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Steve Jobs and MTV: Nine Steps to All the Power You'll Ever Need

This article is more than 10 years old.

Authentic power arises from compelling communication. Every great leader is a powerful communicator. It worked for Steve Jobs. Here’s how to make it work for you.

In 1981 I joined Warner- Amex Satellite Entertainment Company (WASEC). WASEC distributed The Movie Channel, Nickelodeon, and MTV: Music Television to the nascent cable television industry, and my job was convincing cable television operators to carry our programming.

The first thing my boss did was send me out on the road with Mark Greenberg. For three days we crisscrossed New Jersey calling on clients before returning to New York with a brief case bursting with freshly signed contracts.

I considered myself a pretty good salesman, but I was dazzled by Mark. As we drove through the Lincoln Tunnel into Manhattan I blurted out his secret, “Mark, when I have as many stories to tell as you do, I’ll be as successful as you are.”

Two years later it was my turn to break in a newbie. As we headed back toward the City he said, “Augie, when I have as many stories to tell as you do, I’ll be as successful as you are.”

*  *  *

I’m a huge fan of Paul Valerio who heads up the Customer Insights team for the design and innovation firm, Method. As I noted in a previous article, Building Brands by Killing Frogs, what I like best about Valerio is his ability to write creatively about creativity. He takes examples from everywhere and applies them to business and the black art of branding.

Valerio is as entertaining as he is enlightening and his article 6 Secrets to Branding, Ripped From “Raiders of the Lost Ark” is no exception. Here he applies an iconic movie and the amazing power of storytelling to super successful brands like IKEA. His overarching theme is that powerful communication means Show, Don’t Tell.

"Your audience will learn more about your story by experiencing it directly, not by being told about it. Narration is usually an indicator of laziness on the part of the author. Could you do away with the 'About Us' section of your website and still have everyone understand your story?"

Marshall McLuhan said that the medium is the message and it is no accident that every religion is based on myths and stories. The word “myth” is usually used as a synonym for wrong, but many philosophers like Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell argue that myths are actually metaphors for essential truths that are so deeply rooted in the human psyche that they are only accessible through storytelling.

The primary job of leadership is to “communicate a vision.” A leader must be able to tell such a rattling good story that others are inspired to follow his lead. In my own company I drew on every story, metaphor, allegory, and symbol I could find to create the mythos that we were a hungry band of brothers dedicated to something far bigger than making money. I spent more time creating and communicating our story than I did actually “doing stuff.”

A business story is just another name for organizational mission and purpose. But while mission statements are often rightly associated with static, boring, and lifeless platitudes, a great story must be dynamic and most importantly it must move people.

I still get goose bumps when I recall the story that a young Steve Jobs used in the early 80s to lure John Scully away from his heir apparent position at Pepsi: “It all comes down to this. Do you want to spend the rest of your life peddling sugar water to little kids or come to Apple and change the world?” This two sentence story isn't a business case. It turns Jobs into a prophet offering Scully a mission from God.

A cramped office stuffed with used furniture and second hand computers is either a high risk venture or heroic adventure. It all depends on the story and the story teller. Steve Jobs was a master story teller who used every trick of the raconteur’s trade right down to his black turtle neck to give Apple and its products rock star status. In Apple's mythos Jobs plays the role of the rebellious super hero: A modern Prometheus offering fire to the masses. His mission is to free mankind from the shackles of an oppressive empire represented by arch-villains like IBM. Jobs’ story made Apple the company for “the rest of us,” and though we’d never admit it every time we buy an Apple product we feel like we’ve struck a blow for the liberation of all humanity from the forces of darkness.

If every great leader like Jobs is a great storyteller, what are the secrets to telling great stories?

1) Know Your Story. What is the story you are trying to tell? Is it compelling, well thought out? Most importantly is your story worth living? Leadership is not a matter of getting things done. It is coming up with something worth doing in the first place.

2) Stories are Subliminal. Very little real communication is conscious. Most of what we do and why we do it is the result of osmosis. The secret to all good storytelling is the subtext that lies between the lines, the messages we pick up unconsciously. Again, Valerio’s article does a great job of showing how this is done.

3) Use Emotion. Stories communicate powerfully because they convey emotion. Human beings are primarily emotional creatures, and if you want to influence behavior you must tap into emotion. Don’t lecture people. Move people.

4) Learn from the Masters. Entertainment is a multi-billion dollar industry focused on storytelling. If you want to be a great story teller study the masters like Spielberg and Lucas. Don’t mindlessly watch movies, pay attention to why they work as stories.

5) Use Symbols. When we started our company we decided to begin work every morning at 7:30 as a symbol of how determined we were to succeed. As the company grew, starting so early took on a mythical aura that our people treated like a badge of honor.

6) Never Forget Your Roots. Telling and retelling stories are as important to human bonding as mutual grooming is to Chimps. Constantly create venues so your people and customers can retell old war stories and create new ones. Shared story telling not only reconnects old timers to the mission, but acculturates newbies as well.

7) Demonstrate, Don’t Pontificate. An ounce of show is worth a pound of tell. Natural selection has taught us to believe what people do and be suspicious of what they say. If your story positions your company as a heroic endeavor you must behave heroically.

8) Be Sincere. A great story must be authentic. If you don’t authentically buy into your own story don’t bother. You may have a future on Madison Avenue but you’ll never be a great leader.

9) Serve A Higher Purpose. Your story must tap into every human being’s longing for something that transcends business: something bigger than our selfish concerns that finds its expression through your story.

Mark Greenberg’s clients never actually bought any of our products. They bought Mark. Mark was a travelling troubadour happily spinning yarns that happened to contain the collective wisdom of an industry still trying to figure out what cable television was supposed to be. Mark reduced his clients to laughter and tears as he regaled them with the adventures and misadventures of their colleagues and competitors.

Mark wasn’t a salesman. He was an Oracle fresh from Delphi. Mark knew more about running a door to door sales force, collecting bad debt or buying convertor boxes on the cheap than any of his clients because he had listened so closely to so many of them. A two hour meeting with Mark was 90% storytelling and 10% our products and signing a contract was merely the chump change that these cable kings were more than willing to pay just to keep this travelling troubadour of wisdom coming back.

For more great leadership strategies read my bookBusiness Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO’s Quest for Meaning and Authenticity (Columbia Business School Publishing; July 2013). Follow me on Twitter @augustturak, Facebook http://facebook.com/aturak, or check out my website http://www.augustturak.com/