If we are being honest, most leadership advice is a steaming pile of soul-sucking corporate-speak. We’re told to “leverage synergies” and “align stakeholders” until we’re all cross-eyed and checking our watches. Founders, in particular, are often shoved into a box where they’re expected to be bulletproof robots with a 50-slide pitch deck and an answer for everything.
It’s exhausting. It’s also wildly ineffective.
We recently had the pleasure of digging into the brain of Liz Levine, producer, writer, and creative powerhouse, who has spent nearly three decades in the trenches of film, television, and journalism. Liz has seen it all, from award-winning sets to the boardroom, and she has a message for every founder currently white-knuckling their way through a scale-up: Your business isn’t built on data; it’s built on stories.
If that sounds “woo-woo” to you, stick around. Because, as Liz points out, storytelling isn’t magic; it’s science. And if you aren’t using it, you’re leaving money, talent, and sanity on the table.
The “Taj Mahal for $12” Fallacy
Founders have a bad habit of holding their cards so close to their chest that they practically have paper cuts on their ribs. There’s this misconception that as a leader, you must maintain a “need-to-know” basis. You give your team a target but hide the context.
Liz shares a brilliant analogy from the film world. Imagine a producer tells a production designer they have $12 and expects them to build the Taj Mahal. Most producers would just say, “That’s the budget, figure it out.” The designer freaks out, feels unsupported, and likely fails.
But Liz’s approach is different: “Honey, come sit in my office. Let’s look at the books.”
When you show the team why the budget is $12, you turn them from employees into co-authors. Suddenly, the designer realizes they can borrow props from another department because they understand the narrative of the whole production. By being vulnerable enough to show the “ugly” truth of the constraints, you invite your team to solve problems with you.
At ProvenHR, we see this constantly. Founders struggle with “buy-in” because they’re pitching a vision instead of telling some hard truths. Stop pitching. Start sharing the story of where the business actually is.
It’s Not Magic, It’s Neurobiology
For the skeptics in the back: Storytelling is a hard-coded human communication tool. Liz notes that for millennia, humans have used stories to arm their tribes against woolly mammoths and preserve culture.
When you tell a compelling story, you aren’t just “talking.” You are triggering a chemical cocktail in your listeners’ brains:
- Oxytocin: The trust hormone. It makes your team feel safe following you.
- Dopamine: The chemical responsible for memory and motivation. It makes your goals stick.
- Neuro-coupling: This is the “magic” part. Brain scans show that when a storyteller and listener connect, their brains literally synchronize.
If you’re relying on a spreadsheet to motivate a team of twenty-somethings, you’re fighting 100,000 years of evolution. You will lose. Every time.
Vulnerability is a Power Move
In her critically acclaimed memoir, Nobody Ever Talks About Anything but the End, Liz explores truth-telling with a level of courage that would make most C-suite executives sweat. But here’s the kicker: that “effortless vulnerability” is exactly what makes people want to work for her.
Many founders fear that showing weakness will undermine their authority. It’s the opposite. Authenticity builds credibility. Liz recounts a story about a high-stakes deal with a financier. She took the call while at a dog park, dogs barking in the background. Instead of pretending to be in a sleek office, she leaned into the truth: “I’m at the dog park.”
The financier’s response? “What kind of dogs do you have?”
Within minutes, they were co-authoring a story about being dog lovers who both wanted to get back to their weekend plans. The deal closed in record time because the “pup currency” (as we like to call it) built a bridge that a formal contract never could.
The ProvenHR Take: Don’t Be a Corporate Robot
Most HR consultancies want to give you a handbook and a prayer. They want to sanitize your culture until it’s as bland as unseasoned tofu. At ProvenHR, we think that’s bullshit.
We align with Liz’s “maker” mentality. We love “quitters” and “contrarians”—people who realize a story no longer fits and have the courage to start a new chapter. We believe that HR shouldn’t be a department of “No,” but a narrative engine that helps you align your strategy with the human beings actually doing the work.
Working with us isn’t about filling out forms; it’s about figuring it out. Like Liz producing an entire season of a cop show during a border-closing pandemic without the lead actors on site, leadership is about adapting. It’s about “figuring it out” at a million miles an hour.
If you’re tired of the “smoke and mirrors” of traditional leadership and want to build a company that actually connects, let’s talk. We’ll help you find your truth, tell your story, and maybe—just maybe—have a little fun while we’re at it.
Because at the end of the day, if you aren’t the author of your company’s story, someone else will be. And you probably won’t like the ending.
A special thanks to Liz Levine for her insights. You can find her book, “Nobody Ever Talks About Anything but the End,” at Simon & Schuster or your favorite local retailer.
Just JK-ing podcast: The Power of Story: Leadership, Creativity & Change with Liz Levine