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Immersive Experience Design: How to Use Story to Design Work Experiences | Stacy Barton, Revisited
01:05:11
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- [00:04]
A
The audience matters. We're doing this for them. Probably the most important thing is to look them straight in the eye and enjoy them. The tendency is to go out on stage, especially if you're trained as an actor, and hope the audience loves you. Instead, you go out and you go, how can I love the audience first? How can I show them they're invited, they're welcome, that they matter? It's really very simple and profound. How can I say, you're here with me? I need you to participate in this with me. Without you, I will not have a show. Really? Is that simple?
- [00:45]
B
Welcome to the Work for Humans podcast. This is Dart Lindsley. Every few weeks I'm bringing back an episode that either changed my mind or or significantly influenced the direction of Work for Humans. These are the episodes I reference on the show all the time. None more so than Disney immersive Experience designer Stacy Barton. She opened the door to the world of experience design, introduced us to the World Experience Organization and through the wxo, to the work of Joe Pine and a dozen other guests. She also pointed out something that she.
- [01:21]
C
Learned from her years of street performance.
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B
That continues to influence our work on the design of work, which is the audience is always the star of the show. Stacy is a designer and award winning writer who's been using her creativity to produce multimillion dollar immersive experiences for over 37 years. She's worked with the biggest names like Disney, Ringling Brothers, Dream Vision and SeaWorld. Navigating clients needs to create a final product that audiences love. In this episode, Stacy and I apply storytelling to real world business problems, including how to be creative within the constraints of an employer, hiring employees that complement your organization, and the importance of appreciation at work. We also discuss discovering the story of behind your brand, showing your customers that you care about them, and creating immersive experiences for audience, customers and of course, people at work. As always, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And now I bring you Stacy Barton.
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C
Stacey Barton, welcome to Work for Humans.
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A
Thank you.
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C
Can you describe what you do for a living?
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A
That's always one of the hardest questions. The short answer is I create experiences. Magical experiences, imaginative experiences. Experiences where the audience is actually given agency, where the audience is the star of the show. Most of my work is with Disney, but I work with lots of other companies all around the world and creating experiences that audience members step inside where they're really the focus, using a lot of ip, sometimes it's a movie ip, sometimes it's folklore, sometimes it's a book. IP intellectual property that will create a physical set. Think of a play that has a proscenium stage, but instead of that, we create an environment that's completely immersive, and then the audience gets to be kind of on stage with the actors.
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C
So before speaking to you, I did not know that immersive experience design was a thing. I kind of imagined it. I imagined it for people who were, for instance, developing restaurants or, you know, where you. You think about the. The score that people are going to experience as they come into a restaurant. What do they see? What do they hear? What do they smell? How does that play out for them as a complete experience? But what I did not realize is, a, it's a thing, and B, that you're at the top of that thing, which is that when people want to be experienced designers, they want to do what you do, which is you have a budget and you have an audience and you have a platform. So I'm eventually going to wrap it around to the experience of work. And I want your advice on. For organizations that are thinking about designing an immersive experience of work, what might they consider? But to get there, I want to ask you about an example of an immersive experience that you might design, and we'll talk about how you do it.
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A
So in the experience design, I'm the writer, so I think of things in terms of the story arc and how it fits with the audience and with the story that we're telling. So the story is always the guiding force, but the experience is always the promise. So one good example, probably because a lot of people know about it, would be Alice in Wonderland. So that's a project. I've worked on many iterations with Disney on creating an immersive experience. So what we might do is take that idea and create an entire Wonderland. And the idea, again, is that the audience is going to go into Alice's Wonderland. And while they're there, because I'm working with Disney on this particular project, or the idea of it, we would create musical theater numbers, we would create character moments, we would create food and beverage. All the things that you would experience if you got to fall down the rabbit hole with Alice.
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C
Sounds so complex. Like, there's so many moving parts to getting it to happen. So, first of all, you're bringing a lot of people together, and you're getting them to work together. And the story that you produce is what's going to tie them all together, right? What are the kinds of people who need to come together to actually execute on One of these experiences.
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A
So yeah, all of the disciplines. So I could be talking about a ride, an attraction, a themed land, a new restaurant, a show on a ship. It could be anywhere. I particularly work in situations where we take over a bank of ballrooms and transform it into an immersive space. But in all of those places that I just mentioned, you're going to need art directors, you're going to need set designers, you're going to need engineers, you're going to need composers, costume designers, maybe graphic artists or media designers. If you're going to have projection, mapping or screens, you're going to need obviously show directors and a cast and choreographers. You're going to need food and beverage to weigh in and talk about what they can create and how they can name it and how they can serve it or display it. Lighting technicians, a large group of people. And usually initially they'll be the designers and directors of all those disciplines that will be in the room or around the table, ideally as many of them as possible. To talk about how are we going to do this, how are we going to divide the budget in a way that makes sense? What's the client really love? If they really love escape rooms, then we need to make sure we're designing it in a way that can facilitate that. So a lot of people around the table, the more the better.
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C
You mentioned once before the interview that for instance, in an Alice in Wonderland world you might have the Mad Hatters dinner and that there might be an animatronic mouse.
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A
Yes, we had a table that was built in China that had pots that whistled and sang and the door mouse actually popped in and out of different of the pots. So that was created, we designed that so the designer would be at the table initially and then there would be drill down meetings for what is that going to be with the set designer, I believe, who was on that. And then they spoke with whoever manufactured it in China about how to create it.
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C
Right. And so you needed a roboticist, you need an IT department that's probably handling a lot of these things. And frequently these are one off events.
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A
Yes, the ones that I'm speaking of that I do, the immersive pop ups usually happen once they have gone on to have been redone in some form in different places for different people and sometimes end up being, well, they always end up being research and development for other things that happen in other iterations and other places by other teams.
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C
But there's also this opportunity, there's like opportunity for failure which is, you know, there's not a lot of practice and you have civilians involved. It's not like a play where you're up on stage and you just get to. You've controlled that space. If you're up on stage, present.
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A
We're not just presenting.
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C
No, it's engaged. And so having the civilians there must add a degree of thrill that could focus on terror.
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A
Well, yeah, I mean, the lovely thing about what we do is it's very theatrical in nature. There is willing suspension of disbelief. And the performers that we hire are also improvisationalists. So they know how to handle a situation if it goes awry. Plus there's a million people in headsets backstage and a director that can see something's going sideways and adjust or fix. We do dress rehearsals with invited audiences so we can see how things play, what works and what doesn't and tweak things before we have the real audience. There's always something that goes wrong. It's a bit like a wedding. You say to the bride, something will go wrong. Try and enjoy the day anyway, so it's not that there won't be a hitch. But the promise again is not perfection. The promise is that the audience is going to get to step inside this world and live and breathe and participate in it with the performers. And so that is a certain type of person likes that, that enjoys that immersive experience Junkie. They love that. It's Carol Burnett, if you remember how they would crack up in the middle of a scene. And I'm not saying they didn't actually get tickled, but there's an art to allowing that to happen and milking it. There is something fun about feeling like, oh, I got to see the inside of that. That makes it alive and real.
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C
Yeah, this is one of the differences. So, you know, we interviewed Alice Fairfax recently because you introduced me to her. Now, there's a difference between what Alice does and what you do. Alice is the non fiction version of you is the way I think of it. Which is. And you have this lucky, luckily generous situation in which there is suspension of disbelief, which is everybody's coming in and we want to believe together. And so there's this co creation of that story and that suspension of disbelief and as we get into work.
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And there's also the illusion. There's the illusion of co creation as well.
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C
Yes, the illusion of co creation. Right.
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I mean, it's both. It's yes and yes and both are true. But over time, I mean, I've been at this for 37 years. So over time you learn what generally people enjoy and you learn how to create a safe space in which they feel as though they're invited and included. And only some of that is actual co creation. The rest of it is the illusion in terms of plot and what happens, all that kind of stuff.
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C
What is your creative process as you come into these things? What are the things you want to make sure you never forget as you go through a design like this?
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A
I think the audience is, the center is critical and I think I often do bring that to the team. Of course everyone is thinking about the audience. I don't mean to say that, but because I got my start in street theater where if you're performing a show on the street and the audience does not matter if you do not include them or invite them, if they're not important in what you're doing, if you're just up there doing your own thing and they don't feel a part of it, they walk away. So I always bring that first, that the audience is primary, they're the center of the story. After that, what is the story? What is the promise to the audience? How are we going to deliver it?
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C
What does that mean? The promise.
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A
So Alice's Wonderland. The promise is I'm going to get to play in a wonderland that I know. The promise is also, let's say we're doing something for a family member. It's a celebration. Maybe the promise is we're going to connect. Maybe the promise is we're going to celebrate my 75 year old grandmother. So promises can vary depending on the situation. But you have to know what it is at the beginning because the second question is how are we going to deliver on that promise? And then the third and maybe most important is what are they going to take away? And it better be emotional. It better be. Maybe they've been scared if they love haunted houses. So the promise is you're going to have a thrill and they're going to take away that they had that heart pounding experience. And you're going to deliver it by, if you're Universal Studios, by having people pop out from behind doors and windows and walls. So I start with the audience and then those three questions, what's the promise? How are we going to deliver it and what are they going to take away? And then those three questions guide how we turn the story into the experience. Because the promise is never the story. The promise is the experience with the story.
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C
There's something I want to explore there, which is that. So I think, you know, I've Done a lot of research asking people what job they hire their job to do for them and understanding what it is that they want. Well, there are certain things that people want which have a narrative structure. And so an example is people say, I hire my job to solve puzzles, or I hire my job to bring me a worthy opponent, or I hire my job for a stage. But you take puzzles, for instance. And puzzles actually have a narrative structure. They have the part at the beginning. And there's this term ludonarrative. And the term ludonarrative means. I'm very disappointed by the term, actually, but I still want to bring it up. The term ludonarrative generally means this is for the audience. In video games, there's the play, and then there's often a narrative that goes along above it, it's like beside it. So if you're playing World of Warcraft, you find books in buildings and you open them up and there's a part of the story of the universe that you're learning, but it's very beside. And the reason I'm disappointed by that as a phrase is that I think games themselves have a narrative. If you're playing tic tac toe or chess or any game, you have a narrative structure. Am I gonna win? There's suspense. There's moments where you. You fall behind in chess, and then there's moments where you break through and you get something. And there's this. That should be what I want to be called a ludonarrative. Where was I going with this? I've started to think of what I call labo narrative, where the labor is labor and it's the narrative of work. And the narrative of work is how. How do I experience puzzle solving at work? So you talked about the moments of the unexpected. What did you learn from street about what keeps people engaged, that they matter?
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A
It's really very simple and profound. But the stories that we told in the particular street theater that I did were stock stories like Romeo and Juliet. And we would get Romeo and Juliet from the audience, always a grandparent age, because they have nothing to prove and are willing to delightfully enjoy. And then we'd get a Mercutio and a Tybalt for the fight scene. And we'd get strapping young men who wanted to stand there and looked like a strapping young man. But the process of creating that again is co creation and illusion of co creation kind of combined. But just stopping when you're doing a pre show where you're just trying to get the audience rallied up into a frenzy so that they know how to cheer and how to laugh and how to applaud. When something happens in the show, probably the most important thing is to look them straight in the eye and enjoy them. The tendency is to go out on stage, especially if you're trained as an actor, and hope the audience loves you. But quite the reverse is true in anything that breaks the fourth wall, which immersive experiences do, and certainly street theater does, which is instead you go out and you go, how can I love the audience first? How can I show them they're invited, they're welcome? How can I say, you're here with me? I need you to participate in this with me. Without you, I will not have a show. I will be standing here alone talking to myself. So really is that simple? And then it expands on there. I've spent an entire 37 year career expanding on that to. When I develop anything, it starts with the same thing. The audience matters. We're doing this for them. They write our paycheck.
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C
You know what this relates to. I did an interview a little while ago with Fred Reich Held, and he talks about customer loyalty. And he. And what he's done, and I've mentioned this in other interviews too, is he's essentially done an overlay on business that says, what emotions do you want each part of a business to feel?
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Absolutely.
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And what he says is, you know, you want the customer to feel loyalty. And a part of the way that they're going to feel that is that they feel that you love them. And so a part of what the company needs to do is love the customer. And some of that is the people in the organization, the actual people. But some of it is that the policies do that when you go to Southwest, not a great example at the moment because of what happened this last month with Southwest. But generally they're not going to nickel and dime you on luggage costs. And that's a manifestation of their love for you. They're just not going to play games. You're not going to have to pay for your luggage to go on. And so I asked him, I said, how should the company feel about the people who work there? And he said, love. And what's so interesting, that is exactly the connection that you just made with, with the audience.
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Yeah.
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How do you show them that they matter?
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Well, in the creation of an experience in that process is a little different than as a performer. As a performer, it's looking at them and listening to them and inviting them to participate. And as a creator, perhaps it's not that different as a creator of an experience, it's listening because you're knowing what you're. You're going what they want, and then it's figuring out how to deliver the delight in a way that matters to them. There's many times that you'll be in a brainstorm or a meeting across the industry. I'm not particularly talking about Disney, where the goal is some new gadget or some new piece of technology, or doing something that no one has ever done before. And those are great things to look at, for sure. But in the end, it's not about what we create, it's about what the audience enjoys inside that creation. And so for me, that is making them matter, loving them, making them important, remembering that they are who you're doing it for. If you are a painter, if you are a sculptor, even if you are perhaps a playwright, a novelist, you can create anything you want to make, any statement you want it to make, and you put it out there in the world. And the audience you get is the people who show up. But themed entertainment, immersive experience entertainment, is not that. It always has the protagonist as the audience, the person riding the roller coaster, the person falling into Alice's Wonderland, the person going to Galaxy's Edge, you start there with the audience. You don't start with the art.
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C
In my opinion, two connections there. One is, I interviewed Jeremy Neuner, who was a person who designed one of the first co working spaces and got that to replicator in the world. And one of the things he said is that the biggest failings of facilities or departments at companies is that they think their job is about buildings.
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A
Well, we know that's not true anymore, right?
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That's especially not true. But what he said is they should never think of their job as being about buildings. They should think of their jobs as being about humans. Because if you build buildings that are not for humans, you fail. And a lot of what he said in the interview was that what makes a space is community. And so that's one point I want to make. And then the second one is, have you ever picked up a beautifully designed product? And I happen to have a big. I'm a big fan of oxo. I think that's the name of the. The design company that does kitchen supplies. They make a measuring cup that is designed for how you use a measuring cup, which most measuring cups are not. You put it down and as you add to things from the top, you can see how much you've put in. It's you don't have to hold it up to look. You can look at it from above. And when they do that, I feel their care for me. I'm like, they really predicted how I am going to use this. I feel seen and looked at. Like, the animatronic mouse pops up someplace and it's kind of in a secret place. Like, it happens someplace and fast. So you wouldn't even notice it necessarily unless you were looking and the person says, that was a special moment that was designed for me.
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Yes. We sometimes call those Easter eggs.
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C
There's a special thing about an Easter egg, right?
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A
Yeah, for sure. When you're designing. So stepping away from these immersive experiences. Pop up immersive experiences and step into the whole industry that I'm in. You have different layers of interest. So you have maybe like, say you have a family that goes into a theme park, and you might have someone who's a Die Hard fan, and then you might have someone who is coming because they love the people they're going with. And then you have everything in between. So you create experiences for those levels, the toe dippers and the deep divers. And so that you have those little special things. For someone who's a complete Star wars fanatic in Galaxy's Edge, there's things around for them that are like gems. And then you have the people who are going into Galaxy's Edge because it's part of Disney's Hollywood studios, but they want to go see Beauty and the Beast, and it's still fantastic. It's like, wow, this looks like a movie set.
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C
I'm going to know that. That's Boba Fett's rifle over there. What's his name? Scott? No, Adam Savage from MythBusters.
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A
Oh, okay.
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C
He's a maker. And somebody asked him, how do you choose what you make? And he says, I don't. He says, it chooses me. He said, when I saw Star Wars Episode Something, he said, I had to build Boba Fett's gun. I had no choice, and I wasn't gonna stop until I'd built it. And that's the kind of person who goes in and says and notices, right? You have that kind of fan who comes in and they are encyclopedic about what you're presenting to them. So authenticity is super important there.
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A
Again, that's a Knowing your audience. If you know that a whole family is going to come to an experience, different generations, different ages, different types of people are going to appreciate something different. And so you. If you can, you try to love them all.
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Yeah, that's right.
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Because we have and I work in multi generational. Pretty much everything I do is multi generational.
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C
Are some audiences harder to love?
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I think it's easier to love an audience that's most like you. I am not a die hard, Star wars or Marvel fan. The reason I can work in those places is because I want to love the audience. So I love the audience more than the content. So I have to find out, what do they love? What are they particularly tickled by? And some other places, like if we were going to create an Encanto experience or a Coco experience or an Alice in Wonderland experience, I'm already right there because I would go to those. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're hard to love, but it would take more work for me to love them well, because I would have to learn about who they are and what they love. And then I would be inspired to do my best to create that and bring in experts who know them better. Who are them?
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C
Let's switch to the question of work itself and the experience of work. I'm an employer and I come to you and I say, I want to design an immersive experience for my organization.
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What would you ask me?
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So we call this the discovery process. And I would want to know first, why? Is there something awry? Is there a problem you're solving? Is there something you want to enhance? Why do you want to do this and what's going on? So we would explore that. Sometimes people just have a story they want to tell or they want to enhance their people's connection to their brand. So I would say, well, what is your story? Everyone, every group, every company, every brand, every organization actually already has a story. You don't have to make one up. But most people don't know what their story is. So be another series of exploration what your story is. And then after those kind of couple of explorations, it would probably be, what is it that you want this experience to do? Do you want to change the mind of the people who experienced? Do you want them to feel pride? Do you want them to understand something they do not know? Do you want to alleviate fear because there's a merger happening? What is the outcome that you want? And then those three kind of categories would lead the conversation pretty well for a bit of time.
- [27:44]
C
Here's the problem I have. I want great people to feel that they have found their great work and I want them to be unobstructed in their engagement with that great work. Whatever their great Work is, the challenge is they're all very different from each other. And so somehow I need to create a platform within which at least people can self organize or find their way to that thing. And physical space, I agree, matters, and I don't want to ignore that. But the narrative that they're in is not the physical space. The narrative that they're in is problem solving. It's winning the game. It's discovering the unknown. So there's this challenge that this is more of a platform problem as opposed to. I know what the audience wants.
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A
Yeah. Some of the things that I was thinking of as you were speaking, I'm not sure if this is what you were going for, but I can tell you how some of the best things that I have been involved in and how leaders have arranged that for me. And that is deep respect for what I bring. An opportunity to experience that both privately and collectively, there are some collective coming together in our world. What we're doing, the widget we make is creativity. That's our product. And so we come together to hear different voices, which does two things. It gives us an opportunity to shine in our respective strength. And it gives us an opportunity to listen to other people's different strengths, which is enlightening. To realize you're not alone. It's confirming to realize you have a place, you matter in that collective because of what you bring. And it gives an opportunity for the leader and for the peers to say, oh my gosh, that's a great idea, or I love your perspective. I didn't think about that at all. But then we also need time to go away and to work on our offer to that group so that I have time in the quiet to expand my offer. In my situation, it would be writing, so I would write with more clarity now that I've heard many different perspectives on how to fall down the rabbit hole. And then I could come back to the group with that piece of writing, with that conversation, and could be iron sharpens iron. They could say, you didn't hit the mark right. And I could get an opportunity to do it again, but I'm still mattering. So the best leaders I've had have been able to facilitate this sort of coming together and going apart, this ability to respect diverse opinions and hold that space, while also honoring my unique offer in the collective.
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B
On work for humans, we've been exploring the principles of multi sided management, which is the belief that work is a product that every company designs, builds and delivers to employees. Along the way, people started asking how they could put these ideas into practice. So I founded the work design firm Elevenfold to help your company create the kind of work that makes teams feel alive and engaged instead of dead and dull. So you can reduce turnover and build commitment. We're doing something revolutionary here. Learn more@11fold.com that's 111F O L D.com.
- [31:38]
C
There's a really interesting point, which is that there are moments where the story is shared and there are moments where the story is individual and you want people to become. To have an experience individually that helps them to bring their full gifts, which you recognize as gifts.
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A
Yes.
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C
And then there's this part where we come together, where those gifts are assembled. It's a shared story at that moment. And ultimately, actually, Tolkien is very much arranged this way. Right. Which is that the Fellowship of the Ring gets all split up and they've all got individual stories for a long time, and then they come back together. But their stories, they tend to do it in pairs and triples, but their stories are then their own thing, but then they come back together into the larger narrative. That's a powerful.
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A
The thing that. That then we share. In my world, and I would say it's probably the same in any work world, the thing that we share is the experience we're creating for the audience. We all have the same goal. We just have different parts of that goal. To your talking point, we have this thing that we all want, which is this experience for the audience. And experience A, B, C and D are for different people. And so they. They have completely different outcomes. But we all are working together for that singular experience. Even the person doing the billing, everyone, the person arranging the rehearsal space, we're all, especially at Disney, does a great job of this with the cast member concept. Everyone is a cast member in the show, which is for the guest. I think that's important too.
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C
Yeah. There's a great deal of sort of employment philosophy that starts off with disrespect, which is, I need to monitor your work. Because ultimately my job is I don't trust that the person can do the work, Even wants to, or even wants to. Right. So it starts off with a lack of trust. It starts off with a lack of respect. And we have built structures around that.
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A
Time cards.
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C
Time cards. Performance management, which is. What is performance management about is I don't think you're going to go the right direction unless I tell you the right direction. And then I'm going to watch and I'm going to measure whether or not you're living up to what I consider to be. It's like that. Right. It starts off with disrespect. I also think there's another thing. I have a bit of a beef with performance management that's ongoing. There's this other thing which is in performance management, which is I'm going to have a job role, and I want everybody to look more and more like that job role because we all want to look a lot the same, which is the very different from saying, bring your unique gifts. I see your gifts, your unique gifts, and I want you to bring them, and I want to put you into a position to bring them. It's a very different thing. And the position of management toward the workforce is the opposite of what you look for when you go to an audience.
- [34:57]
A
Yeah. Something popped into my head as you were speaking. We used to have this thing in the morning called Daily Dish. In my particular group of peers, I am usually the only writer. So it usually is not a group of, okay, we're all doing accounting, and so we're all going to do accounting in the same way. That's much harder to say, how am I bringing unique gift? Because I'm doing accounting and so are the other 12 people at the table. In my particular group, we are diverse, but in the larger building that we work in, there are people who do billing, there are people who do accounting, there are people who iron the costumes, there are people who are the secretaries and the admins and all of those people. I had a brilliant leader, the most brilliant leader I've ever had in my life. His name was Dennis Wurzman, and he had everyone in the building, unless they couldn't, for some reason show up at 9am in the same room with all the real creators air quotes. And everyone came and everyone was a part of the idea of creating these magical experiences for our guests. And we would have brainstorm events, and those people were invited and they contributed. Because someone from accounting who doesn't think creatively all the time might have an idea that absolutely alters how we approached what we were doing. And it said, you matter. We love you. We want you to be a part of this. You are a part of this. You may be doing the billing. We cannot make the magic without billing.
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C
That's right.
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A
So those opportunities in a facility where you have large groups of people all doing the same thing, perhaps they can be brought in to the bigger group to be reminded that no matter what you do, you are helping us solve world hunger, or you are helping us create peace or whatever the big Value. The big mission of the company is. And that was something simple. That was a 15 minute morning meeting. Nine to nine. Fifteen. That was it.
- [37:04]
C
Yeah. And the person might build differently, might actually understand their job differently, might recognize the connection to it. Barry Schwartz, who came on the show, wrote a book called why We Work. And in it he interviewed janitors at a hospital and asked them what their job was. And they said to make families feel better and to help people get healthy.
- [37:30]
A
Yeah.
- [37:30]
C
And so their job was not to push a broom.
- [37:34]
A
Right.
- [37:34]
C
Their job was connected to the larger mission. And nobody had ever told them that. I don't think that was something that they had identified as. That's why I'm coming to work.
- [37:43]
A
Right. I would guess there's some. There was some culture of appreciation for that or they would have not probably felt. I think that kind of culture can be fostered, but it has to be believed. It can't be a fake fostering. Like we want everyone to feel like they're apart. So we're going to tell you all that you're a part, but we don't really believe it. It has to come from leadership. Because I've worked under other leaders who did not believe that, who did not foster that. And as a result, I didn't want to work for them ever again and have not.
- [38:14]
C
And one of the interesting things about this conversation is that because you working with the fiction equivalent of storytelling or fiction immersion, experience like that, there's a middle ground between fiction and nonfiction. And on the one hand, if I'm going to work and I'm going to enter a narrative that is crafted in part by my employer, I need to feel that that narrative is nonfiction. In other words, I'm engaging with a real thing. I'm not going to suspend disbelief entirely when I walk in the. Into my building. On the other hand, what's going on in my business can be seen one way or the other. It's like a Necker cube. It's those cubes that you can see inside out or right side out. It's like that optical illusion. And so through narrative, I can see the company differently. And the reason I say it's between fiction and nonfiction is that it's an interpretation of. Of reality that I'm going to get through through the narrative and through the experience that's designed.
- [39:20]
A
In the world of writing, which I also write books in the world of writing, I think you're describing creative nonfiction, which has the elements of novel, but is about a thing that actually happened. So it's how you arrange the story, it's the language you use, it's the beauty of the experience that colors the way you tell this story. Rather than a biography, which is going to lay it out chronologically. But creative nonfiction is going to tell a story about that real experience.
- [39:59]
B
On work for Humans, we've been exploring the principles of multi sided management, which is the belief that work is a product that every company designs, builds, and delivers to employees. Along the way, people started asking how they could put these ideas into practice. So I founded the work design firm Elevenfold to help your company create the kind of work that makes teams feel alive and engaged instead of dead and dull. So you can reduce turnover and build commitment. We're doing something revolutionary here. Learn more@elevenfold.com that's 11fold.com.
- [40:40]
C
Right? And it has to be nonfiction. It has to be made out of bricks of reality. But those bricks of reality are going to be arranged in a particular way that it forms a narrative, an interpretation and a framing, like what we were talking about. When somebody enters into, goes down the rabbit hole and finds themself into this.
- [40:59]
A
In this environment, I think the selection process is so important. And I think that employers need to know who they really need, and I think they need to be honest so that employees, the right employees, choose to be there so that you have a network of people that actually enjoy what they're doing and actually want to come. And then you have some of those problems of I have to look over your shoulder to make sure you're working can be resolved. If you have the right fit talent in the right role and you have a company that's honest about what the role is, I think to make up some sort of story that you're going to feel like you're in Bora Bora every day and you're not. You've got all kinds of problems. And then you do have to have people looking over their shoulder because they don't want to be doing what they're doing because they haven't been chosen properly.
- [41:54]
C
Right. And so that becomes Ankiron's story here. It's story as attractor and it's story as filter.
- [42:02]
A
Right. Stronger brands that know who they are, that know the story they're telling, that know what people want from them, are usually better at doing the same thing with employees.
- [42:14]
C
That's right. I know that you have worked on immersive experiences that sometimes businesses come to, and you've worked for more than Disney. So what are some of the other groups that you've worked for besides Disney?
- [42:28]
A
Oh, so many. But even inside Disney, I've worked for lots of different places. And there's one place that I think might have crossover and it's called the Disney Event Group. And that's the small part of Disney that creates these fantastical immersive experience for private clients because they're events. But we also work with businesses in that group.
- [42:51]
C
And so is there a commonality to the promise that you want to provide to those businesses creating events?
- [43:00]
A
So often when we have a large corporation, IBM, or a big medical conference or whatever, they are putting on a conference, an event, and they have a purpose, sometimes there's a merger. So they come to us and they're planning this event because everyone is nervous or they just had a massive layoff and the people that are left are a bit crumpled. And so we design an immersive experience that makes them feel empowered or restructures their understanding of the brand or tells a new story. And so when we do these experiences that are events, we have to actually get inside what's actually happening with the business. And so we have to say, well, what has happened? We went through a merger. What's left? That people are distraught. We want them to feel better. And sometimes they'll be like, so we want to do a big party and we don't want to talk about anything that just happened. And sometimes if we have a relationship with that organization already because they've done events with us before, we might say, well, hang on, what if we created a safe place where people could explore that? And so we'll start to design the experience based on what's happened. We had a company come to us that was celebrating 100 years and they had a lot of younger people in the company that didn't really know that history and heritage as well. So we created this beautiful full production show that celebrated their 100 years of doing business and helped everyone understand the story of who they were. And everybody left. It was called Proud Past, Bold Future. And so everyone left where the design was that everyone would leave feeling proud of the past and excited about the next hundred years. So we have businesses that will come to us with a particular need. And so we're able to apply what we know from the world of theater and what we know about storytelling, what we know about audience engagement to their real world business problems.
- [45:05]
C
It's a particularly good example though of the, of the third point of the things you look at, which is what are people going to take away? Which is that when a company develops an Event like that, the most important thing is what people take away.
- [45:19]
A
Exactly.
- [45:20]
C
Because that's what they're going to carry on into their work.
- [45:22]
A
And so we often will start there. Even though it's the third question when I'm describing what we do, we often will start, what do you want? When you ask me what would I ask a business? What is it you're trying to do? What is the outcome you want? What is the call to action? We sometimes will say, the call to action may just be, I'm proud of my company, but the takeaway would be pride.
- [45:46]
C
I do a lot of what I call analytical group analytical facilitation, which is, we're going to come together, we're going to solve a problem together. And in the first hour of day one, you have to solve a small problem. What you don't want to do, I've found, is have day one framing one going to do lots of framing in day one. You don't do that. What you do is you come in and everybody solves a problem in the first hour. And then from then on, they feel like they've gotten something done. And if you do it the other way around, people get impatient. So it's something like not burying the lead. You want to start off with problem solving, and then in the context of problem solving, get the background.
- [46:29]
A
Yeah, it's interesting. Kind of in parallel with that. I totally hear what you're saying. We find that sometimes a business will come and say, we want people to be proud. And so they want to hit them with proud at the beginning, proud in the middle, and proud at the end. And then, therefore, you basically have taken them on zero journey. And so you will not get the takeaway you want. So there is also that idea of that arc, that storytelling arc, which starts with the problem. We're all devastated. We haven't been together after the pandemic. We are feeling alone and disconnected. And you start with that. We'll use a piece of theater, a song from a show that lets everyone know, oh, my God, they've heard us. They know where I am at, and I know I'm using at improperly. They know where I am. And so then you start to take them. There's a trust there that says, we know where you are. It's not a good place, but we're going to get somewhere better together.
- [47:27]
C
Yeah, that's a very powerful part of the tool set. Recently I did something with managers where we start off by saying, well, do you know the story, brand structure? It's. I'M going to position you as the hero in this story, and I'm going to then show you how I am a guide to you as the hero. So I'm Gandalf. But showing people, you know, their problem at the very beginning of that is so important. The first thing they need to know is, ah, this person gets me.
- [47:58]
A
Yeah. It goes back to the being seen, being loved. The audience at the center, who is this for them? Not me. All of that.
- [48:08]
C
Absolutely right. And this one started off, actually, it's very much like the story brand for the podcast. It started off saying, look, you have a lot of things that you want to get done as a manager. You're trying to build your team and you're trying to create an environment for them. You're trying to grow your career, you're trying to advance the company in a meaningful way, and you're trying to leave a legacy in some cases, but you have a problem, and it's this. And you know what? I get that because I've been there. That's the structure.
- [48:38]
A
Yeah, for sure. It's funny because we come at that just by knowing audiences and from storytelling perspective. But we do the same thing. And I think because not only do we work in the theatrical world, we do help businesses by using tenants of the theater to engage their people. It really ends up becoming the same with that. But we didn't come at. We came at it from, how do you tell a good story?
- [49:05]
C
Right. And how do I respect the person and love the person who's in the story? Yeah, I like that a lot. So, you know, I asked this question toward the end of interviews, which is this marketing question, which is, what job do you hire your job to do for you?
- [49:21]
A
I hire my job to give me the space to make magic for people. What is the space that they offer me?
- [49:32]
C
Yeah. When you say space, what do you mean?
- [49:35]
A
Opportunity. I guess I could say as easily the opportunity. But I, as just myself, can't make the magic of an immersive experience by myself. I can write a magical story, or I can write a story that causes something to happen to someone. But the people that I go to, the Disney, SeaWorlds, universals, all the big companies of the world that do this, when they hire me, they give me the platform, they give me the budget, they give me the team, they give me the opportunity with the audience, they give me the event or the experience so that I can do what I do best, which is go, how are we going to make the audience the center? How are we going to use the story. How are we going to transform every person that comes through in some way, big or small, by the experience they've just had? I hire people that can let me do that unfettered and with support and with respect and honor and opportunity to actually make a difference in the audiences that come through the experience. So I hire them to let me do that.
- [50:44]
C
Yeah, it's one thing that I just added to the list of things that people hire their jobs to do for them is I hire my job to do the books because I hate doing the books. And what I love is this part of the business and I don't love the accounting part of the business or this other part. And so you hire it. You could be self employed, but then you'd have to do the books. And so that is definitely one of those things. And then there's this other thing of. In what you said, I think, which is for the gift that I bring. I don't want it to be clipped off at the edges. I want to bring all of it. Don't put me in a box and tell me to be giant. Give me the room to. And the role to be the storyteller in your case.
- [51:31]
A
And there's something I have said many times and that is in sometimes smaller. So there's the big industry entertainment giants and then there's the smaller studios that serve them. And some of those smaller studios aren't that small. And then there's the smaller. There's all these different people creating pieces and parts of the big Disney magics or the big universals or seaworlds. And sometimes in those smaller firms that don't have as strong a culture or that don't have the same amount of money to spend on the culture, I'm brought in. And I have to build the structure first and then I have to go inside it and push against the structure, because that's what I do. So I love working for the Disneys of the world that have very strong structures. This is how we do things. This is what your role is. This is what your role is not. This is what their role is. This is how you fit in the greater whole. Because when I'm in a situation that has really strong structure, then I can be wildly creative because there's a producer and a production manager and all these other people that are going to say, well, that's a great idea, Stacy, but we can't do that because of this, that or the other thing, which is no problem to me. I'm like, okay, great, then we just change it so it'll be blue now instead of pink. Not a problem. So I can just be the person who ideates and comes up with another creative solution and another creative solution and another creative solution. When I'm in a firm that doesn't have a strong structure, I have to spend the first half of my time creating the structure, and then I have less energy to do what I really love to do, which is to say, what if? And what if? And what if and what if and what if. So that's the space, I guess, also that I'm talking about the space to just be creative, because I know there's other people on the team that have my back. They can say, we actually can't turn them into a hologram in 15 minutes. It won't happen. Oh, all right. All right. Well, the idea was really that I wanted them to feel like they were a part of the machine. Can they pull a lever? Absolutely. And then I'm perfectly happy because, again, it's what the audience is experiencing that I'm so excited about.
- [53:45]
C
What's interesting about that is that it's counterintuitive, which is for me to be free, I need structure.
- [53:51]
A
It's absolutely true. And it's really, really, really important in the creative space. And really often overlooked.
- [53:59]
C
Not only. And a part of that structure is probably safety. It's okay to throw out a crazy idea and then start again.
- [54:09]
A
You know, it has to be. That's foundational. That's foundational of the process. I have to say 27 ridiculous things to get to three possibilities that we hone down to one, and then we change it halfway through. That's just the creative process. But, I mean, while I need a strong structure, I need there to be flexibility, and I need to know that I'm being listened to. I need to know that they value the commodity of creativity.
- [54:36]
C
So some of the structure is constraints, right? It's got these constraints, which you may not know what all the constraints are starting out. To some extent, you're actually testing boundaries to figure out where the constraints are. But once you know where the constraints are, do the constraints make you take a step up to a higher level of creativity?
- [54:51]
A
Sometimes I think so. I would say for me, and there's different types of people, different types of creatives. For me, there's no shortage of ideas. That's where I thrive is like, what about this? What about this, what about that? Or creating it this way, and then being told, oh, you have to turn left instead of right. Well, I can do that. So sometimes. I was once given a job of I was called at 6pm the job had to be done by 9am and here was the job. High end mall that has valet parking. This is 20 years ago, is going to have a $50 meet Santa experience. It's going to take me 50 bucks to meet Santa and get your picture. And in that experience you're going to get a bag of little coins that the children can actually use as money in the mall and a little storybook. So here's some things that you have to know. Santa magically leaves from the rooftop at the end of his three week stay at the ball. The client wants there to be a silent knight who is a knight in shining armor, a princess Santa. And Santa has to leave magically at the end. And you need to write a Satan 6 page children's storybook by 9am tomorrow morning. That includes all of those things. It was so much fun. I still have six or seven in the closet because I had to be wildly creative because I was so backed into a corner. So for me, I find a sort of sick delight in that. And it can be easier to. The flip side, the project I just did in Dubai was intentionally. We're going to tell you nothing because we want you to be so wildly creative, we don't want to constrain you at all. And it was excruciatingly difficult because nothing happens in a vacuum. There are no experiences where you don't know who is coming and why they're coming and what they're spending and how long they're going to be there and how big the place is. So no, constraints is not usually the best soil for rampant creativity.
- [57:06]
C
There was a writing movement, the Ulipo, which I think I have their book on the wall here someplace. But the Ulipo, they said great creativity comes from constraints. And they said that's why sonnets are great, because they're hard. And then they said, well, let's invent new forms that, that are going to force us. And I can't remember who it was who wrote the novel in French without the letter E. I want to say Cano, but I'm not sure that's right. Anyway, that was an example, which is. Okay, here's a constraint. No letter E. Wow.
- [57:38]
A
I can't even imagine.
- [57:40]
C
It's. Apparently I haven't read it, but it's a story about a bunch of French people sitting around saying, something's not right here. Don't you feel like something's missing?
- [57:49]
B
Right.
- [57:50]
C
And then lastly what does your job cost you?
- [57:54]
A
Because I love my job and because I'm passionate about it, and because I offer boundless creativity, it costs me the exhaustion of expending that creativity. And so the most painful point for me in my work is when someone doesn't understand what I just gave them. So there are times that happens. It's going to happen. It naturally happens, because I'm on the team, because of what I do. But when I'm asked to redo it and come up with boundless creativity again without someone realizing that, they didn't just ask me to trim a scene, they just asked me to radically alter the basis point of the story. That's extremely costly.
- [58:46]
C
When you started that, I thought you meant the audience. I thought that the audience didn't understand what you had brought.
- [58:52]
A
No, the people I'm working with, colleagues or leaders, usually in my situation, they're colleagues, but their role in that moment is to direct. And so I've brought an offering of a story, and they've been given something by the client that means we have to go in a different direction, which happens. That's part of life. But the direction turn they're causing me to make, if they misjudge the depth of the work, it's painful.
- [59:21]
C
Right. And so if they were to say, oh, my goodness, I so respect what you just brought to the table, we have a different direction.
- [59:30]
A
They do that. It's when they don't understand that the different direction is going to cause me to have to do mental gymnastics to make the story still work. They think, oh, we're just taking out this one piece. But they just pulled out the pillar. This just happened to me yesterday. They just pulled out the one piece that made me choose the style of folklore I chose, that we've been working on for a year. And they just pulled the pillar out and said, just take that part out. And I haven't even started on the rewrite. And I was just like, I know me and I know creativity, and I know I will be able to make it work. But golly gee, I wanted them to say, this is just really catastrophic, but I believe you can do it. I think it can be done. I think we're going to be okay. But I realize it's going to be big. That's all I needed in that instance. I love the person I'm working with. They respect me greatly. They do believe that I can make it happen. I just wanted them to say, oh, this is going to be painful. That's all. Because I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to make it work. And they're going to think it was a tweak because I will make it look so easy, because I will make it happen and I'll make it beautiful and brilliant because that's what I do and that's what I have to do. I'm compelled to do it, but it will cost me a sense of. Did anyone notice what I just did?
- [60:55]
C
And do you ever have the situation where somebody tries to put something in?
- [60:59]
A
Oh, for sure.
- [61:00]
C
Can we have a giant spider? No, we can't have a giant spider.
- [61:04]
A
No. The answer's always yes in my. Because whoever's asked for the giant spider either outranks me in role or is the client and is paying. I see my job then, which I actually love. That's a constraint. I have to put a giant spider. Now there has to be a giant spider in Alice in Wonderland. So we've just created a whole new world. It comes right after the caterpillar and before the Cheshire Cat. And it's a giant spider world.
- [61:29]
C
It's a giant spider. Well, actually, I felt that when you said that there's going to be a silent night.
- [61:33]
A
And I was like, oh, it's such a bad. It was a total cornball thing from the client.
- [61:39]
C
If I had that idea and I was writing something, I would say, dust. No, not that I'm not going to do that, but somebody else already had it.
- [61:45]
A
Great. I just turned the story into Was a princess that was going to see Santa, I think is what I can't remember. It's been 20 years. I haven't looked at it in a while, but I just turned the whole thing royal and had Santa come to the castle. That's how I solved that one.
- [62:01]
C
I'm still disturbed. I'm not sure I can get my head around it. I'm glad I didn't have to do that.
- [62:08]
A
I have to tell you one other one, the same client. A couple of years later, I had more than one night. I had to do another book for another Santa. And I did the whole thing and then with the animator and everything, Illustrator, Book illustrator. And they came back and they said, oh, we forgot to tell you, it actually doesn't have Santa in it and it can't be about Christmas because it needs to be holiday generic. And I said, absolutely, we're going to start over with the process with the exact same fee you already have paid me for the first one, because that is not a rewrite, that's not an edit. That is a start over.
- [62:52]
C
That's a start over.
- [62:54]
A
That's a start over. And they were perfectly happy.
- [62:57]
C
You know what's so interesting about that is that that was, that was a very improvisational move you made, which is yes and yes, I can do that.
- [63:06]
A
And it will cost you the same as you've already.
- [63:08]
C
Right?
- [63:09]
A
Because it's completely different. And they were totally, they totally understood. I said, there's nothing about, there's nothing salvageable in your first assignment. You can use anything. And what we came up with was adorable. It was so cute. It was a whole story about snowflake sprites and the little snowflake that the child got to stick on their window. And they made these little suction cup snowflakes. It's completely doable. Like I said, for me, there's no shortage of ideas. But in that one, it did require to start over.
- [63:41]
C
Well, thank you very much for coming on the show. How can people learn more about you?
- [63:46]
A
I am really only on LinkedIn as far as the socials go, and that's where you can find out about me in terms of themed entertainment, immersive experiences, all of that. Would love for anybody to follow me, talk to me. I answer every comment and every LinkedIn message. So I'd be happy to speak to anybody. If you're interested in my book writing world, you can find me on Amazon.com that's the easiest. And there are actually, there's another Stacy barton now on Amazon.com, another author. So mine should have four books and then that's how you know that it's me. And then finally, if you just want to see a little bit more about what I do and a fun video that showcases some of my projects, you can go to staceybarton.com no e in the Stacey.
- [64:33]
C
Fantastic. Thank you. Thanks for joining me for another episode of Work for Humans. If you enjoyed this episode, please give.
- [64:41]
B
Us a five star rating.
- [64:42]
C
Wherever you listen to podcasts and share the show with one person you think would get value from it, believe it.
- [64:49]
B
Or not, this really helps us grow.
- [64:50]
C
The show and reach more people who want to build the kind of work that people really want. As always, thank you to my producer Jason Ames at 19 Path Audio for his insights into content and his high standard for quality. Final note, the opinions shared here are my own and not the views of Google or Cisco Systems. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.