By J. Dean Spence
“What should I do next?” The list has an answer… “How shall I remember and accomplish my goals?” The list gives us direction. “How do I achieve predictable outcomes?” Why, with a list, of course!
I’m almost as fascinated with list making as I am with storytelling. According to Larry Browning in Lists and Stories as Organizational Communication, lists and stories have a dialectical relationship within the context of organizational communication. Browning argues that only two types of organizational communication exist: lists and stories.
For Browning, stories deal with personal experience that are narrated in everyday discourse. “They reflect local knowledge, give coherence to group subcultures, change over time, and contain multiple voices….the story is romantic, humorous, tragic, and dramatic. It unfolds sequentially, with overlays, pockets of mystery, and the addition or deletion of performers.”
Lists, on the other hand, find their origins in science. Browning describes them as “formulas” that spur action which can result in “controllable outcomes.” He uses such adjectives as technical, progressive, and public to describe lists. The list, Browning writes, “represents standards, accountability, and certainty….Lists are often [for example] attached to budgets, the ultimate form of power/knowledge because they list information (knowledge), and they have institutional approval power.”
Browning also argues that when shared, lists can extend a power base. Consider, for example, a senior vice president of communications compiling a list of tactics that must be accomplished for a public relations campaign. The list passes through the SVP’s hands, through the communication director’s hands and to the associate of an outside boutique firm—thus extending the SVP’s power from within the organization to the external firm. Hence, Browning writes, “Lists allow for control from a distance.”
In sum, Browning argues that “the list is an indicator of legitimization; the story an avenue for incremental criticism, praise, and change.”
I find this list-stories dialectic interesting because traditionally storytelling was not seen as a rigorous business tool. In business schools students are taught more analytical tools to perform their duties—tools that we can say are in the spirit of list making.
But lists are not always perfect business tools. Chris Charyk outlines the “Pros and Cons of Pros-and-Cons Lists.” Charyk writes that “the pros-and-cons list is generally well understood, requires no special computational or analytical expertise, and is elegantly simple to administer.” But “a pros-and-cons list is useful only as a very high-level preliminary aid.”
The problem, Charyk argues, is that such lists can give rise to three types of bias. Narrow Framing: i.e. overly constraining possible outcomes. Overconfidence Effect: i.e. the list-maker overestimates the reliability of his judgements. Illusion Control: i.e. when the list-maker thinks he can control outcomes that are uncontrollable.
However, I completely disagree with Peter Bregman who argues in “A Better Way to Manage Your To-Do-List” that people who make to-do lists don’t follow them. He writes, “lists are the wrong tool to drive our accomplishments.” For some people this is true, but people with the right temperament will be successful with list making.
Consider the late Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay Cosmetics. She used to say that before going to bed each night she would compile a list of things that she wanted to accomplish the next day. Jim Holtje recounts in his book The Power of Storytelling that Ash felt list making made her commit to her goals. “She says that the other advantage of list making is that it disciplined her to do the things she’s just as soon skip.”
List making is a good, old fashioned business tool. It’s not perfect. But writing—i.e. list making—is committing.