Page 76 - The Power to Change Anything

Change the Way You Change Minds 65

to beat their competitors at their own game. Then it hit them.
Why not work on the Japanese line and see if they could han-
dle the jobs? For the next couple of days they stepped into a
variety of the jobs on the Japanese production line and per-
formed them quite readily. It was work, but nothing they
couldn’t handle (more cheers). And finally the punch line: “If
we take the right steps, we can take our fate back into our own
hands and save our jobs” (raucous applause).
Now employees were ready to listen to the improvement
plan that called for them to work harder. By sharing what had
happened in narrative form, the narrator was able to commu-
nicate that, first, they could do what was required (hadn’t the
task force proven that by working the line?), and second, it
would be worth it (by articulating the consequences of not
working harder, the storyteller helped the audience see that it
would be worth it). By telling a vivid story, he was able to share
these two all-important messages in a way that was understand-
able, credible, and motivating.

Tell the Whole Story

Note that the task force members first tried to influence their
colleagues by short-cutting the story—stripping it of its com-
pelling narrative and leaving out much of the meaning and all
of the emotion. Unaware of the limitations of verbal persuasion,
the eager employees offered up what amounted to a verbal
attack. As human beings, we do this all the time. Even the well-
intended designers of national social programs fail to make the
best use of stories. Not on purpose, of course, but when change
agents attempt to tell a compelling story and inadvertently leave
out key elements of the narrative, they render it impotent.
Consider what happened with the much vaunted program
Scared Straight. As part of this “American success story,” law-
breaking teens were transported to prisons where hardened
criminals shared horror stories about the evils of life in the big