Communications Thinking: Understanding transcript

There's a superb journalist that I really admire from the New York Times; he's called Thomas

Friedman. [He] won three Pulitzer prizes. He's one of the best journalists that they've ever had.

I think in terms of engagement, he's the top journalist the New York Times has ever had in its

history. Got the chance to ask him once, if you want to try and tell a story to an audience, you know.

You're there as an opinion writer. You're being paid to be a thought leader. You're not just there as

an investigative journalist, just to give people the facts. It's not just a flat story. You're there to try

and create some sort of a story. Very similar to what we do in the commercial world when

we're telling industrial stories. And he said two things that struck me, that are just perfect for what

we're looking at right here. First of all, he said, "Well, I don't see myself as a journalist. Like any

storyteller, I just see myself as being in the heating and lighting business."

I love that! I love that idea that you're either, stoking up an emotion in somebody, you're

creating some heat. You know, maybe by being a little bit provocative, showing a unique point of

view. Or, maybe you're shedding some light on something. You're illuminating things in a way that,

"oh, I never thought of it like that before." Simplifying complexity. Well, we looked at both of those

things, with Seeing and Mapping. When you're looking at Understanding, that's really the role that

we have as IBMers for sure, but also as great storytellers and communicators. Because, with our

map in hand, we really need to understand what our audience wants. Like, exactly what do they

want and why? Why are they in this position? And also, this is probably going to be as much about

collaboration. It's going to be about agility. It's going to be about simplifying complexity. Because

unlike a movie, it's not just one person. This is a team sport. We need to understand what our

clients want, and we need to understand as a team that we're absolutely doing the right thing.
 And that's where the second thing that Tom Friedman [said] came in. He said people are not

persuaded by what you say, they're persuaded by what they understand. Think about that. People

are not persuaded by what you say, they're persuaded by what they understand. It's why we spoke

about in the Seeing and the Mapping parts, now, they can be connected, but remember that you can

use any of these as isolated modules to try and help you do any particular task when you're trying to

craft a really compelling narrative or build part of the story.

But, that piece about Understanding is as much about knowing what to leave out. Now often

we leave everything in because we don't want to leave anything out. That's why we end up with huge

decks. People have talked for too long, and meetings that have far too many people in there talking

for 10 times longer than anybody needs to talk. Because they've not understood the art of great

storytelling with everything to leave out. Because it's not just showing people how smart you are, it's

connecting with them in a way where they understand what it is that you're trying to say. You know

what I mean? That's why Understanding is so important. That's why this is the stage where we start

crossing the chasm between the head and the heart.

I call it the Hero's Journey. It's based upon Aristotle's Poetics that I mentioned in the

introduction. [It's] thousands and thousands of years old and, still today, it's a framework that every

single successful story is built upon. The premise is very simple. It's:

• Somebody wants something really bad.

• Something is standing in their way of getting it.

• They meet a trusted guide.

• Hopefully, the trusted guide helps them to get to where they've got to go, with all of the

challenges that they're going to meet on the way.

• The guide gives them a plan that calls them to action [and] they live happily ever after.
 That's how stories are supposed to work. [They] don't always end that way. When Aristotle

wrote that, which was the basis of theater, it was comedy or tragedy. Which is the narrative?

Often the hero has got to be transformed within 48 hours. The audience experiences shock and awe,

fear and pity, and maybe the hero has to experience a reversal, a transformation of their situation.

That's basically Aristotle's Poetics in about 75 seconds.

I've tried to take that into industrial storytelling, into something that isn't just the soft skill.

But how do we try and bring the story to life for an audience that really needs to understand what it

is that we can do and how we can help them through that transformation? So, it's called the Hero's

Journey for a reason. And you've got this, really, six pillars that you would go through. If you were

only going to build a story and somebody gave you all of that data and they gave you the map and

they gave you the components that needed to be in it, arguably, the Seeing and Mapping stage, you

don't need to worry about. You could just jump straight into this.

If you do any of the, I don't want to say cliche, but, if you do a traditional storytelling course

that's often framed as a soft skill, you'll probably come across the Pixar rules of storytelling in this

stage. They may talk about the two most important words that Pixar starts every story workshop

with when they're trying to build a new narrative for their movie, "what if". Two fabulous words.

Write those down, because if you write, "what if", it fires different neurons in your brain and your

creativity just is set alight. [Then] it's not just about the head, it starts to be from the heart. What if

we could do these things? What if we could do something that's never been done before? In Pixar,

they have 22 rules. But often they boil down to the one that people always talk about, which is the

framework:

• Once Upon a time.

• This happened until that happened, then, until finally …

 • Fill in the gaps.

I don't think that helps us in business. It's a really cute exercise to do. It's a very nice, simple

framework about how a story, whether it's Cars, or if it's, you know, Moana, Finding Nemo, insert

favorite Pixar movie. They all follow the same framework. Urban legend has it that Steve Jobs, his

keynotes followed exactly the same framework. But I think we need to go one level deeper. And it's

not to complicate things. It's just to try and understand the journey that we're taking our audiences

on.

The first thing we've got to do is focus on the hero character. What exactly do they want? And

they need to want something really bad. There may be a couple things. Often, when you ask, there's

a big laundry list of like 25 things they want. You really need to boil it down to three. Like I said

before, even the simplest deals right through to the most complex deals, often three works. The

brain can process three. The power of three works in neuroscience, it works in speech writing, it

works in rhetoric. It's called tricolon: the power of three, when you repeat three times. The power of

three just works. When you're looking at exactly what did they want, start off with all the things, but

really try and focus on the three things, and there will be one thing that they really want. But there's

going to be something standing in their way of getting it.

Great writers, great screenwriters and theatrical writers, people like Aaron Sorkin, who I just

love to bits, he says it's just about obstacle and intention. That's it, intention and obstacle.

Somebody wants something. Something standing in the way of getting it. The easiest way to start

introducing tension and conflict is just to use a 3-letter word, "but". So, even if you don't

understand all of the psychology and the scientific reasons behind why certain stories are structured

in a way. You don't need to understand all the hormones. If you just use the word, "but", you will

automatically be creating either conflict or contrast. Which we'll look at in the next stage.
 But that's also why stories work. Because you need the shade. You need the light and the

dark. Now, that problem, there may be three problems. There may be one big problem. Often there's

an internal problem. Maybe there's an external problem. It could be philosophical. It could be an

existential problem. It could be something that are trying to disrupt. It might be internal politics. It

could be external market forces. But, once you know what those things are, these are the villains

that are going to stop our hero getting to where they want to go. Now, we need to show that there's

going to be a successful transformation.

That's why stage #3 is where we come in. We're the guide. Think about yourself as the

trusted guide, the trusted advisor, that we like to call them in business. We understand their fears.

We're gonna have two things. And again, one's for the head and one's for the heart. You're going

to come in and listen, and you're going to show a connection with the audience by putting yourself in

their shoes, understanding their hopes and fears, seeing things in their perspective. Design thinking

is great at doing this. And it's all about empathy. We're trying to build empathy with the audience.

Then, what we also need to do is to show some type of credibility. Because we're not just speaking

to people hearts, we need to speak to their heads. People make decisions with their hearts, but they

justify it with their heads. They need some data, and they need to understand a little bit more about

you. We won't talk about ethos right now, but it's a fancy word about what it means to have personal

credibility and trust. It's a big part of what storytellers and writers often use, but really, it's just:

What's the authority that you have? Why am I listening to you now? What have you done or what

have you seen? What have you been exposed to that helped put you in a position where you can tell

this story in a unique way?

Every single employee at IBM, bar none, is exposed to the most incredible things. You may

have to search for them. You may have to go digging around, research or different client portals
looking at some of those stories. Often, like the archaeologists, going to dig up the great stories to

figure out where they are. But you have access to the most incredible treasure trove of

information. Statistics and stories. So that when you could come in, you can look at stage 4. Because

you're going to create a plan. Could be a project plan. Could be a strategic plan. It could be a goal. It

could just be one objective that you want to communicate, and you need to summarize that and you

can fill the gaps on the stage #4 there. Because when you give them a plan, hopefully, if you've done

your job properly, we've understood exactly what they want with the character, we've put ourselves

in their shoes and seeing the problems that they have, we have empathy that demonstrates why we

understand these problems. We've demonstrated the credibility that we have to help fix them, so

that's why they're going to listen to the plan. There's a bond that's happened. There's a connection

that's taken place. What's actually going on in your brain is called oxytocin. Building relationship,

connection. It's called the love hormone. It builds generosity, trust, and bonding. But that's really

what happens when you build that connection.

And that's what leads to the 5th, and arguably the most important part for a storyteller.

Because you've got to drive action. We want to make people feel something so that they do

something. Talking about fancy sounding Greek words, because you know, this is where storytelling

came from. This is the bedrock of how stories are built with Kairos: Calls them to action, that

supreme moment at which one must act, no matter how implausible or inconvenient. If you can tell

a great story and they're on the edge of their seat, wondering what happens next. If you've got

people thinking, "what if", and if you've given them a plan that works, because you've done your

research (Seeing, Mapping, Understanding), they are going to be called to action and they are going

to do what you ask. And if you've done your job properly, everybody's going to live happily ever

after. And it's going to result in success, hopefully not the failure and the tragedy.
 So that's the basic hero journey. It's very simple. You can fill in those columns and you can

break them down and make it as simple as possible. Like I said, whether it's a two-hour movie,

whether it's a two-minute story. I've even crafted small talk using this framework before. It's

incredibly helpful just to get you started. You might not use it all the time. Learn the rules in order to

break them.

Now, what we're going to do is, we're going to look at how do I bring that to life in a way that

hasn't just got words and a plan attached to it, but now, I need a belief system. Now, that's not

necessarily got anything to do with slides. How do I communicate from a completely different place?

Because belief is arguably the most difficult piece. And, it's probably the bit that IBM misses out the

most.

You ready? Let's have a look at it.