Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM JULY 2020 46 T he bully hides, watching from inside the house as a boy and girl step inside his yard, just before he springs his ambush. He jumps out and attacks, pummeling the boy against a wall. The girl, terrified, flees into the house, only to have the bully follow and shut the door behind them. The boy, fortunately, rescues her in the nick of time; together they make their escape. Furious, the bully throws a tantrum and smashes a wall. This tense drama comes to life for many people as they watch a simple video that I often show in my storytelling workshops. The video is unique in that it contains not a single person or a word of dialogue. The visuals are animated shapes – circles, triangles, and lines – that move silently around a blank white screen. On its face, the video means nothing. Yet when people watch it, they usually turn it into a compelling drama. The film was made as part of landmark research in the 1940s by experimental psychologists Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel. They wanted to explore how the human mind makes sense of nonsensical situations. What they discovered is that in trying to determine "what's happening and why," the great majority of us will anthropomorphize – we will attribute human characteristics and motivations to inanimate objects such as triangles and squares, even though there's nothing human in sight. Thus, a meaningless animation gets interpreted as a bully's attack or a love story, a hostage rescue or a family argument. Shapes become characters, movements suggest meaning, and motives and conflicts emerge. It feels like a story, but it's really nothing more than shapes on a screen. THE NARRATIVE IMPERATIVE The impulse to create a drama where none exists reflects the remarkable degree to which the human mind is wired for story. So much of our teaching, learning and persuading happens through storytelling that it's a natural human fallback when we need to make sense out of chaos. Our brains are pattern-recognition machines. When we're con- fronted with a new situation, but we lack the information to clearly understand it, we fall back upon familiar storylines and narratives to explain what's happening. It's an evolutionary benefit, but it's a flaw as well. People who watch the Heider-Simmel animation aren't aware that they're making huge creative leaps, or that the storylines they invent tend to draw on their own personal experiences and life situations. The narratives simply write themselves, and they're nearly impossible to change once they're set in a person's mind, even though the facts may contradict the narrative. The implications should send a chill down the spines of those of us who are responsible for running a business, leading a team, or explaining reality to a customer, an employee, or a family member. COUNTERING THE CONFABULATION The inescapable truth is that if your customers, employees, or loved ones find themselves threatened by big, scary changes, the first thing they'll do is invent a story to make it make sense. Critically, it won't be a story about data or market trends or theoretical concepts. It will be a story about people: Somebody did something, and now we have a problem. And just as with the shapes video, that story will almost certainly be wrong. What this means is that you do not have the luxury of sitting back and saying nothing. The people you care about will write their own stories about what's happening, with or without your input. So when change is afoot, your first job is to deliver your own narrative – one that provides a human accounting of what's going on from your unique perspective. It doesn't mean that you need to have all the answers. The most important thing is to provide an honest recounting of the reality of the situation as you've experienced it, even if you don't know everything about it and you're struggling, too. Honesty and authentic emotion go a long, long way. Just be sure that your narrative comes first – and, ideally, that you tell your story when important news is being delivered. Not everyone will necessarily embrace it, but they'll know where you stand. And that's always better than inviting someone to write their own story. Because that's a story that will never end well for you. THE STORY YOU'RE NOT TELLING CAN HURT YOU THE MOST Mario Juarez Business Mindset RO Mario Juarez is an organizational consultant, coach, and motivational speaker. He focuses on helping organizations and individuals achieve better business results through strategic storytelling. An award-winning former journalist, Mario led a series of innovative communications initiatives at Microsoft before founding his company, StoryCo, which serves clients across a range of industries.

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