The Magic of Storytelling and FTX: How do we tell the good story wizards from the bad?

There are two recent news articles that have been on my mind this week.  One was an interview with the playwright Sarah Ruhl that touches on the magic of telling stories in the theater, the other was an article about Sam Bankman-Fried and the collapse of FTX.  As with the falls of Elizabeth Holmes and Adam Neumann, the FTX article was a reminder that storytelling, like magic, is a tool that is both powerful and, at the same time, amoral.  In the same way that the Force in Star Wars has a light and dark side and there are good and evil wizards in a thousand other movies, someone who is good at telling stories doesn’t necessarily have good intentions.  So how can we tell the good wizards from the bad?  Let’s start by looking at how the magic of storytelling works in a business setting.  

Magic, like a good story, requires something from the audience as well as the magician.  The magician offers the audience an invitation keep an open mind as well as a reason to think that accepting such an invitation might be fun (costumes, lighting, skills).  In return, the audience agrees to keep their critical minds in check—at least for a while.  By being ok with not knowing, the audience changes their mindset from “How?” to “What if?”.  By allowing themselves to spend time in a world where anything is possible, the audience expands their imagination.

A good business storyteller is, like the magician, inviting the audience to keep their critical minds in check for a time (if this isn’t a finite amount of time, you’ve got an evil wizard on your hands).  When a storyteller knows what they’re doing, they become the guide on a journey that the audience is eager to follow to the end.  To do this the audience has to trust that it’s ok to set aside their critical mind for a while in order to experience the emotional truth the story offers.  Ideally, if the story works, both the audience and the storyteller share the same or similar excitement by the end.  From there the audience can go back (and should be encouraged to go back) to review the data with their critical mind from the point of view of someone who wants to help the mission succeed.  If their critical mind kicks in at every new slide in the story they’re not on the same journey, they’re like a cranky child being dragged through the airport, unable to share a vision of the final destination. 

So, if that’s how it should work, how do we keep our stories in the “Good” column and recognize the stories that might spell trouble?  Here are a few storytelling red flags to keep an eye out for:

Is the audience a real character in the story?  Most of the marketing books out there tell you that the hero of your story needs to be the audience.  But as the audience, even if you see yourself as a character, ask yourself: “is that a good character?”  Are they well developed and understood by the storyteller?  If you’re a potential investor, is the character of you someone that you would respect?  If your character description begins and ends with “a cool VC who’s going to make a ton of money”, that may be a fun way to see yourself, but that’s not an engaging character and it’s disrespectful.  It shows a disinterest in you as a human being with values and experience that you might bring to a partnership.  You’re simply, “Rich Person Number 23” in this story.  Maybe that’s not such a problem for you, but, if they don’t see you as an important part of the story, are they going to keep you in the loop when things get hard or feel responsible to the contributions you’ve made?  Or is this story going to become all about them?  Which leads us to another potential red flag.

Is this “story” just a rose-tinted character description of one person?  A good story needs good characters–plural.  It’s often through the other characters in a story that we learn the most about any given character.  Are they trustworthy?  How well do they work with others?  Do they actually know what they’re doing?  Without other strong characters in the story, we’re dealing with an unreliable narrator.  They may, in fact, be the genius you’re hoping they are, but you trust them at your own risk.  Furthermore, a storyteller too strongly focused on their own character raises an additional question.

Does the story have a compelling narrative?  A good story needs an objective that compels the characters to act.  Stories need active characters, it’s by their actions that an audience really gets to know them.  But also, a business story needs an objective that’s more compelling than any of the individual characters.  What is the mission that gives the characters (including the audience) purpose?  When a character in any story puts themselves and their needs above those of the mission you get an anti-hero if not an outright villain.  Are anti-hero stories fun to watch?  Of course!  Why do you think Elizabeth Holmes and Adam Neumann each got their own TV series (The Dropout and WeCrashed)?  But I’m guessing those shows aren’t as fun to stream for the people who were doing business with them. 

We tell stories to engage the audience on an emotional as well as an intellectual level.  The goal is to inspire people, to bring some excitement and a sense of urgency to a change that requires action.  To do so, the audience needs to agree to take the journey of the story, refusing the invitation kills the magic.  Storytelling skills make that magic happen and understanding what goes into creating a good story rather than merely a fun story can help storytellers build better relationships and help audiences avoid becoming a character in a Hulu miniseries.