It is truly remarkable to consider just how much of the world we live in is fiction.
Money, nations, law, the economy, companies, schools, the Paris Climate Agreement and so on, are all fiction. They only exist in our collective imaginations, separate from the concrete reality that all other species inhabit.
Pigeons do not use money, recognise national boundaries, break laws, care about the economy, work for any company, dream of going to school or refer to the Paris Climate Agreement when deciding where to flock to. Pigeons, and every other species apart from us, live in the real, concrete, tangible world. That’s why they don’t have these things.
Whilst imagination is easy to dismiss as child’s play, it’s very serious adult work. Without money I could not enjoy all the comforts my life provides me. Without the law, I would live in fear. Without the economy, I would not be able to find work to give my life purpose. Without companies we would not have the brands that provide so many of the material comforts we depend upon for our daily existence. Without schools we could not gain qualifications. And without the Paris Climate Agreement businesses around the world would not feel the pressure to run their businesses in a more environmentally friendly way.
These fictions enable large groups, in some cases billions, of individual human beings to cooperate together, something that no other species has achieved.
Stories unite us.
But we also see what happens when different groups of people believe in different stories.
Trump Vs Biden in the 2020 US Election. Wearing or not wearing a face mask in the pandemic. Brexit. Different stories create disagreements, arguments and sometimes even wars.
What causes people to believe in stories? Why do people believe in different stories?
The simple answer is because these stories have real-world consequences.
Money gives me pleasure when I have enough of it to buy the things I want, and pain when I don’t have enough of it to buy the things I need. Nations have borders that are closely guarded by people with guns. Law is enforced by policemen with handcuffs. The economy dictates how much work my clients give me. Companies can issue work permits and pay money. Schools issue certificates which other people respect. The Paris Climate Agreement is written into law, which (supposedly) can be used to punish businesses that fail to respect it.
Remove the real-world consequences, and the stories cease to have such a big impact.
If you want to use storytelling to unite people, then you need to start telling stories that have real-world consequences. There are several conditions that enable this.
1. Help People Achieve a Common Purpose
When people want the same things, this is a time to create a story to unite them.
Mobike is an interesting example. Back in 2016, silver and orange bikes started appearing on the streets of China’s cities. By downloading an app, I could walk up to any of these bikes, scan a code and unlock it. I could then cycle it wherever I wanted to.
But there was a condition.
You must park the bike in a reasonable space and lock it afterwards so that other people can use it.
That wasn’t so hard for most people in China. Chinese people crave convenience. They have created a society that has progressively made life better. They want things faster, and cheaper, and NOW! And that one condition (plus the tiny per minute cost of renting the bicycle) were perfectly reasonable costs for them.
And so, the Chinese people’s desire for convenience brought to existence the story of the shared bicycle economy.
After great success in China, Mobike expanded abroad. As it entered Manchester, it discovered that Manchurians did not share the same purpose.
Mobike suffered heavy losses in Manchester due to vandalism. In just one month alone, 10% of the entire fleet of Manchester’s Mobikes were stolen or vandalised. So many of their bikes were stolen, thrown into canals, or hacked to pieces that they could no longer afford the costs of operating there.
I’m sure not every Manchurian is a vandal. There were probably plenty of Manchurian’s who shared the same purpose as the residents of China’s cities.
But there were enough of them who did not share that purpose. Instead, their purpose was, essentially, to take as much as they could, whilst giving as little as they could.
2. Be Confirmable
When I was 6, I heard a ghost.
My friend had rushed back to the classroom from the toilets and told me he heard a ghost laughing. Being the curious 6 year old I was, I went to investigate. Sure enough, when we got to the hallway, the loudest, creepiest laughing noise was echoing throughout. As I looked up the hallway, the only thing I could see was a shadow getting bigger and bigger. That was enough for the 6 year old me, I ran away with my friend scared half to death.
That school was a very, very, very old school. The building is over 500 years old, in the village of Cuckfield which is over 900 years old. It was next to a church and a graveyard. It was also next to a pub called The King’s Head, in which a number of people have claimed to have encountered another ghost called Geranium Jane.
According to cuckfieldconnections.org: “Jane was a servant working at the King’s Head in Cuckfield and had become involved with the landlord in an illicit love affair. When Jane announced she had fallen pregnant with the landlord’s child he decided that some action must be taken against Jane to prevent the news from becoming public knowledge. When Jane was working one day the landlord launched a pot of geraniums from an upstairs window, promptly striking Jane and killing her, hence how she got her name … Geranium Jane!”
I recall hearing stories from my sister when I was younger about how her friend had sensed the presence of Geranium Jane when a strong scent of geraniums suddenly emerged followed by a sharp drop in temperature.
When I was 11, I went back to the school after it had been converted from a school into a public hall, but kept the name “The Old School”. I went with my mother who had some errands to run there, and a friend. Whilst my mother was running her errands, my friend and I decided to go off and explore the building. We went upstairs, and entered a small room with shelves and shelves of books. As we started to look through the shelves, I heard it again…
“MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”
My friend also heard it.
We both ran downstairs and quickly left the building!
Do I believe in ghosts?
I don’t know.
Throughout my childhood, growing up in a small English village, with an old church, lots of very old buildings, and hearing all sorts of ghost stories, it would be very easy for me to believe in ghosts.
Our mind likes to form maps of the world to help us understand and navigate it. When we are young, our maps aren’t very well formed, so we explore the world to discover it and form our maps. But as we get older, our maps become more fixed in nature.
There comes a tipping point it seems, where a map becomes so fixed that we stop exploring. Instead of of questioning our map’s accuracy, we seek proof of its accuracy.
This is also known as the confirmation bias, which Rolf Dobelli, in his book The Art of Thinking Clearly, defines as “the tendency to interpret new information so that it becomes compatible with our existing theories, beliefs and convictions”.
For a person who already believes strongly in ghosts, it wouldn’t take a lot to convince them of their existence. They are already searching for proof of ghosts, and already filtering out anything that goes against their beliefs.
It is confirmation bias that has significantly contributed to the polarised world that many of us now live in. Brexit, Trump and Climate change are just some examples of issues that have been heavily influenced by peoples’ confirmation bias.
As we have entered the information age, people have been so overwhelmed by information that they filter it out. On their social media feeds they follow people and news sources that fit their beliefs, and ignore anyone and anything that goes against their belief systems. They create confirmation bias bubbles that reinforce and even strengthen their belief systems. Their beliefs shift even more to the extreme ends of the spectrum, and people become polarised.
But the lesson is this; if you want to use stories to unite people, make sure they are backed up with believable proof.
You want your team to believe they are really working on a product that will change the world? Get an authority figure they respect to confirm that’s what they’re doing. Get featured in a news publication they read to confirm that’s what they’re doing. Show them the difference their product is making to confirm that’s what they’re doing.
In short, find real world evidence, that fits their belief systems, to confirm the validity of your story.
3. Be Ritualised
The world is a diverse place, and given the different values, cultures and life experiences we all share, not everyone will buy into the same story. We see this play out every single day. People support different sports teams, buy different brands, and follow different influencers.
The first two steps I’ve listed (Help People Achieve a Common Purpose and Be Confirmable) are more like filters to ensure you are only attracting the people who will buy your story. From now on, it’s time to bring the story to life.
In the book Cultures and Organisations by Geert and Jan Hofstede and Michael Minkov, they categorise cultural differences into 4 layers that work much like an onion.
At the heart of the onion are values. Values are a groups preferences, that determine what they will collectively approach and avoid. When you have people who share a common purpose, and who feel their beliefs have been confirmed, you’re quite likely to end up with a group of people who share common values.
The next outer layer is rituals. This is where culture, and our stories, become real. Rituals are collective activities that reinforce a group’s values. Going to Church on a Sunday, saluting the national flag and cheering a football team are all examples of rituals.
Rituals not only reinforce group values, they also make stories believable.
Consider the rituals the nation you come from has in place to make it’s story believable.
There are the simple things, like saluting the national flag, singing the national anthem or showing your passport or ID to access certain privileges only granted to members of that nationality (such as re-entering the country without a visa). Then there are extremely complicated things, like diplomatic relations, political processes and legal practices. Every single one of these is a ritual, or set of rituals, which ultimately make a story believable.
This is one thing that I believe many big corporations overlook when trying to initiate any major change; they fail to include rituals to reinforce it.
For example, maybe your CEO has been keeping up with the latest trends and realised the importance of mental health to modern day workers. They recognise that if they don’t signal to future job candidates that they are a proponent of mental health, then they might lose key talents to competitors who are more in touch with social trends. So they initiate a “Mental Health Revolution”.
They prepare a presentation with beautiful slides and inspiring stories. They also invite some guest speakers. They also design some posters to hang up on the office walls. And then that’s it.
Clearly nothing is going to happen. They would need to put in place rituals to make this “Mental Health Revolution” a reality.
Perhaps they could start every board meeting with a 10 minute check-in, where they invite every person in the room to quickly share how they’re doing. They could then ask every leader to do this in every meeting, helping this ritual to spread throughout the organisation.
Perhaps they could create a Mental Workout program that every employee is invited to participate in once a day. For example, at the start of the day all the staff can come together to do mental health exercises, such as sharing 10 things they’re grateful for, or practicing mindfulness, or breathing exercises.
Perhaps they could make one day a month a rest day, where no one does any work and everyone is encouraged to rest.
It can take a bit of thought to brainstorm rituals that can bring stories to life. But they are essential. Without a ritual, a story is simply a story. Once it jumps out from one person’s imagination and becomes grounded in the real world, it becomes something other people have experienced.
And remember the principle of “the mind understands what the senses have experienced”. Once people have experienced your story, it becomes their story.
4. Have a Hero
Brands use heroes from other stories to create buy-in for their stories.
At the time of writing, Marcus Rashford has just become the third youngest person ever to score 50 goals for the Manchester United football club. He became an overnight hero in 2016 when he scored two goals in his unexpected first appearance for the club at the age of 18, and then went on to score on his first appearance for the England national team just month’s later. Furthermore, he became a national hero in the UK in 2020 when he campaigned to end Child Food Poverty, and raised enough funds to distribute 9.5 million meals for children and families who otherwise might not eat.
Marcus Rashford is a hero for A LOT of people.
He is a hero for any young Manchester United player dreaming of breaking into the first team. He is a hero for any Manchester United fan who just wants to see their team succeed. He is a hero for any young England football fan. His charity work means he’s even become a hero for people from other football teams who would otherwise despise him, and even for people who don’t like football in the first place.
If I were any big brand with money, I would be knocking on Marcus Rashford’s door to sponsor him. I would want him showing his support for my brand on adverts throughout the world. Because a lot of the people who think of him as a hero would then start to believe in my story.
Going back to the Cultural Onion model I mentioned earlier, the next outer layer beyond rituals is heroes. Hofstede defines heroes as “persons, alive or dead, real or imaginary, who possess characteristics that are highly prized in a culture and thus serve as models for behavior.”
Heroes serve two purposes.
Firstly, they act as role models, for people who believe in the story to aspire to. For example, if I believed in the story of the football legend, then Marcus Rashford would be a good person to aspire to. But if I didn’t believe in this story, or even know what football is, then Marcus Rashford would mean nothing to me.
Secondly, the concept of a hero acts as reinforcement for a culture and story. A hero acts in the way the story wants us to. If we start to model the hero, we might become the hero. When we become the hero, we are celebrated.
Celebration is at one extreme end of the peer pressure spectrum. On the other end is humiliation. Humiliation is the loss of status, from a group of people who we share the same story with.
For example, in the Manchester United football team, there are other players who joined the team at roughly the same time as Marcus Rashford, who are roughly the same age as him, and have similar backgrounds as well. But due to their obsessions with hair styles, social media and using their fame to make money, their performances on the pitch suffered. They lost the respect of the fans, their team mates and the coach. Now they may not even play for the team ever again. This, is humiliation.
Humiliation for a footballer, whilst unpleasant, is nothing like humiliation for one of our hunter gatherer ancestors. They lived in tribes, and it was vital they worshipped the same stories as their fellow tribe members. By worshipping the same stories, they developed a culture that kept them together. Whilst a modern day footballer can simply drop the footballing culture and join another culture that would have more respect for them, a hunter gatherer ancestor could not do the same.
When our ancestors were humiliated, they lost privileges. In extreme cases, they were ostracised. Both of these have very serious consequences for survival.
If you want to unite people around a story, then you need to find or create heroes.
Going back to the example of the “Mental Health Revolution”, how could you find and create heroes for this revolution?
To find heroes, you could start by looking for people your followers respect, who are role models for mental health. Perhaps they are celebrities, politicians, or other influential individuals who have inspiring stories to share of how they took care of their mental health.
To create heroes, you could look for success stories of people who followed the “Mental Health Revolution”. Once you find them, give them very loud and very public recognition. Let everyone know that this person is a hero, and that they too could be like this person. Give them awards like a day at a spa, or special privileges like the invitation to share their story in front of a big audience.
Once a story has a hero, people have something to aspire to. They know where this story wants them to go, and how to get there. But more importantly, they now have not only the personal motivation of fulfilling a purpose they care about, but also the social motivation of achieving the glory and safety of recognition, status and maybe even fame.
5. Be Symbolised
Symbols are the tangible representation of stories. They bring a myth from the imagination, and ground it in the concrete world in ways that people can see, hear and touch. They enable ideas to outlive the people that created them, allowing stories to continue through the ages.
The Roman Colosseum, the Yin Yang, Yoga Poses, the Holy Cross, the Union Jack, logos, sports cars, gadgets, apps, even bodily scars, are all examples of symbols that hold specific meanings to certain groups of people.
If you look at categories of products, such as cards, hand bags, smart phones etc., you’ll find that the most expensive or successful in a category of products is typically recognised as a symbol, normally a status symbol. Some brands have recognised the value of symbolism, and are thus able to make more money from the same category of product than their competitors.
Symbols make things meaningful. When things are meaningful, they hold more value. For example, one group of writers took part in an experiment to measure the value of meaning.
This group of writers wanted to see how much value stories added to everyday items. They visited junk shops, and purchased $128.74 worth of junk. Then, they wrote stories about each item and listed them on e-bay. Thanks to the stories, the original $128.74 worth of junk sold for a total of $3,612.51!
You can see the results for yourself www.significantobjects.com
Many organisations, when attempting to drive culture within the organisation, depend almost entirely on symbols to bring the culture to life. They print poster after poster after poster, listing their 12 core values with nice little pictures beside them, and then hang them up on office walls all over the world.
I am astonished by the number of companies I’ve been to where, when asking their employees to tell me their company’s values, these employees cannot do so.
When employees’ cannot remember their company’s values, this is not just a sign that the graphic designer did a poor job on the poster. More so, it’s a sign the previous steps I listed above were not followed.
For a symbol to mean something, it must be connected to a story through heroes and rituals. When there is no connection to these, the symbol is worthless.
A Louis Vuitton handbag is a status symbol to those who are willing to pay money for it. Famous models and rich friends using the handbag to display their status and wealth are the heroes of their story. Being able to show to the world this expensive treasure, whilst going out on shopping trips, eating in restaurants, or even turning up at the office, are the rituals that allow other people to experience this story of status, so that it also becomes their story.
A Manchester United shirt is a symbol of loyalty and glory to supporters. The stars scoring goals on the field, and legends that are revered through tribute videos on YouTube are the heroes of this story. Watching the game, cheering the goals and chanting along are the rituals that allow people to experience this story of loyalty and glory, so that it also becomes their story.
A contract is a symbol of trust. The people who follow and uphold the contract are the heroes of this story. The process of negotiation and getting legal teams to review this contract are the rituals that allow other people to experience this story of trust, so that it also becomes their story.
Going back to the “Mental Health Revolution”, what symbols could we use?
We could use posters. So long as they are connected to Heroes and Rituals, these posters will be meaningful reminders.
We could also choose a certain type of flower to represent mental health. One that has a story of resilience and self-care. We could make sure this flower is visible everywhere in the office.
We could create T-Shirts, stationery, even desktop backgrounds on computers.
Having enough of these symbols noticeable throughout the working environment will help to bring this “Mental Health Revolution” to life.
A symbol is the icing on the cake for a story. It’s the final polish that brings it to life. For any brand, or even individual, interested in increasing their value, a symbol is essential. But symbols must be built on a strong foundation of a shared purpose, confirmed beliefs, rituals and heroes.
Summary
Uniting people is the ultimate power of stories. This can happen on a grand scale, such as nations, brands and world famous sports teams, or on a small scale, such as a project manager, a good friend, or any individual who believes in something that others do not yet.
If you want to unite people through stories, then you need to bring the stories to life. To do so, follow these steps:
1. Help People Achieve a Common Purpose
2. Be Confirmable
3. Be Ritualised
4. Have a Hero
5. Be Symbolised
References
Dobelli, Rolf. The Art of Thinking Clearly: Better Thinking, Better Decisions. Hodder & Stoughton. Kindle Edition.
Geert Hofstede;Gert Jan Hofstede. Cultures and Organizations: Software for the Mind. Kindle Edition.
