Annette Simmons

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Storytelling Moral Survival System: Part four

Perceptual agility is the ability to toggle back and forth between paradoxical truths.

Storytelling Morals and Ethics for the Digital Age

Obviously, the combined power of story and technology begs for a new code of ethics. The good news is that enduring myths “crowd sourced” moral lessons long before we coined the term, by incorporating centuries of listeners’ tales about what works, what doesn’t work, and how to (or how not to) resolve conflicting needs. This original form of crowd-sourcing wisdom is distorted when our conversations become subject to the goals of technology and the assumption that emotions are irrational, inaccurate, or needlessly biased. Oral tradition retained vital morals designed to frame behaviors that might be unreasonable in the short term—generosity, for instance—as such an emotionally rewarding act of personal sacrifice that it was worth it. Many myths and folk stories preserve valuable wisdom that frames a wide variety of solutions to the recurring dilemmas of real people with competing needs living in an imperfect world. Right now, many corporations focused entirely on speed would benefit from the insights provided in the story of the tortoise and the hare. This wisdom of slow thinking need not be forfeited simply because we can’t accurately predict the monetary value of deep insight.

Recent attempts to monetize advice for storytellers with books and webinars that offer formulas and promise fast track tools tend to emphasize stories that achieve goals of commerce at the risk of social good. In the same way that mastering the skill to generate social media “likes” can actively degrade the skills that generate real life “likes” as when a good friend brings you soup when you are sick. Is it social media’s job to train us to be good friends? The answer depends on your circle of moral concern and willingness to balance tangible goals with intangible goals. There is no reason why we can’t blend scientific approaches to storytelling with moral and spiritual approaches as well. And there is every chance that your stories will feel far more meaningful and more engaging when you do.

For millennia, stories passed down wisdom with moral guidance to help listeners find the right path in the face of ambiguity, paradox and competing desires. The King Midas story juxtaposes commercial desires against social desires. Narcissus was so entranced with his reflection in the water he died of thirst. There are too may myths that warn of the danger of excessive self-interest to disregard this advice. Morals expressed in story form teach us how to negotiate paradoxical dilemmas all humans must negotiate growth/sustainability, freedom/safety, inclusion/exclusion, justice/apathy, control/collaboration, and greed/generosity. They are not formulaic, or necessarily convenient, or even rational, but these ambiguous stories encourage the kind of perceptual agility we need to design solutions for current global dilemmas. The good news for marketers is that stories that reflect the complexity of balancing self interest and moral reasoning are more likely to produce content that feels meaningful as well as deliver bottom line results.

Excerpt from Chapter 11, 3rd ed. of The Story Factor (2019)  AUDIBLE VERSION HERE

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Storytelling Moral Survival System: Part three

Is yellow the most important color?

Is yellow the most important color?

The Social Impact of Storytelling

Over the twenty years since The Story Factor was first published technology has accelerated communication, and with it the speed of storytelling, beyond our wildest imagination. Amid the revolutionary growth of all this digital media, video, database mining, and social media, Apple founder Steve Jobs commented that the “most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.” Jobs did not originate this thought. Hopi Indians have long said, “He who tells the stories rules the world.” But it was Jobs and his colleagues in the tech world who ushered in advances that magnify the power and magic of storytelling. Magic this powerful brings with it responsibility, so it’s essential to remember that to whom much is given, much is expected.

The biggest lesson over the last twenty years for storytellers is the realization that using technology to control a narrative in favor of a single point of view can silence other important points of view. The ancient story about five blind men describing five different parts of an elephant takes on new significance if you imagine that one of the blind men might now have a Twitter feed of 50 million followers. Through no fault of his own, his story describing only the elephant’s trunk—the only part of the elephant he could feel—could convince millions of his followers that elephants are like fat snakes that hang from the sky so they will be completely unprepared for the actual thing. The point is, single stories with short-term goals often leave out important details, and technology has increased our ability to spread those short- sighted tales.

In a TED talk, Nigerian novelist and short-story writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie warned of the danger of a single story, even those stories with positive intent. As a little girl in Africa, Adichie read children’s books about white children living in Europe that both engaged her and left her feeling excluded. A book designed to teach European kids to read unintentionally sent her the message that the world wasn’t interested in brown kids. It is difficult to predict this kind of harm, but now that we can see the potential we can develop practices that lessen the risk. Part of the answer is to avoid the harm of a single story by providing a variety of perspectives.

It is part of the creative process for artistic storytellers to apply a variety of methodologies and to be suspicious of “yes/no” answers to questions that are too complicated for the “yes/no” binary. Imagine asking Van Gogh if yellow is the most important color. Any “clear” answer distracts the aspiring painter from learning that yellow’s importance (like all colors) changes depending on its proximity and relationship to other colors. A tiny speck of yellow on an otherwise dark canvas can be more meaningful than a canvas completely covered with the same yellow. Whatever clear answers you have adopted to guide your storytelling, it’s important to remember that there are lots of good answers and more than one good definition. Single definitions limit your stories to the constraints of that source’s point of view. Recruiting definitions of story from psychology, business, behavioral science, marketing, public speaking, anthropology, the liberal arts, and mythology are bound to improve the artistry of a storyteller, as well as mitigate the risk of blind spots.

Excerpt from Chapter 11, 3rd ed. of The Story Factor (2019)  AUDIBLE VERSION HERE

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The Spirituality of Storytelling…with animals!

therianthrope

Do your stories have a spiritual message?

Or…perhaps we should ask ourselves what spiritual message do our stories tell?  Because all storytelling delivers a spiritual message.  The message may be spiritually rich or poor but it is there.  And it seems like spirituality has been at the core of storytelling from the beginning.  A recent article about newly discovered cave paintings in central Indonesia illustrates what is still a common trope – interpreting humanity through the lens of animal characteristics – from Aesop’s stories about the lion and the mouse to the three little pigs, animals have been recruited represent our values. Stories with animals tend to explore spiritual themes (compassion, courage, conservation) that illustrate the way we struggle to balance our lower and higher natures. Here is a quote from a Dec. 11, 2019 article:

Despite these unresolved mysteries, it is now abundantly clear that these humans were storytellers whose abstract paintings shed light into the origins of human cognition and spirituality.

Over forty thousand years ago the urge to tell a story represented far more than a desire for individual gain.  Newly discovered images of the earliest example of storytelling featured “therianthropes” – characters that embody a mix of human and animal characteristics. Our storytelling instincts were far less about individual profit and much more about collective wellbeing.  We risk a failure of the spirit when we forget this. (as well as a failure to address climate change and other global problems)

I first encountered ancient therianthropes in Museo del Oro in Bogata where solid gold characters blended the characteristics of humans and animal spirits. And more recently, when a friend who has a bad habit of suppressing his creative spirit to please others showed me a small brass tiger he carried in his pocket to remind him to act with courage. What animal spirit would improve the spiritual message in your storytelling?

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The Morals of Our Stories

From Strategy + Business article in PwC’s online magazine:

“Stories have always been about ethics. They help listeners find the right path in the face of ambiguity and competing desires. The King Midas story juxtaposes commercial desires against social desires. Narcissus was so entranced with his reflection in the water, he died of thirst. The morals expressed in story form teach us how to negotiate the paradoxical dilemmas that all businesspeople — that all humans — must navigate and reconcile: growth and sustainability, freedom and safety, inclusion and exclusion, control and collaboration.

And the stories you pick to tell can change your view. Truly powerful stories — like the fables and myths — tend to take small circles of concern and make them bigger.”

I’m gaining faith that people are ready to stop controlling narratives and start recruiting multiple narratives for bigger picture, not to mention, more creative solutions! Are you seeing the same shift? Please speak up, we could all use a little more faith at this point.

 

 

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The Story Factor 3rd ed. OCT2019 (new material)

ship
“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”                          Zora Neale Hurston
From a distance, storytelling also seems to have every man’s wish on board. There is an initial euphoria when you consider that once you learn how to tell stories that alter perceptions, conclusions, and actions you might become captain of all the ships and invent “Get out of jail free” cards for anyone who wants a story of absolution, whether they deserve it or not. Over time, like King Midas, you will discover that getting everything you want inevitably produces unintended consequences. When technology alters moral stories, it changes the meaning and the morals of those stories. King Midas did not anticipate that his golden touch would kill his daughter. In the story, his personal experience of watching the light in her eyes go out carries a sensory impact; we get the message. But when calculated on a spreadsheet, the promise of an infinite return on investment (ROI) after sacrificing just one person can seem like a viable investment strategy. What’s more, people who value utilitarian reasoning now use data distance to create enough emotional distance that they can characterize one person as a “small sacrifice” and therefore a reasonable price to pay. The question is, are we at risk of allowing utilitarian reasoning to guide our storytelling practices? (Excerpt from The Story Factor 3rd ed. Chapter 11 out October 2019 )

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Ten Games 8. Discrediting Game

Discrediting Game

“He would sometimes use humor to put him down. He’d make comments like ‘Well let’s stay strategic here,’ and that implies that his comment was something less than strategic. We’d laugh, but you know, they were direct put downs.”

“They would ridicule the sincerity of the fans of the new consultants. They would make them sound gullible. Saying, ‘Well that sounds pretty damn bizarre to me. What relevance does it have? You guys are turning into groupies for God’s sake.’”

Those who play the Discrediting Game undermine the reputation and credibility of their “enemies” with actions that can be as subtle as a raised eyebrow all the way to blanket character assassination.  This game has been around forever but it used to be kept under control by social norms.  Digital media has reframed what was a “nuclear option” into a daily habit. Previously, the non-verbal feedback of face-to-face interactions meant the majority of us were far less willing to demonize people we knew we desperately needed to create mutual wins.  It felt stupid.  Our emotions warned us that it was dangerous. Now we have evidence that demonizing others (just to win) felt stupid for very practical reasons.

“People were just harassing them completely. They would say, “Why do we have to listen to this? They used names like Krauts, Frogs, etc. for whomever. They were swearing…The effect was that they didn’t listen to what the person was saying. They distracted people that were listening …They effectively cut off anyone’s ability to receive whatever data was coming from the Europeans. They pulled in anyone within earshot from listening to whatever was happening. They brought in people who typically might have listened but who now share those viewpoints.”

If there is one abuse of storytelling that concerns me most it is the desire to control a narrative by discrediting other points of view.  Once an accusation sticks there may be a relative bump in trust for the accuser compared to the now demonized party, but the lost trust isn’t replaced. It is transformed into distrust and yet one more point of view is marginalized or even silenced. The robust influence of multiple points of view dissipates and our reservoirs of trust simply begin to run out.  The daily habit of demonizing rather than forging connections has created escalating accusations and fear stories, distracting everyone’s eyes from working together on shared solutions to shared dangers like climate change, systemic poverty, and war.

When businesses and politicians play only to win, they siphon energy from our ability to play together.  Pretending that life is a game to win has channeled far too many resources that used to build trust to game behaviors that tear trust apart. To frame politics as a battle is to recruit strategies from the “art of war” – surprise attack, sabotage, diversion, to “kill with a borrowed knife” and a whole host of strategies that might be appropriate for war but have the effect of breaking every norm we need for peaceful existence to the point that everything feels like a war.  Just because some people are bored with peace, doesn’t give them the right to turn business and politics into a war where character assasination is a winning strategy.