Peter Guber's Primer On Business Storytelling & Persuasive Narratives

If you have been engaged in the work of public relations, marketing or other “persuasive arts” in recent years, you undoubtedly have noticed a renewed interest in the strategic use of business storytelling and persuasive narratives. As a result of this “Story Renaissance,” there is no shortage of genuinely useful information available on the subject — ranging from the highly theoretical to the “paint-by-numbers” tactical approaches.  Amidst this sea of information, however, a recent book (Peter Guber’s “Tell To Win”) is generating a lot of attention — as well it should.

A Book That Can Sell Business Storytelling

What makes this book special?  After all, hasn’t most of this content already has been explored (in greater depth) by Robert McKee, Annette Simmons, Nancy Duarte and other thought leaders on stories and presentations?

Absolutely. “Tell To Win” is not destined to be a classic communications reference text — nor was that its intent.  But “Tell To Win” does have a quality that really won me over: It’s potential to make a difference.  Where other books will find devotees among educators, advisors, and speech coaches, this one stands a chance of being read (and believed) by the people who need it most — those whose success depends on persuasive business communication skills, but who are not making efforts to improve.)

Does Storytelling Really Have A Place In The Business World?

Guber doesn’t mince words about the importance of business storytelling: “Businesspeople are human beings who grew up listening to stories, just like everybody else,” he writes. “So in any business…if you fail to transport your listener emotionally, you will lose your audience.  Lose your audience, and your (message strategy) can’t possibly deliver your intended call to action.”

To be sure, most successful leaders already understand this — on an intellectual level. But time-and-time-again, their business communication fails to achieve the all-important emotional resonance.  Why is this mission-critical capability so elusive?

A “Gateway Drug” To Business Storytelling

“Tell To Win” is a door-opener — a “gateway drug” that will expose leaders to the highs of emotionally connecting with an audience.  This is why it  can work:

• First of all, the book is ”accessible,” engaging and practical. (As with any communication, miss any one of these qualities and you’re in deep weeds.)
• Second, it comes from an author whose success gives him “street cred” with business people. (This means the book actually stands a chance of being read.)
• Third, it’s practical. (Busy people can find find tips here to immediately improve their game.)
• Fourth, it provides simple theoretical “hooks.” (These frameworks are the book’s real “payload” for achieving lasting improvements — a few, basic ideas that can change the way a reader thinks about communication.)
• Fifth, it provides a wealth of “stories about stories.” (So there’s a viral component here: Relevant anecdotes will reinforce the lessons, and leaders will pass them along.)

For all of these reasons, “Tell To Win” is eminently suitable to help your CEO or client get beyond the all-too-common prejudice that business storytelling is a “lightweight” activity not suitable for “serious” business communications.  (I think you know what I’m talking about.) If you have coached a “story skeptic” such as this, you understand that addressing those longstanding misperceptions requires ammunition — and ”Tell To Win” is the text for that task. (Check out the works of Denning, Maxwell&Glickman, Truby or Weissman — in addition to the authors mentioned above — for other fine choices.)

My advice? Find a passage in this book that is especially relevant to someone who could use your help in reaching the next level of business communications success. Write a brief note referencing that passage and asking the recipient’s opinion on how it might help the people in his/her organizaton.  Attach your note to a copy of “Tell To Win,” and leave it on his/her desk. Then wait for your “beneficiary” to approach you about about putting its lessons to work.  As the proverb teaches, “Slowly, slowly catch a monkey.”

Good ideas — even terrific ideas — often fail to get adopted when an advocate lacks the verbal communication skills to make persuasive presentations.  As every public speaker knows, no two presentations are exactly alike — but for the most part, the reasons a verbal communication fails to persuade are both predictable and preventable.

That’s the premise of “Buy-In,” a new Harvard Business Review Press title by Professors John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead.

What’s exciting about this book on effective advocacy is the sheer practicality of its prescribed approach t0 develop the power of persuasion. It’s approach to advocacy is simple and memorable — yet often overlooked by public speakers, despite their desire to deliver more persuasive, more effective presentations.

In essence, the book proposes a kind of “aikido” — a direct (but non-confrontational) approach to persuasion that anticipates verbal communication attacks and deflects an opponent’s challenges. Armed with this knowledge,  your good idea can have a “fighting chance” — but without the fighting.

Address Public Personas To Strengthen Persuasive Presentations

The authors’ insightful theory and practical public speaking tips are reason enough to invest your time and treasure in this book. It provides something more, however: an excellent example of targeting individual character types for more persuasive presentations.  We call these personality types “public personas.”  These are the people who are crucial to your success — whether your current “role” reflects commercial, civic or personal matters.  Depending on the issues at hand, these personas may be members of your community, elected officials, corporate directors or any other group with influence over a certain aspect of your affairs. You need their cooperation and you value their goodwill. So think long and hard about who these people really are — and see what happens when you approach communications strategy with “relational” goals, not just “transactional” aims. In a social media environment, this relationship-oriented communications approach can make a significant difference.)

The "Buy'In" Public Personas

Persuasion Through Storytelling

“Buy-In” uses a story-based format to bring these personas to life, and to demonstrate the threats they pose to persuasive presentations.  The book’s narrative thread pulls the reader into a persuasion scenario, as each of these “idea-killers” takes center stage and threatens to short-circuit the hero’s journey towards a successful performance. This storyline bringing the characters to life highlights a crucial point: An audience’s challenges to a public presentation often are not mean-spirited or deeply oppositional. Rather, the personas are simply archetypal characters acting in predictably human ways — sometimes exhibiting an aversion to risk, other times being critical in an attempt to demonstrate their intelligence, and still other times just not welcoming another change in their lives. The personas need your reassurance, recognition and respect — even when they’re behaving disrespectfully. By steeping ourselves in the “Buy-In” story narrative, we learn how to accommodate these personas’ questions (whether well-meaning or destructive) and to respond in ways that move us towards our persuasion goals. We learn to welcome the audience challenges, and to use these attacks to generate emotional engagement that furthers our advocacy goals.

The Heart Of Persuasion? Effective Communication.

In describing their method for persuasive communication and effective advocacy, the authors list eight steps for achieving effective large-scale change. Although each of these elements is important, it is the fourth of these steps (Communicate For Buy-In) that they consider most important in overcoming obstacles to persuasion.

The single biggest mistake that people make when trying to communicate a new vision of change, and strategies for achieving that vision, is under-communicating by a great deal.  What seems like a lot of communication to those driving a change effort can, in fact, be woefully little…

Although some of the communications advice you’ll find here may seem self-evident (even simplistic) consider that the methodology deliberately embraces those “unsophisticated” qualities. This process, after all, is designed to enhance your verbal communication skill in the chaos of real-world situations — not the rational world of academic debate. When you’re under fire, simple strategies can serve you very well indeed.

Four “Idea Killers” Prevent Persuasive Presentations.

Although there may seem to be an endless variety of arguments capable of preventing an effective verbal presentation, the authors found that these all can be condensed into four “idea killers.”

• Confusion
• Death By Delay
• Fear Mongering
• Ridicule And Character Assassination

“That’s it?” you’re wondering.  ”Four simple “buckets” to account for death of all the good ideas that never really had a chance?” Admittedly, this is a pared-down system — but give it a chance. Once adopted, these categories provide a surprisingly robust “real-time” framework for evaluating incoming attacks. You hear the criticism, channel it into the appropriate category and deliver a response that is pre-determined to advance your persuasion goals.

24 Predictable Verbal Communication Attacks

Next time you are preparing a presentation for your directors, your colleagues or your community, set aside a couple of hours to skim this book and run your proposal through its list of the 24 common verbal communication challenges.  A few examples are listed below, and you can watch Professor Kotter discuss some of these attacks online.

1. “We’ve been successful. Why change?”

2. “Money [or some other problem a proposal does not address] is the only real issue.”

3. “You exaggerate the problem.”

4. “You’re implying that we’ve been failing!”

5. “What’s the hidden agenda here?”

(A complete list of verbal communication challenges — and responses — is available at the Kotter International website.)

What If Your Idea Simply Isn’t Persuasive?

If your idea truly is a good one, it deserves all the persuasive skill you can muster. But if your idea should prove to be flawed? (It happens!) In that unfortunate case, wouldn’t you prefer to uncover the problems in an environment where you’ve done everything possible to promote respectful dialogue and to preserve relationships? “Buy-In” will help you adopt the mindset that you can (and should) confidently “face the lions” to learn how your idea might be improved – and to be authentically open to the question of whether it even merits further consideration. Paradoxically, welcoming the attacks will ensure that your idea doesn’t die an unnecessary death.

“Respect” is a key word for achieving genuine persuasion and buy-in — and it goes without saying that this quality is sorely lacking in most public discourse today. One of the most attractive aspects of the authors’ approach is that is goes beyond the transactional, “win-at-all-costs” approach that often leaves bad decisions and broken relationships in its wake.  Rather, the book counsels the use of persuasive communication skills that preserve relationships. Why is this so important? Both for its own sake, and also because a proposed idea that wins acceptance requires the goodwill and support of former-opponents once you seek to actually implement it.

If you’d like to learn more, a free download of the “Buy-In” preface is available here.

“Wild West 2.0: How to Protect and Restore Your Online Reputation on the Untamed Social Frontier”

“Every day, people search for your name on the Internet, and all too often trust the ‘Google Truth’ — the collection of search results selected by a computer for their popularity rather than their veracity — to decide whether to do business with you, or even just associate with you.”

If you’re interested in online reputation, privacy issues and managing your public image on the Internet, there is plenty of content to be found online.  Unfortunately, much of the information you unearth will be dated, off-topic, or too general to be really useful. What’s more, sifting through it all will take time.  And even though many of the commentators you discover may be knowledgeable and professional, are they qualified to offer advice on the legal aspects of privacy, intellectual property, reputation and business strategy?

For a more attractive alternative, check out “Wild West 2.0” — an in-depth, strategic exploration of online reputation management, with a scope that encompasses both individual and business reputation issues. The authors are Harvard/Stanford lawyers who created “ReputationDefender”— billed as the world’s “first comprehensive online reputation management and privacy” site — and the arguments they present are well-reasoned and thorough, with complete documentation and references.

Using the central metaphor of “The Wild West” may lack in originality, but it works well enough to establish a sense of why individuals and organizations need to take responsibility for their own well-being on the new Internet “frontier.”  Online cultural norms and technologies are still evolving too rapidly for “real time” enforcement by regulatory bodies or legal entities. (By the time enforcement actions are taken, the reputation “horse” has left the barn and covered a lot of territory.) In this environment, the authors argue, an individual simply has to look out for himself. “There is no sheriff in town.”

Social Reputation = “The Halo Effect” Plus Social Proof

American psychologist Edward Thorndike is credited with the first studies (among U.S. Army subjects in 1920) of  “the halo effect” — a measure of how one’s initial impression of a person could disproportionately influence all subsequent evaluations and opinions of that individual. As the authors point out, this dynamic is alive and well on the web today — and when combined with the phenomenon of “social proof” (popularity) it creates the basis for social reputation.

“Many reputations are undeserved, especially in the age of digital media and Web 2.0 socialization. There are people and companies that have been unfairly smeared and that do not deserve their negative reputations.  And there are people and companies that have positive reputations beyond what they have earned. But the inaccuracy of many reputations does not stop people from using reputation to judge each other.” (My emphasis)

Unfortunately, simply knowing that these reputational forces exist doesn’t provide immunity to them. When the first thing we see-hear-read about a company is negative, that organization has a significant obstacle to overcome in winning our trust and approval. And when we hear a rumor that ultimately proves to be unfounded, the initial negative association can still taint our perceptions of the unjustly criticized target. It’s not fair, but it’s real.

Understanding the basic dynamics of perception makes it easy to grasp why reputation experts insist on the importance of preemptively building “reputation capital” — and addressing issues promptly when negative perceptions arise. (Once the genie is out of the bottle, there’s really no getting it back in; not entirely.)

Online Anonymity Doesn’t Respect Social Norms

“Wild West 2.0” also provides useful background information about the psychology of online attacks. The book devotes an entire chapter to the difficulties caused by “anonymous cowards” — the malicious attackers who say things online they would never say in person.

“…the anonymity of the Internet can also lead to profoundly negative results.  The worst of human behavior is revealed when nobody is watching.  Many people allow their worst side to come out when there is no social pressure to behave ethically.  Without such checks, anonymity can quickly lead individuals and groups away from their humanity and into depravity. And there is often no way to resolve disputes or disagreements when the other party to the disagreement cannot be found.”

Perhaps you are among those who still don’t accept the idea that your online reputation can really influence your success in the bricks-and-mortar world. (Or maybe you are postponing work on your online identity and image until you face an important interview or a major business deal?) Do yourself a favor and spend an hour skimming through this book — or one of the other good titles* on the subject — soon. (Also, see our review of “DIY Online Reputation Management” — a hands-on guidebook for taking charge of your personal online identity.) Even if you’re not convinced to invest time and money to manage your online reputation right now, consider it “cheap insurance” to have raised your awareness and taken a baseline measure.

At the very least, make a point of regularly monitoring Twitter and Facebook for mentions of your company and your name. And if you haven’t already done so, set up these early warning alerts — so you’re notified when there’s a blip on the radar screen:

http://www.google.com/alerts

http://www.google.com/reader

http://alerts.yahoo.com

http://www.bing.com/news (Windows Live ID required)

# # #

*Among those books I can recommend: “Radically Transparent,” by Beal and Strauss; “Trust Agents,” by Brogan and Smith; and “The Future of Reputation,” by Solove.

Online Reputation Management (ORM) is a term that’s getting a lot of attention lately — and with good reason. Now that a generation of “Digital Natives” has entered the workforce, they are bringing with them a long trail of online records — including Spring Break photos and other “colorful” memorabilia that they might have preferred would be kept out of public view for a long while. But the information is all out there — and prospective employers, business partners, customers, competitors and colleagues all are availing themselves of the repository of personal and professional data that is only a search engine click away.

Unfortunately, there’s the “truth”…and then there’s the “Google Truth” — as online information can be notoriously inaccurate or incomplete. So what’s a prudent approach to effectively manage an online reputation?

For individuals (business reputation books will be covered in another post) a noteworthy text that recently crossed our desk is this no-nonsense guidebook…

“Do It Yourself Online Reputation Management”

Ever had that nagging feeling that your online “footprint” might be incomplete, inaccurate and/or out-of-date?  When you’re ready to act on those instincts, you might choose to retain one of the major online reputation management firms. But if you are more of a “hands-on” personality, this pithy little handbook is a great place to begin. There’s no beating around the bush; no complex theories; and just enough background to educate and reassure the reader about what needs to be done — and why.

As the authors state in the introduction: “Hope is not a strategy. To repair or protect your online reputation you need to take action.”

In 15 brief chapters, this is a book you can breeze through during a lunch hour. Ah, but the implementation of it all…that will require some time.  How much time?  That depends on how thorough (or compulsive) you are — as even a basic online “makeover” requires considerable cut-and-paste activity in creating personal profiles on the suggested list of key sites. Just completing the basics prescription described here could easily consume the better part of a weekend; but the good news (actually, bad news if you were looking for a quick fix) is that the program can (and should) be implemented over time. (In order to steer clear of Mother Google’s spam filters, the authors recommend “spoon-feeding” your profile information to online sites over the course of several weeks.) So set aside a few minutes every morning to implement the strategies outlined here. I guarantee you’ll pick up some good habits in online reputation management — “basic hygiene” for the new media ecology.

Audit Your Online Reputation On The “Deep Web”

Where to begin?  Start with the “Deep Web” — the Internet databases that are not visible to surface-level search engines.  The authors list four of the main “DeepNet” resources that can be accessed without charge:

www.kgbpeople.com (Formerly “Whoozy.com”)

www.yasni.com (Described by the authors as “the world’s most popular people search engine”)

http://pipl.com (Designed to produce relevant information in a user-friendly fashion)

www.peekyou.com (Setting up a profile here can help you get “found” online.)

By spending time on these sites, you’ll be laying the foundations for an informal “audit” of your online presence. If this exercise alone doesn’t incent you to undertake an online reputation management “campaign,” perhaps you don’t need one. More likely, in my opinion, are these scenarios:

A) You will discover a hodgepodge of online references to you (and other people who share your name) — and you’ll want to impose a sense of order on the information that’s most important to your Internet presence; or,

B) You’ll find that your skills and accomplishments are not readily apparent to an online searcher — and you’ll want to generate relevant content to improve your strategic visibility.

With either of these outcomes, you’ll want to take action — and “DIY Online Reputation Management” will get you off to a good start.

“To control your online reputation means owning it.  The only way to own your online reputation is to become totally transparent.  Simply, the more you put on the Internet the more you control your online destiny.”

“Good For Business” (GFB) is a thoughtful overview of the groundswell for sustainable corporate brands.  The book describes the forces that shaped corporate America’s public relationships throughout the 20^th Century and brought us to the present mandate for sustainability. Its focus is not on the past, however, but on the characteristics required for companies and leaders to craft and sustain meaningful corporate brands that resonate with socially conscious publics.

“The push for corporate  social responsibility is a response to multiple crises – environmental (especially fear of global warming), humanitarian (refugees, genocide, poverty, health), and financial – and has been colored by the West’s embrace of spirituality and volunteerism.  More people have begun to think seriously about the world’s interconnectedness and the imperative of looking out for one another.”

The central argument here is not about altruism, but about the business benefits of doing the right thing: “…doing right by all stakeholders — including the public  — will yield tremendous advantages in terms of competitive differentiation, brand image, and customer loyalty.” 

You’re underwhelmed?  Granted, “doing well by doing good” is hardly an original idea — and many forward-thinking companies have been practicing corporate social responsibility and sustainability for a long while.  So any new book on this subject runs the risk of repeating the same old lessons and “preaching to the converted.” But no matter how many times you may already have heard the “sermon,”  that doesn’t make the underlying messages any less valid.  With the maturation of these fields (CSR, sustainability and corporate branding), however, there’s an expectation any new publication must offer something beyond the standard arguments justifying the use of shareholder resources to promote social good.  Fortunately, “Good For Business” is more than just a rehash of existing knowledge about corporate social responsibility. There is genuinely useful information here (especially regarding the development of a “conscious” corporate brand) that could make this book worth your while.

“So what will the Conscious Corporation of tomorrow do differently?  It will move Corporate Social Responsibility out of its adjunct position, choosing instead to infuse elements of social and environmental responsibility throughout its operations, from human-resource practices and customer service to supply chains, retail venues, and packaging.  And it will listen and respond to conversations taking place about the corporation and its brand equities and weaknesses.”

Escaping The Dreaded “Dilbert” Mission Statement

GFB offers relevant theoretical “hooks” – among them its framework for creating more holistic and “humanized” corporations using “Four Cornerstones of the Conscious Corporation.” From a practical standpoint, however, the heart of this book is its step-by-step prescription for reforming the dreaded “mission statement” – that often-insipid document that single-handedly has given rise to so many cynical ”Dilbert” cartoons.  The authors present a convincing case for organizations to adopt instead the “Useful Statement Of Direction”  (USOD) – a far more robust way to envision and instill a purposeful corporate culture to bring about real change in how the organization lives its brand. GFB offers a thorough methodology for putting the USOD to work, along with several examples of how this tool applies to major corporate brands. (These chapters in-and-of-themselves are reason enough to add this book to your library.)

“Good for Business” is a collaborative effort among four authors: two branding practitioners (Andrew Bennett and Ann O’Reilley from Euro RSCG Worldwide), a corporate culture specialist (renowned strategy consultant Cavas Gobhai) and an executive recruiter (Greg Welch from Spencer Stuart).  In concept, the idea has merit – as each of these roles is important in shaping the socially responsible corporation.  In practice, however, the “committee-written” result is not entirely satisfying – as the text has a “patchwork” quality about it that sometimes feels more like a draft than an integrated whole. (In addition to the four principals, there’s a cast of supporting players — CEOs, consultants, researchers — also contributing to the effort.  In other words, there are a lot of cooks in this soup.)

Better, perhaps, to have had either a master editor weaving a consistent theme or (ideally) to have made this a more comprehensive overview of the key pieces required for a “good business” corporate brand today. (For example, basic commentary from experts on Governance, Legal Affairs and Ethics would have added important dimensions – as would the opinions of analysts, regulators and the nonprofit community. If you’re promoting an “holistic” approach, don’t these players – and others – all need to be factored into the corporate brand equation?)

A “New Brand World” For Communicators

Communications practitioners may have liked to see the book include specific strategies and tactics for building a socially responsible  brand — using social media techniques, etc.  As any marketer or public relations person will attest, the “new brand world” has radically transformed organizational communications practices — leaving many practitioners feeling adrift on a shifting sea. As a case in point, “Good For Business” quotes Peter Sieyes, a director at the English beverage company, Diageo:

In the past, Sieyes said, managing communications was like bowling:

“We would roll the ball (marketing message) at the designated target and could vary the speed and curve depending on the situation.  Typically, we would hit all the pins we wanted, in essence creating a halo for the corporate brand.”

Today, he says,

“…marketing communications is more like pinball.  Yes, we still get to release the ball, but now our messages get ‘jolted’ by consumer groups, bloggers, and the like.  Consumers are controlling the conversation, deciding which aspects interest them and adding their own spin.”

Although the “pinball” analogy is apt enough, laments about “the good old days” of controlled messages don’t get us very far. As with most changes, it is far more productive to look for the opportunities presented and to “just get on with it.”  From this standpoint, the authors’ focus on “big picture” trends is ultimately more useful than any tactical approaches — which quickly could become dated and cliche. Far better to learn how to think about adapting to the altered ecosystem, especially when those changes are so rapid and widespread.

Social Responsibility As An Essential “Literacy” For Corporate Brand Managers

As mentioned above, those already steeped in corporate branding and social responsibility may well find some of the material here to be repetitive or derivative. Nevertheless, there’s an audience for this text: managers who know enough to understand that corporate social responsibility and sustainability have become essential “literacies” – and who are interested in getting an overview of how to incorporate these key concepts into the organizational brand.

When everything about a corporation communicates, every aspect of that organization becomes a “message” – its products, policies, people and PR all are infused with values and differentiators. In this transparent and fluid ecosystem, what’s “good for business” is an organic and evolving concept that requires continual reassessment and adaptation. This book raises awareness about those important practices. “Good For Business” furthers the essential conversations that can help organizations to consciously and conscientiously shape their increasingly valuable corporate brand assets.

Harvard Professor Mahzarin Banaji

“Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone but only his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky

What are those things you are afraid to tell – even to yourself? What are your prejudices?

More importantly — what impact do these biases have on your behaviors as a friend, a family member, a professional, and a citizen? And to what degree are you really aware of the role of prejudice in your life? After all, one can change – or at least try to change – one’s conscious beliefs; but what about the unconscious underpinnings of those beliefs?

A Test To Raise One’s (Un)consciousness

If you’re interested in learning (confidentially) more about your own prejudices, you can join the millions of people who have taken advantage of “unconsciousness-raising” Implicit Association Tests measuring unconscious bias. Created by social scientists at Yale and the University of Washington (and further explored at Harvard and the University of Virginia) these tests measure unconscious attitudes on race, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability and “American Identity.”  An introduction to the tests, at the “Project Implicit” website, describes the purpose of this work:

“It is well known that people don’t always ‘speak their minds’, and it is suspected that people don’t always ‘know their minds’. Understanding such divergences is important to scientific psychology.”

The diagnostics don’t require a large time commitment and are available online at: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/. (As described on the site, Project Implicit “…presents a method that demonstrates the conscious-unconscious divergences much more convincingly than has been possible with previous methods.” Note that the site carries this explicit disclaimer: If you are unprepared to encounter interpretations that you might find objectionable, please do not proceed further. You may prefer to examine general information about the IAT before deciding whether or not to proceed.)

How widespread is prejudice?

Mahzarin Banaji, Ph.D., Harvard Professor of Social Ethics (and one of the Project Implicit principal scientists) says 80-90 percent of the population shows biases – although the degrees of prejudice, of course, vary. Prof. Banaji (who I first heard at a Harvard Law School seminar on “Mind Bugs: The Psychology of Ordinary Prejudice”) reports that the most common bias involves age. This prejudice is large even in China, India and other cultures that traditionally have inculcated a respect for the elderly, she noted.

It goes without saying that prejudice and bias play critical roles in organizational and interpersonal communications. If you share my fascination with applied communications research, I also encourage you to pick up a copy of (former) Harvard Business School Professor Gerald Zaltman’s “How Consumers Think” – which does a masterful job of describing (from a marketing standpoint) the role of the unconscious in attitudes and behaviors.

In the media and around boardroom tables, crisis and risk management issues are receiving a lot of attention these days – not surprising in the wake of shaky financial markets, earthquakes, terrorism and environmental disasters.

Predictably enough, much of the dialogue centers on best practices in managing immediate emergency responses. (These moment-by-moment case studies are dissected and analyzed for best practices and leadership lessons — and media coverage provides “the first draft of history.” So there is plenty of attention paid to this aspect of the crisis lifecycle.)

But some of the world’s top crisis managers believe the opportunities for major advances in crisis management will come from focusing on the time periods both before and after the emergency response.

Integrative Risk Management & Advance Recovery

In early 2010 the reinsurance firm Swiss Re’s “Centre For Global Dialogue,” began producing a series of articles on one of its focal areas: “Integrative” Risk Management.  As the Centre’s website describes this practice:

Integrative risk management starts with the premise that no measure of exposure can be taken in isolation. It is a view that is well established in a corporate context, with stress being placed on a more holistic understanding of risk management. This integrative approach is only beginning to make initial headway into the strategic management of risks at a societal level.

The Centre’s “Risk Dialogue” magazine recently carried a thought-provoking story by Herman “Dutch” Leonard and Arnold Howitt — leading figures in risk assessment and crisis management. At the heart of the Herman/Howitt story is the somewhat counterintuitive notion of “Advance Recovery” — a relatively new term in the field of crisis management, but one that undoubtedly will be receiving more attention.  It’s a big idea…

In essence, “Advance Recovery” embraces the idea that “resilient” social systems can be engineered in order to minimize the losses in “social welfare” (humanitarian, economic, etc.) that typically result from a crisis situation.  Advance Recovery, say Herman and Howitt, is the practice of “thinking carefully in advance about how to accelerate recovery after the fact.”

“The practice is under-utilized,” says Prof. Leonard. “Because advance recovery has generally received little attention, we believe there are significant unexplored, underdeveloped and unexploited opportunities in that domain for building more effective and complete strategies for social resilience.”

Leonard and Howitt point out that disaster recovery routinely is treated as “something that simply has to be invented after the fact.”  Why?  Because so many unknown variables (including big variables such as time, location, severity of damage – to name just a few) make specific response plans impossible. But even though one cannot have perfect advance knowledge about the specifics of a crisis, there is more than enough general information to allow the advance creation of “response templates.” The authors argue that the existence of these templates could have a significant effect in strengthening resilience in times of crisis.

Resiliency Lessons From Hurricane Katrina

In support of their push for “advance recovery,” Leonard and Howitt offer a case study drawn from Hurricane Katrina. Here, their analysis focuses on New Orleans’ Broadmoor neighborhood – a community that displayed a noteworthy resiliency that distinguished it from other parts of the disaster-stricken metropolitan area.

What key elements were at work in the noteworthy Broadmoor recovery? The authors distilled these five factors contributing to that resiliency:

1) Self Reliance (The Broadmoor community didn’t wait for others to come in and “fix” the situation for them.   They developed strategies and started working.)

2) Prior Experience Of Local Leaders (When people who had been involved in previous community activities stepped forward, that credibility carried over into the recovery efforts.  Prior experience and exposure enhanced these leaders’ ability to make a difference in facilitating the recovery.)

3) “Inside-Out” Organizing (The most successful organizing was “organic” – developed by the people “with the most skin in the game,” rather than that facilitated by external consultants.)

4) Adaptive Capabilities (Effective local organizations were able to adapt their capabilities — in order to address and master a variety of challenges.)

5) Successful Public Relationships With Outsiders (Partnerships with external organizations and leaders were crucial to Broadmoor’s resilient recovery – and so the ability to identify those assets and to establish successful working relationships became “mission critical.”)

By implication, the generic “resiliency factors” which have been identified and distilled could be “reverse-engineered” into organizations and institutions – thus providing them with powerful capacities that could be activated around any crisis situation.

As Leonard and Howitt point out, “All crises are local; all recoveries are local, too.”  With the promising practice of Advance Recovery now getting recognition from the crisis management community, we will look forward to seeing local organizations embracing these innovative tools for resilient response.

To access the “Advanced Disaster Recovery” article click here.

Despite the clear evidence that sustainability issues will be crucial to the long-term success of organizations, many managers still take a haphazard approach to sustainability strategy and initiatives.  The reason? Because they view sustainability issues as fundamentally different from other organizational challenges they have faced.  That’s a mistake, say authors Dan Esty (Chairman, Esty Environmental Partners) and  David Lubin (Chairman, Esty Sustainability Network) — who produced “The Sustainability Imperative” for Harvard Business Review (May, 2010 issue – Subscription Required). The authors frame the sustainability issue as a “megatrend” not unlike other game-changing developments in business and society — and suggest that these similarities provide predictable patterns and lessons for successfully coping with sweeping change.

Here’s a synopsis from the article:

The Big Idea: Business history is marked by periods of relative stability punctuated by fundamental shifts in the competitive landscape that create inescapable threats and game-changing opportunities. Sustainability is an emerging business megatrend, like electrification and mass production, that will profoundly affect companies’ competitiveness and even their survival.

The argument: Understanding how leaders competed in previous megatrends—specifically, the quality movement and the rise of IT—can help companies craft the strategies they’ll need to gain advantage in this one.

A better approach: The road map is clear: Create a vision that moves systematically through four stages of value creation, starting with defensive tactics and then moving to offensive strategies. Then establish and integrate execution capabilities in five key areas: leadership, assessment, strategy development, management integration, and reporting and communication.

Sustainability = Strategy & Execution

Sustainability issues present “inescapable strategic imperatives for corporate leaders. “First, companies must get clear on the strategic vision — the “what we must do.” Lubin and Esty prescribe a four-stage approach to mastering sustainability:

1. Do old things in new ways.
2. Do new things in new ways.
3. Transform core businesses.
4. Create and differentiate new business models.

Next (and equally important) is the execution — the “how we must do” sustainability. Within this realm lie five critical areas (Leadership, Methods, Strategy, Management, and Reporting.) “In each area, companies must transition from tactical, ad hoc, and siloed approaches to strategic, systematic, and integrated ones.”

By combining these two key components, companies will create a “sustainability performance system.”  Each system will fall into one of four categories, “depending on their sophistication in both realms and their desire to use sustainability as a competitive weapon.” (See Graphic.)

Building On The Research Of “From Green To Gold”

Esty’s last book (with co-author Andrew Winston) was the highly regarded “Green To Gold.” Although the research forming the basis for “Green To Gold” now is five (or more) years old, that book remains a relevant and enduring contribution to the sustainability conversation.  In GTG, Esty and Winston went beyond the heady world of policy abstractions political philosophies — providing executives with a “toolkit” for analyzing their organizations’ environmental sustainability situations.

GTG continues to provide a useful framework for looking at the leading environmental sustainability challenges common to every organization. Listed here (in the authors’ order of relative importance), those issues are:

1. Climate Change
2. Energy
3. Water
4. Biodiversity and Land Use
5. Chemicals, Toxics, and Heavy Metals
6. Air Pollution
7. Waste Management
8. Ozone Layer Depletion
9. Oceans and Fisheries
10. Deforestation

“AUDIO” Framework For Environmental Analysis

GTG serves as a useful primer for “The Big 10″ by subjecting each sustainability issue to the authors’ “AUDIO” analysis:

1. Aspects (business-relevant elements of environmental issues)
2. Upstream (looking back in the value chain)
3. Downstream (looking forward in the value chain)
4. Issues (company-specific challenges)
5. Opportunities (ways to profit a company and/or society)

Employing this matrix both provides a useful way to organize Big Picture thinking and also serves as a template for organizations to manage their own particular environmental sustainability situations. “Looking at all the ways environmental issues affect a business can frame thinking and strategy in a new way. By examining their business through an environmental ‘lens,’ managers can avoid expensive problems and create substantial value.”

What Companies Should Care The Most About Sustainability?

Under the heading “Who Should Care The Most,” the authors appeal to the self-interest of organizations with the greatest exposure (both upside and downside) to environmental sustainability issues. GTG lists these characteristics as indicators that a company has “more skin in the game”:

• High Brand Exposure
• Big Environmental Impact
• Natural Resource Dependence
• Current Exposure to Regulations
• Increasing Potential for Regulation
• Competitive Markets for Talent
• Low Market Power
• Established Environmental Reputations

There’s practical and worthwhile information in “From Green To Gold” — certainly a major contribution to the sustainability literature. In the book’s introduction, the authors describe their Herculean work to “examine the canon of green business — the major business books, articles, and case studies that had discussed the business-environment interface.” Their findings?

“We were shocked by what we found. Most of the literature focused on “win-win” outcomes. Indeed, many of the books and articles had a cheerleading tone. Over 95% of the stories and examples talked only about the benefits of environmental thinking — reducing environmental impact and saving money. Surely, we thought, these initiatives can’t always be successful. No business strategy works all the time. Could this one-sided perspective and lack of analytic rigor be one of the reasons a broader business commitment to environmental action had not really taken hold? Were average business people skeptical of the unremittingly positive claims of green gurus? Where was the business-like edge and hard-hitting advice?”

Major Lessons From 2005 Research Show Progress In Business Thinking Today On Sustainability Issues

After “four years talking to hundreds of people” and “poring over the data” the authors divulged their major lessons:

1) Even the best companies can be surprised by environmental issues.

2) The environment is not a fringe issue – it can cost businesses real money.

3) Real benefits can come from seeing things in a new light.

4) Smart companies seize competitive advantage through strategic management of environmental challenges.

With the distance of several years since the book’s writing, these lessons now seem rather elementary and self-evident. But one should remember that for many mainstream businesses at that time of the book’s research, “Green” consciousness was still in its infancy. (It is to be hoped that business thinking about these sustainability issues today also is infused with more than a passing concern about corporate social responsibility that goes beyond calculations of ROI and brand equity.)

As the “Green Wave” continues to mature and grow, environmental issues and sustainability initiatives will increasingly become standard fare for corporate decision-makers. And the marriage of environmental innovations and a deepening public consciousness certainly will impact the conversation about this complex sea of challenges. What’s more, the “game-changing” oil disaster in the Gulf undoubtedly will continue to shape opinions and policies for years to come. In this complicated environment, solid research — such as that provided in “Green To Gold” — remains essential to an informed dialogue and meaningful sustainability programs from corporate America.

Adam Kahane, Managing Director of Reos Partners, is one of those rare change agents whose remarkable work has touched the lives of people throughout the world.

Kahane tells powerful stories. It’s not because of his delivery (which is understated) but because of his unerring ear for capturing the heart of a situation — in a quote, a phrase, a memorable anecdote – and using his observations to show us new ways of thinking. He projects a world-weary credibility built through a career of immersion in the world’s most challenging problems — not from the distance of academia, but up close and personal on the front lines of intractable social conflicts.

“The benefit of having done this work for a long time is that I’ve had a lot of trial and a lot of error,” he says. Equally important, however, is that those trials, errors and successes are not lost on Kahane. He is reflective, analytical and innovative – mining his experience for ways to help his clients, colleagues and readers make sense of their own conflicts.

Archetypal Positions At Copenhagen Climate Summit

At a gathering to launch Kahane’s new book, “Power And Love,” the author began his remarks by reflecting on his experience with the gnarly issue of climate-change. Kahane gave his impressions of last year’s Copenhagen Climate Summit, that (for someone whose career is devoted to “big picture” conflict resolution) was “…like being at the Olympics.” He relayed a friend’s comment on the intensity of those climate change negotiations: “It was like being in a class in which each student was deeply interested in the subject and everyone had read all the assigned materials.”

Kahane described how the climate change conflict seemed to organize around the positions of two broadly opposing camps: The “Power” archetype and the “Love” archetype. In the “Power” camp, Kahane included major actors such as the U.S., China, and “Big Oil” — whose interests were driven largely by the imperatives for growth, development, sovereignty and security. (Discourse among this group focused on growth…their growth.) The “Love” camp included the “Greens,” the Danish hosts, a multitude of smaller nations and the complex patchwork of NGOs and grassroots organizations. (Discourse within this faction focused on themes of interconnectedness and planetary health.)

“Shadow Sides” Of Power & Love Archetypes

Where there was conflict, Kahane observed, the archetypal “Power” players tended to view the archetypal “Love” players as unrealistic and irresponsible. For their part, “Love” players saw the “Power” block as often tyrannical and repressive. As Kahane reflected on the negotiations, “which were poised between breakdown and breakthrough,” he saw an extreme example of the dynamics that characterize many other areas of conflict. On the face of it, balancing power and love may seem simple, but this process is made infinitely more complicated by the “shadow sides” of these archetypes. (When power is not tempered by love, it can degenerate into forms that are reckless, mechanical and abusive. When love is not tempered by power, it can degenerate into forms that are sentimental, anemic and without vitality, the author observed.)

“Choosing either power or love is always a mistake,” Kahane said. “It is essential to balance power and love – and one must do this first as an individual before one can do it as a leader.”  How best to achieve this balance? Through awareness, practice and consciously strengthening the weaker of these two primal capacities. (Kahane told an anecdote about an Alcan corporate executive who was highly regarded for his managerial skills. When asked the secret of his success, the executive replied: “When I’m tempted to be tough, I counsel myself to be compassionate. When I’m tempted to be compassionate, I counsel myself to be tough.”)

The central metaphor  of “Power And Love” is “walking” – where power and love constitute the two “legs” necessary to move forward. (Having one really strong leg simply cannot get us where we want to go.) In this construct, people (and organizations) must be comfortable in “a perpetual state of imbalance” moving from one leg to the next. Within this framework exist organizations that have “fallen,” are “stumbling,” or are “walking” – and Kahane’s book offers case histories and stories illustrating each of these states.

“Power And Love,” is a field manual for social change — but don’t expect to find a set of group exercises or tactical plans. Instead, you’ll come away with a new “lens” for viewing conflict – a way of seeing that is easily grasped and applied, but whose subtleties will provide a never-ending source of questions and course-corrections along the way.

“How To Change The World”

Full disclosure: I had the pleasure of having Adam as a client some years ago, when I helped him prepare a major presentation (“How To Change The World”) for a FASTCOMPANY conference.  I can also recommend Adam’s earlier book: “Solving Tough Problems.” This quote will give you a sense of the insightful, purpose-driven content you can expect from the author:

“We get stuck by holding on tightly to our opinions and plans and identities and truths. But when we relax and are present and open up our minds and hearts and wills, we get unstuck and we unstick the world around us. I have learned that the more open I am the more attentive I am to the way things are and could be, around me and inside me; the less attached I am to the way things ought to be the more effective I am in helping to bring forth new realities. And the more I work in this way, the more present and alive I feel. As I have learned to lower my defenses and open myself up, I have become increasingly able to help better futures be born.”

PS: The book launch party was held in Harvard Square’s emerging “Democracy Center,” a former Harvard frat house that promises to be an exciting (and affordable) gathering space for social change organizations, non-profits and other relevant groups. Sponsor’s for the event included The Berkana Institute, Pegasus Communications, the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL), and Reos Partners.

How does a major university campus engage diverse stakeholders and rally them around an ambitious sustainability goal?  Can Green become the new Crimson?

In 2008, Harvard President Drew Faust convened the university’s Task Force on Greenhouse Gas Emissions.  Out of this group’s recommendations, Harvard announced its ten-year Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reduction Goal: 30 percent below the University’s fiscal year 2006 baseline by FY2016 – a goal that includes growth in facilities during this period.

In a sprawling campus that includes 12 separate schools and numerous other entities, how is Harvard coordinating its efforts to achieve this ambitious sustainability goal — and how well is it the campaign working?

Heather Henriksen, Harvard’s Director of the Office for Sustainability (OFS) recently addressed the topic in a seminar on achieving organizational change in complex systems.  Presenting an interesting case study on her sustainability work over the past two years, Henriksen offered six key lessons for achieving successful culture change within a complicated environment:

1)   Leadership is key. (“Before our sustainability program, there was no precedent for a non-academic goal to be implemented campus-wide,” said Henriksen.  Having the president’s imprimatur was crucial.)

2)   It’s important to understand context.  (Henriksen went on a “listening tour” for her first four months on the job.  Once she knew “the lay of the land,” she understood the contextual background that allowed her to create a plan and road map.

3)   You must have a dedicated organizer to catalyze the effort. (“Sustainability isn’t considered the primary job for most constituents, so it helped that we were the point people,” Henriksen said.  Finding five key areas that were leverage points, she created working groups:  Energy Supply; Buildings & Efficiency; Financial Metrics; Engagement; and Marketing Communications.)

4)   Communication and plans generate action and support. (“A major organizational change program really needs to work on engaging stakeholders,” said Henriksen. “We used the work of Marshall Ganz and others – always looking for the most effective ways to change behaviors,” Henriksen continued.)

5)   Include recognition, rewards and incentives targeted to specific audiences. (Example: Students were not motivated by the metrics regarding cost-savings for the university.  Some deans, on the other hand, “went from brown to green” on learning of the millions of dollars in savings from sustainability work.  Henriksen also found that it was useful to facilitate students’ involvement in sustainability initiatives – and in April her group held a “Green Carpet Awards” program – giving out student sustainability grants for the first time.)

6)   It is crucial to have a universal metric for financial impacts of sustainability efforts. (Henriksen worked with the heads of each school, asking them to tell her how their particular institution would reach the desired energy savings and cost reductions.  “Dispersing this ownership and ongoing accountability is essential – as people are more effectively driven by the goals they create and measure than by a top-down directive announced years ago,” she said.)

Formerly the Director of Marketing & Business Development at Time Warner, Henriksen also demonstrated a clear understanding of the communications aspects that are so important in facilitating organizational change.

• “I knew from the start that we needed a compelling brand.  As it happened, students had already come up with a slogan (“Green Is The New Crimson”) that worked well, so we built our brand around that.”
• OFS made sure that Harvard sustainability focused on saving money, improving air quality and reducing waste.  (“It’s easy to get widespread buy-in with goals like this.”)
• On learning that many of Harvard’s Schools didn’t have a Marketing Communications Plan for sustainability, OFS had each institution create a customized plan of its own –  fostering accountability and generating a greater understanding of this important component for system-wide change.

Although the sustainability program is still early in its ten-year time frame, the early results are encouraging.  Baseline energy audits have been completed; Campus-wide communications plans are in place; Innovative partnerships are emerging; Funding is being secured from federal and state resources; Renovation projects are achieving LEED certifications.  Millions of dollars of energy savings already have been realized, and the GHG reductions-to-date stand at seven percent (14% if not for the facilities added since the FY2006 beginning point).

So the program’s “bottom-line” metrics are on track, and steadily moving ahead. Henriksen is proud of the progress that those indicators demonstrate. But she also is quick to point out the importance of educating and engaging students: “When our team conducted a sustainability survey among Harvard students, it had more than 1000 ‘write-in’ comments and volunteered suggestions,” she reported.

Others, however, worry that Harvard needs a more ambitious approach. In a recent “Harvard Crimson” newspaper article by staff writer Stephanie Garlock, Craig S. Altemose (a member of the Greenhouse Gas Task Force that drafted Harvard’s sustainability goals) said, “We’ve taken some steps within our physical infrastructure to lead by example…But in terms of really teaching our students what is at stake with climate and giving them the tools they need to survive in that world, we’re not doing enough.”

The Crimson article also reported the campaign’s “uneven progress” across its schools — ranging from a 27 percent reduction at the Harvard Business School to a net growth (1 percent) in emissions in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. That article is available here.