a good story

The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.

Richard Powers

The Overstory. W. W. Norton & Company, 2018, p. 336.

the lead to the story

Charlie O. Simms taught a journalism 101 class in Beverly Hills High School. He started the first day of the class Nora Ephron attended much the same way any journalism teacher would, by explaining the concept of a "lead." He explained that a lead contains the why, what, when, and who of the piece. It covers the essential information. Then he gave them their first assignment: write a lead to a story. 

Simms began by presenting the facts of the story: "Kenneth I. Peters, the principal of the Beverly Hills High School, announced today that the entire high school faculty will travel to Sacramento next Thursday for a colloquium in new teaching methods. Among the speakers will be anthropologist Margaret Mead. college president Dr. Robert Maynard Hutchins, and California governor Edmund 'Pat' Brown."

The students hammered away on their manual typewriters trying to keep up with the teacher's pace. Then they handed in their rapidly written leads. Each attempted to summarize the who, what, where, and why as succinctly as possible: "Margaret Mead, Maynard Hutchins, and Governor Brown will address the faculty on...", "Next Thursday, the high school faculty will..." Simms reviewed the students' leads and put them aside. 

He then informed them that they were all wrong. The lead to the story, he said, was "There will be no school Thursday."

"In that instant," Ephron recalls, "I realized that journalism was not just about regurgitating the facts but about figuring out the point. It wasn't enough to know the who, what, when, and where: you had to understand what it meant. And why it mattered." Ephron added, "He taught me something that works just as well in life as it does in journalism."

Greg McKeown

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. Crown/Archetype. 2020. p.73,74

the transformational CEO

Four key functions collectively define a successful role for the CEO in a transformation:

1. Making the transformation meaningful. People will go to extraordinary lengths for causes they believe in, and a powerful transformation story will create and reinforce their commitment. The ultimate impact of the story depends on the CEO’s willingness to make the transformation personal, to engage others openly, and to spotlight successes as they emerge.
2. Role-modeling desired mind-sets and behavior. Successful CEOs typically embark on their own personal transformation journey. Their actions encourage employees to support and practice the new types of behavior.
3. Building a strong and committed top team. To harness the transformative power of the top team, CEOs must make tough decisions about who has the ability and motivation to make the journey.
4. Relentlessly pursuing impact. There is no substitute for CEOs rolling up their sleeves and getting personally involved when significant financial and symbolic value is at stake.

Everyone has a role to play in a performance transformation. The role of CEOs is unique in that they stand at the top of the pyramid and all the other members of the organization take cues from them. CEOs who give only lip service to a transformation will find everyone else doing the same. Those who fail to model the desired mind-sets and behavior or who opt out of vital initiatives risk seeing the transformation lose focus. Only the boss of all bosses can ensure that the right people spend the right amount of time driving the necessary changes.

Carolyn B. Aiken and Scott P. Keller

"The CEO’s role in leading transformation". mckinsey.com. Feb. 2007

roots and mission

While the young Springsteen honed his craft every night in bars on the Jersey Shore, he enjoyed his growing popularity but felt that something was missing. “Part of getting there,” the most elusive of all Springsteenian ideals, “is knowing what to do with what you have and knowing what to do with what you DON’T have,” he writes.

That Springsteen’s work never defines there might have helped fans give it the meaning they most wanted. For him, the book suggests, there is a combination of taking a stance, making it last, and having freedom to run. Holding on to what is precious without losing the open road. But if there is vague, one thing is clear: Getting there takes hard work. You can hone your craft and let purpose find you. But you can’t hone your purpose and hope that craft will find you.

And purpose is what he did not have, for many years — the drive that comes from knowing your work is meaningful to you and valuable to others. “By 1977,” he recalls, “in true American fashion, I’d escaped the shackles of birth, personal history and, finally, place, but something wasn’t right…. I sensed there was a great difference between personal license and real freedom…. I felt personal license was to freedom as masturbation was to sex.” It is a good reminder that purpose has a long gestation, and is borne of actions and encounters, not just ambition and doubts.

Within the next few years, a major shift in Springsteen’s relationship to his work occurred. “By the end of the River tour,” he writes, “I thought perhaps mapping…the distance between the American dream and American reality might be my service, one I could provide that would accompany the entertainment and the good times I brought my fans. I hoped it might give roots and mission to our band.”

That is what purpose does. It gives a craft its roots and mission, a story to remember and imagine, a place to go from. Springsteen grasps the distinction between the work his music has to do, getting people turned on in Jersey bars or big arenas around the world, and its purpose — keeping the American dream alive — and never lets it go.

Purpose gives sense and direction to a working life spent on the road but, Springsteen’s story cautions, does not spare you torment. There is plenty throughout his life and work: the torment of depression, a struggle with his inner demons; the torment of talent, a struggle with the sense that he could always do more; the torment of service, a struggle with shouldering others’ pain. If he often fails to make sense of that torment, at least he succeeds in making use of it.

Gianpiero Petriglieri

"Bruce Springsteen, Artful Leadership, and What Rock Star Bosses Do". Harvard Business Review. 9/27/2017