One Fault. One Story. One Fix.
I can remember the moment I got caught…
It was a beautiful spring Wednesday morning, 9AM. At the time, I was consulting to one of the 30 largest banks in the world and I’d just walked into a full on crisis.
Hundreds of client’s computers, phones and trading systems were down. 800 staff were unable to work. Millions of dollars in lost productivity were on the line.
A crisis meeting was called. Within just five minutes of the meeting's start, old turf wars erupted, plunging it into chaos.
Everyone was running for cover. A dozen heads of multi-disciplinary teams were pointing fingers and shouting over each other. People were losing their shit - big time.
I arrived late. Never a good thing when people are looking for a fall guy. My direct report, who had been fighting off attacks, gave a large exhale when he saw me. The sweat dripping down his face.
“He’s clearly been taking a beating.” I thought. The stress was palpable.
Everyone piled in asserting that the fault that took the entire building offline (and prevented it from getting back online) was down to my team screwing up.
The most hostile of the group turned their attention on me.
“It’s your guys' fault. You guys f**ked up!, What are you going to do to fix this!!?”
I smiled and began to tell a story.
A story about a movie. A story they never expected that neither denied their blame or projected blame but one that pulled them ALL into a semi-hypnotic vortex that left them with one single question.
A question, they could never have asked in an angry state. THE question that would solve the mystery of what was causing so many technology systems to fall over repeatedly…
Within minutes the mob had quietened down. Where previously they were absolutely CERTAIN the fault was not with them, now they walked away calmly and agreed to relook at things afresh.
Maybe, they realised, they were wrong?
Quickly thereafter, the problem was found and fixed.
The cause: a single configuration mistake by the team who had been shouting the loudest that the problem had nothing to do with them.
One fault. One story. One fix.
My client was amazed.
When the building came online and we all celebrated he called me out in front of the management team.
“Tom, how the hell did you do that? I was full sure lots of heads would roll for this. How did you manage to get so many angry and defensive teams to agree to something they were absolutely against doing?”
Some colleagues joked it was mind-control. Others wondered if it was hypnosis.
But no one could point their finger to any one thing. It all happened inside of ordinary conversation.
The client said:
“I don't know how he does it. When I don't get my way, I throw my toys out of the pram and scream and shout. Tom just seems to talk to people and change their minds.
I'd LOVE to be able to do that.”
Getting people to change their minds used be difficult for me. Telling stories used be hard. But once I got how the 3 elements of conversational storytelling actually work, things got super easy.
There are just 3 things you really need to know and 1 thing you need to do.
You need to know a bit about:
1. Storytelling: How storytelling works in the brain and how to tell stories that hook attention and use the brains natural inference engine (really cool and interesting stuff).
2. Knowledge of Change Process: How people change actually happens and how to foster it through everyday ‘ordinary’ stories.
3. Advanced Communication Skills: Like how to nest ‘process instructions’ deep inside your stories (and do other cool things) that cause people to change unconsciously…
When you can do all 3, you are pretty much a force unto yourself.
You can use these skills everywhere, with anyone, anytime.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I made you a promise. In last Thursday’s email I said I’d answer the question:
How do wizards of influence lead people to make conclusions they want them to have?
It’s actually really slick and super, super smart.
To your success,
Tom
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