Managing Meaning Through Narrative

“The person who knows ‘how’ will always have a job. The person who knows ‘why’ will always be his boss.” Diane Ravitch

Most leaders are great at creating road maps, but lousy at reminding people of the reason for the trip, the meaning. If pressed, the typical leader might indignantly pull out a copy of the three-year plan or point to the beautifully framed vision statement hanging on the wall.

One of the main reasons leaders are so poor at working with meaning is because they have been indoctrinated to appear invulnerable, to avoid expressing deeply seated emotional and spiritual feelings on the job. But the fact is, that’s where meaning lies, in the realm of emotion and spirit.

We have become a society that promotes proficiency in the technical, the tactical, the analytical and the logistical—the mechanics of the organization. As a result we have an abundance of leaders who are focused exclusively on the “how.” What we are short on is the kind of leader who can give a clear sense of why we should embark upon the journey in the first place, much less keep us committed over the long haul. The world is desperate for those leaders who can draw our sights above the horizon of task and repetitive motion, to the Why of the voyage.

Leaders who excel at instilling purpose into work are adept at communicating the Why, what I call narrative or story. Using story to create meaning, motivation and inspiration is certainly not a new concept. Organizations pay billions of dollars annually to bring in speakers to tell motivational stories to their members, to generate a renewed belief in themselves and the company, stories starring themselves as heroes. People may leave inspired, but unfortunately they also leave the source of that inspiration behind, standing at the conference room podium. It’s left to the audience, those newly minted heroes, to go back to their daily rituals and apply what they have heard to the real job.

The Leader’s Number One Job

The job of motivation, inspiration, and the infusion of meaning cannot be hired out. That’s only a temporary fix. The long-term management of meaning is the job of the leader. In fact, it’s the leader’s most critical job, even above planning, organizing, direction and controlling—the mechanics of management.

I’ve worked with leaders who instinctively know when the problem at hand is a crisis of mechanics or a crisis of meaning. They intuitively understand when more information, data, analysis, and pointing to the road map are not going to solve a crisis of meaning. These leaders also know this is not the time for vision statements, war stories, clever anecdotes, inspirational books on leadership, memorized scripts or stale motivational speeches. This is a time for leaders to reach down into their own wells of meaning, their own narrative, and speak truth to the situations at hand.

I call these people narrative leaders, because they know the truth of their own story, they know the story of the organization and they understand how to use both as a narrative bridge to others, to give meaning to their stories. They don’t waste time and energy giving how answers to why questions.

Unfortunately, this kind of leader is not the rule, but if a person desires this ability, and has the capacity for self-reflection, courage to pursue truth over facts, the rigorous honesty to both share and listen to disquieting beliefs, and the intellectual and emotional flexibility to shape narrative direction, the skill can be learned.

NOTE: A colleague (Al Watts at www.integro-inc.com) talks about how knowing our stories is part of mastering the Identity challenge, one of four integrity challenges that leaders and organizations must master if they are to live up to their promise: “Those stories are made up of experiences and memories, each of them a thread, in the tapestry that becomes who we are.”

Paul’s Story

Let me tell you about one leader who is well on his way to understanding how to use narrative to lead.

I received a call from the frustrated head of a hospital system on the East Coast. Paul had just unveiled his organization’s new vision statement at an all employee/staff meeting. He was new to the job and had wanted to use this product of a recent planning retreat to introduce himself to the organization. At exactly the right moment, they softened the lights and an impressive display of computerized graphics heralded the bold, eloquently written statement about how the patients were like beloved family members, and employees like trusted friends. The audience responded with the dazed look of bureaucratic obedience.

After all, it wasn’t as if they hadn’t seen vision statements, splashy high-tech displays, or for that matter, new executives trying to curry approval by pandering to them through the talk of values. Paul was crestfallen that people didn’t “get it.”

I asked him what the vision statement meant to him. After intellectually explaining his personal philosophy of human relations and corporate commitment, I repeated, “No, in your gut, what does it mean to you? What does it feel like, smell like, look like, sound like?”

He thought for a moment. Then his voice softened into that intimate tone one assumes when he is about to share a very personal story.

Paul told me about an incident that just occurred. A patient was delivered the wrong meal by mistake. The patient happened to be a brittle diabetic, and the meal almost killed her. In nine out of ten similar instances, he explained to me, the situation would have turned litigious. However this story had a different ending.

When the lower level employee charged with delivering the meals discovered he was the one who had made the mistake, he was grief-stricken. On his own, he went to the commissary and had a special basket of fruit made up for the patient, which he personally delivered. He told her that he was at fault and did not expect the gift to make up for the harm that he had caused. He just wanted the patient to know that he deeply regretted his mistake and was truly sorry. The spontaneous gesture, coming from the employee, not from administration or the corporate lawyers, touched the patient deeply. At that point the executive’s voice cracked. Paul told me that the patient personally forgave the genuinely remorseful employee.

“I can’t explain it, but that’s why I got into this work. We make mistakes, but there is a truth and integrity and honesty in what we do. We care about that above everything. It’s life and death. It’s the most intimate work there is.”

That was Paul’s “why.” He’d had an encounter with meaning.

Paul discovered where his personal narrative merged with that of the organization. The story evoked in him the essence of his life and his work. It was a touchstone. This was what people were waiting to hear from him. This was the part of him they wanted to know.

The answer was not for Paul to script this incident as an anecdote and repeat it every chance he got or to have it engraved on letterhead. Nor write it up as a procedure in the employee’s handbook under Avoiding Law Suits. “When any employee makes a mistake with a patient, personally deliver a basket of fruit and apologize.”

It won’t work. As soon as the story is formalized into an anecdote or a procedure, it will lose power. The power stems from the immediacy, the truth that the moment held for Paul. He had located the river of meaning that flowed through him. The story pointed Paul to a place of authenticity that he can return to when the need arises to remind his comrades of the their journey’s purpose. Paul was beginning to uncover the components to his own narrative.

Getting There

I don’t know about you, but I don’t trust a leader until I have a sense of his or her story. Their story is that critical puzzle piece, the clue, the key that will unlock the true meaning of a gesture, a comment, an activity or a five-year plan. Witnessing Paul’s passion, love, life and work intersecting at that one point in time, revealed to me the story of Paul. That glimpse is at the heart of managing meaning. The glimpse is of the glow from within, not the superficial shine on the surface.

Years of working with leaders like Paul have taught me that using narrative to manage meaning requires 6 competencies:

1. Consciously constructing, authentic life-stories that provide principled, from the gut direction.

2. Linking your narratives to the narrative of your organizations.

3. Distinguishing between a crisis of process and one of meaning.

4. Soliciting, understanding and honoring the narratives of others.

5. Strategically reaching out to others and communicating, collaborating, and handling conflicts of meaning through narrative.

6. Monitoring, editing and aligning both your own narratives and those of your organizations.

To sum up, when there is a crisis of narrative, spouting facts, convincing, pleading, admonishing, explaining and cajoling only makes the situation worse. Until the crisis is dealt with on a narrative level, meaningful direction cannot be reestablished. It’s the leader’s job to get the bottom of the story.

When You’re Ready

Whether your leadership role is in the world of business, education, religion, or community building, we’ve been there. Discovering Our Stories for Leaders will provide you with the tools and techniques to apply effective personal narrative in your leadership role.