"Show Don't Tell": Watch Your PCAN!

[Jerry Kail]

One of the key tenets of the improv stage is, “Show, don’t tell” – that is, don’t narrate the action onstage using a Joe Friday “just the facts, ma’am” approach but paint a vivid picture of what’s happening by directly interacting with the (imaginary) elements of the scene. Better to convey your location by vigorously strumming a guitar, talking to a stranger in his native language, and turning up one’s collar while commenting on the concentration of the precipitation in the lower elevations – than to announce, “Well, here we are in Spain!”

“Show don’t tell” reminds performers that the propless onstage environment is not real and must be created in the moment for the audience – and that the audience must be persuaded through credible evidence (i.e., the performers’ actions) that, yes, he’s opening a soda can, and yes, she’s using a phone, and yes, he’s holding a gun. Audiences need to be guided rather than goaded into onstage reality as a way to engage them in the scene, hold their interest, and make them care about what’s going on.

I think organizational change agents (i.e., everybody) can take a lesson from “Show don’t tell.” Persuaders and influencers often try to make their case by using the PCAN approach (described in the book The Art of Woo) – describing the PROBLEM, identifying the CAUSE, providing the ANSWER, and laying out the NET BENEFIT (i.e., why supporting my “Answer” is better than any alternatives, including doing nothing). But instead of just using PCAN as a preliminary thought-organizer, many people then proceed to translate their PCANs directly into Powerpoint slides, arranged in PCAN order. The usual result: A “tell”-heavy Fact Parade that does little to engage, involve, excite, or persuade the listener.

As an alternative, an influencer might take a page from the improv playbook and use a “show” approach to actually convey her PCAN message – to bring the message to life, give it color, draw the listener in, involve and engage the audience, and make them really care. The SUCCES model described in the book Made to Stick can be very useful for finding ways to “show” the message – using surprise and mystery to engage the audience, finding concrete examples to bring the message home, illustrating your PCAN by means of a story, etc.

Joe Friday and his “just the facts” M.O. are quickly running up against a reality of the Age of Automation, as Daniel Pink points out in his book, A Whole New Mind:

“[T]oday facts are ubiquitous, nearly free, and available at the speed of light…. When facts become so widely available and instantly accessible, each one becomes less valuable. What begins to matter more is the ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact.” [Italics in original]

Laying out “just the facts” via a model such as PCAN can be very valuable for formulating the core of one’s message in one’s head – but just telling those facts to others in a logical, sequential, “left-brained” way can sap the true meaning and impact from the intended message. “Show don’t tell” can remind an influencer that his succes(s) as a communicator depends less on his ability to spoon-feed facts to an audience and more on his ability to draw them in, make them care, and inspire them to act.

REFERENCES:
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Chip Heath and Dan Heath
The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas, G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa
A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, Daniel Pink