How to relate small stories (tragedies, not statistics) with the overaraching big stories which hold the series together and connect series to series.

The intricacy and counterpoint.

The entirely unpatronising view that the viewer is smart enough to carry all this and respond to it.

The flaws of leaders.

How teams work. And don’t work.

Transition. The handing over of power and where it leaves the powerbrokers – especially CJ at the end as she has to negotiate her way to a normal life.

The faction. The fictionally rosy view of a Democratic administration set into the accurately researched facts of the American constititional processes.

And the fact that most of the meetings are held walking down a corridor side by side, not looking each other in the face. There was a programme recently on Radio 4 about the role of wide corridors in the generation of stories. And there is a great deal to be said for what you can say to someone when you are not eyeballing each other. Witness why it’s always worth walking your children to school. It’s those intersticial transitional spaces, and the sense of anonymity which invite a kind of confidential sharing which doesn’t happen in more formal settings with allocated identities (kitchen, meeting room). Corridors not of power but of exchange, although power is certainly flowing back and forth in the West Wing.

Being a Wing nut – I remember the scene very well and it reminded me of Stalin’s quote “A single death is a tragedy, are million deaths is a statistic.;

I have long supposed that this comment was made because the human mind can’t fully comprehend so many people dying. If it did we might be overwhelmed as human beings.

Maybe one day we will look at West Wing for other nuggets of managerial advice. One of my favourite quotes is from Toby Ziegler – after there has been a leak and he summons all the staff in and says ”

“We’re a group. We’re a team. From the President and Leo on through, we’re a team. We win together, we lose together. We celebrate and we mourn together. And defeats are softened and victories are sweeter because we did them together… You’re my guys and I’m yours… and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.

Maybe some managers need to look at that especially for an after action review which I have seen dissolve into a hunt the scapegoat procedure and no new knowledge is shared.

Made to Stick is one of my favourite books at the moment because it’s well written and well researched. And, you know what? the ideas stick. So I thought I would pass on this sticky story from Victoria Ward’s…