Invest Like The Best: The Power of Story

“You steelman the dominant worldview: how you believe the world works today and what people believe makes a good world, because everyone most of the time believes they're doing what is the right thing. It needs to be done the way it's done for a reason. They're mostly not wrong. So there's a sort of almost intractable philosophical belief of how the world works and why that's a good thing.”— Wolfgang Hammer

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Philosophy & Reasoning · Strategy & Decision Making · Leadership & Management

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Steelman opposition before positioning your alternative

“Story works in three layers. One, there's the external mechanics of how the character interacts in the world, and you can substitute character for product. That's a requirement. And in the case of technology, it's technical. You gotta have something that works. And then there are two more layers, which is a subjective layer of why is this series of events important to me and what does it mean to me personally? And then there is a philosophical layer.”— Wolfgang Hammer

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Creativity & Innovation · Business & Entrepreneurship · Leadership & Management

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External, emotional, philosophical: complete narrative stack

“Robert Towne, who was a great screenwriter and wrote Chinatown, and he recently died, wonderful life and a wonderful career, he said this to me at lunch years ago when I was a young executive. He said, stories are either desires fulfilled or anxieties purged. And I think he's right. These are great minds who've made great films, and it's never left me. I think it has to do with overcoming basic human condition.”— Robert Towne

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Psychology & Behavior · Creativity & Innovation

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All stories: desires fulfilled or anxieties purged

“Raymond Loewy, the designer, had a similar rule around 80/20. The most tolerable amount of 'new' before the human mind rejects it as incomprehensible. With the idea of originality and creativity, there's a sort of tension. Originality is highly prized. And there's sort of this belief that only the very new is truly novel.”— Wolfgang Hammer

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Psychology & Behavior · Creativity & Innovation · Business & Entrepreneurship

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80% familiar, 20% new: optimal innovation bandwidth

“Someone called me, I hadn't heard from them in a while, and they said, we realized we've been selling to the wrong level. We have to sell to C-level as opposed to frontline manager level. And the sales pitch didn't work to the C-level. It was because they had not changed the framework, the subjective personal philosophy. The C-level has a very different worldview of what's happening in company than the line manager. And we worked on it and it was like magic. It was like magic.”— Wolfgang Hammer

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Business & Entrepreneurship · Psychology & Behavior · Leadership & Management

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Match narrative to buyer's worldview, not product

“There's a sort of story about. I think it was a British actor who knew absolutely everyone in English society and for some reason was unsuccessful at getting what they wanted. And he said when he overplayed his status, he would be hated. When he underplayed his status, he wouldn't get what he wanted. Everyone liked him, but he wouldn't get what he wanted. When he matched status, he would get whatever he asked for.”— Wolfgang Hammer

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Psychology & Behavior · Leadership & Management

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Match status exactly to maximize effectiveness

“All society is communication, and because of its complexity, communication breaks down into buckets of specialty. But it's in essence being a master communicator of an almost infinite amount of buckets, and knowing to context switch between them and understanding the language games that each one of these buckets plays, but never forgetting the core principles underneath all this.”— Wolfgang Hammer

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Leadership & Management · Psychology & Behavior

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Fixed philosophy, variable emotional framing per audience

“It was a project where simply there's a camera installed in the room, and the camera would move back and forth across the room and each time uncover a little bit more of the room. And nothing else happens. There's no payoff to it. But the suspense of seeing a little bit more information about the room is absolutely riveting. Even just this tiny amount of new information being given creates enormous suspense. Because somehow we're good at anticipating. We're really always anticipating.”— Wolfgang Hammer

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Psychology & Behavior · Creativity & Innovation

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Suspense from incremental information revelation

“That's the definition of story. This is a Faulkner quote, but great conflict is the heart in conflict with itself. That's a great story. So you want two conflicting things at the same time. You're very invested in your fear. You create situations in the original state where this investment in your fear pays off. And at the same time, there's a part of you, mostly subconscious but can be conscious, that has a dream of greatness.”— Wolfgang Hammer

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Psychology & Behavior · Creativity & Innovation

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Heart in conflict with itself: definition of story

“I come back to this ability and willingness to take ultimate responsibility, which is really not what most people want to do at all. And for some reason, especially filmmakers, have a true vision of what it is they want to be doing, which means they're birthing this project and they take ultimate responsibility from beginning to end and then do it again, and then do it again, each time risking total failure, staking their entire being on this one next thing.”— Wolfgang Hammer

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Leadership & Management · Creativity & Innovation · Psychology & Behavior

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Ultimate responsibility repeated: filmmaker as model

“The mind obviously is very good at projecting into the future and can imagine really anything. And in many ways, what is possible, even emanating from our own subconscious, is so much bigger than what the left hemisphere brain, the rational analytical brain, can handle. So I think there is a fear of the bigness of the world. That fear of the bigness of the world is also reflected in the inner world. So much of story is actually an inner transformation.”— Wolfgang Hammer

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Psychology & Behavior · Philosophy & Reasoning

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Fear of greatness: potential overwhelms rational mind

“Courage, complete comfort with calculated failure, as in, if you know what you're doing, you're trying something and you know it's a trial balloon, it's totally all right if it goes wrong as long as you really thought about it and there's a calculated risk as opposed to a random, let's see what sticks kind of risk. Really incredible ability to map out sort of in an imaginary way what could be. Always allowing that you're not seeing something but really mapping it out.”— Wolfgang Hammer

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Strategy & Decision Making · Psychology & Behavior

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Calculated risk: thoughtful trial, not random bet