[piano intro] - Hello I'm Nido Qubein.

Welcome to "Side by Side."

My guest today says her experience taught her the importance of what she calls a red thread.

That is our message, our through-line, that connects what we do in life.

Today we get to meet Tamsen Webster.

- [Announcer] Funding for "Side by Side with Nido Qubein" is made possible by.

- [Announcer] Here's to those that rise and shine, to friendly faces doing more than their part, and to those who still enjoy the little things.

You make it feel like home.

Ashley HomeStore.

This is home.

- [Announcer] For over 60 years, the everyday leaders at The Budd Group have been committed to providing smart, customized facility solutions to our clients and caring for the communities we serve.

[bright music] - [Announcer] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally thanks to our teams.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottle.

[upbeat music] [bright music] ♪ - Tamsen, welcome to "Side by Side."

You wrote a wonderful book called "Find Your Red Thread."

What in the world is a red thread?

- Well, the quickest answer to that is that it is the story we tell ourselves about why the world or what we do makes sense.

It is the logical connection of ideas, how things all fit together.

- And where does the term red thread come from?

And why is it not green or yellow or blue?

- I wish I knew why it was red, but the general feeling is that it comes from Greek myth originally and Northern Europeans use it to describe exactly what I talked about, the thing that makes things make sense.

And it's origin is with the red thread that Theseus used to find his way through the Minotaur's labyrinth and back out again.

And since that's, in many ways, how you make things make sense, it seemed like a great name to use for this work that I do.

- Mm-hm.

And, you know, the subtitle's, "Make Your Big Ideas Irresistible," how does one make an idea big?

- So I think one doesn't make an idea big.

I think the estimation of an idea and how big it is really depends on what kind of impact it can have on who the idea is for, because to me, everybody in the world has the potential to have a big idea, something that can change the world, even if it's just one person's world.

So the way you make an idea big is just making sure that the power of that idea is clear to the people who could most benefit from it.

- And so run me through the process.

So I have an idea.

I wanna communicate it.

What are the one, two, three steps that I do?

- Yeah, well, the first thing is to really understand, I'd say, who is it actually for?

And it's very tempting for us to say, "Oh, this idea can help everybody."

Well, sure, probably.

But the people who would really listen to it and for whom it would resonate are the people who, to some extent, see the world the same way you do.

So understanding who you're for and what this idea would do for them is really the first step.

What question are they asking for which your idea is an answer?

That's the first step.

That really helps to establish why they would care.

- So that's clarity.

- Yeah.

- Clarity of vision, clarity of words, clarity of idea.

And it must relate to their needs, goals, aspirations, et cetera.

- Yeah, it's clarity that breeds curiosity, because if you can figure out something that somebody wants but doesn't yet have, well, that's where all great stories start.

And that gets them to lean in, because if I want an answer to a question like, how can I make my team more engaged, for instance, but I don't really have a good answer for that, if I understand that your idea can do that for me, I'm naturally gonna lean in and want to know more.

So that's understand who you're for and what question your idea answers for your audience.

Great places to start.

- And tell me this, you know, how does one learn to be curious?

Is it something that we learn in kindergarten as children trying to figure our way in life?

Can adults learn the art and the science of curiosity?

- I believe absolutely.

I mean, to me, the brain is like, our brains are like a patchwork quilt, and every time you take in a new piece of information, you're giving your brain new edges to attach something else to.

So I think the key to learning to be more curious is to get more inputs.

So read more, talk to more people, ask questions, see what people know and don't know.

And I've just found that the more that you learn, the more that you can learn, and the more that you learn, you end up seeing really unexpected connections between things.

- But it's not really a common quality, is it, to be curious?

I mean, I think so many people are sort of stuck in their own way, their frame of reference, their comfort zone, I know what I know and I'm pretty much good with it.

Especially if you talk about things like politics or things about society or things about religion, et cetera.

Am I right?

Am I wrong?

- Well, I think in a sense, absolutely, you're right that we tend to get very comfortable and maybe even complacent with the things that we know and we know well 'cause we don't like to change very much.

But I think if your goal as a human, as a politician, as an educator, just as a person, is to communicate, make sure that whatever ideas you have actually get heard, I think we are much better speakers sometimes than we are communicators, then I don't know how you can be an effective communicator without being curious, because the more you know about the people that you're talking to, about how they see the world right now, the more likely it is that you're going to be able to frame your idea in language and concepts they're going to understand and the more that you're gonna be able to understand how you can make your new, big, different idea feel very comfortable and familiar to your audience, because that's the key.

We don't like to change.

So we need to make sure that anything new is essentially an unfamiliar combination of familiar concepts.

And you can't get there if you're not curious about the people that you're talking to.

- Mm, so when you use the word idea, you don't mean idea as in creating something.

What do you mean by idea?

- Well, I use it as a shortcut because it's a lot shorter than saying your product, your service, your organization.

I mean, so because all of those things in my mind start with an idea - Could it be just a message that you wanna get- - Could be just a message.

I mean, a message, to me, is how you talk about your idea.

So if I have an idea about, you know, to use my earlier example, how to make people more engaged or how to get people more engaged on a team, my idea is both, that's the goal, that's the thing that I want, I want people to be more engaged, and let's say the idea is the answer to that, that the best way to get people more engaged is to find those points of common connection, find the things that everybody cares about.

So to me, an idea is both things.

What's the question that it answers, and what's the unexpected way that it answers it?

And I find that whether it's a product, a service, a business, a nonprofit, a startup, all of those things have that combination in them.

So to me, that's the idea.

It's the question that wasn't yet answered and that new, unexpected answer that somebody came up with to say, "Hey, that's a better way to educate students," or "That's a better way to, you know, track where animals are in the ocean," whatever it might be.

- Mm-hm, and you speak very frequently on the stages of America and the world.

- I do.

- And in the book, you cite a number of examples of how one takes an idea and communicates it, connects it, and makes it persuasive to those who listen.

Can you think of a story or an example where someone, it could be a business or whomever, has an idea and they turn it into something magical like that?

- Oh my gosh, I think any idea that's changed something in the world has been able to do that in a certain way.

- [Nido] Uber has done that.

- They have, yeah, because back to my formula for an idea, something people want via a means they don't expect, they really were looking at that question of, how is it that we can get people where they're going in an experience that's a little bit more pleasant than the average cab ride?

And then the answer was leverage the cars that are already out there, right?

And that was the unexpected answer.

And I think that whether, again, you're talking about that or, you know, I have a client that, they make carbon negative building materials.

So think about that.

They make- - Whatever that is.

I have no idea.

- Yeah, they make, well, they make materials that absorb carbon.

- I see.

- And when we think about, like, a larger goal that some of us may have of improving sustainability or removing carbon from the environment and, at the same time, we've got businesses that we need that produce carbon just because of what they do, then you can start to understand that because of just math, right, in order to get to zero, negative emissions, every positive thing needs a negative thing, you start to understand why a company that makes negative emissions materials starts to make sense.

So to me, just even understanding what it is that brought a founder or an expert or a thought leader or a researcher to this new idea can be a really powerful way not only to understand what the idea is, but the kind of impact that it can have on all of us.

- Mh-hm, so Tamsen, are you really talking about, in a sense, you're talking about value interpretation.

You're taking something that has value, an idea, and you are packaging it and framing it and interpreting it in a way that the other person can comprehend and find some application in their life.

- Yeah, I mean, the way that I describe it is that to me, the best way to make an idea irresistible is to build the story that someone will tell themselves about it.

Since what we naturally do before we make any decision, I like to say every decision has a story, every decision that we make has a story that we tell ourselves about why that decision makes sense, and my idea was that, well, rather than, I mean, a lot of times that gets lost in translation, our idea, 'cause we tend to talk about an idea from the perspective of what we wanna say and less from the perspective of- - And what we understand.

- Right, and less from the, less from the perspective of what is it that somebody needs to hear in how we talk about that idea in order to make it make sense for them.

So yeah, it's about understanding, how is it that that person sees the world?

What question are they asking?

Why are they solving that question or answering that question a certain way right now?

What other way would make sense to them?

And then this piece is critical, what do they already believe somewhere else in the world that makes a new idea, what would make your idea make sense to them?

So it's about really understanding what are the beliefs that are, A, keeping someone doing what they're doing now?

And then B, what's a belief that you share with your audience that would make that new idea, product, service, behavior, whatever it is, make sense to them and feel like it's already part of who they are and what they do?

- So are you saying that an idea is not proactive, it's reactive?

There's a need and therefore we create an idea for it?

- I do believe that, yeah, because I think that, you know, one of the things I write in the book is that every idea has a story because every idea is a story, or rather, it's the product of a story.

You know, these stories that we tell ourselves, what's fascinating to me about them is that they have the same components as the stories that we tell other people.

Our brains, to come up with a new idea, really, it doesn't come out from nowhere, but we have that moment, we think that an idea comes out of the blue.

But that moment where an idea actually feels that is the moment where all the pieces come into place, where all of a sudden your brain goes, "Oh, well, here's a question that we haven't answered yet.

Everybody's looking at it this way, but I see it from this perspective.

And because I believe this is true, let's try to solve it this way instead," right?

So, like, for instance, when I, in my experience, just saw these experts, these people with these brilliant ideas, and the ideas would always fail at the point of explanation.

And, you know, I said, as I said before, what I noticed was that a lot of times it's because we used the language that makes most sense to us and not the language and the concepts- - Most familiar to us.

- Yeah, absolutely.

But I realize, well, how can I find a language that everybody speaks?

And it turns out that everybody speaks the language of story.

So that's why I was like, it came to me in a flash.

I said, like, "Well, if I can take any idea and structure the explanation like a story, whether I tell it as a story or not, then I've got the best way to transfer that idea from me to you in a way that your brain recognizes all those pieces, nothing gets lost in translation, and I'm much more likely to get that, you know, very clearly communicated."

The same conditions in your mind that created that idea in mine in the first place.

- So how does a company that's making a product tell a story.

Give me an example of what that would be.

Do they do it through an advertisement?

Do they do it through, you know, telling us, somebody who works there telling how that applies to them?

I'm trying to capture the essence of that.

- Yeah, well, what's beautiful about stories and the way that we can create information that builds into that story that we're telling about a business or a brand is that every channel that's open to us is an opportunity to do that.

So yeah, we can actually tell a story about a client or a customer who had a problem and, you know, they engaged with our product in some way and then they solved it with it and everything was happy in the end.

But a lot of my work earlier in my career was with researchers and academics that were very uncomfortable telling stories per se, and yet they still wanted the power that a story or story structure could provide to them.

And what we discovered together was that if you could still articulate the information with the elements of a story, even if it wasn't a once upon a time story, it could still be as powerful and engaging that way.

So for businesses, it's things like, one of my favorite examples of a great storytelling business is, for instance, Patagonia.

So Patagonia has products but they've got a very clear perspective on what is it they're trying to do larger in the world, right?

It's not just, how can we make great outdoor adventure products?

But it's, how can we make sure that we are engaging with the world in a responsible way, right?

That's a question that they're out there for.

And I would say that a key tension that they resolve, again, a key part of a story, is the fact that in order to create the things that we need and engage with the world, oftentimes that hurts the very world that we're trying to engage with.

But Patagonia has this core belief, which is a really key moment of any story, where there's this moment of truth where you realize, "Ah, I have to do something different," well, Patagonia has this belief at the core of what they do that it's possible, right, to be as responsible in your engagement with the planet, as in your care of it, and so that's why everything that they do kind of reflects that belief.

Now, do they tell stories about people using their products?

Absolutely.

Do they do more interesting and kind of unexpected things about, say, that they close down for election day?

To me, that's part of the story of Patagonia as well.

- I see what you mean now.

- [Tamsen] Yeah, so there's all these elements.

- You're talking about extension of a company's culture, belief system, inclinations toward, you know, society and all that is in it.

Well, I mean, I'm thinking, you're talking about ideas and I'm thinking about Thomas Edison.

I don't think he told any stories, did he?

- I don't think so.

Probably not.

- He sat in his lab and he made- - He tinkered.

- A thousand experiments and finally a couple of them worked and he changed the world.

- Yes.

- I'm thinking about Walt Disney, you know?

I'm trying to imagine what he went through.

You know, I read those autobiographies of these people.

Did he sit there and say, "I gotta tell a story," or did he say, "I wonder what people want," or did he say, "I think I have an idea and I'm gonna sell it to people?"

Which comes first?

- I think, well, what- - [Nido] Or is it both?

- I think it's all of that, but I think the difference is that a lot of the story piece behind an idea happens pre-consciously, or unconsciously.

So Gerald Zaltman of Harvard Business School says that 95% of our decision-making is unconscious, it happens before we realize it.

And there's a ton of research that shows that this story creation in our brain happens pre-consciously, so that any conscious thought has actually already gone through all these story processes in our brain.

So the answer is, yes, there is that moment where you're like, "I have an idea," and that's the conscious recognition of what's happened.

But what your brain has been doing in the background has been saying, "Huh, I've got this question.

I look at it differently than other people, but I believe that this is the way the world works," and then your brain opens up and goes, [gasps] "Let's do this."

And that moment, I think, is very powerful.

But what I enjoy so much when I work with both individuals and organizations is saying, "Well, what was that process that got the organization to that point, or that person to the point, where they said, 'This is the right idea.'"

Because what I found is that if we can explain that, we can explain kind of the why we do what we do the way that we do it.

That ultimately is what really people connect with with a product or service or an idea, because, you know, Machiavelli aside, you know, the ends don't always justify the means.

You may say, "Hey, I've got this question," and someone might say, "I've got a product or service that does this," but you may not agree with the belief system behind an organization.

You may not agree with how they produce something.

Maybe you don't believe that it's environmentally responsible or not.

Which means the more that we can articulate that to people, why is it that I believe, or we believe, that this is the right idea, the right product or service, the more that our audience has a chance to connect on that kind of basis of belief.

And I think that is really where the power of having a core message, a core story, a red thread, can come into play.

- So where does creativity come into all this?

Where does innovation come into all this?

Does the idea come first or does the creativity, am I a creative person, therefore I can come up consciously, unconsciously, as you just stated, with an idea?

Or an idea just pops in my head, and because I have the idea, I become somehow more creative and innovative and drive through with it?

- Yeah.

I believe that humans are innately creative.

And how I define creativity is the ability to make unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated things.

- Say that one more time.

- So it's the ability to make unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated things, where you can say, you know, "I've got this experience," or "I saw this thing over here, and there's this thing over here, but, ugh, I see how these two things could connect."

So for instance, I mean, we all love to talk about Apple for whatever, but at some level, somebody, Steve jobs or whatever, said, "I wanna connect music with portability," and not just in the way that Sony Walkmans or whatever had done up until that point.

They said, "no, I don't want just a music, I want my whole music library," and combine that with portability.

But those two things, on the surface of it, seem so diametrically opposed that why would you think that you could ever take your entire music library and make it portable?

But that unexpected connection between seemingly unrelated things, when you can find a way to put those two things together, well, that to me is where you can be- - Magical.

- Yeah, magical and creative.

- Yes, yes.

There are many examples of that.

- [Tamsen] Yeah, absolutely.

- Innovation in terms of delivery of services, products, et cetera.

Let's talk about children for a minute.

- [Tamsen] Sure.

- How does a parent present an idea to a child using your method, the red thread, you know, without just telling a story from a book?

I mean, kids love stories.

But how does a parent use creativity, innovation, that might incite and encourage in that child a capacity to think deeper, better, wider, in more magnanimous ways?

- Yeah, so I actually did, my poor children [laughs], because this is something, yes, it's been tested on them as well.

I remember one time, my older son, he was probably, I don't know, nine at the time, he came home one day very upset at an exchange that he had with one of his friends at school and it was that he had done something, he told the teacher about something, and she had interpreted it as some kind of betrayal and he just thought that was completely unfair.

And so I said to him, you know, we were talking through it, I was getting the information, and I said, "Well, what is it that you were trying to do?"

And he was like, "Well, I was trying to help her.

I was trying to keep her out of trouble."

And I was like, "Okay."

I said, "Did she understand that?

Or was it based on the action?"

And he was like, "Well, she was judging me based on the action," and he said, "But my intent," I mean, he didn't use those lines, but he was like, "But I was just trying to help."

And I was like, "But then you told somebody else."

I said, "And you got upset how she got upset.

So you've just judged her based on her action and not her intent."

And I was like, "But one thing I've seen about you, Thomas, is that you really believe that the same rules should apply to everyone, right?"

And I said, "So what does that mean to you?"

He's like, "Oh, I see.

I was using a different standard for her than I was for myself."

And while that doesn't sound like I set up the same elements of a story, I did, because I said, "What were you trying to do?

What was the goal?

What was the thing that you wanted?

What were the two perspectives that were in play with each other?"

And then what was something that I knew that Thomas believed that would help him see a different result, a different behavior, or something else to happen at the end.

So to me, you can use those same elements to not only, you know, whether it's a child or an adult, to really say, either let me explain something that's happened or help someone come up with a new idea or a new behavior on their own.

- And from your perspective, our educational system is doing that?

Or are we providing sort of a lesser-than opportunity for children, and maybe not just children, but students in high school and maybe even college?

- Huh, so I'm just gonna go out there and say it that I think that we are not serving our children well.

I think that we, was it F. Scott Fitzgerald that said that there are no second acts in American lives?

And one of the interpretations of that is that we like to skip to the end here in American culture, typically.

We like to go straight from problem to solution.

But it's in the exploration of the conflict, of in that second act, where we really start to understand who we are and why we do what we do.

And I think that with education, I think what we tend to do is a lot of problem to solution without having us, beyond math class, show our work.

And I think the more that we can encourage people to show our mental work, how did we come up with the idea, why do we believe that that's the right idea, the more that we have clarity internally so that we can be more consistent, but that also allows us to have more clarity externally.

- Yeah, so if we understand the process, we're likely to do it.

I interviewed Carol Dweck, a professor at Stanford, who wrote the book "Mindset."

- "Mindset," yes.

- And she agrees with you that we have to go through that process if we expect repeated results that are measurable, meaningful, and impactful.

Tamsen, we can talk all day about red threads and all that they mean in our life.

Thank you for being with me today side by side.

- My pleasure.

Thank you so much.

[bright music] ♪ - [Announcer] Funding for "Side by Side with Nido Qubein" is made possible by.

- [Announcer] Here's to those that rise and shine, to friendly faces doing more than their part, and to those who still enjoy the little things.

You make it feel like home.

Ashley HomeStore.

This is home.

- [Announcer] For over 60 years, the everyday leaders at The Budd Group have been committed to providing smart, customized facility solutions to our clients and caring for the communities we serve.

[bright music] - [Announcer] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally thanks to our teams.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottle.

[bright music]