A masterclass in political storytelling, courtesy of Shirley Williams

I was in the hall during the great NHS debate at the Liberal Democrats’ spring conference in Sheffield last month, but have only recently tracked down and listened to a recording.

I suggest that you should too, because in the space of three minutes, Baroness Shirley Williams gave the conference a masterclass in political communications. (Click here – her speech is about 26 minutes in.)

Whether she realised it or not, Baroness Williams followed the key steps set out in Stephen Denning’s book, The Secret Language of Leadership (John Wiley and Sons, 2007). But she built on them as well.

Baroness Williams gained the audience’s attention, and not just because she is one of the party’s icons. Here’s her opening:

“Let me begin by saying, because we are being covered by the media, that nothing I am trying to do about health is intended is intended to weaken Nick [Clegg] and his fellow ministers and the coalition. I think that Nick and our fellow ministers have done a remarkable job and I very proud of them and I am very pleased to support them in every way I can. [applause]

“But we cannot be bound by those issues that have never been agreed by us and in particular where the outcome of the policy is specifically different from what we thought it was going to be.”

Baroness Williams spoke to the audience’s perceived ‘problem’ just as Denning advises. In this case, it was the NHS and Social Care Bill that departs from the terms of the coalition agreement. But Baroness Williams also provided her comrades with a sense of reassurance. Yes, Liberal Democrats, we can drop a depth charge under Nick Clegg’s bow, but without being disloyal. Right from the start, there was a simple, underlying morality: the government is not keeping faith with us, so we have a duty to keep faith with ourselves.

Denning’s second and third steps are to stimulate the desire for change and to reinforce that desire with reasons. The body of Baroness Williams’s speech encouraged the conference to do what they already wanted to do – vote down the Bill in its current form and demand big improvements. She urged the conference to reject a specific change. Yet she still applied Denning’s key principles.

Baroness Williams told a springboard story:

"There’s a long history of the private sector cherrypicking the easiest patients. What that leaves out is the most expensive patients . . .

"No names, no pack drill, but I certainly know of distinguished private hospitals in London that pass the difficult cases to the nearest NHS hospital. That would wreck the whole purpose of a health service that is supposed to be open and equal to all.

The reinforcement (which actually came before the springboard story, but so what?) came as she explained how the changes would work in practice.

"We did not expect a massive reorganisation and one which will fall within a period when many of our fellow citizens are worried about whether they will keep their jobs and how they will pay for petrol and food. This is not the moment to embark of the reorganisation of the most treasured public service in the whole of the UK.

"A combination of this reoganisation and . . . huge cuts, efficiency savings, of no less than £20 billion by the NHS over next four years, to add on to that reorganisation . . . is just beyond the imagination.”

And:

“The accountability structures of the new proposals are lousy. The GP consortia will be able to meet in private. They will not have to keep minutes. They will not have to be transparent to the public . . .”

All this may read like a list of points and arguments. But, thanks to Baroness Williams, the conference lived a bad a story: that after massive cuts and a complex reorganisation, we will be left with accountable GP constortia making decision about commissioning behind closed doors and private hospitals cherrypicking patients.

Perhaps that was the story they wanted to hear. One of the other speakers was not far wrong when he described Shirley Williams as “having the sanctity for the Lib Dems of a cross between the Queen Mother and Dame Vera Lynn”. And Liberal Democrats see themselves (ourselves) as the party of conscience and reform, the progenitors of the NHS.

Baroness Williams finished with an appeal to this self-image: the party’s story about itself. She quoted a letter from a concerned citizen and challenged the conference to:

". . . stand up and be counted . . .

. . . in so doing we will strengthen both the coalition and the identity of this party, for which have all worked for so long and with such devotion”.

Yes, the story had a happy ending: together, we can make the coalition better.

Footnote: I appreciate that Shirley Williams is one of the Liberal Democrats’ most experienced politicians and that she has long been recognised as a gifted communicator. (She was first elected as an MP more than two years before Nick Clegg was born.) But I still can’t understand why so few senior Liberal Democrats follow her example and try to use straightforward storytelling techniques to put their messages across.

Political narrativewatch: Tom Pawlenty's campaign video

The Republican Party is having a tough time finding a presidential contender who has a chance of beating Barack Obama in 2012. But they should remember that President George H.W. Bush was “unbeatable” this far out from the 1992 general election.

One of the Republicans who looks set to run is the former Minnesota governor, Tom Pawlenty. He has an outside chance of becoming the nominee. I doubt that I’d ever vote for Mr Pawlenty, or any of the other Republicans. He may sink without trace. But this early campaign video shows that he gets what political marketing and political storytelling are all about.

Brian Jenner has written a rave review of the video and its astute use of the best speechwriting techniques.

To his comments I’d add that the video is an almost-brilliant piece of political storytelling.

Right from the start, Pawlenty’s video tells a story about America.

“The United States of America is the most successful nation the world has ever known…”

The moral of the story is that America has triumphed in the past through will and determination, in World War II, at Valley Forge, by going to the moon and settling the West. With the same sort of spirit, and more toil, by “rolling up our sleeves”, America can overcome its present problems.

Pawlenty’s video works because it speaks to the stories that his audience – Republican-leaning Americans – tell about themselves. He offers a springboard story based on their sense of identity.

"We are the American people. We have seen difficulties before and we always overcome."

Pawlenty understands that politics is about emotion first and foremost.

His next storytelling challenge is to explain how Tom Pawlenty fits into the story, how he embodies the narrative, how he can help his country overcome. Just like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan – and Barack Obama.

Narrativewatch: Obama's "Sputnik moment"

In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, President Obama called for big investments in education, infrastructure, research and innovation as the best ways to make sure the US meets the challenge from an economically resurgent China. He wants to improve the education system, ensure there are more maths and science graduates, pioneer new industries, invest in R&D and encourage entrepreneurship.

Here’s his call to arms:

Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik, we had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon. The science wasn't there yet. NASA didn't even exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs. This is our generation's Sputnik moment.

In recalling the time when a complacent America was galvanised into action after the Soviet Union launched the first Earth-orbiting satellite, and saying “now we must do it again”, Obama was telling a springboard story, but in a political setting.

(What’s a springboard story? Storytelling guru Stephen Denning defines it as:

a story that enables a leap in understanding by the audience so as to grasp how an organization or community or complex system may change.

For more background, click here.)

Springboard stories can be as powerful as, well, as Saturn V rocket. But they are tricky things for politicians to keep under control, because others soon drop in context and spin. For instance, Slate’s Fred Kaplan noted the apparent contradiction between Obama’s call for the funding of "a level of research and development we haven't seen since the height of the space race," investing in biomedicine, information technology, and clean-energy technology, and his proposal to freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years.

Kaplan discussed how America prevailed over the USSR in the space race of the 1960s and concluded that “doing big things” (another key soundbite from the speech) usually needs a big injection of government funding.

There’s more to it though. Today, Don Lee and David Pierson of the Los Angeles Times show how the analogy between America’s current concern about China and the US/USSR space race doesn’t really stack up. They remind us that China’s attitude towards the US is not as aggressive or as belligerent as that of the Soviet leaders of the 1950s and 1960s. The level of economic integration – and dependence - between the US and China is well-documented and neither side wants to mess that up. Some companies may choose to have their innovative plant in China. Lee and Pierson make another telling point:

Perhaps most important, Washington was able to respond to Sputnik by pouring billions of dollars into a new space program. But today, the nation is deeply in debt.

The last comment goes to the heart of whether the springboard will work -- or, in this case, whether the rocket will leave the launch pad. This week, Dan Farber of CBS pondered whether Obama will be able to persuade private corporations, who are, after all, more likely to have the investment capital, as well as Congress, to put the billions of dollars in the innovation and technologies that will be needed if America is to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world.

President Obama should be congratulated for trying to find his own version of Ronald’ Reagan’s “morning in America”. But he will need some robust, credible policies and incentives, as well as sound political strategies for pulling in private sector investment and spurring innovation.

I have long argued that sound policies need compelling narratives in order to be sold successfully. Obama’s “Sputnik moment” may prove that clever narratives need sound policies in order to stick.

As Lee and Pierson say:

If partisan strife leads to paralysis and neither [Obama’s] proposals nor alternatives are enacted — or if they fail to produce quick results and the public grows disillusioned — then the slow growth and high unemployment of today could stretch even further into the future.

Footnote: In case you missed it, Sarah Palin tried to peddle a counter-story on the “Sputnik moment”, but it all went a bit weird. Click here.

Getting the Coalition Government's political narrative

In its first 100 days in office, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government has launched a raft of substantial new policy initiatives, from NHS reform and academies to reorganising the police. The “Big Society” has emerged as a major theme, alongside a drastic programme or decentralising political power. Nick Clegg has big plans for political reform. The speed with which the government is moving and the radicalism of its programme are both big themes of the media narrative about the coalition.

The government has produced a lot of lists of speeches, policies and bills. But so far they have told only one story.

They started in the very first paragraph of the coalition’s full programme for government, which declared that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had come together to work in the national interest.

“The national interest”: above party and sectional interests; policies that are good for all of us. One of the most powerful frames in politics but, oddly, ministers hardly ever use it.

Right from that first press conference in the Downing Street rose garden, voters saw two people, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, uniting behind a common purpose. They embody the coalition’s narrative by looking almost like characters in old, familiar movies. The Guardian’s Marina Hyde was on to something when she compared the Cameron and Clegg partnership to a buddy movie -. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Road to Morocco. Tango & Cash, Maverick and Iceman.

And the metaphor of the “civil partnership” has been used frequently to describe the government.

Now for the plot of the story. The Coalition Agreement said that tackling the UK’s record debts would be the new government’s most urgent task. The chancellor, George Osborne, has since set a tough target - to have the deficit fixed by 2014-15. Seismic spending cuts are on the way which, by the normal rules of politics, could well leave the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats sharing the same electoral tomb.

Just as well the coalition’s story comes with a ready made villain. By leaving behind a record budget deficit of 11% of GDP, and not explaining where or how they would make cuts, Labour hardly needed to audition for the part. George Osborne has seized every opportunity to blame the previous Labour administration for the cuts that are now needed. [Click here, here and here] Cleaning up the last lot’s financial mess – a story that seems almost as old as democratic politics itself.

Earlier this month, the energy and climate change secretary, Chris Huhne, pulled the story strands together, in his speech on Labour’s legacy.

It only took one party to create this mess. Now our two parties – the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives – have come together in the national interest to clear it up. Labour’s [leadership] candidates cannot go on pretending that the budget deficit doesn’t exist. It does and it is the single greatest challenge facing Britain. They must take responsibility. You cannot keep spending when the money dries up. Write cheques you know will bounce. Put party advantage before the national interest.

But that’s not enough. Any politician who is selling painful change has to tell stories that appeal to a bigger sense of morality.

So the government has adopted a narrative that's about good housekeeping: by paying off our bills and living within our means, we can enjoy fiscal redemption later on. [Click here and here]

In his Bloomberg speech this week, Osborne set out his account – his story – of how the budgetary crisis came about. He described the forthcoming spending review as "a crucial stepping stone on the way to recovery". The chancellor added that "the choices within that review will lay the foundations for future growth and for a fairer society”.

There was a new, clever twist to the narrative. Osborne denied that it was “progressive” to oppose the cuts, arguing that left-of-centre politicians in other countries agreed that fairness for future generations and job seekers could only be delivered once the nation’s finances were in order.

Osborne alluded to a few springboard stories but, like many British politicians, did not develop them fully.

In the US it was Bill Clinton and the New Democrats who made the case for balanced budgets and deficit control in the early 1990s. And during an economic recovery they eliminated the budget deficit and pushed ahead with deeply controversial welfare reform.

In Canada, [Liberals] Jean Chretien and Paul Martin took the necessary steps to bring their exploding deficit under control.

Or there is Goran Persson, the Swedish Social Democrat Prime Minister, who turned a 9% budget deficit into a 4% budget surplus.

And he touched on a more hypothetical type of morality story by simply asking:

. . . what is fair about forcing the next generation to pay for the debts of our generation?

The government’s narrative has at least two potential weaknesses. First, the “happy ending” is not too clear and phrases like “future growth” and “a fairer society” have little emotional impact.

Second, there are powerful counter-stories. As The Economist pithily summed it up last week:

Debate rages—not only in Britain—over whether it makes economic sense to tighten fiscal policy so much, so fast. And austerity plans may not be achievable without ripping vital public services to shreds.

But most people buy the coalition’s story, so far at least. This week, a YouGov poll found that a majority of the public have confidence in the government’s ability to run the economy (55%) and there is widespread confidence in their ability to cut the deficit (62%). Last month, YouGov found that 48% of people blamed the previous Labour government for the spending cuts while only 17% blamed the coalition government. 19% blamed both.

Now, here’s a tricky postscript. What have stories about massive spending cuts and the morality of good housekeeping and fiscal redemption got to do with the Liberal Democrats’ narrative of “stopping the rot at the top” and our established brand as the most understanding and empathetic party, “for ordinary people, not the best off”?

More on that soon.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley's posterous

Sorting the good arguments for AV from the bad

If the government has its way, on 5 May 2011 there will be a referendum on bringing in the alternative vote (AV) system for electing MPs. With the campaign not far off, and the opinion polls suggesting that there’s everything to play for, it’s time to start thinking more carefully about what arguments, stories and frames will work – and which ones will not.

Both sides will surely look to Australia, which uses AV to elect the House of Representatives and the equivalents house in every state except Tasmania, to back up their cases. We should expect to hear plenty of springboard stories from Australia.

Australia is, after all, an English-speaking democracy whose system of government is based on the Westminster model. No, AV would turn not UK politics into an bigger, old world replica of Australia's. But we can learn a lot from that country about which pro-AV arguments stack up and which will crash and burn.

A House of Commons that looks more like Britain?

A recent Lib Dem event posed the question: “this parliament does not represent us – time for the alternative vote?”

There’s no certainty that AV would produce a House of Commons that was more representative of Britain’s population. Take the issue of gender balance. Australia has used AV in every national election since 1919 and the dearth of women in the country’s political life was much commented upon, for many years.

The last Australian federal election, in 2007, delivered a House of Reps in which just 27% of members were women. This compares to 22% of British MPs today. Such gains that have been made in the representation of Australian women have had nothing to do with the voting system; rather, they can be explained by looking at how the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has used affirmative action programmes [click here]. The (centre-right) Liberal Party has rejected any sort of quota system, preferring to use a Liberal Women's Forum to lobby for more women candidates and to train and help potential candidates through the selection process. But it in the outgoing parliament, the party lagged well behind Labor for having women MPs, much to the obvious chagrin of some Liberal women.

No more safe seats?

Another suggested line of attack is that the current voting system lets too many MPs to stay in safe seats, breeding complacency and arrogance in our politics – one source of the expenses scandals.

The usual definition of a safe seat is that a two-party swing of 10% of more is required to change hands. According to the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), 44% of seats in the UK House of Commons currently fall into this category, compared to 35% of seats in the Australian House of Reps. This is a bit of a crude measure but it suggests that Australian MPs may face more competitive electoral contests than their UK counterparts.

Yet the evidence that AV would end the safe seat syndrome is hardly overwhelming. 32% of seats in the Australian House are “fairly safe” – that is, they need swings of between 5% and 10% to change hands. That figure is rather higher than the 26% of Commons seats that can be classed as “fairly safe”.

As for marginal seats – constituencies that are vulnerable to swing of 5% or less – the two parliaments are close to level pegging. 33% of Australian House seats are marginal, compared to 31% of seats in the Commons.

So, the ERS may be on safer, if less exciting ground, with its description of how AV would be better than first past the post.

One problem of the current system is that MPs are often elected with the support of only a minority of people voting in their constituencies. In the 2005 election, 220 MPs had majority support but 426 did not. This means that most MPs cannot claim to speak for the majority of their constituents, and sometimes the voters of a constituency end up with an MP most of them do not support or like. Under AV, each MP will have had to reach 50 per cent of the vote in order to represent their constituents in parliament, making them more accountable and representative.

The other problem of the current system that AV would solve is that people often have to decide whether to vote for what they really believe, or to cast a vote that will help decide who represents the seat in Parliament (‘tactical voting) . . . .

Or, in the elegant words of Roy Jenkins:

[AV] would increase voter choice in the sense that it would enable voters to express their second and sometimes third or fourth preferences, and thus free them from a bifurcating choice between realistic and ideological commitment or, as it sometimes is called, voting tactically.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley's posterous

Please note: You can find a new and updated version of this post, here.

Narrativewatch: Canada's deficit cuts are not a simple story for UK politicians

As the prime minister, David Cameron warns of the need for massive spending cuts to bring down the UK's huge public deficit, the coalition is citing the experience of Canada's Liberal government during the 1990s. In 1992, Canada had a budget deficit of 9% of GDP. By 1997, they were showing a surplus. When they were in opposition, senior Conservatives studied the Canadian experience in some detail.

At the weekend, deputy PM Nick Clegg praised the way the Canadian Liberals consulted the public over where to make cuts -

"taking the people with them".

This is a political version of what Stephen Denning calls a springboard story:

a story that enables a leap in understanding by the audience so as to grasp how an organization or community or complex system may change.

He explains:

A springboard story has an impact not so much through transferring large amounts of information, but through catalyzing understanding. It enables listeners to visualize from a story in one context what is involved in a large-scale transformation in an analogous context.

But springboard stories need to be handled with care. There's usually more to them than the politicians let on, or understand. And context is key.

Today, the FT recounts how external developments - low interest rates, a rebounding global economy and a falling Canadian dollar - helped the country's numbers to come right.

Larry Elliott of The Guardian has described some of the differences between Canada's economy then and the UK's now:

Canada was aided by the pick-up in the global economy in the 1990s, and especially the strong US expansion. Britain does not have a fast-growing US for a neighbour: it has a eurozone mired in crisis.

There are other reasons why the Canadian experience may not be exported so easily. Today, The Guardian's Heather McRobie points to some important political-cultural distinctions. She says that the Canadian government took a comprehensive approach to deficit-cutting, with a high level of co-ordination between departments. She doubts that this country's Conservative-dominated coalition government could do the same.

Neil O'Brien of Policy Exchange has stressed that the Canadian government took a consistent, "no exemptions" approach -- and devolved responsibility for finding savings to officials. The latter would be a major departure for the UK's centralised model of government. O'Brien also points out that the size of the UK deficit gives the coalition a much bigger mountain to climb than Canada faced.

Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph highlighted the downsides of what happened in Canada:

The science budget was halved, while agricultural subsidies, overseas aid and transport were also badly hit . . .

. . . As provincial governments saw their health grants slashed, thousands of nurses were sacked and hospital waiting times soared. The shortage of new buildings also led to overcrowding and higher infection rates on wards.

But a report from The Times last year gives a somewhat different perspective:

. . .the federal administration of the Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, a Conservative [sic] elected in 1993 . . . targeting the cuts carefully and calling on different departments to make very different sacrifices.

There were big cuts in fisheries (22 per cent), defence (more than 15 per cent), transport (50 per cent) and international aid (20 per cent) departments but benefits for the elderly increased by 15 per cent over six years and spending on aboriginal peoples and children rose by around 10 per cent.

[In May 2009, David Halpern of the Institute of Government developed some of these points in more detail.]

Perhaps we should be wary of the way UK commentators can cherry pick factoids from other countries' experiences (that is, tell stories). I speak from experience -- I sometimes think that New Zealand post-1984 has been used to back up every policy argument in the UK.

Here's another example. Andrew Sparrow of The Guardian has used an anecdote of how at least one hospital in Canada was blown up. But this was done under the provincial government in Alberta, which had targeted health and education spending.

Nick Clegg may have been on safer ground when he stuck to the way Canada's Liberals managed the politics of fiscal consolidation. Last year, Brian Tobin, another former Liberal minister who was involved in the Canadian deficit cutting exercise, was asked what were the lessons for the UK. His main conclusion:

"What needs to be done...is to speak frankly, openly and honestly.

"Don't try to over-simplify the issue. Don't try to put all the blame on the previous administration. Because if you're in a fiscal mess, it's often generational or structural."

This level of candour will be a new experience for UK politicians and voters. All the major parties were slated during the campaign for not being straight with people about the deficit and their plans to reduce it -- although I have to say the Liberal Democrats came off more lightly than the others.

Still, coalition ministers will need to get their narratives in order, and quickly. In today's FT, Paul Martin, who was Canada's finance minister in the 1990s, agrees that informing and consulting the public were hugely important elements in his success. But the article also points out that:

events beyond Canada's borders helped. The Mexican debt crisis broke just two months before Mr Martin was due to deliver his belt-tightening budget in early 1995. Canadians were jolted by a much-quoted Wall Street Journal editorial that described the Canadian dollar as the northern peso.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley

Cameron, Clegg show how stories can work - and how they can fail

Conservative leader, David Cameron, told a few anecdotes -- stories -- in Thursday’s TV debate. Politicians are often told, by people like me, that stories are the best way to get their messages across. But Cameron is being pilloried for telling stories.

According to the Leftfootforward blog, Cameron’s claims that Humberside Police had “five different police cars and that they were just about to buy a £73,000 Lexus” have been disputed by the police. The Met has challenged Cameron’s jibes about “form-fillers” as misleading and out of context.

You might want to have a play with the David Cameron anecdote generator. On a more serious note, Max Atkinson has asked whether all three leaders may have told too many anecdotes on Thursday night.

He may have a point. But I think the real issue may be the sorts of stories they told. The Australian consultancy Anecdote have suggested some tests for what makes stories have impact:

• "Clarity—you hear or read the story once and you get it. It's simple, clear and has a good narrative structure (time markers, characters, begin-middle-end).
• Emotional—it gets you in the gut. It doesn't matter what emotion it evokes but impactful stories evoke at least one strong emotion.
• Believable—it doesn't sound like bullshit. Facts and figures help but not too many. Details help with real people's names and specific dates and times.
• Transport—it transports you to relive the experience. You can see, hear, touch, smell and taste the experience.
• Surprising—it throws you a curve ball that you weren't expecting.
• Relevant—does it talk to the topic under investigation."

Cameron told an anecdote about meeting a “40-year-old black man” who had served in the Navy “for 30 years” and agreed that immigration was “out of control”. This may have been surprising but it wasn’t believable. The man’s age and experience, as recounted by the Tory leader, didn’t add up. Even more importantly, the accuracy of the story, like the police Lexus and the form fillers, has been called into question. The man in question has now disputed Cameron’s account and said that “Britain needs immigrants”.

I for one didn’t get the relevance of the Lexus story at the time and it evoked no particular emotional response.

Of the Anecdote tests, “emotional” and “relevant” seem the most important in political debates. When a politician uses an anecdote, it should help to express their overall narrative about what has gone wrong (and right) and their vision of the future. The anecdote should illustrate or set up a specific solution, a way forward that fits into the politician or party’s overall image. This is a political version of what Stephen Denning calls a springboard story. Cameron kept failing to provide clear solutions, even with his “my mother was a magistrate in Newbury” anecdote.

Nick Clegg told at least one good political springboard story with his anecdote about how restorative justice has been used successfully in Sheffield, where he has his own constituency. He explained how a Liberal Democrat solution has been tried somewhere and used stats to show that it has worked. And it tied into his big narrative, this time about how the other parties keep talking tough on crime and keep failing to deliver.

One more reason that he triumphed.

Posted via web from Neil Stockley

Storytelling with impact: Peter Mandelson's speech to the 2009 Labour Party Conference

Peter Mandelson’s speech to the Labour party conference was one of the stand-out political events of the week. I think it’s one of the best pieces of political storytelling we’ve seen all year.

The reasons that the speech worked so well weren’t so much about his passion or his delivery, which was weird in parts. It was impressive because of the stories Mandelson told and the ways he told them.

Let’s start with the easy bits. Any government asking for another mandate always tries to say to the voters, “give it to us more time – we deserve another go”. The subtext is usually “you can’t risk a change to the other side”. When a government is after a fourth term, the “don’t risk it” story is almost always the dominant one.

So it was with Peter Mandelson’s speech:

"The choice between a Conservative party whose judgements on the credit crunch were wrong, or a party providing leadership in the toughest of times . . experience and change with Gordon's leadership. Or the shallowness of David Cameron."

But there was so much more it than that. In trying to galvanise the downcast conference into being “fighters not quitters” and to be “restless for change”, Mandelson followed almost all the rules of good storytelling and added a few twists of his own.

Stephen Denning says that the first step in telling a powerful story is to gain the audience’s attention.(1) One method he suggests is to admit a vulnerability, or to making mistakes. Near the beginning of his speech, Peter Mandelson said:

"I love working for this party and those who work so hard for it – even if, at times, perhaps not everyone in it has loved me. I understand that. I made enemies, sometimes needlessly. I was sometimes too careless with the feelings and views of others.

"But please accept this. It was for one reason only. I was in a hurry to return this party to where it should be – in government to help the hard-working people of our country. I know that Tony said our project would only be complete when the Labour Party learned to love Peter Mandelson. I think perhaps he set the bar a little too high. Though I am trying my best."

By telling this story, Mandelson was also reminding the conference of “who he is” – a Labour man, through and through. The neat bit of self-deprecation came after this:

"I did not hesitate for too long [return to the government last year]. The pull was too great. The pull of coming back to serve my country when it was in the midst of the global whirlwind that had hit us. The pull of coming back to serve this Prime Minister, our leader, Gordon Brown – who was gripping this financial crisis, leading the fightback against it when so many others seemed caught in the headlights. But there was something else. It was the pull of coming back to serve our party. I did not choose this party. I was born into it. It is in my blood and in my bones."

The sub-text was an “I know what you are thinking” story. OK, you’ve never really liked me, Mandelson was telling delegates, but I’m going to validate your objections and then answer them head on.(2)

And Mandelson followed another classic piece of classic attention-gaining advice. He created his own frame, using the word “fight” or “fightback” nine times in his speech .

Denning’s second story telling step is to stimulate desire. He says that you can do it by telling a positive story - what Denning calls “a springboard story”:

"A simple story about an example where the change is already happening [that] connects with an audience at an emotional level and generates a new story in their minds that leads to action."

Mandelson told a springboard story – one of the best and riskiest I have seen in politics. For the story was really about himself.

"We must face facts. Electorally, we are in the fight of our lives. And, yes, we start that fight as underdogs. But if I can come back, we can come back."

Another way to stimulate desire is to offer a positive challenge. Mandelson’s “we’re fighters not quitters” rhetoric certainly did that. So did his closing preroration, with its call to “win for our party, for our country, for the British people.”

Denning also suggests “externalising the obstacles to change” by, for instance, casting people as antagonists or aliens. To Labour eyes, it’s obvious who these are – David Cameron, George Osborne and the rest of the Conservative Party.

But hang on: with Labour now into its thirteenth year in office, aren’t the Tories (or, as many of us say, the Liberal Democrats) the “change”? So Mandelson reached a lot higher, moving to reclaim the word “change” and reframe it in Labour’s terms. He told a story about how Labour would pursue “activist” strategies to ensure that Britain meets its full economic potential but that the Tories “just don’t get it”. He said that on three counts -limiting the recession’s damage to the economy tackling the deficit “without eating into the fabric of people’s lives” and investing in future growth, “the Tories are on the wrong side of the argument”. He went on to use the word “change” nineteen times..

In doing this, and with his claims of how the Tories have changed their image but not their substance, Mandelson was following Stephen Denning’s third step for sucessful storytelling. This is to “reinforce with reasons”, by telling “minimalist” stories that are usually set in the present or immediate future.

"I hope [Cameron and Osborne] can find the humility to acknowledge that at every point Tory policy would not just have put the recovery at risk but have made this recession deeper, longer and far far worse. As we get closer to the election, I want to see them and Tory candidates across the country explaining why they wouldn’t provide the money to help small businesses and families in this recession when they needed it most. No extra money to boost family incomes. No money for the tax deferment for business and no VAT cut. No additional money to help those who have tragically lost their jobs. No funding for the car scrappage scheme. They got it plain wrong at every step along the way."

No, 100 speeches like this between now and next May won’t save the Labour party. Some of the logic was faulty. Mandelson's many critics may call the speech self-indulgent and self-justifying. But after months of dreary lists and boring slogans, Mandelson told Labour exactly the sort of story they wanted to hear. It was no wonder the delegates cheered and the media swooned.


(1) Stephen Denning, The Secret Language of Leadership (Jossey Bass, 2007)
(2) See Annette Simmons, Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins (Amacom, 2007)

Good luck to Labour's new leader

Congratulations to my old friend and one-time boss, Phil Goff, on becoming the new leader of the NZ Labour Party. He takes over from the outgoing prime minister, Helen Clark, who stood down as leader after Labour’s general election defeat on Saturday.

Phil Goff (pictured here with his deputy, Annette King) is widely acknowledged as one of New Zealand’s most competent and hard working politicians. He has been the heir apparent for some years now.

But perhaps commiserations are more in order. The eminent New Zealand historian, Sir Keith Sinclair, once wrote that:

“It is difficult in New Zealand to make much of an impression on the public as Leader of the Opposition. The Prime Minister inevitably inspires a certain awe. But there is no comparable feeling about his chief opponent. Indeed, the Opposition, in general often seems to be carping; opposing for the sake of opposing; sometimes almost unpatriotic.

Helen Clark eventually overturned a government and stayed in office for nine years. But in her early years as opposition leader, Helen Clark had huge difficulties in establishing herself with the public and the media. National’s Robert Muldoon was a highly effective opposition leader who, in 1975, defeated a government that had held a huge parliamentary majority. But Muldoon later wrote of how hard it was to be taken seriously in his early months as leader. Muldoon was himself ousted in 1984 by David Lange. But Lange initially faced similar problems to Muldoon and Clark, as well as a fractious party organisation that was deeply divided over policy.

Phil Goff has other challenges. He will take on a new government at the start of its honeymoon period. That’s never easy. Some sections of the NZ media are already kicking off a narrative that, as a former minister in two previous Labour administrations, he represents “the past” and is really a transitional leader. Labour, they say, will soon be looking past him, trying to find a “fresh face”.

There are good reasons to expect Phil Goff to succeed as leader. First, he has a sound grasp of policy issues and broad ministerial experience, having held, at various times since 1999, the portfolios of foreign affairs, justice and, most recently, trade, defence and corrections.

Many years ago, I witnessed (and learned a great deal from) Goff’s ability to very quickly get on top of policy issues, without sacrificing accuracy or a command of detail. He has a first rate mind.

Second, as well as being a high effective media performer, Goff is a strong public speaker and parliamentary debater. He is well-versed in the arts of opposition. Labour’s parliamentary team is large enough to provide a springboard for the next election and includes some interesting new MPs. He and they will take the fight to the Key government.

Third, Goff has loads of political savvy. In my experience, either you have it or you don’t: Goff has and it’s been honed by years of living the highs and lows of politics. The party will not abandon the broad middle ground, where NZ elections are won and lost.

Fourth, his South Auckland upbringing and background -- along with years of representing a conservative, “middle New Zealand” constituency -- should enable Goff to connect with the sorts of voters who seem to have deserted the NZ Labour Party. I have seen this at first hand too. It will be hard for others to paint him as some kind of out-of-touch elitist.

I don’t buy the “new generation” argument. Is 55 really that old? And if Labour had gone for someone a lot younger, their opponents would say that he or she lacked experience and gravitas.

Goff will know very well the next steps: to build a strong and united team; establish a personal profile; score some early hits against the government; gather some political momentum; meet thousands of voters in the suburban and provincial centres; make contact with key interest groups and develop some interesting new policies and themes, avoiding going retro.

The real question is whether Phil Goff can light up the sky with a popular, progressive agenda and – you guessed it – tell Kiwi voters a compelling new story.

This is all very easy to write about (especially from my study in London!) and so much harder to do.

But I think that the NZ Labour Party has the right person in charge.

Narrativewatch: Chandila Fernando, candidate for president of the Liberal Demcocrats

When replying to Linda Jack’s invitation to assess the three presidential candidates’ attempts to craft a Liberal Democrat narrative, I commented that none had really done it and added that all three had been somewhat more successful in creating narratives to support their own candidacies. Linda then asked me to provide more detailed views on the latter point.

Before going any further, please note that I still haven’t made up my mind who to vote for (!) and will not do so until the last possible moment! Second, the observations are based on the candidates' election addresses, websites and e-mails to members. So, if they have answered any of these points at hustings or the like, it would be good to know. Please tell all of us. Third, as all Liberal Democrats soon learn, being the best candidate and having the best policies aren’t necessarily the same thing as having the best narrative!

Anyway, in the interests of encouraging more discussion about what is/n’t a good narrative:

Chandila Fernando – agent of change vs. the status quo seekers

In many ways, Chandila Fernando has the most straightforward story to spin. He is the “anti-establishment” candidate, the outsider who offers the biggest change. His story is that Liberal Democrats have become too bureaucratic, backward-looking and hidebound and need to change in order to be a “twenty-first century campaigning machine”; Fernando is the one to “turn it around” and transform the party into “a serious force in British politics”.

Political narratives work when they appeal to deeply-held values and emotions. Mr Fernando’s story should appeal to many members’ and activists’ sense of frustration that the party is not doing better.

Almost immediately, however, the narrative fades away. Stephen Denning sets out three essential story-telling steps for (putative) leaders who seek to persuade people to embrace change: These are: (1) get people’s attention; (2) generate desire for something different; and (3) reinforce the reasons for change.

Chandila Fernando has won some attention because he is different from the other candidates and previous Lib Dem presidents: he is young (30), involved in business and not a parliamentarian.

But he does not tell stories that show why and how the party needs to “change the way it operates and communicates”. The nearest that Fernando’s website comes is a number of rhetorical questions about the problems that members and activists may be facing.

Crucially, we do not get what Denning calls a “springboard story”. This is more likely to be based on something that has already happened. OK, this is always the hard part. But having made such bold statements about what’s wrong with the party, Fernando should at least try to offer us the proverbial story with a happy ending.

On the campaign website, there are a few – but only a few – specific examples of how the party should “modernise,” and “decentralise” -- but not of how it should “streamline”. Interviewed by Liberator (November 2008), Fernando says that a single federal committee should act as a board of trustees and that the party should move from being a member organisation to a supporters’ organisation. But those comments leave more questions than they answer. And there are no illustrations that explain how this candidate’s vision of change would play out across the party.

Chandila Fernando tries to embody his narrative by presenting himself as experienced in business: “the troubleshooter”. Perhaps he is. But we aren’t given any of what Annette Simmonds calls “why am I here” stories, that convey a sense of authenticity and explain why we should take notice of this candidate. For instance, given that most of us have never heard of him before, it would be useful to know what Chandila Fernando has done in business. What organisations has he “turned around”? How did he do it? When he has shot trouble, what lessons have been learned that can be applied to making the Liberal Democrats a better party?

The opportunity to tell a good "change narrative" has been lost.

Telling the Bones story

Even after all these years, two things still puzzle and bemuse me about the Liberal Democrats.

The first is that a sure fire way of starting an argument within the party, especially amongst the activists, is to suggest any big change to internal structures, processes and organisation. Everyone seems to have a view, an objection, a cross to bear, a score to settle. Curiously, this seems to trigger as much unrest and discussion as almost any big policy argument. 

Second, whenever the party leadership or "establishment" tries to suggest or, more likely, enforce such changes, they handle the internal communications really, really badly. Here, the debates over possible coalition arrangements and party “strategy” in the late 1990s, the plan for all members to vote for party committees and the use of the peers’ list are three examples that spring to mind.

What looks like a new attempt by the party leadership (in its broadest sense) to assemble its own firing squad has come with the report of the Party Reform Commission, the “Bones commission”. 

If you accept that the party must change itself in order to reach Nick Clegg’s target of doubling the number of Lib Dem MPs over the next two general elections, many of the Bones recommendations are unexceptional. Who disagrees that volunteers should be treated better, engaged more deeply? Who doubts that the party’s communications need to be improved? We could start by better understanding the concepts of marketing and branding. Who could have a problem with major efforts to expand the pool of candidates and improve the quality of candidates in key seats? Or with taking forward the diversity agenda?

So far, most attention has focussed on the formal creation of a Chief Officers Group (COG), a management board, to set the party’s budget and strategy. I agree with that, with the proviso that the COG needs more direct input from the Federal Policy Committee, in order to ensure that the policy aspects of party strategy are considered fully. The arrangements to ensure transparency and accountability need to be made clearer, but then the current situation is a model of neither. Also, looking at the personnel proposed, the COG will, as things stand at the moment, be a woman-free zone. Still, none of this should be too hard to fix. (Maybe I just illustrated the first point, above)

The real mistake though was with the way the commission’s work was communicated. Most of us heard of the contents through a provocative article in The Times. This was followed by a flurry of comment – much of it, inevitably, misinformed and hostile -- on the Lib Dem blogosphere and, later, in Liberator. Then, Jo Christie-Smith pointed out on her blog that the executive summary of the Bones report was floating around and was to be included in our conference packs. 

I do not suggest there was any malice on the part of the party leader, the party president or the members of the commission. But the report was allowed to become the worst possible thing in the Liberal Democrats: a secret, in London. And, to my knowledge, nobody explained to people what was going on, or how the report would be taken forward.

The whole exercise is still not doomed, however. The commission needs to start selling the proposals to the party and the best way to do that is to -– yes –- tell stories. 

Stephen Denning sets out three story-telling steps for leaders who are trying to convince people to embrace change: These are: (1) get people’s attention; (2) generate desire for something different; and (3) reinforce the reasons for change.

Using Denning’s model, one way of getting the party’s attention would be to tell a simple story(ies) based on the problems that party members are facing now -- raising money, finding candidates, winning seats. 

A desire for change could be stimulated by what he calls a “springboard story” that has a plausible, happy ending. That’s the hard part, to be sure. The most useful way could to be to use a familiar example of where a particular change (the COG perhaps?) has already been successfully implemented and let the audience imagine it working in the Liberal Democrats. 

Reinforcement might consist of stories – specific, credible examples -- about how the package of changes will play out across the party, so that everyone wins. 

The Monday of conference starts with a consultation session on the commission's work and this is to  feature a presentation by its chair, Chris Bones. That would be a good time to tell representatives these kinds of stories about what the commission has come up with. They might even believe them.

How about it?