Did you see Boris Johnson's TV appearance after he was released from ICU?
He singled out two nurses -- "Jenny from New Zealand and Luís from Portugal" pictured above -- who stood by his bedside "for 48 hours when things could have gone either way" making the necessary interventions to keep him alive.
What a difference it makes when we introduce a name (or names) to a story.
Suddenly we're not dealing in the macro-abstract big picture -- which the human brain is shockingly bad at processing -- but in the deeply personal.
Because our brains love to work with the nitty-gritty of the human scale:
the Power of One.
It's not the platitudinous and anonymous "frontline NHS workers". It was Jenny and Luis.
They're people too, with their own dreams, and aspirations and battles.
We possibly even get a picture in our mind's eye of what they might look like, which adds meat-hooks to our ability to visualize Boris's situation better.
And across the ocean, a similar example is being set by Andrew Cuomo, the New York Governor in his daily updates.
Instead of just talking of protecting the elderly and vulnerable, he calls it "Matilda's Law."
So, who's Matilda and what's that about?
Matilda is his mum and the protective order for those aged 70 is named for her ... he encourages people to think of their own mothers when considering their behaviour and its human implications.
Suddenly, it's not just some distant Orwellian Order from the Governor -- instead it's some guy called Andrew with an at-risk mum called Matilda. We'd better do the right thing here.
Boom! The Power of One at work again.
So, as a leader, try to bring your messaging down to human scale to help us see it and feel it more. You'll be amazed at the added power it adds.
Cheers, and take care. Stu
Storyteller in Chief, CatMatDog
'The Perfect Storyteller!' - The Telegraph, UK.
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