human beings love stories. One of the ways the brain is really attracted to stories is because it

creates a certain set of expectations for us. We start to hear a story, we begin to plan for where

it is going. And when our expectations are violated on where the story is going, that's confusing

and disruptive for us as well. So in your example of saying we're going to fulfill our

destiny by cutting 2% of costs in this part of the business, people's expectations have been

violated. Whereas if we had started from the place of saying we're continuing to build our

fitness and one of the activities associated with that is to look for opportunities

to reduce our costs to be more efficient, more productive than what we do, that actually

makes much more sense to me. The consequence for someone who is a storyteller, and I hope

many of our listeners are embracing the idea now that one of the roles of leader is as

storyteller. The best thing that you can do is to ask yourself, is this story honest and specific?

Welcome to Franklin Covey's On Leadership. I'm your host, Jennifer Colosimo.

On Leadership provides insight to our listeners through discussions with senior leaders,

practitioners, thought leaders, all focused on the human side of strategy and execution.

Most senior leaders I talk to share a common visceral frustration.

They have the right data, a brilliant strategy, and a clear vision for the future, yet the

organization still feels stuck. It leads to a defining question in modern leadership. If we know what needs to change,

why is it so difficult for change to actually occur? Joining us is Julia Dar, a Harvard-trained

behavioral scientist and managing director at BCG. As the founder of BCG's Behavioral Science Lab,

Julia has spent over a decade advising global leadership teams

on how to apply the mechanics of human behavior

to large-scale change.

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