Ian Mitroff

Transcription

COURTNEY: Hi everybody. Thanks for coming. Sorry that we're starting a little late. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce my neighbors, Ian and Donna Mitroff. They are the authors of "Fables and the Art of Leadership: Applying the Wisdom of Mr. Rogers to the Workplace." Thank you. [APPLAUSE] DONNA MITROFF: Good afternoon and thank you for coming. I'm Donna Mitroff. We're going to spend some time telling you about how we came to know Fred Rogers, how we came to work with him, how this book came to be. But before we do, we have a special surprise for you. So if you'll just wait one moment. DAVID NEWELL: Speedy delivery. Hello everybody, speedy delivery. My name is Mr. McFeely from "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood." Hello. Do you all remember McFeely? [APPLAUSE] Well, that's me. I have a special deliveries today. In this suitcase, there are some sayings on these papers. And I thought I'd bring them by and pass them all out to you. So we'll start here. You can take those. And by the way, I started on "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" in 1967, before most of you were born I think, right? And it's been on public television-- do you have enough in this row? Here you go. Here's two more. And it showed on KQED, and it's online now. So I'm sure you know how to get online. And it's all over the United States and in Canada. And we have a new show now called "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood," which is all animated. And it's carrying on Fred Rogers' legacy along with the Mitroffs, who are also carrying on Mr. Rogers' legacy in a different way. But here I have more deliveries. Can you a pass those out? I have more. And also, a little later, I brought with me-- and the Mitroffs did a special little addition. They put Google down here. And I can sign these. So we'll do that a little later, too. And help yourself to any of these cards. Let me get more deliveries here. I'll be right with you, all right? Oh, if anybody has any questions about the Neighborhood just ask me while we're doing this. Do you all remember seeing it? Have you all seen it? Yes? AUDIENCE: Did Mr. Rogers do all the voices for the puppets? DAVID NEWELL: He did all the voices for the puppets. DONNA MITROFF: Oh, we're going to tell you all of that. DAVID NEWELL: Yes, you'll find out more about that later. But yes he did, except a lot of other people helped him maneuver them. So, he only had two hands. Thank you all for coming and put the extras right back in here. DONNA MITROFF: Are you going to tell them to open them? DAVID NEWELL: And I also have, don't forget, after we're all done here, and we have-- DONNA MITROFF: Actually we're going to do it right now, David. DAVID NEWELL: What? DONNA MITROFF: Open up your messages. DAVID NEWELL: Oh, yes! Open up your messages because Donna has, besides doing Google, if anybody has on their message a little red dot. DONNA MITROFF: Red star. Raise your hand. DAVID NEWELL: Oh, right off the bat. DONNA MITROFF: Come on up because you are the lucky winners of a free copy of this book. [APPLAUSE] We will be happy to autograph these for you after the session is over-- the presentation is over. And any of you who decide to buy the book, let us now. We'll manage to get the autograph to you. We're pleased that you came today. DAVID NEWELL: And then afterwards, I can sign one of these, or two of these, or however many what I have enough time. So I can sign when we're done here. But I think you're ready to do your presentation. I will sit here and take it all in, all righty? Speedy delivery. Oh yes, before we start, do you think if I count to three, you all can say speedy delivery and that'll be your cue to start. So here we go one, two, three. AUDIENCE: Speedy delivery. DAVID NEWELL: OK Donna. DONNA MITROFF: Thank you David. Thank you. David came all the way from Pittsburgh to share this with us today. Pittsburgh-- [APPLAUSE] DAVID NEWELL: Where it's minus nine. DONNA MITROFF: Pittsburgh is the home of "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood." It's also the home of WQED, the Pittsburgh PBS station. And that's where this whole saga began for us. Back in the 1970s-- actually it was in the late '60s-- my husband and I moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he took a job teaching at the University of Pittsburgh. And I did other things, went to graduate school, and did a Ph.D. in education. And then eventually went to work for WQED. My first day on the job, I get on the elevator and the person riding up from the ground floor to the third floor with me is Mr. Rogers. And I was, as they say, verklempt. So we started to talk and by the end of riding three floors, he invited me to come over to his office. And he said, maybe there's something that we can do together. So I'm going to get into telling you about that, but that's my background and how I met Fred. I'm going to ask my husband to tell you a little bit about his background. IAN MITROFF: I have to remember to talk through this. I was born and raised in San Francisco. I did all my degrees at UC Berkeley when it was really, really cheap. So I went there from freshman to Ph.D. I got my Ph.D. In engineering from Berkeley. But while I was getting my Ph.D., I took a three and a half year minor, which was unheard of, in the philosophy of science, never been done. And the man who taught me philosophy was in the business school at Berkeley, a great man. And so he was a philosopher. So it was only natural when I got through, because I loved engineering, but I didn't want to do engineering anymore. I went into a business school where I've taught organization behavior. All the people stuff that they don't talk about in engineering school. So we were ripe to do such a book. Anyway, Donna go on. DONNA MITROFF: So that's a us back in the '70s, lots of hair, fewer wrinkles, fewer pounds. And take the next slide. I moved over to WQED the late '70s. And that's me standing out in front of X the Owl's tree. How many of you watched Mr. Rogers at any time? Wow! That's pretty amazing. So anyway this show is one of the longest running shows on public television ever, 35 continuous years. And it is still available. As David said, you can still see it online. Lots of parents find it and watch it with their kids today because it's still speaks to you today. So after my meeting with Fred Rogers in the elevator, I went by his office. And we started talking about what we could do. I was an educator, there as director of educational services. And he said, I wish we could do more to help people-- parents, caregivers, preschool teachers, whoever's using it-- help them understand that there are some lessons, not just watch the show, but something to do. So we set about developing what we call the plan and play book. I was watching the shows then writing lesson plans for what to do after you watch the show. And that book became sort of the basis for Public Television's Ready to Learn Project, and started a relationship with Fred and his company, including David, that has gone on since the late '60s, '70s, and exists even today where I'm still involved with the Fred Rogers company, and with the Fred Rogers memorial scholarship, which is our effort to continue with his legacy in children's media. Who was Fred Rogers? How many of you think you know how Fred Rogers was? What a unique person he was. Do you know that he was a puppeteer? He did most of the puppets. Do you know that he wrote the music? He played the music. Do know that he wrote most of the scripts? Do you know that he had advanced degrees in child development? So it didn't just come from his imagination. It came from his heart, and his soul, and his training. So there's so much embedded in the stories that he told, way beyond. He was not a typical performer. He wasn't an actor. In fact, David will share with you some of the stories about how reluctant he was to do things other than keep building a great show. So the show went on the air in '67? DAVID NEWELL: It went on air February 18, 1968. We started taping in '67. DONNA MITROFF: So on the air five times a week, every week, for an entire 35 years. So there's a lot of Mr. Rogers embedded in your minds. And its back there. And what we're going to do is help you bring those lessons back forward to today. IAN MITROFF: Let me just add one thing. Probably most people don't know that Fred was an ordained Presbyterian minister. And he looked at the state of children's television as it was at the time-- mostly like throwing pies in people's faces-- and his ministry literally became to make television for children what it should and must become. And that really was this lifelong goal. DONNA MITROFF: Now, his major show was "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood." and "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" was made up of these two different segments. You remember how he would come in, put on his sweater, change his shoes. He did that because kids like routine. It gets to be very comfortable for you. But then he would go into his own home, on the set, and there would be many experiences where he would bring people in and they would talk. He would take you out to visit places that people love, like the visit to the Crayon Factory. Kids play with crayons. They want to know how do crayons get made? So he would take people to real places and do documentary footage in a real setting. And one of the highlights of his show was always the Neighborhood of Make Believe. He'd send that little trolley around the track. And this was done very deliberately. So you're leaving the real world, and you're going into a neighborhood of make believe where anything can happen. And the Neighborhood of Make Believe was populated by puppets that everyone came to know. Here's just a few of them King Friday, Queen Sarah Saturday, Lady Elaine Fairchilde, Lady Aberlin, and Daniel Tiger. Daniel tiger, the one who is now the star of the new show. Many others in the Neighborhood of Make Believe, and some live performers, never Fred. You never saw him in the Neighborhood of Make Believe because he was real. But you saw some of the other people as live performers. David was there. You would see David in the Neighborhood of Make Believe. And in that Neighborhood of Make Believe is where we found this richness of information and ideas that we want to share with you. So what began to happen as-- after Fred died, I was involved with the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the ones who do the Emmy's. And we decided there that we give a tribute to Mr. Rogers for the industry in Southern California. So we set about-- I was one of the producers of that show-- putting this together. And in doing so, I was re-reading Fred's materials, looking at the shows, and I kept coming home and telling my husband, who was a professor of management organizational behavior, much of what goes into making organizations work until he said-- IAN MITROFF: When Donn a was sharing the lessons, the lessons were more profound than you get in most management books. I mean, they're not devoid of lessons, but they're dry. They're didactic. And the idea that took shape for Donna and I is that we began to go back and read some of the major fables the were on the Neighborhood of Make Believe. And the idea that crystallized is that the fables were in effect little mini business cases. That King Friday, for example, is the autocratic CEO and you can begin to identify the other characters. And the idea said, Look let's try and teach organizational behavior through fables and stories. Why fables and stories? Because that's the primary way that human beings have communicated with one another since the dawn of civilization, not with formulas, not with textbooks, but with good stories. We were lucky to get to Palgrave McMillan-- the next slide. DONNA MITROFF: But wait I want to have the next slide. IAN MITROFF: We were lucky to get-- DONNA MITROFF: A contributer to this idea that there are lessons here for grownups was at this tribute to Fred Rogers. One of the people who spoke was Anne Sweeney. Some of you might have heard-- Anne was here recently doing a talk to women's leadership in Silicon Valley. And you see she's got a very high level position. And when Anne came on to the stage and talked about what she learned from Fred Rogers that she still uses as a high level executive, it helped to crystallize our feeling that there are other people out there who learned things from Fred that stayed with them, not just as my husband always says, he helped you as a child, he can help you as a grown up. So we went on and we found a publisher and we pulled together these three principles. Fred's lessons were more profound than traditional methods of management and leadership training. He taught through stories and fables. Those who watched as children are now in middle and upper management positions. And here you are. You watched him when you were a kid and now you're advancing through your careers. IAN MITROFF: Can we go through to the next slide? Let me tell you what crystallized is we went back and read the fables. Seven principles emerged early on. And those are the seven principles. Go to the next slide. And each of them is illustrated through a direct quote from Fred and an accompanying fable in the book. And we're going to read just through the fables because of time later. So the first one, connect. You can read it. "A person can grow to his or her fullest capacity only in mutually caring relationships with others." Next please. Concern. One of the misperceptions of Fred Rogers is that he was thoroughly no rules, anything goes. That's not true at all. I think one of the best sayings that we culled out from Fred is, "Setting rules," good rules, not harsh rules, "is one of the primary ways in which we show our love for others." Now, in a good organization you do it with your employees, not didactically, not necessarily autocratically. Next one please. "Play is the expression of creativity, and I," Fred believes, "is at the very root of our ability to learn to cope and become whatever we may be." Next please. Communication. "In times of stress," especially in stress, "the best thing we can do for each other is listen with our ears and our hearts to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers." I don't need to tell you that it's obviously broken down on our political life. One thing I ought to say, we have no illusions about what organizations are today. We're talking about an ideal, which if we practice, it would hopefully improve our organizations as they are. Next one please. Consciousness. "Take good care of that part of you where your best dreams come from, that invisible part of you," Fred was spiritual, "that allows you to look upon yourself and your neighbor with delight." Next one. Maybe go back to the previous one. There is some growing recognition, believe it or not, in business schools and schools of management, that spirituality at work plays a core role in our lives. I was fortunate to write one of the earliest books on spirituality at work, and I went around and interviewed people and what spirituality meant to them during their day. For example, how much of themselves they could bring to work? Next one, please. Courage. "One of the greatest paradoxes," about life, "about omnipotence is that we need feel it early in life, and lose it early in life, in order to achieve a healthy, realistic, yet exciting sense of potency later on." Next one, please. Community. "All of us, at some time or other," I might say even constantly, "need help. Whether we're giving or receiving help, each one of us has something valuable to bring to the world. That's one of the things that connects us as neighbors-- in our own way, each one is a giver and a receiver." I mean if we could summarize the book, how could we turn our organizations at best into caring neighborhoods. Next one, please. OK, here the seven fables that we picked out to illustrate each of these principles. And the fables just ring. In fact, they're really in your consciences. Now, we're just going to talk about two of them because of time. So Donna you ah-- We're going to start with "Planet Purple" and we'll talk about "The Bass Violin Festival." DONNA MITROFF: So I'm going to give you a brief reading of the story just to take you back to remember what happened in the story of "Planet Purple." And then you just think about this as a mini case study, but Ian's going to break it down or you tell how it teaches lessons for management and for organizations. The story of "Planet Purple." "On a space mission, Lady Elaine Fairchilde discovered a new planet. A place where everything was purple. Everyone had the same purple home. The sky was purple. The cars, chairs, and streets were purple. And there were the same purple trees. In addition, all of the boys and girls were named Paul and Pauline. And every single panda was call Purple Panda. Everyone on Planet Purple ate purple pumpernickel pudding, and talked in the same monotonous voice. And for years and years, everybody dreamed the same dreams and had the same hopes. "When Lady Elaine Fairchilde's bright green space ship landed on Planet Purple and she stepped out in her white astronaut suit, the Planet Purple people ran and hid in fear. But one Paul, and one Pauline, and one purple panda didn't run and hide. They stayed around to look at this curious creature. Lady Elaine, whose favorite color happened to be purple, was very intrigued by this planet. She liked seeing everything in purple and she liked not having to remember a lot of different names. "After exploring the planet, she decided to fly back to tell everyone back home about this new planet. Lady Elaine didn't know that Paul, Pauline, and Purple Panda were watching her and decided to follow her. "The Planet Purple way to travel is just by thinking and thinking alone. All you have to do is think that you're someplace and instantly you'll be there. So Paul, Pauline, and Purple Panda thought about Lady Elaine, where she was and immediately they arrived in the Neighborhood of Make Believe. "They could hardly believe what they saw and heard. Everything and everybody was different. Purple Panda was so excited that he sat down in the first rocking chair he saw. He rocked, and he rocked, and rocked, and then he remembered one of Planet Purple's laws. Anyone who rocks on a rocking chair may not live in Planet Purple. But now it was too late. He could never go back. Paul and Pauline wanted to explore this new place before going back. So they went everywhere. They looked. They listened. They smelled. They touched. They felt the colors, They smelled the smells. And they felt the different feelings. "One day Paul fell down and hurt himself. And he felt something wet trickling down his cheek. A rabbit asked him why he was crying? Paul had to ask what crying meant. No one ever cried on Planet Purple. When the rabbit heard that Paul had never cried before he said, you've just started to live. "Finally, Paul and Pauline decided to return to Planet Purple. So they use the Planet Purple way to travel, thought about being there and they were back home. They told the other Pauls and Paulines about the place where Lady Elaine lived. How everything is so different and nobody is exactly the same as anyone else. They even told about Purple Panda rocking in the rocking chair, and everyone knew he'd broken the law and could never come back. "The other Pauls and Paulines didn't like the idea that everything and everybody should be different. Paul and Pauline helped them imagine colors, sound, smells, feelings. It took a long time to change their planet. And some people didn't like some things, and other people didn't like other things, but everybody ended up saying it was still better than being the same all the time. They even changed the law about rocking chairs so Purple Panda could come back any time he wanted. "The citizens of Planet Purple held a celebration to announce that the name of Planet Purple would be changed to Planet Purple Fairchilde in honor of the one who helped them become different. Both Lady Elaine and Purple Panda came to the celebration. The End." Now just think about it for a minute as a business case. I think you'll be surprised. Go ahead Ian. IAN MITROFF: Here are some of the principal lessons of Planet Purple translated into the implications for business. In many ways the fable is about waking up from an overly rigid, hierarchical organization to a more equitable organization. Let me give you some things that aren't up there on the slide. Miss Fairchilde, who could well be an executive VP, her challenging assignment is explore different models for the design of her organization. She comes across Planet Purple, Inc. that has a beautiful simplicity, but by just coming and asking questions, she's disturbed the status quo profoundly. When she comes across the organization, as I said, it's an old fashioned, overly repressed organization. The employees are virtually in a state of suspended, repressed psychological and emotional development. There's a lack of integration between thinking and feelings. That's one of the main underlying themes of the story. In effect, the people live in a cocoon. Planet Purple organizations, as we well know, virtually have a single measure of performance. All that matters is the bottom line. In contrast, Planet Prism organizations are a model of diversity. Everything is different. The King even enjoys-- the King Friday is the stand in for the autocratic CEO-- even enjoys talking with employees. Yes, he's still in charge because we're not against hierarchy, per se. That's not the point. But the point about the Planet Prism organization, their primary goal is do no harm to the planet, and make products that serve authentic human needs, not false needs. Let's go on to the next fable. DONNA MITROFF: OK, the Next story is "The Bass Violin Festival." and this story we have paired with our topic of one of our C's for creativity. So listen to this one and think of how the lessons that this has about creativity in your organizational life. "One day in the Neighborhood of Make Believe, King Friday receives a message from the mayor of an adjoining locality saying that she would like to arrange a festival that involves all of the surrounding neighborhoods. King Friday likes that idea and immediately proclaims that it'll be a bass violin festival. Chuck Aber, one of his subjects, points out that he, the King, is the only one who actually plays the bass violin. Undaunted by this, King Friday says, oh, so I am. "King Friday's subjects are pleased at the prospect of a joint neighborhood festival, but quite taken aback that it will be just a bass violin festival, and that they must all participate. Lady Aberlin is especially disconcerted when King Friday presents her with a bass violin and tells her it's a fine instrument. It was made by an excellent instrument maker. She acknowledges that it may be a very special bass violin. However, she says, I cannot play the bass violin. Just because a person has a fine instrument doesn't mean that he can play that instrument well. King Friday simply tells her, go on keep on practicing. "Over the next few days, the subjects meet to share their frustration about being required to perform a skill they do not have. One day Lady Elaine Fairchilde arrives and tells them she has a solution to the problem." Remember Lady Elaine? She's the outspoken, gutsy one. "She produces her accordion, the instrument that she plays very well, and it is covered by a false front to make it look like a bass violin. She tells them that now she's going to play the bass violin for them. They watch and listen in amazement. Lady Aberlin then points out that, you're actually playing your accordion. Lady Elaine acknowledges it is an accordion. But since it looks like a bass violin, it could work for The Bass Violin Festival. "Lady Elaine's clever solution gives the others an important idea. They could all think of ways to make what they do look like bass violins so that could contribute to the festival. Lady Aberlin knows how to dance. So she decides to dance with the bass violin. Miss Paulifficate puts on a bass violin costume and plays at being a bass violin. Keith and Michael Jones make bass violin puppets who will perform a bass violin conversation. Another neighbor dresses up as a special flower, a bass vio-let. And yet another one decides to write and recite a poem about the bass violin. "In the midst of their excitement, they realize that King Friday needs to be told what they're going to do. They become a little worried that he may not like the news. Lady Aberlin confides to Daniel Tiger. And Daniel says, the best thing to do is tell the King the truth, that not everybody can learn to play the bass violin so they're going to do other things with it, things that they can do well. With the support and encouragement of all her friends Lady Aberlin tells King Friday the truth. He listens to the plan and concludes that these are very clever ideas and perhaps this festival could turn out to be something special. And indeed it is. The very, very special Bass Violin Festival where everyone contributes with his or her own special talent." IAN MITROFF: OK, let me go over the lessons briefly of "The Bass Violin" and it is really one of my favorite stories out of Fred's. That number one, technology-- particularly talking to a technology company-- is never a substitute for skill. The fact that King Friday is an expert, you can't assume that everybody else will take to it and become an expert. Number two, technology often increases our fears. We all know that. It makes us feel painfully aware of our shortcomings, so increases anxiety. Three, often we're afraid. Indeed the more we are, we project our fears on others. See for all we know in the fable, King Friday may have given the assignment to see if his employees-- take the metaphor employees-- would break out and become creative. Because the fable, in many ways, is about re-framing, taking the initial assignment, which may be impossible to solve on its own. Creativity forces us to confront our deepest fears. Will we be foolish and laughed at if we expose or ideas and feelings to the world? To be creative we have to be childlike, without being childish. Last thing let me talk to you about. Those of you who've taken courses in statistics early on learn about two errors, type one and type two errors. I won't go through them. If you've taken a class, you know what it is. There's an error that is virtually never talked about, which is most fundamental. It's the type three error. The type three error is solving the wrong problem precisely. I'm sure you can all connect with that. Solving the wrong problem precisely. To know that we're not solving the wrong problem precisely, what we have to do is have at least two different ways of looking at a problem. If you have only one alternative, that's really a set up that you're going to solve the wrong problem. And that's really what the fable is about. And that's what we talk about in the book. Let me go on to the next slide. DONNA MITROFF: You can imagine that if they had taken the assignment directly and all tried to learn to play the bass violin in time for the festival, they would have been very successful at solving the wrong problem precisely. They would have committed the error of the third kind. IAN MITROFF: OK, we're near the end here where our time with you. But I'm just going to talk about very briefly what the rest of the book does. We apply the fables and we bring in some topics that are both talked about and really not talked about in business schools. For example, life skills. Ellen Galinsky who has gone around the country and talk with investigators who study young children. What are the key skills that kids need to learn early and we need to emphasize them throughout our whole lives. I've worked with a friend who's developed a marvelous instrument for getting how to help people handle conflict. Defense mechanisms. One of the earliest discoveries of Freud. If the defense mechanisms are high, like denial, you can't do any of this in an organization. Personality styles. We talk about the Myers Briggs. Number five, I've worked my pretty much my whole career as one of the developers of crisis management. Years ago, starting with the first Tylenol poisoning, I moved into the field of crisis management. And lastly, I don't know how many of you have ever heard of attachment theory. But it's one of the most profound theories about how we build trust early on in our lives. Attachment theory provides really the basic models of trust that go back literally from the day we are born. The interactions with our primary caregivers. So the point about the book, I guess, Donna said it before, but let me say it again, if we had to summarize the book in one line it would be that, Fred helped you when you were a child, he can help you when you're an adult. Because the lessons of Fred, the stories, are so finely hewn, they're so finely crafted that they really reverberate throughout our entire lives. Now, we were lucky to find a publisher, Palgrave McMillan, an academic publisher, and they started a new series to teach organizational behavior. They had people, such as us, write books that would teach organizational behavior through stories and fables. And we were lucky to be one of the first books in the series. DONNA MITROFF: Talk about the book. How they positioned it and market it. And it is a textbook. IAN MITROFF: It's a supplementary textbook because it's not out of the mainstream. Hopefully, telling stories in fables will move more in the mainstream, how we teach business. DONNA MITROFF: But I just want to say what you'll see if you read the book, it's in three parts. Part one, is we just tell you the stories and we ask you to think about them. Part two, we go back and analyze each of these seven stories in some detail. And then in part three, is the real academic application. And that's where we bring in all of these other areas and we provide exercises. And we know the book is being adopted by some faculty members around the country and being used in management classes, but not enough. And it's the kind of thing that if you wanted to start a group of your own, read the book and talk about it, the ideas are there for how you can. IAN MITROFF: But at this point we need to stop. We have a few questions for you. And I'm sure you have questions. One of Fred's, we think, profound ways in which you would end, even start a meeting was said, close your eyes. So everybody close your eyes. And think about who is the person or persons that were most impactful on your career. I think the way Fred put it, willed you in to being. And the second thing we would ask you to think about is, what have you heard today that you can carry back directly into your jobs to make your life and the life of your colleagues better. We'll take a few seconds. Keep your eyes closed. OK, floor is open for you. Any questions, comments. DONNA MITROFF: Any thoughts that came to you during that eyes closed moment. We'd like for this to be a conversation. So anyone who wants to say anything about a story like this being applied to your organization, or any thoughts. Yeah? AUDIENCE: Hi. I found it fascinating that the Planet Purple people felt, or believe, that they could travel just by thinking. And what I brought back from that is, I tend to be an ideas person. But if you really want to carry an idea through, you have to be committed to the steps that it takes to bring it to fruition. You can't just think about it and say, it's done. DONNA MITROFF: That's very good. That's very good. Very interesting. IAN MITROFF: Well, I mean, what you said-- yeah, I'm primarily a thinking person too, going through engineering, philosophy of science. But the point is that we don't sell ideas alone just through the ideas. We sell them through stories. I mean think about the leaders who were most effective. Whether you like President Clinton or Obama, they have a story. Even George W. Bush, OK, I didn't agree with him, but he had a story. And he was effective that way. So the most effective leaders have a way of encapsulating the lessons into something that moves us. Because ideas alone, Yeah, they're necessary, but they're not sufficient. And that's the point why we did the book. DONNA MITROFF: And the other point of the thinking way of traveling is that you only use your mind. You leave your body. You don't use it. You can't do that. You have to integrate your mind, and your body, and your spirit to really accomplish anything. Yeah. AUDIENCE: I'm wondering about the process of building stories. Because there's a very creative aspect to it, but there's also the taking what you want to get across and communicating it effectively. And sometimes you can be very, very creative and no one understands what you're talking about. Other times, you could be very clear on what you're talking about, but the story is banal or are not compelling. And I'm wondering if you guys have any insight in terms of Mr. Rogers' process on how he got from what he wanted to get across and into a story. IAN MITROFF: David do you have any idea what the process was that Fred went through? DAVID NEWELL: It was based a lot on letters from the public. This is not exactly answering your question, but the most requested topic we ever had over the years was from people talking about Fred helping their families with divorce. And we got so many-- and this is going back maybe 20 years-- and Fred didn't know how to do it. And finally-- he had a professional child development expert with him all the time-- and they finally came up with a concept. And we did a whole week on divorce. And the one thing that Fred wanted to get across to children was that it's not their fault. So it evolved like that. Another time, much more light hearted, there was a time when we did a week on superheroes. I had seen an article where a child thought he was Superman, put a towel around his neck, and jumped off a building, and killed himself. And that was going on. And so we went to "The Incredible Hulk," watching it being filmed. Remember "The Incredible Hulk?" We went to Universal Studios and showed that this is pretend. Here's this person getting into his makeup. He broke it down. And Fred thought that way. He wanted to demystify a lot of different things. But does that answer your question? The creativity came a lot of times from the public. But a lot, like "The Bass Violin Festival." it came from Fred's love of music, too. He used that as a metaphor of sorts to get that point across. So it came from many different places. Do you have anything to add? IAN MITROFF: One other response, the kind of philosophy I studied was really in the school of pragmatism, William James. If you read the opening pages of "Pragmatism", one of William James' key works, he tells a story, it's a brief story about a working man, who had been out of work for a year. He finally got a job in physical labor. But he was hurt. He was weak. He couldn't do it so we came home. He killed his family and he killed himself. And William James-- you know it was ripped from the headlines-- and William James asked what does philosophy have to say to this? If it has nothing to say, it has nothing to say. And so the point is, you know, I mean I've written scores of books. You've got wherever you find the story-- I'm working on a book with my in-law, the father of my son-in-law. And he's a retired bio-stat guy from Stanford. And we're talking about writing a book on health for the public, the kind of concerns they have. He worked with Michael DeBakey and I keep saying, Abe, we've got to crystallize the stories. For every point that we want to make, there has to be an accompanying story. See one of things they didn't say earlier about fables and why we went with fables. The reason why fables reverberate, they're stereotypes, but the good guys and bad guys are clearly drawn. That's why we were drawn to fables. And the moral lessons are clear. Now you get into stereotype. You can exaggerate. But that's what fables do. So they cut through all the stuff there, and they make it come to life. They're human. And you don't get that, you know? I mean come on. I'm an academic. I've been in the academic world for my whole life. You're not rewarded for doing that. And there's so like all the idea stuff, that's necessary. But it's not sufficient to get it out here to the world. And that's why we wrote the book because what a challenge for us to do what you were asking. Anybody else? We have a few minutes. Yes, sir. AUDIENCE: I think it's a great concept to apply these lessons to the workplace. Of course, you guys actually shared the workplace with Fred Rogers. I'm curious what was that workplace like. Was it any different? I loved your story of actually closing your eyes. Are there more examples like that? DONNA MITROFF: It was chaotic. It was always bubbling and jumping and things were happening and things didn't get done on time. Some recognition up here. But there was always that underlying current of we know where we're going. This is about something important. And that's the thing that kept everybody coming back together. Now the day-to-day stories? David has piles of those. DAVID NEWELL: I was in every one of the tapings. We did over thousands of tapings and I was in them a lot. And the one time that you could tell-- Fred was a musician-- and you could tell when he was frustrated. He would never yell or throw a sneaker across the floor. He would go to the piano. And when we sat down at the piano and would play the piano that was his-- anger came out through his fingers or his frustrations. And that's how he dealt with it. And people would follow that, too. They knew that Fred was saying something to them when the piano would start. And after every taping Fred had a tradition, he'd go to the piano and-- you're all too young to know up it, but in the movie theaters in the '40s and '50s, they had newsreels. And there was a news reel that started out with a rooster crowing. It as the RKO Warner Brothers News, something that had a very distinct theme. Da, da, da dat da da. It's like playing "And That's All Folks" from Looney Tunes. He would sit down and play that, and we knew the day was done. But Fred talked through music. DONNA MITROFF: He talked through music, yeah. IAN MITROFF: One thing that I do remember-- I'll get the story a little bit wrong, not exactly. I remember watching Fred one time on the old "Johnny Carson Show." I don't how many of you watched the old "Johnny Carson Show." And Fred was talking about what he did. Johnny, they were engaged in conversation. And Fred was talking about the importance of children's feelings, and somebody in the audience guffawed. And Fred looked at that person steely cold and said, that's not funny. And I remember that because, again, to think that OK, he was bubbly and light all the time. No way. I mean, yes, this was a spiritual, a really good person. But the things that he didn't have strong values-- In fact, we talked about that. This was more than a one time occurrence. I know when I've been involved-- I'm in a research center at Berkeley-- and we have people come in and they'll talk about feelings-- because it's a center about crises and everything-- they'll talk about warm fuzzies. I have to bite my tongue and I can't always do it. And say, don't you insult feelings that way. You don't do that with a kid. DONNA MITROFF: Or with anybody. IAN MITROFF: Or with anybody. DONNA MITROFF: Because you bring those feelings with you no matter what. And they have to be dealt with no matter where you are, no matter what age you are, they have to be dealt with. IAN MITROFF: One of the things I found when I did my book on spiritually was called "The Spiritual Audit of Corporate America," that one of the things that people talk about what spirituality meant to them at work was how much of their whole person they could bring to work. Could they only bring their head, but not your their feelings, their heart, and their body. And so the whole point is, we're fragmented enough in our lives that they didn't want to be further fragmented at work. Or to go home and repair for all the beating up that they took during the week. And then go home and repair so they could come back and take another 40, 50 hours more. So the organizations that quote have a spiritual bent, whatever you want to call it, get more of the whole person. They don't exploit that person. And they get more of the creativity. That's why all of these fables really reverberate. OK, I think we have time for more. DONNA MITROFF: Do we any time Courtney? COURTNEY: One more question. DAVID NEWELL: Can I follow up with what you asked? This just shows Fred's sense of humor. He had a wonderful sense of humor. The crew knew this. You know how he changed his shoes and sneakers and put his--? At the very end of the program, they snuck in a pair of smaller shoes. And he put his shoe on by talking and winding his foot into it. And he couldn't do it. And he couldn't do it. And you heard the crew started to laugh. He wore a size 10, and they gave him size 8. You can't tell just by looking at it. And he thought that was so funny. And it Dick Clark showed it on his outtake reels. Just one other quicky. You know those blow up dolls? This is something that nobody's ever told anyone, but I will. [LAUGHTER] They said, OK, Fred, we're going to start to show. He came in, sang the song, put the sweater on, went to the cupboard, and there was a blow up doll hanging in the closet. And it startled him. So he pulled it out and started dancing with it. DONNA MITROFF: That was a creative solution. [LAUGHTER] DAVID NEWELL: But that was an outtake that we never let out of our hands. But you now know about it. But the point I'm saying is that he had a sense of humor. And it goes back to feelings, too. He wasn't mad and stomped out and said, OK, you're all suspended. That didn't work with Fred. AUDIENCE: Just a comment. There's been a lot of attention in the media lately about women taking on management positions and doing very well, exercising more, kind of, masculine management type characteristics. But the thing that I love about Fred, and especially looking back because I never would have picked this up as a child, but as an adult, is he was one of the first men who was comfortable exhibiting more feminine characteristics. As a man, being in touch with feelings. DONNA MITROFF: And he also created Lady Elaine Fairchilde. And she-- AUDIENCE: There you go. DONNA MITROFF: --was that futuristic woman, who wasn't afraid to stand up. There are other stories in our book where she was the one who stood up to the CEO and said, don't ask me to do something if you don't tell me why I'm going to do it. I mean that's pretty masculine but that was-- IAN MITROFF: Suzanne, I have to talk about, you raised something that's really important. One of the things about Fred, which is sad, is that many men are uncomfortable. So you have all these urban legends that underneath he was tattooed, and he was a seal, and all that kind of stuff because the reason is you couldn't take that there would be a man who would openly talk about feelings, and wouldn't be a effeminate-- or whatever the derogatory term of the day-- and we know all that kind of stuff. So they had to project onto Fred their fears and anxiety to make him into something that he wasn't. He was masculine. But I mean if you talk about, if you go to Jung, where you have both the feminine and the masculine archetypes. They are in every one of us, but they're not always equally developed. And we're not always equally comfortable in displaying both of them. That's another thing that when you look at the story. The story was the whole feeling, was the whole the persona, of Fred himself. DONNA MITROFF: I think we need to wrap it up. We wanted to share with you we have a website, you can learn more about it. And also the next one has our email addresses. IAN MITROFF: We also want to thank our publicist Rina Neiman, who helped us put this together. And our uh-- DONNA MITROFF: So you're invited to be in touch with us by email. Nina has put together the Twitter page for us. Are you familiar with this picture? Of my, this picture is just-- That's what happens. And now it's happening to David. People who can't touch Fred, will come up to David and just grab this face because they want they want to get close. FEMALE SPEAKER: Thank you so much Ian, Donna, David. David will be over there in the green booth to sign autographs for his pictures. Thank you guys for coming. [APPLAUSE]