Story Telling–Applying Personal Context to Data

As a long time strategy guy, I am the type of person who drives people crazy with questions like “why?’ and “how do you know?”.  I have always believed the idea that if the mere existence of a question evokes anger or other emotions in someone, then there is something buried in the emotion that warrants exploration. 

Sometimes when asking questions, what appears obvious to us may not appear obvious to someone else and it is at that point that the best, sharpest and most clearly illustrated data in the world just won’t convince someone of the point that we are trying to make.

It is at this point that we realize that if we don’t find a different way of making our point that we are condemned to an impasse, each side frustrated that they couldn’t “sell” their idea to the other.

This morning I attended a conference call regarding national emergency preparedness for a variety of scenarios.  After getting off the call, I had one of those moments where I just wanted to go throw up somewhere (not all of these meetings are gentle).

Shortly after getting off the call, a friend walked by, saw me, sat down for a moment and we exchanged pleasantries.

When she asked me what I was working on and I told her, it sparked a passionate conversation around her wonderment and bewilderment about why mankind seemed unable to embrace unlimited, unquestioned, unconditional love and trust in all scenarios – that to accomplish this would solve all of our problems.

It seemed so simple to her.

Try as I might to illustrate a response using tons of data and historical references (data is my life), my answers didn’t satisfy her questions at all and we were both getting frustrated with the conversation.

And then I explained it this way.

“Assume you are on a dark street at 3am in the morning and you are alone.  You see a large stranger approaching you in the dark.  What do you do?”

She replied “I blow my security whistle”, as she held up the whistle on her keychain.

“Why?”, I asked.

“Because I am afraid he might hurt me”, came her answer.

“And why would you think the worst case scenario and not assume that he was approaching you in perfect trust and love?”, I asked.

“Because of my past history”, she replied.

And as she replied, the light came on.

Sometimes when you find that all of your glorious charts, graphs, tables, decision trees, logical perfection and everything else don’t seem to resonate with your audience, take a step back, pause and then find a way to wrap a personal story around what you are trying to present.

A story tailor-written to the context of the recipient’s Life experiences and not your own.

Because oftentimes the only thing that separates us from clear communication is the common context that best arrives in a good story.

In other words, we must touch the heart in order to influence the mind.

Have you touched any hearts lately?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Life–The Importance of Context

I remember many years ago as I was getting ready to mail my father a Father’s Day card that I felt compelled to put a much deeper message in it than the stock quote that was contained within.

While I wrote words of gratitude which many of us do, I also wrote that I finally “got it” – that I needed to become a father to finally appreciate what he had done for me over the years.

It was easy to be critical in my youth without having the context of the gifts needed to be a father – the gifts of wisdom, patience, correction, guidance and the many other things that a father calls upon as well as knowledge of the difficulties that a father faces daily.

The value of context changes how we see everything, doesn’t it?

How many of us look back on our earlier years and smile or shake our head as we remember how we handled certain situations with our then limited knowledge and Life experience?  Oftentimes, with our current Life experience, it feels like we are looking back on the Life of someone else.

Everyone has an opinion …. unfortunately

It seems in today’s world that we have an opinion on everything and everyone, oftentimes not having the slightest shred of experience, context or knowledge regarding the event or person.  Many claim to even know what God thinks of each event and person and they don’t hesitate to tell us what He is thinking of us at the moment.

I believe this has been exacerbated by social media in that we feel enabled and compelled to comment on everything while most of us know little or nothing about many of the things we comment on.

Maybe, instead of being hasty with a judgement or leaping in with “the answer” to a specific problem, if we took some time to listen, to observe and to gain context, then our observation or guidance might have greater value and impact for the person who needs it.

Maybe then our observations would sound less like noise and more like wisdom.

Maybe.

It reminds me of a favorite story of mine.

It’s a story of Rabbi Baal Shem-Tov, the founder of the modern Hasidic movement, who was overlooking his hometown with his students when the town was attacked by a group of Cossacks.  As the rabbi and his students watched, men, women and children in their town were slaughtered.  Looking up to the sky, the rabbi said "If only I were God".

One of his students asked "Master, if you were God, what would you do differently?".

Looking at his student, the rabbi replied "If I were God, I would do nothing differently.  If I were God, I would understand.".

Do you take the time to understand before you act?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry