particular call and this episode and I told you about you know I probably ask you about Deming but there's there's so many things that you have said today and and you admittedly said you know you know you know the name Deming and but not deeply and you know involved in what his philosophy is. But the more I read about neuroscience the more even in psychology and more than even I. You've you've taught me today about storytelling feeds back into this philosophy associated a lot of things you said were very Deming you know as associated with how rewards are looked at even performance appraisals. That was one of the things that Deming railed against was because if it gets rid of the sense of fairness everybody already has a pretty high opinion of themselves and the performance appraisal appraisals have a tendency to lower their opinion and the and the associated neuroscience with that. I think a lot of the neuroscience that are trying to practice with in business are missing the point they're all trying to improve the performance appraisal as opposed to get rid of it.
Tripp: [00:48:41] And I think that that's that's associated too. I find it very fascinating. It's really a deep thinker like yourself has kind of shown me a new light associated with not only Dr. Deming work but your own you know associated with it and I you know I always like to think that things are moving towards some some truths you know that there are certain things that that certainly organizations are not doing that they should be doing and psychology said it to storytelling and emotion has said it.
Tripp: [00:49:16] The neuroscience is now saying it and they still don't do it. And you know it's fascinating to me especially when you're brought up as we were talking about you know the freedom and autonomy that went when a thing obviously Dr. Deming railed against to was was the was the fixture on the dividend you know the quarterly dividend and achieving that target and you know and then everybody has their own targets and it's all about hitting that target and nobody asks about you know how do we get it done and you know it's not about method and Deming was more about you know by what method or you can accomplish that goal but you go out there goal without a method as a wish.
Tripp: [00:49:56] So so it is all associated with this and somehow all of this fits together and getting now bigger stronger pieces especially with the story telling component which I find completely fascinating. Shines a light on how we might be able to get organizations to move where we have people that want to come to work every day you know and enjoy it. And we've all seen the Gallup polls and things about you know people are checked out you know and working within organizations because we're not tapping into them. And I certainly see storytelling as a way of doing that. Well one final question for you Park and I always ask this question Is there anything that you've talked about that maybe you want to give a clarification of. Or is there anything I didn't ask that you wish I would have.
Park: [00:50:46] Oh gosh it's such it's such a big expansive topic and I want to thank you for saying I'm a deep thinker because nobody ever has really suggested that of me I'm a I'm a dot connector to a lot of reading and stuff.
Park: [00:50:59] The one other thing I would look at. Have you or your audiences think about this just as it was a poll that came out that linked Dan promoted about three weeks ago something like that the top five soft skills companies need most in 2019 and this was from a worldwide survey they did. I was really amazed at this was done based on research from LinkedIn learning it said here are the top five things are looking for usually it was the hard skills the engineering skills and the very measurable hard skills but surprisingly enough that's changed to the quote unquote soft skills of creativity persuasion collaboration adaptability and time management.
Park: [00:51:43] And the reason why that is is with A.I. and algorithms and big data and that sort of thing is the hard skills of pulling that together they got like a lot of those folks already. But what they're finding now is this disconnect with connecting with people and getting people back in on this human approach to running businesses. So if you just break down these five very quickly creativity how many times do executives and maybe your listeners are saying well I'm not a very creative person and I would never bring creativity to the office because it's not really wanted there. I'm not a good designer or whatever. Well storytelling is the greatest creativity hack because everybody's a storyteller. You can learn to become a compelling storyteller in your own way. You might not win a moth contest but you could own a room doing it by getting people to lean in. And when you tell a well told truthful story people will automatically see you as being creative. So number one number two persuasion there is no more persuasive tool in the power of a story. Again when was the last time you were bored into buying anything. As Jonathan Haidt said our brain is a story process. It's a story processor not a logic processor. So regardless you will not find any interpersonal skill more powerful at persuasion than being able to tell a story that connects two worlds together.
Park: [00:53:14] Collaboration All stories start with empathy. You first have to have understanding and empathy for your audience that you are trying to connect with. Why are you trying to connect with you want to collaborate with them to do something better something big or metaphorically you bring your two worlds together to make a greater third world well story is the only thing that does that. Understanding and thinking and narrative and story and bringing two stories together for a stronger more powerful third narrative is what storytelling is all about adaptability. From that same understanding and empathy of knowing and appreciating your audience even if they are diametrically opposed to your position creates a more adaptable mind a more nuanced mind.
Park: [00:54:02] I say data proffers knowledge but stories convey wisdom and that's what you're looking for an adaptability knowledge just helps you kind of understand the context but it's wisdom that you can use and exercise that creates that demonstrates your adaptability makes you more adaptable and you only get wisdom through those stories you've experienced and the journeys you're on.
Park: [00:54:26] Finally time management starting with the end button therefore start using this applied science of the And But and Therefore in your emails you cut your email writing by two thirds you will have readers that will actually hug you in the hallway saying thanks. I actually understand what you're talking about now and it took me one fourth of the time to get there and everybody's happy. That's just one little example of how you become better with time management by becoming a better storytelling Teller and using these frameworks. That's why I say with the business of story I'm all about helping you clarify your stories to amplify your impact and ultimately simplify your life.
Tripp: [00:55:08] Very good. And I will put a link in the show notes to. Your Web site and some of the things that that you offer through not only workshops that you do speaking so that's great. What I really.
Park: [00:55:23] So much for having me man I'm glad you reached out this has been a really really fascinating conversation.
Tripp: [00:55:29] Yeah I know. And you know one other thing I have to say is I do the first. Excuse me podcaster that I've interviewed before everybody else has written a book or done something like that and I actually found it a little bit easier to talk to you one I think you're empathetic to doing the podcast since you have to do it on your own. But the second thing I found very useful as as you mentioned things I'm able to then linked back to your podcast to be able to say here listen to this episode and you can tell you'll get more you know volume and I'm all about you know making a bigger pie as opposed to fighting over the one that exists.
Park: [00:56:11] So I appreciate that you know Tripp from doing your own shows that are our shows are really self-indulgent because we get to talk to such amazing people like yourself like the Jonathan Haidt of the world the Dr. Randy Olsen's or the absolute. I have learned so much in the process that now that's all I do is try to share what I've learned and what I've seen work in action in the real world now.
Tripp: [00:56:37] But I bet you're right. I mean and I think that we have a similar personality or whatever. As far as being dot connectors I mean because I read a lot too. I like to to kind of put things together. But it's this person saying how did they get there what's the research on it. You know those types of things that build it so that. Well one last question. I know I said that my last question but what do you what are you reading right now.
Park: [00:57:04] I am literally reading a book my son our son sent me called, The Algorithms to Live By the computer science of human decisions by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths. Now our son Parker is in Hollywood. He's graduated from Chapman University. A lot of the study that I did at my own story work when I said I went to Hollywood yes he was at it. Chapman from 2006 graduated in 2010 and has been in Hollywood ever since as a motion designer and doing a lot more directing now in the virtual reality world. So I asked him I said when you're done with your textbooks at Chapman send them to me since I'm paying for them because I'd like to learn what are they teaching you to be a competitive storyteller and all that can you know the most competitive storytelling land in the world and being L.A. so that's where I started learning this well. He also has this mathematical mind always has been very very good at numbers and algorithms and so he sent me this book for my birthday said here Dad read this book I'm reading it then we can compare notes. So I have had to slowly read through it. But it's really fascinating and I find it's another interesting look at how our mind really represents or reflective of a computer apparatus or maybe I should just flip that the computer apparatuses that we have developed are simply a reflection of the mind that we have been blessed with. And this is a book that explores how those two worlds work very similarly.
Tripp: [00:58:33] Funny thing I read it over Christmas.
Park: [00:58:36] Oh you did.
Tripp: [00:58:37] Yeah I know. I was if my wife got it out of the blue and I thought it was you know it was fascinate but you will get a lot out of it. It is it is a slow read especially as you get into some of the later chapters know how far you're into it but there's a lot to digest there.
Park: [00:58:55] The Copernican Principle just coming up on the OK so that makes me very good.
Tripp: [00:59:01] All right well we thank you for being part of the mind your noodles podcast.
Park: [00:59:08] Well thanks for having me Tripp. The one last thing I leave with all of you to remember is that the most important story you will ever tell is the story you tell yourself so make it a great one. And thanks for having me.
Tripp: [00:59:23] Thank you for being a listener of the mine your noodles podcast. If you'd like to learn more or sign up for our newsletter or upcoming podcasts go to. MindYournoodles.com.