It’s tough for any of us to face this kind of challenge. We all want our perspective to be right. We all want to be the hero of the story. But what if we step out of the spotlight for a second and let our audience become the hero of the story? It takes teamwork and listening to understand who our audience is, and the myriad journeys they are on, and the myriad ways they can shine.

What I’ve found is that often we get stuck in our own story. Either one person takes the flag and tries to run with it, often in the wrong direction, or the group doesn’t know what way to go and gets stuck in the murky middle.

When I was leading Design Management at The Art Institute in Portland, Oregon, I had an epiphany. Students were experiencing a “hard handoff” between departments: admissions wanted everything to be fun, academic leaders wanted everything to be rigorous and exploratory, and career services wanted everything to be buttoned-down and professional.

There were vast gaps between these departments, and these gaps were actually harming everyone’s ability to achieve what we all wanted—well-prepared graduates earning a living in the workforce within their chosen design field.

But there was another way of looking at things. I had been reading about musical, scent, and other sensory branding techniques, so I started wondering what the theme song for each department could be. After a little reflection, these songs rose to the top…

I shared the songs with each department, and YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT! They laughed! But not to my musical taste. Instead, they laughed with delight and recognition. The idea of framing what they most felt, the flag they’d fight for day and night, became lighthearted – a matter of taste and a perspective rather than a line drawn in the sand.

The process of discovering this reframing changed the way I evaluate audience journeys and work with bosses, clients, and partners, and it can work for you, too.

What I’ve done is cultivate a way of working with clients that provides an empathetic yet outside view of the particular communication barriers and channels my clients face. I work with my clients to investigate communications challenges, identify sticky barriers, discover new ways to frame the challenge, and make communication about the barrier possible—ways that empower my clients to take the lead in reframing their own story.

More than that, with each client I work with, we collaboratively create an actionable plan to keep the work going over the next year to two years.

These are such micro interventions. What makes them so significant? The kinds of barriers to your story that I tackle are seemingly insignificant, or maybe they have been there for a long time and seem intractable —like they can never be solved. But with the right approach, even the most unyielding challenges can open up to change.

When I’m not working on stories, you can find me performing as Kiwi the Clown at local comedy open mics, photographing the urban and not-so-urban landscape, or participating in activities at the Cedar Rapids Zen Center.

Check out our portfolio page and let me know what you think. Murdock Media Production is available for one-on-one coaching, project work, and longer service engagements. I love to see what other creative and business-oriented people are up to. Add me on LinkedIn so we can stay in touch.

Alan Murdock
Founder and Director