Every organization has at least two stories playing out on different planes.

The first is the daily story of landing new customers or clients, and keeping the promises made in the sales process.

It’s a somewhat mundane story. Simple blocking and tackling. Make promises. Deliver.

I liken it to the predictability of TV crime shows. The first movement of every episode begins with a murder. The second movement parades the list of possible suspects. And the one who always looks the most suspicious in this movement is never the criminal.

The third movement is the set of circumstances that lead to solving the crime. Voila!

The Other Narrative

Often, though, there is a larger story, played out on a meta-level. And it’s this narrative that can disrupt the other story.

In both Person of Interest and The Mentalist on CBS, for example, there is not merely one storyline: preventing a murder or solving a murder.

There are two.

The local narrative always is the trouble at hand – solving the crime.

The other, larger narrative creates ongoing tension, which is not fully resolved in individual episodes. The meta-tension ebbs and flows throughout the season.

For example, in The Mentalist, the larger narrative is the ongoing duel between the serial killer Red John, and the main character of the show, Patrick Jane. He is an independent consultant for a fictionalized version of the California Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Years earlier, Red John allegedly murdered Patrick Jane’s wife and daughter, and Patrick’s work with the CBI is in part a way to work out his grief while also being able to pursue Red John.

The tension is heightened in some episodes when Red John kills again and paints a smiley face in blood at the scene, taunting Patrick.

Red John is the greater evil that drives Patrick to do what he does – and ties together the episodes, even if Red John is not mentioned in an episode.

Red John is invisible. Never seen. And creates another layer of tension to the episodes.

What’s Your Larger Narrative?

For some organizations, the larger narrative creates the wrong kind of tension, disrupting the so-called smaller story.

In fact, the smaller story should be the driving narrative – the customer narrative.

Many of the problems in the customer narrative are solvable with a modicum of strategy and execution.

But when the larger organizational story makes executing on the other story impossible, then most efforts to grow, to stop the bleeding, or to move in a new direction fail.

I suppose the wrong kind of tension is always created when the leader fails to lead in one way or another, and tolerates a culture of fear or sinecure to flourish. That is classic.

But I’ve been wondering about the good kind of tension, which helps to move along the customer narrative. What is that?

Branding is no longer limited to groceries or cosmetics.

According to James Twitchell, professor of English and advertising at the University of Florida, nonprofits—even cultural or educational institutions—need to brand in the same way profits do. He discusses three specific nonprofits in his book Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld.

B&S: What is Branded Nation‘s contribution to the concept of branding as storytelling?

James Twitchell: I’m an English teacher, so storytelling is different to me than it is in the commercial world. Essentially, storytelling generates feeling. Commercial storytelling applies this emotionality to a thing as opposed to a human character. It may be a story about Coke as opposed to Pepsi or McDonald’s as opposed to Burger King. But we’re connecting to sensations, not objects.

Do you agree with the notion that branding is first and foremost about the spirit of a product or service?

Yes, especially in relation to luxury products. They’re ordinary things that have been spiritualized. They’re just shoes, handbags, purses, scarves, ties—things you could buy at Kmart. “Luxury” is the only thing separating them (the quality might be superior, but not always).

Marketers have tapped into the human response to religion; owning these designer products feeds our need to feel special or redeemed.

Explain the Diderot Effect and how it relates to brand coherence.

According to the story, Dennis Diderot, a seventeenth century French philosopher, bought a new dressing gown. Since his old furnishings and clothes didn’t match his fancy new gown, he decided to buy new ones—and replaced everything from wallpaper to paintings to slippers.

This phenomenon is part and parcel with modern consumption. You buy the Armani shirt, and then you have to have the Louis Vuitton purse and the Prada shoes. In other words, things fit together in constellations and ensembles.

How do you recommend older nonprofit organizations rediscover the essence of their brand?

In the realm of branding, there’s no difference between colleges, museums, philanthropies, and Proctor & Gamble. As long as you have a large number of suppliers in the market, the process of branding inevitably follows. The story you tell is the experience you provide. You separate yourself not by the product, but by the spirituality, which is the branding.

You “win” in today’s global community if you think primarily with your left brain. Take Hedge Fund traders, for example, who make millions. Quant-Heads, they are called.

But times are changing, according to Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind.

Right-brain qualities (R-directed thinking) are becoming the cornerstone of thriving businesses. In this interview with CZ, Pink says R-directed thinking, such as the capacity to tell stories and a design sensibility, is needed more than ever and will transform your organization.

B&S: What is the big idea of A Whole New Mind?

Daniel Pink: It’s about the broad set of abilities individuals will need to thrive in today’s business world. Today you have to be able to do things that are hard to outsource, hard to automate, and that satisfy the growing nonmaterial yearnings of a very abundant age. Some of those are emotional capabilities—particularly empathy—but others are a design sensibility, a capacity to tell stories, and the ability to put the pieces together.

You indicate that the world is ready for this, but we certainly don’t see elementary, junior high, and high schools preparing students for R-directed thinking. Standardized test scores still rule.

Pink: Many of our schools are fighting the last war. They’re overemphasizing routine and left-brain skills at the expense of those abilities that matter most: empathy, artistry, and invention. It’s legislators, many who haven’t set foot in a classroom for years, who are to blame for the slow progress.

However, it’s surprising how receptive teachers and educators at all levels are to the ideas I propose. They get that left-brain skills aren’t all that matter. There are some inspiring whole-minded schools out there.

Can you give an example?

Pink: In the book, I profile the Charter High School for Architecture and Design (CHAD), in Philadelphia, PA. At CHAD, students spend 100 minutes a day in a design studio, and they learn their core academic subjects through the lens of architecture and design.

But this is not some hoity-toity art school for children of the elite. These are largely poor, inner-city kids, 88 percent of whom are racial minorities. Eighty percent of these design students go on to two- and four-year colleges.

What advice do you give to executives about R-directed thinking?

Pink: Hire people with whole-minded abilities. Do what CEO Sidney Harman does: hire poets, whom he calls “our original systems thinkers.” Hire empathizers—people in tune with the often non-verbalized interests, needs and desires of others. Stock your teams with a variety of people who have different perspectives, because it’s at the collision of ideas that innovation occurs.

At a basic level, why do you need these right-brained thinkers on a team?

Pink: Because these people have abilities that are hard to outsource or automate—and they will keep your business alive.

What prevents leaders from organizations from hiring more holistically?

Pink: I think you can attribute it partly to inertia and partly to fear. People are worried they don’t have right-brained abilities. That’s wrong. The abilities that now matter most—design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning—are fundamentally human abilities. They’re part of what makes us human. In the SAT, spreadsheet, right-answer age, they weren’t in demand. They’re like muscles that have atrophied. Now we just need to work those muscles back into shape.

Think back to a time when someone tried to change a belief (worldview) that you felt strongly about.

B&S: In All Marketers Are Liars, you talk about worldviews. How does one go about snooping to identify the soft spots in someone’s worldview? Any tips on how to listen and gather valuable information from one’s client list or student body?

Seth Godin: What a great question! I don’t think a worldview has “soft spots” though. Instead, I think there are hot buttons, places where people really want to tell themselves a story. The easiest way to do this is to watch which OTHER stories are appealing to this audience. People are very bad (and very ornery) about talking about an irrational worldview. But you can watch them all day and see what they choose to believe.

Colleges often use the storyline, “We’re ranked 23rd in U.S. News & World Reports Best Colleges in the Midwest” as the basis for their plot. Is that compelling?

Seth Godin: I’m not sure that this story is ineffective for the worldview of typical high school senior. The challenge is to identify a unique story that can find room in a brain that’s heard the “top college” story since 1652 at Harvard. One way is with sports. Another more productive and ethical one might be to obsess about a particular department.

In your book, you mention your Purple Cow concept. What if an organization doesn’t really have anything that spectacular to showcase—something that turns people’s heads?

Seth Godin: I’m saying that a Purple Cow is just a stand-in for the phrase “something about your product or service that your users will decide is worth talking about in a positive way.” Your story can be very compelling and it might sell me, but that doesn’t mean it will spread. That’s okay. You can use other techniques to get attention, as long as your story is compelling enough to get people to change their minds.

How does storytelling integrate with branding for smaller firms?

Seth Godin: Branding, it seems to me, doesn’t mean much any more. By obsessing about the story, an organization (of any size) can augment and leverage their brand.