Lead with a Story

Lead with a Story Plot Summary

Introduction

Have you ever sat through a presentation filled with bullet points and data, only to forget everything moments after leaving the room? Now imagine instead hearing a compelling story about a CEO caught in a rainstorm who chose to park at the far end of the lot—soaking his expensive suit—rather than take a customer parking spot. Which would you remember tomorrow? Next week? Next year? The most influential leaders throughout history have understood what modern neuroscience now confirms: our brains are wired for stories, not statistics. When we hear a good story, our neurons fire in the same patterns as the storyteller's, creating a deep connection that mere facts cannot achieve. This book reveals how purposeful storytelling can transform ordinary business communication into extraordinary leadership moments. You'll discover how to craft narratives that define your organization's culture, inspire teams during challenging times, and make your recommendations impossible to ignore. By mastering the art of business storytelling, you'll not only capture attention but also drive meaningful action long after the PowerPoint slides are forgotten.

Chapter 1: Setting the Stage: How Context Creates Meaning

When Jayson Zoller was a college student, one of his favorite professors told the class a story so compelling that Jayson is still retelling it two decades later. The professor's students from a previous class had been assigned to investigate the jury deliberation process and determine how to improve it. These young, idealistic college students were excited to tackle such a noble mission. The students interviewed dozens of judges, attorneys, former jurors, and court officials. They asked all the questions you might expect: What was the gender and ethnic mix of jurors? How many older versus younger jurors were there? What instructions were they given? How late did they work? What food were they fed? To their surprise, none of these factors seemed to matter much. What did matter was the shape of the table in the jury room! In courtrooms with rectangular tables, the juror sitting at the head tended to dominate conversations, keeping others from sharing their views openly. But in rooms with round or oval tables, jurors were more egalitarian, and their debate was more thorough. The team concluded that juries with round tables came to more accurate and just verdicts. They were excited about this finding for two reasons: they had identified the key to improvement, and it was an easy change to implement. When they presented their results to the chief judge, he was equally excited—but for entirely different reasons. He immediately issued a decree: "All jury rooms with round and oval tables are to have the tables removed. Replace them with rectangular tables." The students were mortified. They thought they were fixing an imperfect judicial system. Instead, the judge wanted to reduce his court's backlog by making deliberations faster, not more thorough or fair. This story illustrates why context is crucial in storytelling. Without understanding the objectives of those you're trying to influence, even the most brilliant insights can lead to unintended consequences. The most effective stories establish clear context early, helping listeners understand not just what happened but why it matters. When crafting your business narratives, always begin by establishing the situation, the key players, and the underlying motivations that drive the action.

Chapter 2: Vision Stories: Painting Pictures of Future Success

In early 2002, I was appointed to lead a group of over 100 market researchers at a global consumer products company. Their job was predicting future sales of new products—an impossible task where the only certainty was that they would be wrong. The question was merely by how much. These researchers were typically undertrained and had forecasting models that were too complicated, poorly documented, and based on outdated data. My job was to lead this group through several changes to improve their tools and methods. But these changes wouldn't be easy and would require significant effort from the team. I needed them to understand how much better their future could be so they would be motivated to help create that future. Instead of sending a typical memo outlining my plans, I wrote them a letter that included a story titled "The Vision: A Day in the Life of a Sales Forecaster." The story introduced "Sherri," a forecaster two years in the future. Throughout a typical day, Sherri handled all encounters with business partners with success and ease. The story made clear that each success resulted from changes in tools, processes, or training—all part of the plan I hoped to implement with the team's help. The story closed with Sherri walking out of a meeting where team members thanked her for her great ideas and commented that they liked this "new and improved" role the forecasters were playing. She realized she actually liked her job now. It was more fun to come to work when you knew you had something valuable to contribute beyond numbers. The first response I received was, "Wow! I want that to be my story two years from now. I'm in!" The rest weren't much different. By showing them a concrete vision of their future selves succeeding with new tools and approaches, I'd created buy-in that a traditional presentation could never achieve. This approach has been used successfully at companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb, where executives once created a future story and printed it in the format of London's Financial Times newspaper—their president's favorite reading material. The headline read: "Bristol-Myers Squibb Named Top-Ranked Global Pharmaceutical Company." The president was halfway through before noticing the future date at the top of the page. When he finished, he had a complete understanding of the strategy his team wanted him to embrace. The most powerful visions aren't abstract statements about "being number one" or "maximizing shareholder value." They're stories that let people see themselves in the future you're describing. When you need to inspire action toward a new direction, craft a narrative that shows what success looks like in human terms, with real people experiencing the benefits of the change you propose.

Chapter 3: Building Commitment Through Daily Actions

Unlike the business world, politics is an all-or-nothing endeavor. If a company's sales only reach $228 million instead of its goal of $229 million, all is not lost. But if a politician gets only 49 percent of the vote instead of 51 percent, the election is lost. That politician—and every single campaign staffer—is out of a job until the next election. Ben LaRocco learned this lesson the hard way in one of his first jobs after finishing his political science degree. Working on a state congressional campaign in Ohio, he and his team fought hard through election night. When the polls closed at 7 P.M., his candidate was down by a handful of votes. By the time Ben got home 90 minutes later, they were up by less than 50 votes. The next morning, they were still up, now by 62 votes. But two weeks later, after recounts and the discovery of 23 uncounted votes in a county that favored his opponent, his candidate lost by just 22 votes out of over 34,000 cast—a margin of 49.96 percent to 50.04 percent. That devastating loss taught Ben important lessons about goals and commitment. In every campaign since then, he's recalled that experience and retold the story to his colleagues. With that motivation, he did two things differently thereafter. First, he tore out pages from a daily calendar—five or six months' worth—for every day up to Election Day. He posted these pages on the wall and wrote daily and weekly goals on them: how many phone calls to make, how much money to raise, how many doors to knock on. He tracked progress against these goals every day. Every morning when he got up, Ben asked himself, "What am I going to do today better than my competition?" When he went to bed at night, he asked, "Did I win or lose today? Did I do more or less than my competition?" This approach transformed abstract long-term goals into concrete daily actions that maintained momentum and focus. This political approach was adapted brilliantly in the business world by Pledger Monk, a veteran financial adviser at Merrill Lynch. When coaching two advisers, Toby and Sy, he created a point system where specific business-building activities earned points: calling a prospect was worth 4 points, meeting one in person was 10 points, and so on. Success meant earning 45 points a day. When he turned it into a competition between the two advisers—first to reach 2,500 total points wins—their productivity skyrocketed. Toby's production increased 76 percent within a year. Stories like these show that commitment comes from creating clear definitions of success and failure, combined with specific, measurable daily goals. When you need your team to commit to challenging objectives, use narratives that demonstrate how breaking down big goals into daily actions leads to extraordinary results. The most effective commitment stories create both emotional investment and practical frameworks for action.

Chapter 4: Making Recommendations Stick Through Discovery

In the summer of 2000, I was given an opportunity to present a five-year strategy recommendation to the president and leadership team of our diaper business. After weeks of intense analysis, I had my big moment. But instead of delivering a traditional presentation where I would state my recommendation upfront and then justify it, I took a different approach. "Every one of you has been taught that if you deliver sales volume, profits will follow," I began. "And our strategy reflects that belief. All our plans are directed at selling more diapers. So I decided to research whether that assumption was true." I explained that for the first 21 years of our diaper business (1961-1982), there was indeed a near-perfect correlation between sales volume and profits. When sales went up, profits went up. When sales went down, profits went down. "But if you look at the data since 1982," I continued, showing a shocking scatter plot, "there has been absolutely no correlation between sales volume and profits whatsoever. None." I then asked the audience, "What do you think happened in 1983 that forever changed this industry?" The audience began offering guesses. Was it when a competitor launched their brand? Was it when commodity costs got out of control? I encouraged them to keep thinking, steering the conversation until someone got close by asking about consumer behavior. Finally, someone suggested, "Is that maybe when the market reached full penetration?" "Bingo!" I exclaimed. I explained that by 1983, the market for disposable diapers had essentially reached 100% of households with children in diapers. Until that point, everyone making disposable diapers had rapidly growing sales and profits as they converted cloth diaper users. But once they had successfully converted every mom in the country, total industry sales flattened out. The business had gone from a "developing market" to a "developed market" in 1983—and we had failed to notice it. All of my conclusions immediately flowed from the mouths of the audience as soon as they spotted this key insight. My conclusions had become their conclusions. Within minutes, my recommendations became their recommendations. Success. This "discovery journey" approach works because people are naturally more committed to their ideas than to your ideas. By taking your audience on the same journey of discovery you experienced, you create that powerful "aha" moment that leaves a lasting impression. The audience feels ownership of the conclusion because they arrived at it themselves. Another effective technique is using a simple metaphor. When Scott Ford, CEO of Alltel Corporation, met with new owners after the company was sold, he used just two slides. One showed a tightrope walker over Niagara Falls, illustrating the balance between customer service and profitability. The other showed a man hailing a yellow cab in New York City, representing the rare convergence of circumstances needed for a profitable future sale. A year later, when Verizon offered $28.1 billion to buy the company, one executive called Ford and simply asked, "This is the yellow cab, isn't it, Scott?" When you need your recommendations to be remembered, embraced, and acted upon, craft stories that transform your ideas into your audience's ideas through shared discovery or powerful metaphors that capture complex concepts in a single, memorable image.

Chapter 5: Stories That Define What Truly Matters

Sterling Price worked as a cook at Pizza Hut in Springdale, Arkansas, in the early 1980s. One day, a woman came in asking for a meatball sandwich—something not on the menu. When Sterling told her they didn't have it, she became visibly upset, nearly in tears. Noticing her distress, Sterling said that while it wasn't on the menu, they had all the ingredients—sandwich rolls, meatballs, tomato sauce, and mozzarella cheese. He offered to make it for her and ring it up as one of their standard sandwiches. The woman thanked him profusely and explained that her husband was very sick and had lost his appetite. When she asked if there was anything that sounded good to him, he mentioned a meatball sandwich. She had already been to several restaurants with no success. Pizza Hut was her last hope before going home empty-handed. The next day, the woman called to speak with Sterling. She told him her husband had eaten as much of the sandwich as he could manage—the most complete and enjoyable meal he'd had in days. Then she explained that her husband had been diagnosed with stage four cancer months earlier. His loss of appetite was the least of his unpleasant symptoms, but perhaps the only one she could provide comfort for. Finally, she shared that he had passed away quietly during the night. That sandwich was his last meal. Through tears, she thanked Sterling again, saying it helped make her husband's last day a little more bearable. This powerful story illustrates what exceptional customer service looks like—going beyond policy to meet a human need. Unfortunately for Pizza Hut, as far as Sterling knows, this story never circulated beyond his immediate coworkers. A priceless company asset went to waste. Contrast that with the story of Ray Brook, whose expired driver's license prevented him from renting a car at Portland International Airport from National Car Rental. Despite his tight schedule of customer meetings, the manager didn't just refuse service—he offered a creative solution. National agents drove Ray to his appointments and then to the DMV when it opened the next day to renew his license. Ray has been a loyal National customer for 20 years since, and the company's CEO used this story in dozens of speeches to define customer service excellence. The difference between these two stories? Someone wrote down the National story. Ray Brook was so impressed that he sent a detailed letter of commendation to National's CEO, who recognized its value and used it. Today, with online review sites like TripAdvisor, customers often write these stories for you. The savvy leader will find these stories and use them to set expectations for both employees and customers. Stories define what matters in your organization far more effectively than policy manuals or mission statements. They show values in action rather than abstract principles. When you want to establish what excellence looks like in your organization, collect and share stories that demonstrate your values in real situations with real people making choices that reflect what truly matters.

Chapter 6: Finding Courage in the Face of Failure

When he was seven years old, his family was forced out of their home and off their farm. Like other boys his age, he was expected to work to help support the family. At nine, his mother died. At 22, the company he worked for went bankrupt, and he lost his job. At 23, he ran for state legislature in a field of 13 candidates and came in eighth. At 24, he borrowed money to start a business with a friend. By the end of the year, the business failed. The local sheriff seized his possessions to pay his debt, and when his partner died penniless, he assumed his partner's share of debt as well. At 25, he ran for state legislature again and won. At 26, his fiancée died before their wedding, plunging him into depression and a nervous breakdown. At 29, he sought to become the speaker of the state legislature but was defeated. At 34, he campaigned for a U.S. congressional seat and lost. At 35, he ran again and won, serving one term before being out of a job again due to his party's one-term limit rule. At 40, he tried to become commissioner of the General Land Office but was rejected. At 45, he campaigned for the U.S. Senate and lost by six electoral votes. At 47, he lost the vice-presidential nomination at his party's convention. At 49, he ran for the Senate again and lost again. Two years later, at 51, after a lifetime of failure, disappointment, and loss, Abraham Lincoln was elected the sixteenth president of the United States. During his four years in office before his assassination, Lincoln successfully led the country through the Civil War, preserved the Union, ended slavery, and rededicated the nation to the ideals of equality, liberty, and democracy. This story of Lincoln has helped millions gain courage to face their own struggles. It reminds us that persistence in the face of repeated failure is often the key to eventual success. In business, we see this same principle at work in the story of Pringles snack chips. After an initial success following its 1971 launch, Pringles experienced six straight years of declining sales—dropping 60% from its peak. Many companies would have abandoned the brand, but P&G's leadership drew a line in the sand: fix it or sell it within five years. The team implemented major changes: new consumer research, product improvements, new advertising, price reductions, and cost savings. Sales continued to decline for two more years before finally turning around. By 1989, sales had returned to their peak levels, and by the late 1990s, they were five times higher. As Mike Milligan, a P&G executive, summarized in a speech: "Don't stop." Their perseverance transformed Pringles from a failing product into a star brand. Thomas Edison captured this wisdom perfectly: "Many of life's failures are people who didn't realize how close they were to success when they gave up." When you or your team face setbacks that make giving up seem reasonable, share stories of perseverance that remind everyone that today's failures are often the foundation of tomorrow's greatest successes.

Chapter 7: Discovering Passion in Unexpected Places

In spring 2009, I was asked to take a new position as director of consumer research for a paper products business. That meant I would be in charge of consumer research for, among other things, toilet paper. It didn't sound glamorous or even interesting. I couldn't think of a less important product in terms of impacting people's lives. Fortunately, my first stop with the news was to see my friend Jeff Brooks, who told me a story that changed my perspective. At the end of a business trip to Budapest, Hungary, Jeff sat next to a fellow American on the train to the airport. When she asked what he thought of Hungary, he replied politely at first but then shared his honest impression: "The people were very nice, but they all seemed a bit melancholy. Depressed even. And the weather was beautiful, so that wasn't the problem. Most of them just seemed irritable and unhappy." The woman nodded knowingly as Jeff described the behaviors he'd observed. After he finished, she looked out the window contemplatively. After a long pause, without looking back at him, she sighed and said matter-of-factly, "I think it's the toilet paper." She was serious. Toilet paper might seem unimportant, but imagine what your day might be like if all you ever had to use was thin, rough, cheap tissue. If that's all you ever used, you might be constantly chafed and slightly irritated. Perhaps not so much that you thought about it constantly, but enough to make every day a little less pleasant—and make you a little more short-tempered with everyone you encountered. The implication was clear: What we do matters to people probably more than we realize, perhaps even more than they realize. One of my prejudicial notions had evaporated. The toilet paper business still wasn't going to be glamorous, but it felt more meaningful. What I had sought was a sympathetic ear; what I left with was an eagerness and passion for work I hadn't even started yet. For those who still struggle to find meaning in their products or services, Daniel Dorr's experience at a marketing conference offers another approach. Daniel was unimpressed listening to the CEO of Dollar General, a retail chain selling products for a dollar. But his perspective changed when the CEO described visiting one of his stores and accompanying a shopper around. After their tour, the woman invited him to her car and drove him to another Dollar General store in much worse condition. "This store is only a few blocks from my house," she explained, "but I drive an extra 10 minutes to get to the other one because I don't like shopping at this one. I'm a single mom and don't make a lot of money. I need to shop at your stores because I can't afford to shop just anywhere. But that extra 10 minutes is time away from my kids, who get far too little of my time as it is." Daniel realized Dollar General wasn't in the business of selling cheap merchandise—it was in the business of serving underserved people who need products at those price ranges and can't afford to shop elsewhere. Having passion for your work doesn't have to be determined by what you do or the products you sell. It could be determined by whom you're doing it for. These stories demonstrate that finding meaning in your work often requires looking beyond the surface of what you produce to understand its true impact on people's lives. When you help others connect with the human side of their work—whether it's the difference toilet paper makes in someone's day or how discount retail serves struggling families—you transform routine jobs into meaningful missions that inspire genuine passion.

Summary

The most powerful leadership tool isn't a spreadsheet, a policy manual, or even a brilliant strategy—it's a well-crafted story that connects with people on both rational and emotional levels. When you lead with stories, you don't just transfer information; you create shared experiences that inspire action and build lasting commitment. Begin collecting stories today that illustrate your organization's values in action, demonstrate what excellence looks like, and show the human impact of your work. Practice telling these stories in everyday situations—team meetings, one-on-one conversations, and presentations. When facing resistance to change, share stories of perseverance that give people courage to continue. When struggling to build commitment, create narratives that help people discover insights for themselves rather than being told what to think. And when someone can't see the meaning in their work, tell stories that reveal its hidden importance in people's lives. The leader who masters storytelling doesn't just inform minds—they win hearts.

About Author

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Paul Smith

PAUL SMITH is director of Consumer & Communications Research at The Procter & Gamble Company and a highly rated leadership and communications trainer for P&G’s management training colleges. He is the author of Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives that Captivate, Convince, and Inspire.

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