CHAPTER 9
Value-in-Action Stories

ALL STORIES ARE Value-in-Action stories at some level. A simple story about a contractor—who arrived late, did a lousy job, and charged twice his original quote—reinforces the value of cynicism. I’ve been trying to stop telling it. But it is hard. It is a true story and I’m still ticked off. The question is: Am I still telling this story because I am still ticked off, or am I still ticked off because I am still telling the story? It is impossible to answer that question with any veracity. However, when I balance this story with an equally true story, I feel less cynical.

Derrick, also a contractor, came to my house on a Saturday morning on short notice. He had his young son in tow, on their way to a soccer game, and he took the time to fix a leak in my guest bathroom because my mom was coming to visit on Sunday. He went “above and beyond” the call of duty. Common sense tells me that retelling the second story more than the first leaves me more inspired to go “above and beyond” the call of duty. The first story leaves me feeling rather cynical. Cynicism rarely elicits more than minimum effort.

Stories reinforce the value that is most vibrantly experienced by the listener. Even if your intention is to reinforce the value of reliability, if the primary sensory experience in the story is one of broken promises, it is a victim story. Victim-hood is not a good value to reinforce in yourself or others. Your “I was robbed” stories need to be told and heard so you can process your feelings and move past bad experiences. Telling your story is therapeutic but not influential—at least not in the direction you intended. All humans have stories of broken promises, exploitation, and betrayal. The brain is designed to ruminate on these negative experiences to help you avoid repeat performances. Warning stories have their place, but positive Value-in-Action stories will usually require more attention than we naturally would give them. These stories can feel forced—but the payoff is worth the effort.

It takes discipline to consciously tell stories that build values like trust, loyalty, generosity, and excellence into our lives. It also requires a support system. You need someone to listen to your stories of disappointment so you can process those feelings and move past them. Emotions buried alive don’t die; they just hijack your communication the next time you run across a good listener or a captive audience.

Stories Frame Experiences

The stories and metaphors used in everyday communication lay the foundation for how we think about the world. Metaphors are mini-stories that help us frame complexity into a familiar package. We use the war metaphor a lot: the war on AIDS, for instance. We use war as a metaphor even though AIDS is a disease—without an emotional agenda, troops, or even a brain. When we channel our desire to find a cure and prevent the spread of AIDS through the metaphor of war it feels more urgent, and for some people more “win-able.” Many people like the metaphor of war because it makes them feel stronger to fight a war. War feels more active. Framing the goal as “healing a disease” is gentler and more complex. Metaphors frame and simplify, but sometimes they compartmentalize and oversimplify.

We are often suckered into metaphors that stir our emotions and direct our resources in directions we might not choose if we were paying closer attention. As an example, it is commonly accepted that designing a factory, product, or information system as a “lean mean fighting machine” is a good idea. This metaphor helps you “trim the fat” (metaphor) and “get rid of deadwood” (metaphor). But consider how these metaphors translate when applied to people? People can become “lean mean fighting machines.” Perhaps you’ve dealt with a few of those machine-like people. You might have even felt like a machine yourself. It’s a dead feeling. The “lean mean fighting machine” metaphor can dull our humanity and disconnect us from the empathy one flawed human has for another.

Without an equally powerful metaphor for human systems, humans end up acting like lean mean fighting machines in meetings, or treating coworkers like they are “deadwood.” Newsflash: That is NOT going to motivate staff or improve communications. Metaphors that improve the design of inanimate things and automated systems can kill the values that preserve human and humane systems.

When a company uses the metaphor “flawless execution” to describe their accounting services—that’s good; that is exactly what I want when someone files my taxes: flawless execution. But that company needs complementary metaphors and stories to accommodate the people side—the flawed employees who fall short of perfection. Flawless execution translates into executing the flawed unless tempered with values like trust, tolerance, reciprocity, and forgiveness.

Forgiveness is essential to any sustainable human system. Rules and policies do not accommodate the ambiguities of real life. The customer is NOT always right. One evening—hassled, tired, and angry that my hotel key didn’t work—I marched down-stairs to the front desk and shoved the card key at the desk clerk saying, “This key doesn’t work.” I probably even let out a teeth-clenched sigh. The desk clerk grinned ear to ear with a twinkle in his eye, and said, “That might be because this key isn’t for our hotel.” I looked and sure enough the key I was holding was for the hotel I’d just left. I was wrong and I had been rude, but his mood lifted mine and I grinned back, “Well, then … that would be the reason it doesn’t work, wouldn’t it?” We shared a joke on me.

Mr. “Flawless Execution” could have (and rightly so) embarrassed me for being stupid and rude. Instead this man chose to forgive, have some fun, and help me save face in spite of my being quite flawed. Only experience, story, and metaphor can successfully transfer the complex, ambiguous values of humor, tolerance, and compassion.

It’s Not Bragging

Your goal is to tell more stories about doing the “right” thing in tough circumstances. Humble people get squeamish because it feels as if they are bragging on themselves. It’s not bragging. These stories are an investment in the future of your organization and in the future of the next generation. If you don’t tell your stories, your values might die. TV, movies, and MySpace are certainly not focused on transferring values like self-discipline, integrity, or frugality.

The value of integrity-in-action usually occurs without any witnesses. Integrity by definition is doing the right thing when no one would ever know if you cheated, acted selfishly, or fudged a number. If you don’t tell your story no one will ever know that you did the right thing, even though it cost you. Besides, integrity means different things to different people. For my father, a retired federal employee and a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, integrity meant that if his boss told him to do something, he did it. To me integrity means if my client asks me to do something that feels wrong—for example, build an image of trust for a company that exploits people—I have to say no.

Values are never clear cut. That’s why Value-in-Action stories are vital if you genuinely want to build collective values powerful enough to guide behavior. Incivility has become a problem in many high-tech and high-stress workplaces. Hospitals are both high tech and high stress. Jim Falucci of Veterans Affairs in New York shared a story with his staff recently about how cultural values have shifted around smoking in V.A. hospitals. He remembers a day when people happily smoked inside the hospital. No one explicitly said smoking is okay. It was implicitly okay. However, back then smoking was not allowed on elevators, and Jim was peeved because he seemed to be the only person willing to correct a stranger getting on an elevator with a lit cigarette. “Now” he says, “woe to anyone who dares light up inside the building much less the elevator.” His story draws attention to the correlation between speaking up and changing behavior. His point is that in some pockets of the hospital system rudeness is tolerated.

Like smoking was twenty years ago, incivility is implicitly okay. Everyone is stressed out, overworked, and grumpy, and so we tolerate it. As long as people tolerate incivility it continues. It’s not as if people aren’t doing their job. Staff can follow rules and procedures to the letter and still sound disrespectful, annoyed, or exasperated. Incivility continues when otherwise good people are unaware of their impact on others. It takes courage to be one of the first in your organization to stop tolerating a behavior like smoking … or incivility. Values often cost you something in the short term. I have felt a warm conversation chill when I asked a relative to refrain from using racist language. It cost me in the short term but has increased awareness in my family over the long term. Values don’t pay off without continuous investments by real people who face real consequences for holding that value.

An organization that professes to value respect should be teeming with stories about respect. If you can’t find stories about respect, it doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t a good story gatherer. It may mean, instead, that other values are currently more important than respect. I recently worked with a large global company concerned with “hygiene issues”—their metaphor for low trust levels in their market. This company is peerless when it comes to identifying and exploiting market and product opportunities. They truly are one of the best companies in the world in terms of making the right decisions, doing the right things at the right time to make money and to grow market share.

Recently they had so many new products to introduce they called it the “season of swagger.” Asked to help them with telling the story of trustworthiness, I called attention to current stories being told by suppliers, customers, and partners. The values of speed, excellence, and growth meant they regularly cut off or ignored those who were slow, flawed, or meticulous. It’s a choice. Exploiting every opportunity to grow will not breed trust. Trust is not built from exploitation.

Values Beyond Reason

Like many values, trust is often not technically rational. Trust means I can fall and you won’t leave me. Trust means if I sacrifice for your good, you will return the favor in the future. Trust rates good intentions over current results and allows for second chances. Many work groups have tried to use objective reasoning to deal with deep disagreements that provoke strong emotions. It doesn’t work.

Objective reasoning is too strict and too dry to inspire or cultivate loyalty from flawed humans. International experience is a good way to decrease blind trust in objective reasoning. When your experience comes from only one culture, certain conclusions seem obvious. An American, for instance, won’t notice the arbitrary nature of his understanding of the behaviors he correlates with values like integrity, trust, and success. He might think it is obvious that any good compensation system strongly rewards individual efforts. A Japanese manager might believe just as emphatically that any good compensation system ensures no one individual comes across as more important than the group as a whole. Values create culture and culture creates values. Mix two cultures and you better start by sharing Value-in-Action stories; otherwise you will end up with assumptions that “they aren’t trustworthy” or “they don’t have integrity,” when in truth they simply have a different definition for that value in action.

Mixing cultures breeds conflict that can produce either creativity or distrust. In order to turn conflict into creativity, use Value-in-Action stories to articulate personal values in a way that makes sense and does not feel judgmental to those with a radically different background. Ask an American whether when witnessing a hit-and-run accident he’d turn the driver in, and he won’t think twice about an emphatic, “yes.” Anyone would, right? Not in some cultures. A Venezuelan witnessing a hit-and-run accident might pretend he didn’t see a thing—particularly if that person was his boss. He has a family to feed.

Many heated disagreements can be avoided or at the very least will benefit from sharing Value-in-Action stories. It is an unfortunate consequence of American ethnocentricity that we tend to equate rational thinking with values. Values are designed to guide us when we must make decisions in ambiguous circumstances (i.e., daily life).

STEP ONE. This may be the most important exercise in this book. It is critical to your sense of happiness in the world to know your values and feel that you live up to your own standards. What are your values? It’s important to consciously choose your values. Before you look for stories, take some time to think and write down the four most important values that guide your behavior. These change over time, and at any point in your life some will have higher priority than others.

Think about a difficult decision that left you unsure. In the end what did you choose to do? If that action left you feeling like you did the “right” thing, you probably based your decision on a value. If it left you feeling you did the wrong thing, you neglected a value that was part of your internal guidance system.

What are your four core values?

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STEP TWO. The four buckets are full of Value-in-Action stories. All you have to do is look. Here are some examples to inspire your own story ideas.

A Time You Shined

Every January I run a course for people who want to learn how to facilitate dialogue. My second book, A Safe Place for Dangerous Truths, lays out a formal process for a very intense type of conversation that peels back hidden agendas and exposes implicit assumptions. I’ve facilitated this type of dialogue for over a decade, and I can tell you it is not for the weak-hearted. The course is limited to ten participants because everyone brings so much baggage about how people “should” behave in groups and what facilitation “should” be that everyone needs personal attention at some point in the process.

One year I had five people enrolled. It was November and I was probably not going to fill the class. I always run it anyway. The phone rang and the representative of a very large organization asked me how many places I had left. I told him I had five places left. He said, “We’ll take all five.” Now that might have seemed like good news to most people, but I was thrust into a moral quandary. Each of the five already enrolled participants was self-employed or paying their own way. Each of them worked in different types of industries. If you have ever attended a course where 50 percent of the participants are from the same organization you know that group discussions are dominated by examples from that one organization and their unique issues. I felt it would be unfair to the original five people signed up. They deserved better. Each of them paid out of pocket and the five prospective participants would be attending on their company’s dime.

In all good conscience I had to say, “I’m afraid I can’t take five people from the same organization. It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the group. I can take two now and we can figure out something in between now and next year or just let them take the course next year.” There was a long pause on the other end of the line, “Are you telling me no? You are refusing enrollment?” I tried to explain my reasoning but he would have none of it. “Then we won’t be sending anyone.” I said, “I’m sorry you feel that way.” I was sorry to lose the opportunity, but I still feel like I did the right thing.

You learned your values over time by having those values tested. Each of your core values showed up at some time when you chose that value over an easier alternative. That choice and the circumstances surrounding it are a shining example that will make an excellent Value-in-Action story. There have been many occasions when your values were tested. All you have to do is choose one of these and tell about a time when it would have been easier to do anything but follow the values you listed above—respect, reliability, precision, trustworthiness, compassion, or winning—but you chose the path your core value demanded of you. Tell about all the circumstances and be honest about whether you deliberated over your decision. It makes the story more real to know that you almost didn’t do the “right thing.”

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A Time You Blew It

Frankly, I did not expect teaching storytelling at a Navy base would be so enlightening. I was wrong. Our military attracts some of the finest men and women in our country and gives many who would not otherwise begin life with fine qualities, the opportunity to develop them. This is a story within a story, but I’m including both because sometimes stories aren’t the same cut into two:

Sixty men and women sat in the training room. The course was open enrollment and, departing from normal military protocol, the participants ranged from very high to low rank, sitting side by side. Both great and small sat together in classroom chairs with built-in desks, just like high school. Storytelling is a great equalizer.

When we broke for lunch, the group swiftly headed to the galley. Except one guy. I hadn’t noticed him before. He was small, compact, redheaded, and freckled—one of those people who could be fourteen or forty, it was impossible to tell. We were the last two in the otherwise empty room. I couldn’t figure out what he was waiting for. I was waiting for the training manager, Bettye Brumuller, to come get me. She and I were going off base for lunch. She glanced at him as we walked out and said, “End of the month, I just hate that.” I look bewildered and she went on, “He’s broke—no money for lunch until payday at the end of the week. I see it all the time.” I glanced back. He was looking out the window.

We got into her big red Cadillac—Bettye has style—and headed off to get some greens and cornbread. On our way back she gave no explanation as she pulled into the Chick-fil-A drive-thru. She continued chatting in between ordering a sandwich and drink. I assumed someone had asked her to pick something up. When we got back she walked me back to the training room and came inside to set the sandwich and drink on a side table, announcing to the room in general, “Some idiot screwed up our order and gave us an extra sandwich. I didn’t want it to go to waste. I figured one of you boys might want it.” As I said, Bettye has style.

I left for a minute and when I came back “Red” was slurping down the end of his drink and the bag was wadded up on his desktop. I smiled, called the class to order, and asked who would be willing to share a story next. His hand was up like a shot. I invited him to come to the front, and he told this story:

“I joined the Navy because this girl I liked joined. Of course I never saw her again. (He paused for the laughter.) But it didn’t matter because for the next fourteen years I was either drunk or stoned most of the time. Two years ago I self-referred myself into a treatment program. It was my own decision. I haven’t had any drugs or alcohol for two years. When I sobered up I learned something really important: I HATE the Navy! (He had to wait a long time for the laughter to die down.) As a matter of fact, I hate authority in general. But I only have a few more years until I can retire with full benefits. When I retire I’m getting as far away from this life as humanly possible. But, until that day, as long as I’m here I want everyone of you to know you can count on me. I will go where I’m told, when I’m told, and do what I’m told.”

The entire room broke into spontaneous applause. A few of the guys slapped him on the back as he returned to his chair.

Owning up to what might otherwise feel shameful is difficult, but it is a ticket to emotional freedom. When you tell a story like this, people deeply appreciate the depth of humility required to admit that you failed your own value system once upon a time. I recommend you look for a story from a chapter in your life that is already closed. You need to be long past feeling shamed by this event. Don’t tell it until you have forgiven yourself and have come out the other side. They say tragedy plus time is comedy—wait until you can laugh about it a little before you tell this kind of Value-in-Action story.

Look for stories from the times when you should’ve done the right thing but for whatever reason you didn’t. There is not a human being alive who doesn’t carry these stories. The power of the story lies dormant until you tell it. You will be amazed at how many people will come up to thank you for telling a story about a time when you failed your own standards. It’s obvious you aren’t condoning failure. What you are doing is demonstrating humility. We all stumble. And some mistakes can never be repaired—but telling the story might help others avoid making the same mistakes.

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A Mentor

Everyone should have a Value-in-Action story that illustrates what integrity means to them. Once, teaching a roomful of 2,000 retail electronics professionals, I asked them to tell a partner a story of integrity. I was pretty sure they’d come up with stories better suited to their culture than I could. They did. I love this particular story because it is such a “guy” story:

I come to a lot of these conferences. Most of them like this one (we were in Las Vegas) are surrounded by casinos. I enjoy gambling but I don’t enjoy losing. So my buddy Jack and I made a deal where we spread the risk. Whenever we go to a casino together we split our winnings 50/50. It makes it more fun and we have twice the chance to leave a winner.

So last night we were playing black jack and a little roulette, and I was losing. I was tired anyway so I decided to go to bed early—if you call 1:00 A.M. early. Anyway, this morning I’m sitting at breakfast and Jack walks up like a Cheshire cat and slams down $1,500 in cash right next to my coffee cup. I asked him, “What the hell is this?” He says, “We won last night! Three thousand smackeroos and this is your share!” I told him, “Man this is your money, not mine. I whimped out on you last night.” He just screwed up his face like I was nuts and says, “A deal is a deal,” and walks off. Now that’s what I call integrity. He didn’t have to share that money with me. I’m not sure that I would’ve. But I can guarantee that I will in the future—a deal is a deal.

What mentor taught you how to do the “right thing”? Who in your industry, culture, or organization epitomizes the best of the best? If you seek to influence outside your own group you might seek a mentor figure from the culture, history, or ethnicity of your listeners. Don’t assume that your mentor will be someone else’s mentor when it comes to values. The extra research pays off. When speaking to your own family, organization, or cultural group, all you have to do is find stories of people most admired by this group and you will find Value-in-Action stories. Look to those you admire personally to find examples of your own values in action. It is fun to arbitrarily choose one of your favorite stories about someone you admire and then decode it for the value(s) illustrated in that story.

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A Book, Movie, or Current Event

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’s marvelous book, Respect, is basically a book of respect-in-action stories.¹ Among those wonderful stories, she tells one about Jennifer Dohrn, who was a nurse-midwife in a clinic in the South Bronx. To me, the most striking detail of Jennifer’s story was that Jennifer dressed up for the birth of every baby. When the time was near, she would put on her best jewelry, beautiful clothes, and full make-up, so that “When the baby arrives, his or her first view of life outside of the womb will be lovely.”

When I first started speaking I got some negative comments on my evaluation forms about my clothing. They said I was too casual, even “unprofessional.” I wasn’t dressing like a hussy but more like a frump. These were the days before the cable show “What Not to Wear,” or I might have ended up on it. I was under the impression that what I said was more important than how I looked.

This story about Jennifer Dohrn helped me see that my clothing can be viewed as a statement of my respect for others. Over the years I’ve learned that respect is communicated in a thousand subtle details beyond my extremely reasoned, rational way of thinking. This story in particular communicates how paying attention to symbolic details can communicate to others in a tangible way.

How would a baby know whether Jennifer had applied lipstick or not? She pointed out that the baby’s mother would know. The baby’s father and siblings would notice. Their behavior would begin to match hers. She’s setting an example with lipstick that might result in a more gentle handling, more time cooing, or even an internal commitment to improve the family’s standard of living. Just as important: Jennifer knows. She described dressing up for those babies in a way that clearly demonstrated the respect she has for all human life—rich or poor. Like Jennifer, I now pay attention to my clothing and makeup so that anyone can tell at a glance that I’m honored to be hired to train or speak to a group, and that I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn their stories.

Many books and movies are not a showcase for values. If profit and entertainment is the prime motive, I can see why producers might avoid stories that prompt self-examination. Value-in-Action stories often prompt introspection that might leave the listener coming up short. Ideally the story charts a new future of pride in one’s values, but the lag time can cut into profits; thus, entertainment will often go light on deep examination of values in action. However, some of these entertainment books and movies intersperse examples of values in action between the car chases and bedroom scenes. Like the Vision stories I think it is important to stay wary of idealized values in action. If a story lacks believability at the theatre or in your reading, you probably can’t make it seem believable in a Value-in-Action story.

Sometimes a brief summary of the plot can illustrate a value. Otherwise, choose an old favorite and reread or rewatch it and pause whenever you find a vignette that might turn into a good Value-in-Action story. Keep your journal handy for jotting down ideas. Don’t turn your nose up at TV shows—more people might connect to a Value-in-Action story from The Simpsons than to a recap of a Dostoyevsky novel.

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STEP THREE. Choose one of your ideas to develop into a story. Write the story here in your journal. Do not edit. Write in whatever order it comes, including every single detail you can remember. Provide sensory details for all five senses. Write as much as you can remember.

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STEP FOUR. Now put your journal away and find someone who will listen to a “test-telling” of this story. Tell your story without these notes (storytelling, not story reading!) to someone you trust.

STEP FIVE. Ask your listeners for appreciations. Ask them to respond to your story with any of the following appreciation statements, and record what they say:

“What I like about your story is …

“What your story tells me about you is …

“The difference hearing your story might make to our working relationship is …”

“I can see you using this story when (client situation) in order to (impact) …”

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STEP SIX. Now write your own thoughts about this story. What do you like best? When you tell it again what do you want to remember to say first or last? Are there any new details you can include to make this story more vibrant or alive? Is there a particular order that is more engaging?

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STEP SEVEN. In addition to the value I wanted this story to illustrate, what other values are reflected here? What is the strongest sensory experience in this story and what image is most powerful? Is the value I want to express illustrated by the most vibrant parts of my story?

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Note

1. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Respect (Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1999).