Paul Smith is a keynote speaker, corporate trainer, and author of Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives that Captivate, Convince, and Inspire (AMACOM August, 2012). Whether it’s the CEO’s speech to the board of directors, or the hallway conversation with your boss, his conclusion is this: the difference is storytelling. Great leaders do it well. Mediocre ones don’t. Paul’s training courses show you how, and provide a set of brilliant stories to start your collection. As Director of Consumer & Communications Research at Procter & Gamble, Paul has spent a career observing and researching what it takes to connect with, inspire, and motivate a change in human behavior — in other words, leadership.

In his two decades of experience at Procter & Gamble and Andersen Consulting, Paul has served in leadership positions in several multi-billion dollar business units, manufacturing plants, consulting roles, and sales teams working directly with global retailers including Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and Costco. He is also a highly rated leadership and communications trainer for P&G’s management training colleges. In addition to teaching leadership by storytelling, his external training experience includes a partnership with Chip & Dan Heath, authors of the New York Times best-selling book, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, where he created their first licensed training program. Paul holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

* * *

Morris: Before discussing Lead with a Story, a few general questions. First, who has had the greatest influence on your personal growth? How so?

Smith: My grandfather was short on words, but tall in deeds, and long on wisdom. He taught me a lot with his acts and witticisms. I learned from jewels he would drop into a conversation like “No man ever gained an ounce of wisdom while talking” or when starting my first job and he advised, “Don’t be the last to arrive in the morning, or the first to leave at 5 pm.”

I learned generosity from him even though I didn’t know what it was at the time. I thought every kid got their monthly allowance from their grandfather. And it didn’t strike me as strange that when the kid at the end of the block needed surgery, that my grandfather paid for it. That’s just what he did, even though he wasn’t a wealthy man. I’d like to think those early impressions made me at least half the man he was.

Morris: The greatest impact on your professional development? How so?

Smith: Today Sara Mathew is the CEO of Dun & Bradstreet. But twelve years ago she was Vice President of Finance at Procter & Gamble, and my boss at the time. Early in my assignment reporting to Sara, she gave me an exciting assignment for a newly promoted mid-level manager. She arranged for me to have 30 minutes with the President and leadership team to make a recommendation on how to shape our strategy over the next 5 years. In preparation, she handed me a book (The Profit Zone, by Adrian Slywotsky), and told me to read it. “See if it gives you any ideas,” she said. That’s all the direction she gave me. It turned out, that’s all I needed.

The ideas in the book lead me to making a set of recommendations that had the biggest strategic impact on P&G I’d made in the 8 years prior, or have made in the 12 years since. Until the publication of my book, I considered it my single biggest professional accomplishment.

Here’s what I learned. Even though I’d completed my MBA eight years prior, Sara showed me that just because I was out of school, I wasn’t done learning. Professional development should never stop. I believe every professional should read at least one book a year to build their own skills. It just might lead to your biggest success.

Morris: What do you know now about the business world that you wish you knew when you went to work full-time for the first time? Why?

Smith: I wish it hadn’t taken me 15 years to figure out stories were such an effective leadership vehicle. I would have made a point to remember more of them!

Morris: From which non- business book have you learned the most valuable lessons about business? Please explain.

Smith: The Power of Logical Thinking, by Marilyn Vos Savant, raised my awareness to the most common mental errors people make in decision-making. What often seems to be straightforward common sense, often turns out not to be.

The most entertaining example I recall is the classic “Monty Hall” paradox, named after the game show host of Let’s Make a Deal. Monty would ask players to choose one of three curtains, each of which concealed a prize they could take home. Behind one curtain was a new car. The other two had goats behind them. After the player chose one curtain, Monty pulled open one of the other two curtains, which always revealed one of the goats. (Monty knew what was behind each curtain). Then he asked the player “Do you want to change your selection to the other curtain?”

Rarely did anyone switch. After all, there were two curtains left, so the odds were exactly 50/50 to win the car, right? Why change your answer? It turns out, however, the odds are not 50/50. Marilyn explains that the odds for your original curtain are still 33%, as they were when you originally picked among all three. But the odds the car is behind the other remaining closed curtain is now 67%, the sum of both other curtains combined. A player that switches their answer has double the odds of winning the car—always. It’s completely counterintuitive. But she’s right. If you want to know why, email me and I’ll explain. Or, better yet, read her book. You’ll finish much smarter than you started.

Morris: Here are several of my favorite quotations to which I ask you to respond. First, from Lao-Tzu’s Tao Te Ching:

“Learn from the people
Plan with the people
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know
Of the best leaders
When the task is accomplished
The people will remark
We have done it ourselves.”

Smith: One of the most effective story types I discuss in my book is the “Discovery Story.” When you have a great idea to share with people who need to do something to make your idea a reality (like your boss that has to approve the funding, or the banking committee that needs to approve your business loan), tell them the story of the events that lead up to you stumbling on your brilliant idea. Give them all the information you had at the time. They’ll probably come to the same conclusion you did. All of a sudden, you’ve turned your idea into their idea. And most people are much more willing to approve their own ideas than yours.

Morris: Next, from Voltaire: “Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.”

Smith: I would much rather have one of my direct reports respond to a question by saying, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” than blather on in a vain attempt to hide their lack of understanding. Wouldn’t you?

Morris: Of course. And now, finally, from Peter Drucker: “There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.”

Smith: I’m often asked by junior managers what the difference is between a good researcher and a great one. My answer usually surprises them, because it has nothing to do with their mastery of research techniques. I tell them a good researcher can design and execute flawlessly the research they’re asked to conduct. Better researchers design and execute the research that may not have been requested, but that will best answer the business question the research was commissioned to answer. The best researcher, however, will make sure the right business question is being asked in the first place. The best researcher, in other words, understands the business well enough to guide its leaders to ask the most productive questions.

Morris: Here’s a brief excerpt from Paul Schoemaker’s latest book, Brilliant Mistakes: “The key question companies need to address is not ‘Should we make mistakes?’ but rather ‘Which mistakes should we make in order to test our deeply held assumptions?'” Your response?

Smith: Brilliant! Durk Jager, former CEO of P&G, was fond of saying we should “Make a little. Sell a little. Learn a lot. Fail cheap.” In other words, instead of spending time ruminating about exactly what kind of shampoo or detergent consumers want, just make some and start selling it. If nobody buys a second time, it wasn’t good enough. Make some changes and try again. We’ll learn more from those cheap little failures than we will from well-planned, expensive, huge ones.

Morris: The greatest leaders throughout history (with rare exception) were great storytellers. What do you make of that?

Smith: It’s certainly no coincidence. Storytelling was the primary means of communication even before the written word was invented. Without writing, humans had to rely on their memory to keep their ideas and history alive. They learned that imbedding that history in the rhythm of a song or the plot of a story helped people remember them.

Even from ancient times, those that could remember the past (with its successes and failures) were the best able to recommend a wise course of action for the future. In other words, those were the best leaders. As a result, the best storytellers naturally became the tribal leaders. The Celtics had their bards and Druids, Scandanavians had their Norsemen, Islamic countries had Sufi masters and dervishes, and Mongolians followed every word of their shamans, all examples of storyteller-leaders.

Morris: Most change initiatives either fail or fall far short of original (perhaps unrealistic) expectations. More often than not, resistance is cultural in nature, the result of what James O’Toole so aptly characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom.”

Here’s my question: How best to avoid or overcome such resistance?

Smith: People aren’t really afraid of change. They’re afraid of not being prepared for the change. That’s a BIG difference. Once people realize it’s their preparedness that is the concern (not the change itself) they become highly motivated to learn what they need to learn to be prepared for the change. And once leadership understands that critical point, they become highly motivated to provide the coaching and training necessary for the organization to deal with change.

Morris: In recent years, there has been criticism, sometimes severe criticism of M.B.A. programs, even those offered by the most prestigious business schools. In your opinion, in which area is there the great need for immediate improvement? Any suggestions?

Smith: You’ll not be surprised that I think storytelling is the most critically underdeveloped leadership skill, and one palpably missing in most business school curriculums today. A few forward thinking universities have started, like Notre Dame and DePaul for example. But it’s still far from mainstream. One of my goals is to change that.

Morris: Now please shift your attention to Lead with a Story. When and why did you decide to write it?

Smith: I had an epiphany one May afternoon in 2006. I was sitting in a convention center auditorium in Cincinnati, Ohio surrounded by five hundred coworkers. A senior executive was on stage, attempting to enroll us in our new plans and goals for the coming year. It was aweful! People were literally falling asleep at their tables.

And it was my fault.

As part of the division’s leadership team, I helped develop the strategies being deployed, and I helped write the overall message.

I thought, “There has to be a better way.” Why should one of the largest advertisers in the world, with some of the most brilliant marketing minds on the planet, struggle so much trying to communicate our own strategies to our own employees? It wasn’t always like this. Most such deployments were much more effective—some even inspirational. What was so different about this one?

After some reflection on previous events, it occurred to me. Strong leadership moments almost always involved a story. It was the stories that engaged the audience in a way logic and bullet points could not. Stories connected the people to the company, gave the audience a reason to believe the strategies would work, created passion for the mission, and inspired commitment to the goals. In this meeting, we didn’t have any stories.

Intrigued with the idea of storytelling as a serious leadership tool, I set out to learn everything I could about it. In addition to reading just about every book published on the topic in the last two decades, I spent a year interviewing over 75 CEOs and executives in 50+ organizations and in 13 countries around the world.

I wanted a book to teach me not only how to craft great stories, but that would give me ready-to-tell stories I could use whenever the situation required. Like the useful stories my grandfather would tell me as a youth, I wanted to have wisdom stories from lots of business leaders at my disposal. It turns out nobody had written that book. So I decided to write it myself.

Morris: Were there any head-snapping revelations while writing it? Please explain.

Smith: While conducting the research for the book, I expected to find storytelling used in 5 or 6 different leadership challenges—the same 5-6 areas most other books on business narratives discuss.

What I found surprised me. It turns out storytelling can be used in dozens of tough situations leaders face every day, often making the difference between mediocre results and phenomenal success. When I got to 21 different leadership challenges, my editor had to tell me to stop! I’m certain there are many more. We’ve just begun to scratch the surface.

Morris: To what extent (if any) does the book in final form differ significantly from what you originally envisioned?

Smith: 
 I didn’t think someone like me would have the resources, contacts, persuasiveness or time to identify dozens of senior executives and convince them to be interviewed for a book. I thought only academics with a light teaching load and a job requirement to publish were able to do that. In fact, I was so convinced of that, I had intended to write my entire book based only on my own personal experiences, plus the secondary research I was able to review in already-published literature.

My publisher convinced me my book would be much better based on original interviews, and that I could do it. They were right on both counts. And it was easier than I thought. Here’s why: Imagine you’re a senior executive at a prestigious company, and you get a phone call from a guy who says he’s under contract with the American Management Association to write a book about leadership. He’s looking for strong leaders at successful companies to feature in the book, and wants to know if you’d be willing to spend an hour on the phone with him. Would you say yes? Of course you would! Who wouldn’t? Hardly anyone it turns out. 93% of the executives I asked for an interview granted me one—including the very-busy CEOs of some of the biggest companies in the world. It was that easy. I just had to ask.

Morris: In the Introduction, you observe, “Experience is the best teacher. A compelling story is a close second.” Please explain.

Smith: Any child that burns their hand on a hot stove learns quickly to avoid touching the stove. That experience is a more effective teacher, I’m sure you’ll agree, than any number of warnings from the child’s parents. The burned finger is more memorable, painful, and emotional than the words of admonition.

But tell a child a story about when you were a kid and burned your finger on the stove, and how bad it hurt, the redness and swelling that ensued, the bandages that had to be painfully changed once a day by your mother to avoid infection, and how you couldn’t play in your team’s last soccer game of the season because of it. You’ll have just introduced mental images and memories that carry the same pain and emotion as if they had actually burned their own finger. Experience is best. Story is second. And everything else is a distant third.

Morris: You then claim, and I agree, that your book “extends the usefulness of storytelling to a much wider range of leadership challenges.” For example?

Smith: Set a vision, get people to work together better, define the values and culture of the organization, encourage creativity and innovation, delegate authority and give permission, provide coaching and feedback, set goals and build commitment, make your recommendations stick, value diversity and inclusion, set policy without rules, inspire and motivate, help people find passion for their work, teach important lessons, and earn respect on day one.

In short, storytelling isn’t always the best tool to help you manage things. But it’s exceptional at helping you lead people.

Morris: You identify and then discuss ten of the most compelling reasons why storytelling can be so effective. In your opinion, which of them is the most important? Why?

Smith: #7: Stories inspire. Slides don’t. Have you ever heard someone say, “Wow! You’ll never believe the PowerPoint presentation I just saw!” Probably not. But people do say that about stories.

Morris: In your opinion, why has it taken so long for business leaders to recognize, understand, accept, and then apply the power of storytelling?

Smith: Actually for most of history storytelling has been a critical leadership skill, even in business. But I think it took a temporary hiatus that modern corporate leadership is just now waking up to remember. The professionalization of business in the early 1900s was the beginning of the hiatus. Business schools started churning out thousands of MBAs trained to look at a business like a machine that needed to be finely tuned. Telling stories would have identified one as old-school and certainly not part of the avante guard of business leaders.

The resurrection of storytelling in business started in the early 1990s and was fostered by three concurrent forces:

1. Several academic studies showing the effectiveness of storytelling in the workplace (like that of David M. Boje).

2. A number of successful trade books about storytelling in business, the earliest being Management by Storying Around, by David Armstrong, and Corporate Legends and Lore, by Peg Neuhauser.

3. The emergence of storytelling practitioners in the corporate world, like Stephen Denning at the World Bank.

Morris: You include seven “How-To” sections throughout your narrative. Which of them, in your opinion, seems to be the most difficult to master?

Smith: Emotion. Most business people believe that to be “professional” means to be devoid of emotion. “Just stick to the facts, ma’am.” It seems wholly unnatural to us to consciously add emotional content to our business writing or speaking. In fact, I believe we are trained to consciously remove it.

For example, a fellow research colleague of mine recalls interviewing a woman 30 years ago about why she used lard for cooking instead of Crisco shortening. She responded, “If I buy Crisco, I can’t afford to buy milk for my kids. They’re growing kids, and they need their milk instead of just tap water to drink. So I buy lard . . . and milk.”

What an emotionally powerful story, in just a single paragraph! When asked to capture that event, however, I’m certain almost every business person would naturally write down these words, or something close: I interviewed a woman today and she said Crisco was too expensive. She buys lard instead.

Factually true. But devoid of any emotional content. And certainly not a story.

* * *

Paul cordially invites you to check out the resources at http://www.leadwithastory.com/.