Reprint: R0712C
A well-told story’s power to captivate and inspire people has been recognized for thousands of years. Peter Guber is in the business of creating compelling stories: He has headed several entertainment companies—including Sony Pictures, PolyGram, and Columbia Pictures—and produced Rain Man, Batman, and The Color Purple, among many other movies. In this article, he offers a method for effectively exercising that power.
For a story to enrapture its listeners, says Guber, it must be true to the teller, embodying his or her deepest values and conveying them with candor; true to the audience, delivering on the promise that it will be worth people’s time by acknowledging listeners’ needs and involving them in the narrative; true to the moment, appropriately matching the context—whether it’s an address to 2,000 customers or a chat with a colleague over drinks—yet flexible enough to allow for improvisation; and true to the mission, conveying the teller’s passion for the worthy endeavor that the story illustrates and enlisting support for it.
In this article, Guber’s advice—distilled not only from his years in the entertainment industry but also from an intense discussion over dinner one evening with storytelling experts from various walks of life—is illustrated with numerous examples of effective storytelling from business and elsewhere. Perhaps the most startling is a colorful anecdote about how Guber’s own impromptu use of storytelling, while standing on the deck of a ship in Havana harbor, won Fidel Castro’s grudging support for a film project.
