The Next Right Thing - Clear What To Do
I don’t always know how to do the right thing. I can, however, quickly assess how to do the next right thing. The next right thing is what to do right now - in this moment, in this situation. And the next right thing for me is to use the privileges I enjoy to help others. This, in my opinion, is the ultimate privilege. And I enjoy that privilege as often as I can.
This story, “Clear What To Do” shows that we can know the next right thing through paying attention and reading the room. This is the single most important storytelling skill: to know what your listener needs by paying attention to them. We call this story listening. True storytellers tell stories to help people, and this is a skill that is demonstrated in this story by both the characters JB and his father, Wilhelm. These characters encounter racism and by paying attention, they both know what to do and how to respond.
That said, sometimes doing the next right thing involves doing something you don’t want to do. This was the case for JB and Wilhelm. They knew they needed to do something really difficult. Doing the next right thing might involve you taking a risk, and we are wired to avoid taking risks. But to help other people, sometimes you have to override that wiring and do something. You need to act. When it is clear what you need to do, then … It is a true privilege to do it. It is actually an honor. And story listening will help you not only know what it is you need to do, but it will give you the inspiration, motivation and courage … to follow through.
[00:06] Audio Story snippet
[00:42] Introduction
[06:42] Where to find our courses and workshops
[08:25] Audio Story - JB Bauers Dry Gables - Clear What to Do
The Next Right Thing - Clear What To Do
Full transcript
I was shocked and I honestly didn’t know what to do. This was so unexpected and … well - I told everyone to go home and that I would take care of it. Take care of it - like it wasn’t obvious what needed to be done. But I wasn’t thinking about the right thing to do at the time - I was thinking, how was I going to get this project done and done correctly. I was thinking of my reputation - not what I needed to be thinking about.
That is from the JB Bauer’s Dry Gables story “Clear What to Do” which, if you’ve been listening to this podcast, you’ll know is in large part about the nine Enneagram types. Now, as I’ve said in the past, you don’t need to know what the Enneagram is to enjoy and be inspired by this story. The reason it is here is not to educate you about what the Enneagram is, but I do encourage you to educate yourself as it is a brilliant modality for understanding people. But, the reason I am taking up this story is because it is a really good demonstration of how to use storytelling … to inspire action. Necessary action. The kind of action that makes the world a better place.
It is a really interesting time for me, and for people who share certain qualities I have. I am a person who has privileges. I struggle of course. I have challenges, a bunch of them. And so do all of you—but from a societal standpoint, I have distinct advantages just because of qualities I was born with, not because of any particular effort on my part. Those advantages are, of course, a part of the formula that brought my success as a storyteller. There aren’t many storytellers that make a living from telling stories and in the past I was one of them. Over the course of the last few years, however, I realized it was time for me to shift my attention away from writing and telling stories, and instead to focus on delivering these skills and tools to others, especially those who do not have the same privileges that I have. This is one of the ways in which I believe … in this moment - that I am doing the right thing.
Now this is why I’m sharing this story and why I’m introducing it in this way—I don’t always know what the right thing to do is. I don’t. I often don’t—But, I can often quickly figure out what the next right thing is. The next right thing is not necessarily the thing to always do, it is only what to do right now. In this moment, in this situation. And the next right thing for me, as a person who has many privileges, is to use those privileges to help someone. Not for congratulations or attention or riches or fame, but simply because it is the right thing to do. That is the real privilege. So in that sense, to be able to do the next right thing is, in my opinion, the ultimate privilege. And I enjoy that privilege as often as I can.
So what does this have to do with storytelling? Well, as you will hear in this story, we know what the next right thing is through paying attention and reading the room. This is the single most important storytelling skill: to know what your listener needs by paying attention to them. I call this story listening. If you just tell stories regardless of what the listener needs, then you are an entertainer, in my opinion. And that is different. That is a different thing from what I hold sacred about being a storyteller. We - my kind of storytellers - tell stories to help people, and this is a skill that is demonstrated in this story by both JB and his Wilhelm. They both encounter racism and they pay attention to the situation in a particular moment and that helped them know what to do and how to respond.
Which is what leads us to … a kind of bad news: sometimes doing the next right thing involves you doing something you don’t want to do. This was the case for JB and Wilhelm. They knew they needed to do something really difficult for them. Doing the next right thing might involve you taking a risk, and we are wired to avoid taking risks. But to help other people, sometimes you have to override that wiring and do something. You need to act. When it is clear what you need to do, then … It is a true privilege to do it. It is actually an honor. And story listening will help you not only know what it is you need to do, but it will give you the inspiration, motivation and courage … to follow through.
Hey before you listen to the story, consider going over to howtostory.org and checking out the Story Listening tool. It is for sale and it will give you what you are looking for to better read the room, attend to your listener and know what the next right thing to do is. And if that isn’t for you, there are some awesome and free minicourses like the “how to tell the perfect bedtime story” up on the home page.
One other consideration - if you are going on holiday anytime soon, consider getting one of our storytelling pocket camps for your kids - a short fun storytelling course that is great for car rides, plane rides, rainy days.
Find it all at howtostory.org
And here is the story for the Enneagram type 1 called “Clear What to Do” Enjoy.
JB Bauer’s Dry Gables - Clear What To Do
Greetings friends - my name is John Bernard Bauer and I have a story to tell you. It's a story about my life, it is true, with all its ups and downs, moments of beauty and indeed tragedy - but this is ultimately a story about how my upbringing in Dry Gables, South Dakota made me the person I am today.
I’ve lived a long and I must say, interesting life. My work has taken me around the world and in retirement I have enjoyed more subtle adventures and educations. Now in my philosophy, having an interesting life includes as many struggles as it does successes. I dare say that the person who has had everything go their way is far less interesting than the person who has met with many challenges and failures only to learn from them and keep going. I’ve met people like that and I have to say they are truly my heroes. Brave folk who don’t let their shortcomings and missteps define them - they have taken risks and sometimes had to make difficult decisions that came with consequences.
For me personally, I have to admit, I have tended to avoid such situations. I don’t like it when anger or disgust or even disappointment is directed at me - but of course these sorts of things are inevitable. I am lucky, in that in those instances I return to my childhood and the education I received from my friends and family in Dry Gables. And more often than not, I go to memories of my father Wilhelm Bauer … and his steadfast commitment to doing the right thing.
So I have a story where I did manage to do the right thing - eventually - and it did have consequences. It did create some trouble for myself and others - but to this day I believe it was the right thing to do.
I was still working mostly for the WPA - works progress administration for the New Deal program. I traveled around the country advising or managing certain building projects and then documenting them. It was wonderful work and I loved it, but there were occasional challenges. One of my most difficult challenges happened in New York City, which I was the project manager for two major WPA constructions; the main entrance of the Associated Press building of the Rockefeller Center and a children’s playground in the city’s Central Park.
First of all it was an enormous honor to work on both of these projects. The 14 building, 22 acre Art Deco wonder of the world that was the Rockefeller Center and Central Park - a beautiful, inviting and vast park right in the middle of our biggest city - incredible - impossible in many ways. For the Rockefeller Center I was to oversee the stonework for the facade and then the installation of a bah relief sculpture that would hang over the main entrance. For Central Park I was to oversee and document the creation of a children’s playground within it. So this was in 1938 when the Rockefeller Center was near completion and Central park was in renovation from a long span of disrepair. So the plan was to make the playground inviting with fanciful statues as well as climbing structures. This was a park for the people - all people - ALL people. It was for immigrants, for minorities, for rich and poor - all people.
Now I say all this because I felt like the Central Park project represented the kind of work I really wanted to do. This sort of project felt good and right to me. It felt like I was helping make a more equitable country - like I was helping all peoples - but it took this project to show me how this philosophy was NOT reflected in my personal relationships. Growing up in Dry Gables, there was something of a diversity but it was still quite limited. A great deal of German immigrants, some Irish, some Native American, some Asian American - what unified us was that none of us were saving much money - living day to day and depending on each other for daily needs.
What I realized during these two projects was that this was less so in my work-life. At this point in my career it didn’t occur to me how I had surrounded myself with other workers who were much like me: all white, mostly German and so far as I could tell, all Protestant Christian. My rationale at the time was that the workers I hired were the best - and if America was hiring me to do a good job creating beautiful buildings and strong bridges and beautiful parks, well then I owed it to America to hire the best. And to me, the crew I hired was exactly that. Precise, hard working, diligent, perfectionist - THAT is who I thought I wanted. Oh I wince now at how narrowly I saw things back then - how much I wasn’t seeing. But it was true.
So needless to say I was overseeing these two important projects, the entrance to the Associated Press building of the Rockefeller Center, and the Rumsey Playground of Central Park where ALL people would be enjoying our work, with a crew almost entirely of white Protestant German workers.
So here was my conundrum - the project that I really wanted to focus on was the park - it had the most architectural challenges and offered me the chance to be very creative - something I was so looking forward to doing. There was a designer, to be sure, but much of the implementation was left to me, the project manager. I was excited to spend most of my time on this project.
The Rockefeller Center project, meanwhile, was all centered around the famous Japanese American artist and designer Isamu Naguchi. He won the bid to create the bah relief sculpture and all the stonework was designed to highlight that sculpture. Mr. Noguchi was well known for being highly involved in the installation of his work so I decided to put my best foreman on the job. Perhaps I would check in there once a week at most. All would be well. I thought.
Looking back I should have made many different choices. The Rockefeller Center project was much higher profile and needed much more of my attention - I really should have been there every day. And I thought I knew my foreman - I thought that since he was a solid builder and good with the crew, well that was all that was needed. It didn’t occur to me - or perhaps I didn’t want to see that the man was racist. Yes indeed, I learned that a little later.
The foreman I chose for the Rockefeller Center project was named Hans - a German American from the Chicago area. I knew him for years and worked with him on many projects and chose to focus on the precision of his work and not the little comments I ignored over the years. Comments that I would overhear him and other members of the crew regarding people from some parts of the world, or certain skin colors, or certain religions or speakers of certain languages. Comments that were sometimes jokes and sometimes not jokes but all somehow meant to imply that they were somehow beneath them. That I didn’t take the comments more seriously is something I deeply regret. That is on me and for me to repair.
Well I should just get to what happened. I got the Rockefeller Center project going - told Hans what he needed to do, which was mostly to do what Mr. Naguchi wanted - and then I headed to Central Park where I really wanted to be. I was in such a rush to get to the project that I preferred, I didn’t pay any attention to the warning signs coming from Hans. He was clearly not happy but I just assumed it was because he was going to be at the whim of a famous artist - I did not put two and two together that it was actually because the man was Japanese.
A few days into the job, I got word from the WPA that there had been some complaints from Mr. Naguchi’s staff that the crew, my crew, seemed to be moving intentionally slowly and wasn’t following Mr. Naguchi’s instructions. This confused me and I made it over to Rockefeller Center before the work day was over. Mr. Naguchi and his staff had left and I talked with Hans, the foreman who then told me what was up.
He thought Mr. Naguchi was being unreasonable and too picky and a few other things that I can’t remember but in the end he told me that neither he nor the crew were going to take any more orders from … well - a Japanese man. He used a different word that I will not repeat because it is offensive and I’ll not say it.
I was shocked and I honestly didn’t know what to do. This was so unexpected and … well - I told everyone to go home and that I would take care of it. Take care of it - like it wasn’t obvious what needed to be done. But I wasn’t thinking about the right thing to do at the time - I was thinking, how was I going to get this project done and done correctly. I was thinking of my reputation - not what I needed to be thinking about.
So after everyone left, I left for my own hotel room. I sat still on my bed and was nearly paralyzed with indecision and worry and overwhelm when an image flashed before my eyes - I recalled a moment when I was probably ten or eleven and there was a big to-do in the night that got my father Wilhelm all up in arms. They didn’t tell me much at the time because they didn’t want me to be scared, but I learned later that two African American men - brothers I think - needed help because some white men calling themselves deputies from the northern part of the state were looking for them. The two brothers had come to the northwestern part of South Dakota from Yankton where they apparently purchased a plot of land to farm. When they got there, some neighbors demanded they leave even though it was now rightfully their land. Clearly it was just because they were Black men and the white racist folk felt they could be above the law and force them to go.
The complicated part was that my father, Wilhelm, knew some of these white men. He had worked with them and for all I know even liked them. I understand that these men accused the two brothers of something or other - stealing something and my father knew they had no proof. They demanded we give the two brothers over so they could be tried in a court up north in Deadwood. They promised a fair trial. They even flashed badges indicating that they had been deputized for this purpose.
Some of the people in Dry Gables were confused and weren’t sure what to do - they saw that the deputies were technically the law and Dry Gables did honor the law, but my father held firm. He told them no. He told them it was not right - that these men would not get a fair trial and as far as he could tell, there was no proof against them anyway. I really don’t know the specifics of what kind of proof there was or the charges, but it was clear to my father that these two men would not have received a fair trial - no way. My father said the deputies would have to arrest him first. Then a few other citizens of Dry Gables joined him until most of the town formed a kind of human wall. The white men backed down and said they would deal with this later.
There were consequences. Wilhelm never did business with these men again and I believe Dry Gables suffered a trade barrier from Deadwood, the rich town to the north - but my father never wavered. He knew it was the right thing to do.
So once I remembered this event and asked myself, what would my father do - it was clear. I asked that the workers from both jobs - the Rockefeller Center and the Park - meet at the WPA New York City headquarters where all our jobs begin. I alerted the administration there of my decision and they agreed to my terms. Another project manager I knew and trusted joined me as my two crews assembled. And when I saw that Hans, the foreman of the Rockefeller project was in attendance, I began the meeting.
“Thanks for making the trip here but I’m afraid the two projects assigned to me as project manager are now in review. I will be stepping down as project manager as I have allowed unacceptable behavior to take place at the Rockefeller Center site. It's come to my attention that personal opinions have corrupted our work there and I allowed this to happen. So as an amends, I’ll be replacing Hans as the foreman for the Associated Press building entrance with Jacob here as the project manager overseeing me and the new crew. I say new crew because I have requested to only work with men and women that come from a variety of backgrounds. The crews I’ve built in the past were too homogenous and similar and we’ve suffered from it. Jacob has agreed to me finding and hiring workers from other nationalities, African American workers, Asian American workers, Native American workers and workers of different ethnicities. I will seek out the same excellence in skill - but I hope to never run into the same behavior that I would call racist behavior again. You all are welcome to put in your hat to work with me at the Associated press building, but you’ll have to talk to Jacob about the Central Park project, as I won’t be project managing for a while.”
And that was the end of my speech. Hans of course came straight to me and demanded to know where he was working now and I told him that was up to the administration but he would not work with me anymore. That was the hardest part for me. I considered Hans a friend and it must have been confusing and surprising for him to have been turned around like that - but it's what I needed to do. It was the right thing to do. I believed at the time it was what my father would have done.
Well the cost was bigger than I expected. Only two members of the previous crew wanted to work with me. And finding a new, more diverse crew was challenging - but I had some help. Mr. Noguchi himself gave me some suggestions for some Japanese workers who did prove to be just as good if not better than my very German group from before. And it was another two years before I got to project manage again because I can’t say for certain that my bosses over at the WPA agreed with my choice. In fact I believe some of them wanted me fired for my stance. Now I can’t say definitively why they wanted me fired but I know that money can often confuse people as to what the right thing to do is - and I know my projects - the Rockefeller Center and Central Park project suffered financially because of my shakeup. But I have no regrets. If anything I wish I had gone even further.
The How to Story theme music was produced by Javon Phelps. The story music was by Angus Sewell McCann, the story was edited by Meredith Markow, and the How to Story Podcast is produced by me, David Sewell McCann, and Marjorie Shik.
We hope to hear from you and we'll catch you next week.
