The Way We Understand Story in Business Needs to Evolve
Some important context before we begin:
I think the way we understand "story" has grown stale. There's a whole body of knowledge and group of thinkers which haven't evolved in awhile. Call it Story 1.0. I think the movement to Story 2.0 is the movement between good stories that grip the audience and effective stories that move them. After all, if we don't inspire reflection and action in others, we haven't done our jobs.
I don't have many answers yet -- just plenty of questions. I'll try to work through them with you, through my own stories and insights.
I welcome your replies as we try to figure out Story 2.0 together.
* * *
The recording ended, and the veteran artist shook his head and smiled.
"I have zero, zero, zero notes."
Sitting to his right was a young singer-songwriter. She'd been staring at the floor without much expression, but she quickly snapped to attention.
It was 2016, and Pharrell Williams was sitting next to Maggie Rogers, three years before she would be nominated for a Grammy as Best New Artist. Before she was, well ... Maggie Rogers ... she was a student at NYU's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, struggling to make things that made her proud. Pharrell had dropped by her class to give notes to each student.
I think about his next words to Maggie at least once a week.
(Here's an amazing shot of Pharrell's reaction to her music.)
The song she produced and the song that phloored Pharrell (I hate me too) was "Alaska." As of this writing, it's been streamed 178 million times on Spotify alone, and it helped turn Maggie Rogers into, well ... Maggie Rogers.
So what did Pharrell say? What caused Maggie to swap her "oh no" expression for "oh damn"?
Said Pharrell:
I have zero, zero, zero notes for that. And I'll tell you why. It's because you're doing your own thing. It's singular. It's like when the Wu-Tang Clan came out, nobody could really judge it. You either liked it, or you didn't. But you couldn't compare it to anything else. And that is such a special quality. And all of us possess that ability, but you have to be willing to -- [long pause to find the words] -- you have to be willing to seek. You have to be willing to be real frank in your music, and frank in your choices. Most of the time, people say, "OK, I'm gonna make this kinda song, so it ends up sounding like something we've heard before, felt before, yanno? But your whole story -- I can hear it in your music.
Oh damn.
* * *
The other day, I was interviewed on a podcast, when the host asked me, "So Jay, how can marketers learn to do story better?"
I'm sorry: "do" story?
Is that ... is that how we're gonna say that? "Do story?"
You could write it off as just a verbal hiccup, but I think it was something more. He was on the right trail but got tripped up by some gnarly underbrush grown out of the stale soil of the marketing world. I think his phrasing reveals just how rarely our business culture allows us to internalize words like Pharrell's.
Here, in our world, we seem to learn story as an external tactic that we do. It's like, if we just reposition the same words we were going to write anyway, but using THAT set of techniques, and then we slap it on the home page, the PowerPoint slides, the article intro -- well, we've done story.
But in Pharrell and Maggie's world, story is much more personal. It's not a tool you grasp and wield. It's a well you return to again and again when you need to feel alive -- or want others to feel that way too. Instead of starting their work by looking outward at the "right way" to tell stories, they start by looking inward. What am I trying to say? What change in others do I need to inspire?
They have an obvious desire to to put their fingerprints on the work, to make a dent in the universe. (What a phrase! Where did that come from? Ah yes: the business world.)
In our world, we think of telling a story the way we think of, say, running an ad on Instagram or repurposing a long video into shorter bits of video. It's a tactic. Add it to the checklist. Or so it seems.
This feels like where we got stuck with Story 1.0. That body of knowledge is built on knowing WHAT works, which is useful, but too rarely do we stop to wonder WHY something works. If we did, maybe we could build up something that works better than generalized best practices, because we've reached first principles and can start anew, start internally. Make our dent on the universe, as it were.
But, we keep talking about story like it's a tool we wield, or a list of precise techniques we must deploy, so we search for secrets:
Pixar's 22 rules.
Hooks to grip people and go viral on YouTube or TikTok.
Something-something-Steve Jobs-something-something.
StoryBrand's 7-part framework (This is just Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, shaped as a wave instead of a circle — and with a few very critical pieces removed, making the stories lower-impact. I’d argue the Hero's Journey is also NOT the ideal type of story for inspiring reflection and action across a team, among customers, or around an industry.)
So... we're trying to "do” story.
This kinda sounds like "doing dinner." (What are you doing in the kitchen, babe? Ah, I'm busy doing story!)
So we think, What ingredients do I need and what steps do I need to take to make this dish look like it does in the picture -- and fast?
The work becomes a chore, or what is known as "telic" work. It's done to a definite end. It is not done for the process. It is not intrinsic. I want to do story, so I can get better at doing Instagram ads, so I can get home early and do dinner.
But maybe ... we should become chefs?
Maybe, we shouldn't try to "do story." We should become storytellers.
I think the difference lies in what Pharrell was talking about. Though he didn't cite these things, it's the messy collection of personal stuff -- vision, tone, cadence and musicality, voice, and more -- which make the storyteller undeniably present in the work. Vital to it. Knowing how to structure a story doesn’t guarantee that outcome. It’s on you.
And maybe this is the evolution of story, moving us from Story 1.0 to Story 2.0. Maybe it’s the movement from trying to do something to trying to be something. It's less about story and more about the storyteller -- and how they (sorry, let me start again) how YOU shape the work. And maybe we shouldn't leave it to chance that we will shape the work. Maybe we need to take a more proactive role in understanding how to bring that forth. It’s not what we do. It’s what we are … and learning how to use that.
We don't “do leadership.” We become leaders.
We don't "do parenting." We become parents.
We don’t "do story." We become storytellers.
But how?
* * *
I think Story 1.0 was all about the process of telling great stories -- and that's great! We need that. That got us here.
But we don't just need the process. We also need the posture and the practice of a storyteller.
Posture is the way you carry yourself, your bravery to do certain things certain ways, the vision you bring to your stories — all of which makes the work wholly your own.
Practice is just that — the reps you put in and how you reflect on those reps in order to reinvent in ways big and small the next time. Played out over time, you turn tiny motions into lifelong habits.
THAT seems to be missing out there in Storyland. We get taught the process stuff -- or can find it rather easily. We rarely talk about the posture and the practice. But if we started with those things, I'd wager we'd develop a better process. One much more tailored to each of us in our specific situations.
THAT is what I hear when I hear Pharrell call something "singular."
You're doing your own thing. It's singular. And that is such a special quality.
The posture is there, and the practice is paying dividends, and so you can't critique the process -- because it's doing its job as it was built. He can't critique Maggie Rogers because she showed up saying, "This is Maggie Rogers."
Who is he to say no, that’s incorrect?
When you become so focused on doing your own thing (practice) and trusting yourself to do so (posture), you then find your own ways of doing things (process). You do something singular as a result, because you rely more heavily on the things that make YOU singular.
And, Pharrell continues, all of us possess that ability, but you have to be willing to [long pause to find the words] you have to be willing to seek.
For as flippant as most "be you" advice sounds, it's very difficult and rather intimidating work to try. So within that pause by Pharrell, most of us feel gripped by fear and decide to turn away. We retreat to the stress-relieving notion that 22 rules or 7 steps are all we need.
In moments when we are invited to seek, others say to us, "No need! Here's what I've found."
Helpful, but ultimately should be viewed as incremental. It’s there if we need it later, but ideally, we won’t. We want to be so busy in the practice, so busy figuring out how to bring out more or different parts of ourselves to elevate the work, we don't have time for that external stuff.
This is why I haven't cared much about all the generative AI tools everyone is buzzing about right now, especially those assisting writers. I haven’t tried a single one. What they promise are solutions to problems I don't have. Nice they exist, I suppose. Maybe I'll need them someday. But until that day arrives, why pay any attention? Why twist ourselves in knots figuring out a solution to a problem we don't have?
"Don't seek,” most seem to say to us. “I've already found it."
So tempting, but so dangerous, like the siren's song to storytellers.
When we start our approach this way, it’s far easier to create things anybody else could have created. This is why so much content can be white labeled and nothing changes. You can remove the creator for another person, and the content could remain identical.
Okay, but why are YOU talking about this idea? Why are YOU telling that story? What did YOU try that the everyday expert would never recommend?
Where are YOU in all this mess of content?
All three Ps are learnable -- process, posture, practice -- but only the first seems to get much attention. That's Story 1.0. My exploration likely takes us deeper towards the more personal stuff that feels ill-defined and lesser understood.
How do we develop the posture and the practice? What does that mean anyway? Is there a method to be found?
More questions will emerge, but I'm fascinated by this evolution. Story 1.0 served us well, but it's time to evolve. Story 2.0 is about something else. Not story. The storyteller.
Not the thing we do. The thing we are.
Maybe I'm weird. (Maybe I don't need the word "maybe.") But I think the object isn't to become an expert in story. It's to become an expert in yourself. To trust yourself and act as if.
This is about posture. Do you approach the work as a storyteller would? Do you act as if? Nobody is going to give you permission. Nobody will say to you, "Please respond with a story."
This is about practice. Do you have a routine, a creative "operating systems," a means of seeing the world through glasses colored according to your mission or the big question you're exploring? That lets you see everything as material. Do you have a means to spot and save that stuff? To pull those threads? To develop your stories and ship on a cadence and reflect on your work in between reps?
Most of the time, we say, "OK, I'm gonna make this kind of story" -- for the next post, the big Twitter thread, the website home page positioning, the industry-shaking keynote speech -- "so it ends up sounding like something we've heard before, felt before, yanno?"
But just as Pharrell said he could hear Maggie's whole story in her music, YOUR whole story ought to matter in your work. You should use it. We should hear it. Because it's singular.
Your posture, your practice, and your own, self-made, perfectly customized process -- those things are far more valuable to your cause than anything others claim they've found.
But you have to be willing to seek.