In uncertain times, if leaders don’t sell a purposeful story that incites their employees, partners and other stakeholders to manage fear and confront change, someone else will write their future for them. That usually leads to a story with an unhappy ending.
Fear can either paralyze or catalyze an organization. A leader’s willingness to embrace fear dictates how successful he and his enterprise will be. Leaders must tell a story that makes fear an ally, not an adversary.
During my career, I’ve learned to tell stories that turn fear into a powerful motivator. In the early 1990s, as chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, I saw a huge opportunity to create super-multiplex theaters. This was long before such theaters dotted every street corner, as they do today. Specifically, I wanted to convince one of the companies we owned, the Loews theater group, to build this new type of theater in an area that many felt was overbuilt already – Manhattan. I needed management to embrace the idea of building a 16- or 20-screen multiplex that would play all the films available in the market at a given time.
I faced massive resistance from my team. My colleagues feared this idea would cannibalize their business. In order for them to act, I realized I had to emotionally transport them with a story rather than plying them with facts and information.
I first engaged them with a question. I asked: What if a group of hungry people went to a large food emporium? Even if one type of cuisine was missing, there would still be so much else they could choose from. “We should make movies that people consume with the same assurance of availability as they do lunch at a food court,” I told them. “If the movie that brought you to the theater is sold out, there would still be 15 or 16 other movies to enjoy.” My management team bought into the story. The result was the Sony 67th multiplex, which was an enormous success.
Good leaders use stories like this on almost a daily basis. They relate narratives that cast them and their organizations as agents of change, rather than defenders of the status quo. As a leader, you cannot eliminate fear or abolish uncertainty. But you can leverage these emotions to your advantage by engaging all of your stakeholders in a purposeful story.
(Peter Guber is chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment, owner and co-executive chairman of the Golden State Warriors basketball team, and a professor at UCLA. His new book, “Tell to Win,” will be available from Crown/Random House on March 1.)
