The Elements of Persuasion

Let There Be Light

Many people understand the value of stories when trying to make a point. However when they get into high stakes negotiations they revert back to old beliefs that say “facts will win the day” or “the more facts the more professional my case.”
Here is a true story that challenges those old beliefs.

I was hired by an auto maker to help a senior designer present his new design to the CEO  for a final 57 million dollar decision. My client, Franz, was scared of the CEO and for good reason. The boss was called “the ripper” because he could gut a company faster than an angler could gut a bass. He also had a short attention span and was easily distracted during presentations. These rumors only heightened Franz’s anxiety.

Franz responded by adding more facts to his Power Point. Complicating all of this was that English was not Franz’s first language. I knew that if Franz was allowed to make this difficult to understand and lengthy presentation not only would his project get rejected but his career could be in jeopardy.

I challenged him to tell a story which would give meaning and context. I wanted to know what inspired his design. Where did he get his idea? Franz resisted and said it was not relevant. I kept coaxing him to reveal more than facts. Finally Franz coughed up his story.

He had flown all night to attend a meeting in London. He arrived early in the morning and rented a car. Franz was in meetings until 10:30 that evening. He was so exhausted he was having trouble finding his car. He couldn’t even remember what kind of car he had rented. The parking structure was old and poorly lit. Each dark corridor looked like all the others. Franz started wondering who might be waiting for him around the next corner.

To his relief he finally found his car and as he was driving back to the hotel he had an epiphany. What if he could just touch a button on his key chain and his car would be encircled with light. Not only could he instantly find his car but he would know that as he approached his vehicle, he would be safe.

I said that was a terrific story and what was his concern if he told it? Franz said it made him look weak and vulnerable. I replied that a great story is always bigger than itself because it points to deeper human themes. These themes can’t be replicated on spread sheets or power points.

A week later the CEO listened intently as Franz told his story. When Franz had finished his boss said “OK what else do you have for me?” Franz was puzzled and asked if his project was approved? “Oh my yes” said his boss.

Later Franz discovered that the CEO had felt that this idea could solve a big problem.
Women were buying less of the company’s cars. They felt that more vanity mirrors and cup holders were not addressing their core needs for quality and safety. The CEO knew that Franz’s idea was a powerful way to begin remedying these issues. His story worked in ways that no power point could. Powerful stories win the day by combining facts with emotions.

END GAME ELEMENTS

Since early in the primaries this blog has taken the position that Obama’s strong element – the basis of his campaign – is Passion (his ability rally people around a central motivating core concept) and that McCain’s is the element we call the Antagonist (his ability to define the story as his struggle against whatever is between him and his goal).

No story element is better or worse than any other. You need all five to tell a compelling story, and every storyteller has their own style and preference. But it is fascinating that as we come into the home stretch that we have such a strong visual contrast between the two campaigns.

One the one hand you have Obama gathering enormous pep rally style crowds like the one he had in St. Louis where what he says is broad and inclusive. It is worth the click. This is “come on in the water is fine” at its most public.

And on the other you have McCain and company saturating the phone lines with highly targeted robocalls that define Obama as pretty much whatever it is that the listener might find unappealing. Phone calls, even robotic ones, are by nature private and personal.

Election day has both qualities. When you vote you get to feel that you are part of something much bigger than yourself - and you get to brag about it by wearing you “I voted sticker.” And when you are actually casting your ballot you are totally alone with your own deepest and most private thoughts and fears. It is a great story contrast – a suiting end to a long and historic campaign.

COOLER HEADS

Like a lot of people who spend way too much time prowling the web I was shocked by this YouTube of folks coming out of a Palin Rally convinced Obama was a terrorist. If that is the take away from a GOP rally something is seriously wrong.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons not to vote for Obama – enough so that I don’t really have to list them here – but him being a “one man terrorist cell” whose “name says it all” is not one of them.

In The Elements of Persuasion Bob and I say:

“Of course, not every story has a happy ending, and there is a very real moral danger in creating villains… Story telling is innate in human beings, but it is in some respects a value-free process. Fortunately, there is a fail safe. Those stories that produce destructive and negative actions tend to cannibalize the people who tell them. They rapidly eliminate themselves from the cultural dialogue…”

But what do we do while we wait for the fever to run its course? Listening to the wise words of our political elders seems a good place to start.

This speech by Republican Jim Leach, formerly the Representative from Iowa’s 2^nd District, fills the bill. It was given at the Dem convention, and is an endorsement of Obama, but that isn’t the point. The point is that it is truly bipartisan.

What I really like about it is that it places the story of this election cycle in the larger context of the Four Great Questions that have been at the heart of every American election from our county’s beginning and lists progressive politicians from both parties who have helped our country move towards achieving our ideals. It would make the kernel for a great High School History class discussion.

Sometimes the real gems from a political convention don’t standout until later. This speech is one of those. To find out more about Jim Leach, click here.

ALASKA NOIR

Sarah Palin is not the only interesting story coming out of Alaska. Ted “Hell No” Stevens is on trial for failing to report “gifts” from “lobbyists.” His is also running for reelection. The DNCC put together this little gem. I don’t like negative ads, but this one is too genre perfect to pass up. If you still have doubt that great political ads are story driven, this 30 sec spot should lay them to rest.

A quick 5-elements analysis: The Passion (irreducible core) of the ad is carried by the opening sound track – a cross between a political thriller and a local news stations investigative reporter theme. It establishes beyond doubt that this will be a crime story. The people in the van are our Heroes (we even see Stevens' house on a video monitor stressing their point of view is our point of view). Stevens is the Antagonist “He thinks he is above the law”. And crucially there is a moment of clear awareness when one “reporter” says disgusted, “And I voted for him.” Finally a transformative tag line “It’s not about Alaska anymore.” This is great stuff.

BTW, if anyone has any great Repub ads I’d love to analyze them. Most of what I’ve seen from the Repubs are tired retreads, but I’m probably missing something. Enlighten me, please.

HEALTH CARE CAGE FIGHT!!

The other day I was at my doctor’s office and he started in on Health Care. Since he was holding a very large needle in his hand at the time he had my total attention.

What he said made sense but I have no expertise in this area, so I asked him to write it up and I’d post it as submitted as an example of informed grass roots storytelling. If there is anyone on the other side of the issue that wants to respond I’ll post that as is as well (same length please). Me? I just want to sit back and watch the fur fly!

Doc Eliot wrote:

The McCain Health Plan consists of nothing more or less that the unlimited federal subsidy of insurance companies.

Yes. This is true. The Republican health care plan to reward insurance company lobbyists is camouflaged by promoting the issuance of “Tax Credits”. This money would go directly to the insurance companies. Furthermore, there would be de-regulation, freeing out-of-state insurance companies to do business across state lines while violating the states’ rights to regulate, and therefore resulting in the lowest common denominator of health care. Insurance companies would be free to continue to raise prices, deny payments, and meddle in the practice of medicine. There is no current Republican plan to actually improve health care. How do they plan to raise the money by which the federal government will subsidized the insurance companies? Currently, employer health benefits for employee are non-taxable. The McCain “Health” plan would tax this money!!! The McCain plan would increase taxes in order to subsidize insurance companies.

The Obama Plan is extensive, realistic and designed to engage and address all health care issues. Please go to booth candidates’ websites and verify the truth of the situation for yourselves.

Do not be fooled. Your health and the health of everyone you care for is at stake.

If you want to fact check this, click here for Obama, or here for McCain. I did. What Doc said seemed to check out.

Am I being bamboozled? If so, set me straight.

BIG DOG BARKS

As we prepare to tune in to tonight’s Vice Presidential Debate it's good to remember that the big story news of the campaign this week already happened two days ago down in Florida.. That's when Bill Clinton finally came off the sidelines and delivered as strong stump speech for Obama. A great stump speech, well worth study.

Who ever wins tonight VP psychathon it will really just be more of the same – a struggle between hero and antagonist. Of course each voter gets to choose who is which. It is unlikely that the debate will actually move the story forward. If you are like me, I'm sure you will be sure your hero won. To move forward we have to get to the point of AWARENESS, a simple clear moment of decision when we really know what we need to do to make things right.

On the big screen the classic is the voice of Obi Wan Kanobi telling Luke Skywalker “Trust the Force, Luke” Luke does, and the Republic lives on.

That call to clarity, to making the right decision under pressure is what Clinton’s speech in Florida is all about. And notice how many times he uses the word decision.

Do yourself a favor and listen to it. If you like oratory, if you like listening to a a great storyteller capture the crowd’s imagination about something really important, do yourself a real favor and listen to the whole thing.

The best version I’ve found on the web is from the folks at Crooks and Liars (a great site BTW). Click here to see it. Go on. Click. 

My favorite part? After talking about how the mess we are in is the result of bad decisions not accidents, Clinton adds, “We have a saying in back in Arkansas, “If you find a turtle sitting on top of a fence post, it’s not there by accident.”

MC CAIN SHOULD SAY NO

As I said in the last post both candidates should take a strong NO position on the suggested financial sector bail out for purely story reasons. Lets start with McCain.

Remember, this election is about America choosing its “hero-in-chief” We are looking for someone who can hold their ground in a difficult and dangerous world. In marketing terms it is about having a strong and sustainable brand.

The McCain campaign has been pushing two related brand concepts; 1). McCain is a maverick and 2) McCain “will fight for you”. Saying yes to this bailout seriously erodes both messages.

By definition a maverick does not run with the herd, and that goes double in the middle of a stampede. It looks like that is what Paulson is trying to get going. The Treasury Secretary probably sincerely believes that this is best way to save the situation, or it may just be that this is the way the Bush Whitehouse likes to market its proposals (it does seem eerily similar to how we got into Iraq and passed the Patriot Act) but that is the current administration’s story choice. For McCain to beat the bad rap that he is “McSame” he needs to separate himself from those choices. He needs to stand strong against the biggest special interest in Congress – the Financial Products Industry. If he doesn't his maverick brand is toast.

McCain also needs to say no to protect his only really effective brand slogan “I’ll fight for you.” You can’t go into a fight by giving up before it starts. And you won’t have much leverage to “hold the bad guys accountable” and “make them famous” if you give them a blank check and promise not to ask any hard questions for the next two years, and that is what this bailout does.

So McCain should just say “Thanks but no thanks” to the Treasury Secretary’s proposed 700 Billion dollar “bridge loan to nowhere.” His political survival depends on it.

If you don’t think a tsunami of populist anger is heading our way check out this ad I found on that bastion of socialist skullduggery – Market Watch. BTW last Friday was the 13^th Annual “Speak Like a Pirate Day” so in the spirit of better late than never – ARGHH!

MONEY TALKS

Not all stories are words. Some are told visually, some numerically. The right spreadsheet at the right time can speak volumes.

A headline like the one I woke up to in this Sundays L A Times:

“Bailout to reach $700,000,000,000”

(with every zero in there for emphasis) makes it crystal clear that the Market Meltdown will be sucking up all the story oxygen for a many news cycles to come.

So how can the McCain and Obama campaigns get ahead of the story and roll it into their candidate’s vision of the future? I’m not talking about political spin or partisan posturing. Any hint of that will probably prove fatal. I’m talking about how the candidates can use their points of view – the empathic connection they have been developing for months with the voters - to help us all get a handle on this problem. That’s what heroes do – they bring us together for the common good by giving us a common framework to solve our problems.

How should Obama and McCain do it? Interestingly enough both campaigns should follow the example of Nancy Reagan and “JUST SAY NO!”

The reasons why they should say no are different for each candidate because each candidates story is different but the fact that they should both end up saying the same thing – NO - gives me bipartisan hope.

In the next day or two I’ll go into details on the story implications for each candidates. But to get an overview of the situation I suggest you check out this interview Bill Moyers just did with Kevin Philips. Philips first major work – The Emerging Republican Majority - was done while he was working in the Nixon White house and laid out what became known as the Southern Strategy. Since then his analysis has crisscrossed back and forth over party lines. His book “Wealth and Democracy” is as good a macro analysis of the problems America now faces as I have ever read. In this interview Phillips makes it clear that current financial crisis is a bipartisan problem long in the making, with more than enough mud to go around if we want to start slinging. Hopefully we won’t.

To stay up on breaking news you might want to try out ‘The Big Picture” blogsite if you don’t use it already.

CONFESSION

If you have been following this blog for any length of time – and if you have, sincere thanks – you have noticed an increasingly partisan tone lately. You deserve to know why.

When Bob and I started to comment on the political stories we weren’t doing it as Repubs or as Dems. Our expertise is in corporate (Bob prefers to say “organizational”) story telling. Political campaigns are great examples of that sort of state-of-the-art persuasive communications. Our expertise isn’t in what you are trying to sell, but how you are trying to sell it. That’s the point of this blog.

And for many months we hewed to this “neither Dem or Repub” line. Both political parties had candidates who told their stories well, and that is what interests us.

Then the McCain Palin campaign crossed a moral line with a truly scurrilous ad. I’m talking about the Obama “sex ed” ad from a few weeks ago which implies through camera angles and general creepiness that Obama is a pedophile when in fact the bill he was voting for was to help protect young children from sexual predators.

We didn’t comment on it at the time because as we point out in The Elements of Persuasion this sort of negative ad thrives on controversy. Far better to let it die unnoticed. In fact we consider this ad is so immoral that we will not even provide a link to it. We will however provide links that debunk it. Read what the NYT has to say about it here, and see what FactCheck has to say here.

Recently on the “Straight Talk Express” the press started to chant “Bring back Mac, Bring back Mac.” This ad proves it may already be too late. Mac, we considered you an honorable man. You broke our hearts.

HOME COURT ADVANTAGE

Central to our analysis of this election is the idea that the campaign itself is a story and moves through the story elements in sequence. The primaries are about who can fire up the party base and get them Passionate about politics. At the convention each party nominates its Hero. In the months after Labor Day each candidate works to define the Antagonist – showing that the other party’s candidate is what stands between the voters and a better tomorrow. This is when candidates and surrogates go at in hammer and tongs. In the final three days before the election Awareness dawns and voters make their real decision of who to vote for. The result is a Transformation - for better or worse.

As we have said before each candidate has story strength. Obama’s is his ability to inspire Passion, particularly among the young. McCain’s is his skill as an Antagonist (that is he defines himself by what he stands against  - corruption, lobbyist influence, whatever). McCain's maverick persona is the natural outgrowth of this - he is even opposes his own party at times. This doesn't mean he can't be the Repub Hero. In fact, it gives the Repubs the current home court advantage because we are in the Antagonist phase of the campaign. This is when “fighting words” are key. And here the Repubs shine.

Two new attack ads came out today that make this point. “Still” is the new Dem ad.  It is clearly true, but so what? Is it really news? “Disrespectful” is the new Repub ad.. It might better be called “Uppity”. FactCheck says it is demonstrably false - click here to see why - but it generates lots of adrenalin. Which candidates name is more likely to stick in your memory?

It is starting to look like Obama brought a knife to a gun fight after all. He does have two prime surrogates – the Clintons - he has yet to unleash fully, but if Obama doesn’t decide that winning is more important than looking good he – and the Dems – are going to be in for a world of hurt.