CHAPTER TWO

STORY MASTERY

Leading with Inspiration

Stop for a moment and visualize basketball great Shaquille O’Neal—a monumental professional athlete, 7 feet tall, 300 pounds of muscle, and wearing a billboard-size neon smile—alongside his legendary college coach, Dale Brown—older, past his prime, more than a foot shorter, sagging a bit in the middle, and sporting his own, more diminutive grin. It’s hard not to be amused, isn’t it? They were an odd, comical-looking duo. But despite their superficial contrasts, these two men, player and coach, shared what I think of as an unexpected love story.

I became aware of their sweet, endearing connection and compelling love for each other while I was watching an ESPN documentary. As the story unfolded, it struck me that most couples in romantic relationships do not possess the electricity and loving connection that these two men, mentor and mentee, enjoyed.

It was clear that Dale had become a second father to Shaq during his formative years at Louisiana State University. It wasn’t because Shaq was hungry for someone to be a father to him. As it happens, Shaq had a strong relationship with his biological father. What was stunning to me was Shaq’s great fortune to have not just one but two outstanding “fathers.” The uniqueness of this revealed a hole in my heart and moved me to tears. I found myself wondering what it would have been like to have even one devoted father role model in my early life. How would I be different today? How would I see myself and my life differently? Shaq and Coach Dale’s story revealed a wound in me, a deeply submerged longing for a more emotionally engaged paternal relationship.

But there was another level of resonance to the story. Dale also reminded me of one of my dear mentors and business partners, Sidney Reisberg. Sidney was an older, expressive, Jewish guy from New York City, who could not have been more different from my young, reserved, Scandinavian self. In many ways, he was my Coach Dale. He took me under his tough, loving wing, and with his characteristic intelligence and humor, Sidney changed my life. He helped me strengthen my voice, and he helped fill an emotional gap, for which I will be forever grateful.

Realizing the deep connection in the two stories—Shaq’s and Dale’s, mine and Sidney’s—I watched more of the film. I cried tears of pain and joy, and I understood once again the potential of other people’s stories to inspire our own insight and growth. As one very self-aware CEO reflected toward the end of his career, “I am always amazed how stories multiply human energy. My story catalyzes others, and their stories energize me.”

THE LANGUAGE OF LEADERSHIP

While spreadsheets are the language of management information, stories are the language of leadership inspiration. Stories can activate our deepest, best selves; they are certainly one of the most transformative of all leadership tools. Powerful narratives can bridge the authentic, essential depth of a leader to the complex breadth of strategy, culture, values, and purpose. The best stories are like concentrated, potent mantras that resonate with our shared humanity and enliven our collective aspirations.

Yet despite the nearly universal recognition of their inspirational impact, rarely do we examine and master their effective and affective use in leadership development. If a leader even considers stories as a leadership development device, often it is only for the superficial reason of “storytelling” as a skill. Rarely do we engage in story comprehension and story embodiment to connect self-awareness to service. The essential plot of this chapter is going deep to touch hearts.

Humans are story beings. From cave paintings and oral histories to novels, films, dance, and digital media, we are driven to create, share, and absorb stories. “There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories,” author Ursula K. Le Guin reflected. However, in the crush of our hyperactive world, we have drifted away from our storytelling heritage. We rarely pause to sit “around the fire” together to recount the values-filled stories of the day and to envision what could be.

The late Joseph Campbell was a well-known philosopher and sage and the author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which articulates the “Hero’s Journey,” the basic structure of all inspiring stories about becoming a leader. Campbell would say that we have lost the “power of myth”—not the unreal aspect of myth but the deepest archetypes supporting meaning and purpose that course through the veins of our daily experience and nourish what is enduring, significant, and uniquely human. Anthony de Mello, the spiritual teacher and writer, put it beautifully when he wrote, “The shortest distance between a human being and the truth is a story.” Likewise, the shortest distance between a leader and collective inspiration is a heartfelt story.

This is why I love the provocative and evocative power of documentaries: real stories, real drama, real emotions, real issues, and real dilemmas. As a story medium, documentaries are an artistic form of leadership; they illuminate what is important. The highly awarded filmmaker Ken Burns said, “People seem to coalesce around stories that are transcendent.” Done well, they elevate what makes us uniquely human and heroic. Philip Pullman, who wrote the epic fantasy-adventure trilogy His Dark Materials, captured the essence of story: “After nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”

FROM INFORMATION TO INSPIRATION

Stories elevate the mind and the heart to go beyond what is, to mobilize us and others to reach new possibilities. Annette Simmons, group process consultant, understood this dynamic when she wrote, “People do not want information. They are up to their eyeballs in information. They want faith—faith in you, your goals, your success, in the story you tell.” Science has demonstrated that stories, especially stories that sustain our attention with a narrative arc and some tension, have the unique force to move us intellectually and emotionally at the same time.

In an article, “Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling,” published in Harvard Business Review in 2014, scientist Paul Zak explains that his lab discovered more than a decade ago that the neurochemical oxytocin is necessary for humans to feel safe. Zak says, “It does this by enhancing a sense of empathy.” Our brain produces more of it each time we experience kindness and trust.

More recent research by Zak’s lab explored how to tap into oxytocin in people’s brains to motivate them to engage in cooperative behaviors. Researchers did this by testing people’s blood to measure their oxytocin levels before and after they watched narrative videos. They found that character-driven stories produced more oxytocin, and more oxytocin in the blood was a predictor of how willing people were to help others, for example, by donating to a charity linked to a story they saw. Zak, who specializes in neuroeconomy, concludes that we can leverage stories to engage employees to feel empathy for customer struggles and pleasure at the role they play in resolutions. His research demonstrates that we are attracted to stories in which people overcome challenges and discover new capabilities, like the archetypal Hero’s Journey described by Joseph Campbell.

Zak also suggests that organizations tell their own founding story more often to connect people to what he called “transcendent purpose”—to engage people with the original passion behind the enterprise. He writes: “These are the stories that, repeated over and over, stay core to the organization’s DNA. They provide guidance for daily decision-making as well as the motivation that comes with the conviction that the organization’s work must go on, and needs everyone’s full engagement to make a difference in people’s lives.”

I witnessed this inspiring principle while in Europe to deliver a keynote with Liam Condon, CEO of Bayer Crop Science, and his top 100 leaders. During this program, Liam revealed multiple career stories that aligned and amplified the purpose-driven aspiration of Bayer: “Science for a Better Life.” The authenticity and relevance of Liam’s stories palpably energized the entire room. It was a visible demonstration that stories about purpose trigger oxytocininduced inspiration.

A TALE OF TWO CEOS

A while ago, I was working with two CEOs, who were running two different global enterprises. One had honed his skills as an inspiring leader, and the other one was a more analytical, “only the facts” kind of person. Each was about to roll out his recently refreshed set of organizational values to support the cultural and leadership shifts needed to achieve his strategic goals.

The fact-oriented leader went to the stage and stood before 3,000 associates hopeful to hear a new agenda. They were primed for something new, ready to hear fresh, different, and engaging ideas. The CEO was not ready to satisfy their deep hopes and longings. Thinking that his job was merely to inform, he dryly, rationally listed the five critical values with precision: Value 1 … Value 2 … Value 3 … Value 4 … Value 5 … all supported by a well-crafted PowerPoint projected on a large screen behind him. The group was stunned. A resistant quiet blanketed the room. People moved back from the edges of their seats and leaned into their seatbacks with a disappointed, resigned thud. Doubt filled the room. Where excitement, energy, and engagement should have drawn everyone to the leader and to each other, instead there was disconnection and disillusionment. The underlying buzz was unmistakable. Is this all you have? Do you really care about these so-called values, or are you just mouthing the words from HR? These sound just like the empty values at my last soulless company! Do I really want to attach my career and creative energies to this leader … to this organization?

Sensing the flat response, the CEO tried to rally. “Okay. Let me list these values again.” And again he went through them, one at a time, with analytical precision. As you can imagine, not even a glimmer of inspiration or engagement remained. Instead, cynicism and sarcasm took root, securing a hopeless and draining feeling within most people present. (Likely, many LinkedIn profiles were updated that evening.)

The other CEO, the one with a more developed talent for touching people’s hearts with stories, took a different approach. Yes, he had five core values too, which he listed for everyone with the help of a PowerPoint on a screen behind him. And yes, some of the values were identical to our other CEO’s values. However, instead of reading them off as a list, he took his time, and he told an authentic, real-life story for each one. As he did, the PowerPoint melted into the background, and each of the core values came to life.

To present the first value, he told a moving story of a health crisis experienced by his teenage son and how the trauma of this tough journey made the value real for him. For the second value, he shared the story of a failure that he had faced early in his career and how the experience still keeps him humble, compassionate, and open to learning. He illustrated the third value by sharing a story of a mentor-boss who took a chance on him before he was really ready for a role and its challenges, reminding him that we need to take chances on people and see their potential before they do.

You can imagine the audience perched on the edge of their chairs, absorbed in the authenticity and relevance of the CEO’s inspired messages. Not only did they hear the CEO and feel the realness of the values presented, but the stories also awakened the audience’s own. The CEO had tapped into the collective brain and the collective heart of the organization, and the connection resonated in the room. Oxytocin was pumping through the entire group!

Deep authenticity intersected with profound relevance and brought shared inspiration through the power of stories. Patrick Thomas, CEO of Covestro, the highly successful IPO spin-off of Bayer, is a true believer in the power of stories. Patrick recently shared, “Stories have the unique power to engage the hearts and minds of individuals and to move them as a collective body from the mundane to the meaningful.” Stories move us from intellectually transmitting information to emotionally inspiring transcendence.

THE STORY OF TEAMS

High-performing teams share and tell inspiring stories. For years we have accelerated the intersection of personal, team, and strategic performance by helping team members share stories of their most meaningful personal and career moments. Before coming together as a business team, most teams need to come together as people. Teams need to make a deeper connection. Business context is crucial, but teams also need personal context to build the trust needed for meaningful performance.

In a 2016 Harvard Business Review article, “Teams Who Share Personal Stories Are More Effective,” Francesca Gino, behavioral scientist and professor at Harvard Business School, writes about research findings that demonstrate the power of personal narrative. Gino and her co-researchers, Dan Cable of the London Business School, Julia Lee of the University of Michigan, and Brad Staats of the University of North Carolina, found that the process of sharing “relational self-affirmation” through narrative and stories can heighten team members’ contributions and team outcomes. Through story, team members can more clearly experience their own strengths and more deeply appreciate the contributions of others on their team. These results are worthy of reflection. You might consider the following questions as you and your team seek to elevate performance:

• What brought you to this team, and what keeps you here?

• What are you most passionate about, and how can that show up more on this team?

• Who influenced your leadership the most? How can you better bring that influence to this team?

• What success or failure stories can this team share with the broader organization that will bring to life its values and strategic priorities?

Managers tell a story of past performance by recounting numbers; leaders tell stories of purpose to envision new futures.

NOT ALL STORIES ARE CREATED EQUAL

Some stories work, and some backfire. Why? The best, most inspiring stories catalyze at the crossroads of authenticity and relevance. The following four-box model illustrates this dynamic:

The model illustrates what we’ve all experienced at some time in our lives. The sweet spot of stories is where deep, personal authenticity meets high relevance for others. Great stories operate at the intersection of the authentic “I” and the deeply connected “We.” Pitfalls happen when personal authenticity and/or relevance for others are not sufficiently developed. Jack Stahl, former Chairman and CEO of Revlon and author of Lessons on Leadership, recently shared with me, “The best leaders today are both deeply authentic and highly relevant in all situations. As they maintain the depth of their authenticity, they also flex to serve the relevant needs of the situation and the people involved. They recognize when to engage at the strategic level and when to dive deep into the nitty-gritty.” Great things happen at this intersection of authenticity and relevance.

Take a moment to reflect on when your stories worked or when they did not. Can you remember the feeling of connection, the depth of authenticity, and the relevance to others when a story hit the engaging sweet spot? When stories fell flat, was it lack of personal depth or lack of relevance that tripped you up?

Like all aspects of leadership growth, Story Mastery is a combination of art and science that can be learned, developed, and practiced. It begins from the inside out with finding our own stories. This begins the transformative experience, but its real potential for transformative impact is in connecting people and ideas to something much larger, more important, and more purposeful. This energizes the feedback loop from both the inside out and the outside in.

THE RED THING

In the basement of our family home was something we called “the Red Thing.” The Red Thing was a brightly painted, high wooden bench that happened to be located directly across from where my mother would stand to do the ironing. My sister Karen, my brother Patrick, and I all wanted time on the Red Thing, but it wasn’t really about the Red Thing at all.

What we sought was the sage advice and encouragement of our mother. Because she only allowed one of us at a time on the Red Thing, time there with her was highly coveted. Our mom was an amazing listener, coach, teacher, and facilitator. Although we always wanted her to give us answers, which she did occasionally, more often she taught us how to reflect and build our own awareness by looking at different sides of an issue, situation, person, or group. She helped us to think, to process, and to land on our own clarity. She appreciated each of our unique talents and accomplishments, but she also challenged us to explore, excel, and exceed. She was particularly challenging when we were certain that we knew something or when we were judgmental about people.

I was not aware at the time what she was doing; I was only aware of the benefits of it. I did not realize that she was modeling a process, a way to reflect on yourself and the challenges you face. She had this incredible natural ability to use questions to get us to look at something from different perspectives, to help us better understand who we were, why we were going in a particular direction, and how to consider alternatives. She balanced encouragement with a push for excellence. She was intolerant of a lack of openness. She was a master coach. She ignited a passion in me to help people grow.

What are your “Red Thing” stories, in which mentors or loved ones informed and helped bring out your gifts? What are the “Red Things” that have honed the values and learning in your life? The following short stories of pivotal transformation may inspire your reflection on the most critical times and influences in your life.

SOME SHORT STORIES THAT INSPIRE

No matter how many stories we see on film, read in books, or hear in person, if the story is told with heart and touches universal values, we hear every story as singularly inspiring. Here we offer a couple of clients’ stories, one from a prominent figure in my community, and one of my own to help you reflect on your own stories and explore how they may spark important emotions, memories, values, and influences.

The Book Revolution

Imagine receiving orders from your local government authorities: “You are no longer permitted to work at your profession. You must abandon your home in twenty-four hours and forfeit your possessions. You may take what you will need for basic survival. You are being relocated to a remote village for reeducation. You must learn to survive.” Hard to imagine, isn’t it? But this was the childhood reality for Joanne, an executive client of ours, who endured the later years of the Cultural Revolution in China.

Joanne never knew her grandparents or even saw a photo of them. They were property owners and intellectuals, and because of their positions and accomplishments, they suffered repeated denouncements and persecution in many forms. Her mother’s father was executed, and her father’s father was imprisoned. To minimize risk of more persecution, her parents destroyed all photographs of their beloved parents, who were deeply shamed for their privilege.

The daughter of a professor, Joanne remembers her early years in her family home, with its modern conveniences, and busy life in the city and at the university. She went to school, and her home was filled with books. That all changed when the Chinese government forced her family—her mother, father, sister, and brother—to leave their home and their city life and move to a small village in the mountains.

Joanne’s father had a tough decision to make: what do we take with us? Most families packed up food, clothing, and blankets. Joanne’s father decided to take minimal necessities so that he could carry what he believed was their most valuable possession: books. Merely possessing books was a risk. It could get them killed by government forces, and filling their boxes with books instead of food also meant that they might starve. Undaunted, he held fast to his conviction that their potential long-term nourishment was well worth the risk.

The family trekked under the cover of night to their assigned reeducation village in a mountainous area. Arriving in the deep darkness, they went to sleep, exhausted. When Joanne awoke that night and could not find a light switch to light the way to the bathroom, her mother gently told her, “No, dear. There is no light, no electricity, and no bathroom.” The new darkness of their lives surrounded them. But the books, stacked in the corner, sat latent, ready to illuminate their lives.

Joanne walked each day with her mother to get fuel and water and sometimes to forage for mushrooms and other edible plants for their meals. There was no town and no shops, and the school was very far. It would have been a long, treacherous walk back and forth for her each day. So, what did she do? When she was not helping her family survive, she read. Her father’s books became her passion, her nourishment, and her life.

After a few years, the Chinese government eased some restrictions. Joanne’s family was allowed to return to the city. However, the associated stigma and shame of her grandparents continued to limit Joanne’s choices, even after Mao’s death. She could apply to college, but only to certain ones. After all this time out of school, would she pass the entrance exam, or was she too far behind her peers? Amazingly, she scored way beyond her grade level. Her father’s “book revolution” had paid off.

Joanne entered college, studied medicine, and later was accepted into a fellowship program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. This opportunity opened Joanne’s eyes and was the critical beginning of her leadership journey. What would have happened if they had not taken those books with them on that long trek to the mountains? Would Joanne still be living in a small village with her childhood friends? Instead of saving lives as a medical researcher in a global company, would she be merely surviving and wondering what might have been if she had finished school?

Commenting on her story, Joanne reflected, “The vision, values, and courage of my father remind me daily what true leadership is: maintaining your dignity; staying true to yourself and what is important; caring for others at great personal risk; and courageously challenging authority when your deepest values are at stake. I know deep in my heart why I am so passionate as a leader about learning and helping others grow. It literally saves lives and creates unimaginable future opportunities. It is core to me and why I lead. It is my continuing leadership revolution.”

The following emotional story was shared with me by Diana Pierce, the iconic broadcast journalist and news anchor of KARE 11 News, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Deeper Voice Within

When people ask me what my favorite story has been through my thirty-plus years of being a broadcaster, I tell them about Joe Dilts. In 1998 I met Joe, who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). It’s a disease that progressively weakens a person’s muscles and strips away their physical abilities. There is no cure. Joe and his wife Linda graciously agreed to let our cameras document their lives for over a year.

Until age thirty-five, Joe Dilts was a regular “Joe,” a mechanic with the Metropolitan Transit Authority. But dropping wrenches and stumbling on the job led to a doctor’s visit and the diagnosis. Within two years, the hideous disease robbed Joe of his ability to walk. Then, he couldn’t hug his children anymore. The disease even took away his voice. However, Joe found a new voice via a computer. The camera caught Joe’s great patience as he moved his cursor around, slowly tapping out words and sentences with just a slight head movement. Then with a simple click, his computerized voice would fill the room. When I asked him what he wanted people to know about his daily life, he answered that he wanted people, especially his friends, to know he was still here. Even though his body was failing him in every way, his mind was still sharp and he still wanted his thoughts to be known. His computer voice replied, “Imagine if your hands, feet, and mouth were duct taped. But you can still hear and think for yourself. That’s how it is.” He continued, saying he was sad that when friends stopped by to say “Hello,” they didn’t wait long enough for his computer responses, and instead of talking to him directly about football or hockey, they would talk directly to his wife and ignore him, “as if I am just a green plant in the corner of the room.”

That was a stunning revelation for me as a broadcaster, as I reflected on how hurt and angry I would feel if friends and family stopped talking to me and started talking around me as if I didn’t exist. What Joe showed me was a different type of strength and tenacity in his desire to be heard, recognized, and validated even though his means and method of talking had changed. His honesty also reminded me of why I became a broadcast journalist: to light people’s stories up to educate and inspire.

The Gift of Life in a Year of Struggle

We’ve all had those days when it feels like everything is happening at once, and it would take nothing less than a miracle to get out from under the crushing burden of crisis. Only it wasn’t a day or even a week or a month for Brian and his family. It was a year of relentless, life-or-death health crises, requiring more courage, strength, and fortitude than any of them had ever mustered.

The year was 1994. Brian was twenty-eight years old. His career was taking off. In January, he and his wife, Kathy, learned that they were pregnant. Good news, right? They were happy. When they learned a few weeks later that they were pregnant with twins, they were in shock and a little intimidated, but thrilled. Twins! Wow! It took them a little while to wrap their heads around it, but they’d be ready.

In March, Brian’s brother became ill with a kidney disease. Dialysis wasn’t working. Brian saw clearly that his brother needed a transplant, and Brian was a 100 percent match. Despite his brother’s persistent objections, Brian was determined to be the donor and give his brother one of his kidneys. Fibbing a little, Brian assured his brother that he knew what he was doing. One thing Brian did know was that a 100 percent match kidney from your brother had a higher rate of success than a cadaver kidney. For Brian, it was a no-brainer. But with twins on the way, time was an issue. They coordinated calendars and decided to do the surgery in June. When June came along, Brian was confident that it would all work out.

However, life sometimes throws very unexpected curve balls. The night before Brian was supposed to fly to New York for a couple of days of pre-op and then the surgery, Kathy’s mother had a stroke and died. This was totally out of the blue, and Brian wanted to be with his wife, so he changed his flight plans and the scheduled pre-op work. He would figure out a way to do that out of town, which he did. In between the funeral and being with family, Brian ran to the hospital for blood tests, drove to the only place that would ship blood at the time, and somehow, he got it all done. He flew into New York in time for the kidney transplant. Whew! The surgery went well, but Brian had underestimated the physical impact of the surgery on himself. The sixteen-inch incision from belly to spine and the removal of a couple of ribs to get at his kidney had him down for the count. He wasn’t mobile for four weeks and couldn’t return to work for six.

By early September, Brian was recovered and home when his company offered him a new role: a good one, but it required moving to Maryland. Brian and Kathy decided to go on a surveillance trip to check things out and go house hunting. They wanted to have things set up so that they could have the babies and then move soon after. The doctor reassured them that she could fly: No worries. She had ten more weeks. Plenty of time. On September 16, they flew, checked into their hotel, and went to sleep.

First thing in the morning, another curve ball came flying. Kathy’s water broke. She was in labor. With the little information they had, they got in the car and headed to a recommended hospital. Their twins were born an hour later after an emergency C-section at twenty-nine weeks. At two and a half pounds each, the girls weren’t much bigger than your hand. Their hearts were developed, but their lungs were not, so they had to be in intensive care, where their parents went every day, taking turns holding their babies and supporting each other. Calls came in the middle of the night for emergency procedures, and Brian would need to go in to sign releases. Kathy was understandably struggling under the stress of having premature twins, being in a strange city, and not knowing anyone. Who wouldn’t feel overwhelmed!

When the girls finally came home from the hospital, they were six weeks old and four pounds each. They had to have two ounces of milk every two hours. No matter how long it took them to get those two ounces down, Brian and Kathy had to do it. Brian went back to work, and for weeks he and Kathy slept and fed the girls in shifts until each one attained a weight that ensured survival.

This year-long experience goes to the depth of who Brian is as a leader, husband, father, son, brother, and friend. At some point after that critical year, something shifted in Brian. He stopped focusing on success and instead focused on the significance of “being a great leader and father.” To him this meant knowing yourself, being yourself, and living your values and what you stand for all the time, in every situation of his life. This realization freed him to be more candid and open with people, a trait that has drawn people to him and inspired trust and collaboration. The experience also instilled a deeper confidence in him that has enhanced his leadership influence.

Brian’s leadership is grounded in the learning that emerged from that crazy year. That kidney he gave his brother twenty-two years ago? It’s still going strong. His twins? They are happy, healthy young women who are thriving. And there isn’t a day that Brian isn’t clear that his courage, confidence, and willingness to push the boundaries is based on the battles of that year and the hard-fought gift of life. By the way, Brian is now CEO of a $10 billion global organization.

The Compassionate Thing

My telephone rang at 2:00 a.m.—rarely a good sign. Startled, I wondered who it was and what bad news awaited me. Sitting up in bed, I reached for the phone. Putting it up to my ear, I heard my mother’s shaken voice saying, “There’s been a terrible accident. Your father is unconscious. He’s in intensive care. Kevin, you have to go to the hospital.”

I reacted, “No way. I’m not going.” I’m not proud of my response, but it was honest. It was the way I felt. I knew that my mother couldn’t handle going either. She and my dad had been separated for some years.

She insisted. “This is your father, Kevin. You have to go.”

Grudgingly, I pulled on my clothes and drove to North Memorial Hospital. The entire drive I held onto my resentment, resisting what awaited me. When I walked into intensive care and saw him—bruised, bloody, unconscious, vulnerable, and attached to a web of cords and devices— unexpectedly, I felt something different. Resentment, at least partially, fell away. My mind said, “No,” but my heart was surprisingly saying, “Yes.” In this conflicted state, I moved forward and held his cool hand. As I did so, I remembered his familiar smell and our common DNA. While he was not a great father, I understood that he was my father. His story and mine were intertwined.

I stayed as long as I could and returned the next day, and the day after that. Every day I held his hand, talked to him about anything that I could think of and hoped that he would either make his way back or have a peaceful transition, whichever he preferred. This routine continued daily for six months, until one day, as I was dozing off, he squeezed my hand twice. He was back, and we were both shocked.

Over the next couple of months, I continued to be there for him, and eventually I became my father’s guardian. I was twenty-three years old, and I cared for him for the next twenty-three years. Let’s take a pause here for a moment. This is not a simple story of growth and reconciliation. It is far from that. I was very conflicted. At times, yes, I was compassionate. But other times, I resisted. Resentment reared up, and I wasn’t ready to let go of the past. I particularly did not want to be the father to the father I felt I never had. Occasionally, I found myself shouting inside my head and heart, “Why am I now responsible for him?!”

Slowly, things changed. Very gradually I began to release my child-desperate longing for an idealized father, who had never been there in the first place. As I did, something new and liberating emerged. I began to see my father as a person, not as a parent. I began to see and appreciate his story, his difficult childhood, and how he did the best he could with what he had. I was growing up fast, and he was giving me this gift.

As I began to see his whole story in a more objective, mature way, I started to see more of his whole person, too. Memories of his humor, energy, and zest for living started to counterbalance some of the darker, previously dominant ghosts. I more clearly saw the pluses and minuses of both parents. As my image of him became more whole, I became more whole, too. Was the father I thought I never had actually the one giving me the growth experience I really needed?

While there were innumerable challenges along the way, our story culminated on the day before he passed away. After years of caring for him with little appreciation in return, I was shocked when I came to see him that day. As I entered his room, he immediately came to life. His eyes opened wide with excitement. He reached lovingly for me with his remaining strength, and he smiled as though the most important person in his world had just entered the room. It was an amazing, emotional, unexpected, and heart-healing moment. Had I become the most important person in his life? Possibly. It had never entered my mind that I might be. But his whole being said so, and it filled the deep hole in my heart, which I had forgotten was even there. Who would have imagined that the person I struggled with the most in life was the one who would show up in the end to be the appreciative father I had always sought?

To this day, I still marvel at the power of loving versus being loved and serving versus being served. “The Compassionate Thing” may be the only thing that gives real transformation a chance.

Now let’s bring to the surface your most powerful, formative stories by creating your StoryLine.

SIX PRACTICES FOR INSPIRING STORIES

Story Mastery requires a continual process of acquiring, collecting, refining, and expressing narratives that move you and others to greater aspiration. Consider these practices as you work on this transformative skill:

• Story Mastery Practice One: Dig Deep

Stories elevate souls by shaking off the dust of daily living and revealing the interwoven fabric of traumas, values, privileges, losses, and learnings. Like an archaeologist exploring our personal and professional pasts, we need to excavate and discover our most formative, impactful, value-creating stories. The StoryLine Reflection Exercise available at CashmanLeadership.com is designed precisely for this purpose. It is one of the most important exercises in this entire book because it helps us connect to our whole selves: to our courage and our achievements; to our humility and our failures; to our most important opportunities for learning and our greatest influences; and to our vulnerabilities and our heartfelt values.

• Story Mastery Practice Two: Create a Collection of Stories

As a leader, if you say something is important or valued, then what are your stories that illustrate, demonstrate, and inspire people in that direction? An important leadership development practice is to begin to archive your stories that correlate with your most deeply held beliefs, values, and leadership principles. Having a large collection of stories will allow you to easily access the most relevant in a given situation. Become the curator of your ever-expanding story collection.

• Story Mastery Practice Three: Practice Your Stories

Knowing your story well and understanding its compelling meaning takes practice. Write your stories down. Practice them aloud. Feel the emotional impact as you share them. Have the courage to let your emotion surface as you speak, instead of pushing it down. If you get a little “shaky,” that is a positive sign. You are exercising your emotional muscles. The journey to inspiring others begins with the practice of self-inspiration.

• Story Mastery Practice Four: Find the Stories around You

Start to notice when a story moves you. It may come to you from a movie, book, news report, friend, colleague, situation that you witness, or innumerable other sources. Here is the key: do not let the inspiration pass without a moment of reflection. Ask yourself: Why is this story moving me? What stories, challenges, gifts, influences, or mentors is this story reminding me of? What is this story telling me about what is absent from my life? Pause and capture your story to strengthen your self-awareness and authenticity. Then ask yourself: Can this story serve others? Do I have the courage to share it? In what circumstances might I share it to illustrate deeper learning, challenges, or values? Stories are all around us and within us.

• Story Mastery Practice Five: Remember Relevance

Always keep in mind that the stories are for the purpose of inspiring others. They are not about you; they are about the deeper human challenges, struggles, and blessings that we all share. Stories are about aligning and experiencing important, compelling topics together. They are not about you and your performance. Stories are the language of leadership: authentic and courageous influence that creates enduring value.

• Story Mastery Practice Six: Observe and Learn from the Vulnerability in Great Stories

Notice how stories inspire you. What was it about the delivery that contributed to the relevance to you? What was the learning or message that touched you? How might you authentically model this? Our vulnerability is usually not so easy to confront or share. Brené Brown explains it this way: “The difficult thing is that vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I’m willing to show you. In you it’s courage and daring. In me it’s weakness.” But as writer Chris Jami beautifully expressed, “To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.”
Like with all new skills, you may feel a bit clumsy at first in your storytelling. However, even stumbling a little can deepen the authenticity and draw people closer. Your initial awkwardness reveals a vulnerability that is very compelling and attractive to others, as counterintuitive as this may feel to you. Listeners see your humanness and make an empathic connection. When we can point out the places we have stumbled along the way, we demonstrate legs made strong by the stress of authentic living.

FIVE SHADOWS OF DESTRUCTIVE STORIES

Storyteller beware! Stories can also cast a negative shadow on the leader, team, or organization. Because of their immense influencing power, stories can be used for harmful purposes or destructive ends. Derek Thompson, author of Hit Makers and senior editor for Atlantic magazine, says, “Stories are weapons for good or ill.” Here are some of the signs to watch out for in yourself and others:

• Destructive Story One: Stories That Exclude

Throughout history, there have been stories that diminish, demonize, or discount people as individuals and as entire groups. This type of storytelling can serve the leader and activate pride and exclusivity for the individual listener and a specific audience in the short term. However, we all know the long-term damage this creates for the excluded groups, as well as for the group that uses these stories to leverage negative, self-interested, fear-based power. It is a type of “authenticity” that does not create enduring value. These stories are dangerous because they work and because, in the long run, they threaten us all.

• Destructive Story Two: Stories That Tell One Way of Being, Behaving, or Seeing the World

Stories that reinforce the idea that “we have the answer, the one right answer, and they do not,” tend to create artificial boundaries and attempt to limit our heritage as a learning, evolving, and innovating species. Some of our traditional stories are wonderful reminders of the life-enriching values that we want to sustain. However, our emerging stories may be the most compelling and significant. These stories capture the nuances of life’s complexities and possibilities. Be wary of stories that claim to hold “THE ONLY ANSWER.” Under the guise of inspiration, they are often master manipulations.

• Destructive Story Three: Stories Designed to Make Us Look Good

We have all experienced a story whose intention is to make the teller look good in the eyes of others. This person wants to be seen as the hero at the center of the story. This narcissistic use of stories may benefit the image of the leader in the short run, but more often it diminishes credibility and followership for both the short term and the long term. Stories designed to impress are typically not very impressive.
In general, stories in which you, the teller, are central are best if they are stories about learning or stories about overcoming tough circumstances. They may be challenging or self-deprecating stories that illustrate how others helped you. Stories crafted with you as the learner and someone else as the hero tend to be the most engaging and relevant to others. Remember, oxytocin flows when we share stories of character or overcoming difficulties.

• Destructive Story Four: Stories That Are Emotionally Detached

When stories move us, they often move others. Stories that are told with emotional detachment separate us from the audience, and rightfully so, because they call into question our authenticity and motives. If you cannot feel the passion, feel the message, and feel the learning, do not tell the story, because it will cast a shadow on you and the audience. People will doubt your authenticity, because you are not present emotionally. A very wise CEO shared with me that “People have an instinctive, uncanny ability to sense real emotion and authenticity. Therefore, it is up to us to lead—to go first into vulnerability and genuine openness.”

• Destructive Story Five: Stories That Misrepresent

Research shows that all humans lie. It’s part of our humanness. One of the first steps to authenticity is to admit our lack of it from time to time, especially with loved ones, team members, and customers. Being courageous enough to admit this lack of authenticity may be extremely painful and trust breaking, but if genuine, it can rebuild connections and even deepen them in the long run. Self-awareness is critical here. Stories that misrepresent may have some immediate gain or avoid pain in the short run, but they can create massive harm in the long run.
Nearly all of us share painful stories of losing trust through misrepresentation. It is one of the most traumatic lessons on both sides of the exchange. There are few things that I know for sure, but deep pain has taught me that these stories are never worth it in the long run. “If you want to be successful, you must respect one rule: Never lie to yourself,” reflects Brazilian writer Paul Coelho. The journey to authenticity begins by turning away from the lies we tell others and culminates with an even tougher climb to character, which involves the cessation of lies we tell to ourselves.

Powerful stories can either create or destroy tremendous value; make sure that your stories inspire at the intersection of self-awareness and service.

STORIES FROM THE INSIDE OUT

Stories shape our identity, values, beliefs, behaviors, and how we influence others. Sometimes we are aware of the influence our stories have on us, and sometimes we are not. Fortunately, stories have a process and a structure. We can become aware of our stories, allowing us to study, practice, and refine them. We can understand them in the same way that we understand where our blue eyes, black hair, and personality originated. Research in epigenetics suggests that traumatic experiences from one generation can be passed on, through unique DNA expression, to the next generation. In this way, you could say that stories are even part of our physiological makeup. They are an intrinsic part of the fabric of our lives, part of the intimate dynamics that have formed us at our core. The more we access and comprehend our own stories, the more we can use them to accelerate the growth and inspiration of others.

Story Mastery includes a five-step process for developing this skill.

Step One: Know Your Story. The journey to self-awareness and greater leadership impact begins here. Without this first reflective step, there is no point in going further.

Step Two: Reframe Your Story by examining whether your interpretation or internalization of the story still serves you and others. Ask yourself if this narrative and belief system, which was appropriate in the past, is still relevant today. Does it need to be reframed to serve you and others in new, meaningful ways? Is the story a lie that needs to be discarded? The story we tell ourselves about our life experiences reveals the essential patterns we must bring to self-awareness in order to move from personal mythology to personal authenticity. This is the journey through our belief systems.

Step Three: Be Your Story. This is the journey to authenticity. Knowing your story is great, but if you do not embody the story, or at least attempt to be it, your voice will be superficial.

Step Four: Express Your Story. This is the journey to inspiration, when you work on powerful, relevant ways to share your stories.

Step Five: Discover the Plot. This is the journey to purpose, in which we surface the meaningful themes that have been running through our life.

The following diagram illustrates the critical process of generating stories from the inside out:

FOUR PRINCIPLES OF STORY MASTERY

Keep these principles in mind as you begin to master this new vocabulary for leadership activation:

1. Know Your Story: Your most potent, energizing, and engaging stories reside in your life story. In a conversation with John Maxwell, speaker and author of Intentional Living and many other books, he shared the story of a precious gift his executive assistant gave him many years ago. It was a book entitled The Greatest Story Ever Told. She waited and watched while John opened the book and paged through it, only to find that every page was blank. When he looked up at her with a confused look, she told him, “You write it. Be the author of your own incredible story.” That was the inspiration for his first book.

Dedicate yourself to knowing your story, understanding the ups and downs that formed you, and creating a masterpiece of living and leading. As Joseph Campbell counseled, “If you are going to have a story, have a big story or none at all.”

Stories from the Inside Out

2. Practice Stories: When learning a language, knowing the vocabulary and grammar is not enough. We have to practice it aloud, speak it at every opportunity. Stories are the same. They become more powerful and impactful the more we actually tell them. Start practicing by reciting your stories to yourself. Ensure that you feel the story and see yourself in it, but not as the central focus. Make sure it is not about you but about the challenges, learning, and values that were revealed. In personal or family environs, practice your stories as memories that everyone can relate to. In a business or team situation, practice telling stories of appreciation for your colleagues and the value that they bring. At larger gatherings, see if you can reveal aspects of yourself that illustrate your real challenges, values, learnings, influences, or passions. Opportunities to practice are everywhere. Build your story muscle with small, private repetitions, and over time, build to even stronger, weightier inspiration.

3. Find the Intersection of Authenticity and Relevance:

At this sweet spot, you—the storyteller—and your listeners experience the lessons, emotions, and connective energy all at the same time. It is a moment of elevation and fullness, when time seems to stand still, and we share the resonance. In certain keynote speeches, I can feel an audience hold its collective breath and get deeply still and quiet because the experience is so completely shared. No distractions break the silence. Aspire for this fulfilling intersection of authenticity and relevance to hopefully generate experiences of shared inspiration.

4. Find Purpose: Invest the time to discover the deeper themes of your life stories. Ask yourself: What are the key learnings? What values do I know for sure? What gifts do I seem to bring in most situations? What are the gifts that others have inspired in me?

Our lives are like well-crafted novels, rich with traumas, blessings, surprises, and significance. However, rarely do we pause to discover the plot. The story of our life is not merely a recounting of what has happened to us but rather a deep distillation of the most meaningful themes connecting the highs and lows of our life. Continually examining our life story gets us ever closer to our reason for being and contribution, which is the subject of our next chapter: Purpose Mastery.