Lin-Manuel Miranda gives a master class in storytelling every night on the stage of the musical Hamilton. He went into more depth on his thinking as last week’s commencement speaker at the University of Pennsylvania. His overarching lesson is that storytelling choices about which stories to tell, which not to tell and with whom to share them reverberate through time. You share your stories with the people that help you craft, tell, live or benefit from the stories. Their presence and contributions change your stories and change you.
Which Stories to Tell
Miranda reminded us that “every story you choose to tell, by necessity, omits others from the larger narrative.” He was drawn to Hamilton’s story because it epitomizes how the United States was built by immigrants. He chose to focus on Hamilton’s relationships with people like Lafayette, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, the Schuyler sisters and Aaron Burr as counter-points to help us understand Hamilton’s context and motivation.
Which Stories Not To Tell
On the flip side are the stories Miranda omits. His Hamilton musical does not deal with the University of Pennsylvania’s founder, Benjamin Franklin, Benedict Arnold or a whole host of others. Miranda told us, “This act of choosing—the stories we tell versus the stories we leave out—will reverberate across the rest of your life.”
With Whom To Share
Early on in the development of Miranda’s first musical, In the Heights” a “big deal theater producer” wanted to produce the show. The producer wanted to change one character’s lost scholarship into something with “higher stakes” like pregnancy, physical abuse or drugs. But Miranda’s Director, Tommy Kail, reminded Miranda that “that’s not the story you want to tell.” They walked away. That big deal theater producer was not the person with whom they chose to share that story.
Be. Do. Say.
We all communicate with stories. Sometimes we tell the story. Sometimes we live the story. Sometimes we are the story. And sometimes we enable the story or pull stories together into a master narrative. In all cases, we need to be clear about which stories we choose to tell and live, which we choose to omit and with whom we choose to share them. These go to the heart of mission, vision and values.
Mission is the why behind your stories. If your mission is purely entertainment, choose the stories that are the most entertaining. But, if you have a different mission, choose the stories that move your audience along the way towards that mission. This goes for the overarching master narrative and the individual stories along the way.
Vision informs the attitude of your stories. The types of stories you can tell to build on success are different than the stories you need to tell in a turnaround. Building on success you’ll likely want to cherish and celebrate examples of success from within the organization. Conversely, in turnarounds, highlight examples of successes at other organizations as analogies.
Values are the things you won’t sacrifice on the way to achieving your mission and vision. If the ends justify the means, your values aren’t real. “Social responsibility, sustainability, partnership and volunteering” were Volkswagen’s stated values. But they weren’t real. If your values are real, they must underpin your stories and your words, actions and beliefs.
Implications
Choose which stories to tell and not to tell based on your mission and vision. Play out those choices in the overarching master narrative in your role as narrator-in-chief and in everything you do and say along the way.
Choose the people with whom you will share your stories based on values. Some will help you craft the stories, some will help you tell or live them, some will benefit from them. In any case, they become part of the stories. Their presence, their contributions change the stories and change you. Make sure they are changing you in ways that align with your mission, vision and values.
