Andrew Leigh went to the 2020 summit warm up yesterday in Canberra. It was the ACT 2020 summit and the lesson he will be taking to the big event on the 19-20th this month is, “… any idea with less than 90% support on Day 1 is going to get killed.” I can just imagine it, 300 people clamouring for their big ideas to be heard by 299 others and only 16 ideas making it to the end of the day. This is idea decimation in the original Roman sense of the word.

How did the successful ideas emerge? Were these successful ideas merely part of the community zeitgeist and would have survived regardless of what the participants did? How many were presented as a list of facts, a presentation of the evidence? I would be willing to bet many of the successful ideas were presented as a story illustrating the idea in a way that helped it stick in the minds of the participants. Once the idea took hold, it grew.

I worry about the upcoming 2020 summit. I want it to be a tremendous success but I can see 10 groups of 100 egos clashing and the largest voices smothering the quieter best and brightest. The success will depend on two factors: how the event is facilitated; and whether participants can tell stories to engage their fellow summiteers.

Facilitation, techniques and physical space

From what I can tell the summit organisers plan to run small group sessions and large plenary presentations. The warning bells should sound if we see rooms arrange in seminar seating styles, the favoured arrangement for one-way information transmission. I’m hopeful that the organisers know about techniques like open space, world cafe, or even something like jump-start storytelling to help the group be more collaborative. But maybe my hope is misplaced. These techniques foster real dialogue when in fact these two days will be a gladiatorial contest of whose ideas win. Physical space and technique are important but both are trumped by the skill and attitude of the facilitators. At one end of the spectrum is the facilitator who already has in their mind a picture of what good looks like and regardless of what’s been said this person hears their version and heads the group in that direction. At the other end of the spectrum is the facilitator who is totally focussed on process and helps people be heard. I’m hoping the 2020 team of facilitators fits in this last category.

Storytelling

Each participant will have very little time to engage the group in their idea. Cognitive science show that if someone has a strong opinion on a topic and you provide an alternative opinion, it only serves to reinforce the person’s original strong opinion. It’s called a cognitive bias.¹ However if we tell a negative story to grab attention then a positive story to illustrate what’s possible, we have a much greater chance of changing someone’s mind and engaging people.^2,3 It’s only after hearing the stories are people open to hearing the reasoning and evidence.

There are three reasons why these stories work:

1. stories are memorable and can be retold. This is powerful if your story embodies your big idea and is the told and retold at the Summit.
2. stories convey emotion and, regardless of what all the hard-headed rationalists would have you think, we make decisions based on the emotions we feel
3. stories provide context and therefore are more meaningful than disembodied facts and figures. Of course some of the best stories are laden with facts and figures.

Summiteers need to find their negative and positive stories this week and resist the urge to start with facts followed by examples and flip their sequence starting with the stories followed by reasoning. The people who can will increase their chances to be heard and understood. And perhaps more importantly telling stories will help relationships form among this elite group and hopefully is followed by collaborations that will make a difference to Australia.

Kevin Rudd understands the value of story. We have seen it in his election campaign and on Sorry Day. And on reading some of the background papers for the Summit I found this warning:

“These background materials aim to tell an evidence-based story about how Australia is faring. They are not intended to be definitive or comprehensive, but were put together to stimulate discussion on the main challenges and opportunities facing the country and the choices to be made in addressing them. They do not representgovernment policy.”

The summit organisers understand the power of stories. Now it’s time for the participants to embrace this big idea.

Why not join one of our storytelling for leaders workshops.

^1. D. Westen, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation (New York: PublicAffairs, 2007).

^2. S. Denning, The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative (San Francisco: John Wiley & Son, 2007).

^3. H. Gardner, Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People’s Minds (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004).