Communications Thinking: Acting transcript

OK, how are you doing? Are you good? We've gone through a lot of stuff. This is world class

storytelling insights that you're getting dropped on you here. I hope you're writing lots of notes and

ready to put this into practice.

We’ve looked at the four pillars of SMUBA. We looked at Seeing, Mapping, Understanding and

Believing. Believing is all about inspiring our audience and giving them the confidence that progress

is possible. We painted a picture with our canvases and with our maps and with our conversation

strategies about this vision, based upon the what, the how, and the why. So, our goal now is to try

and connect all of those things, and to try and put them into some sort of a meaningful story. You

need a script.

You need a script to try and piece those things together that are going to connect with the

audience, and it's going to have authority, it's going to have empathy, it's going to have emotion.

But ultimately, it's going to drive action: the most important part of a commercial and industrial

story. Without action, it doesn't matter. It's just a great, engaging, entertaining story. It's not hard.

This might be pushing you outside of your comfort zone.

Since we're talking about action and acting, Natalie Portman said, "Acting is about making

things as human as possible." Another great storyteller, Pablo Picasso, said, "Action is foundational

to all success." It is the most important part, the key cornerstone to success. Acting and

action. So, what does that mean for us?

Well, I've described it as a word already, described it as Kairos. Really, that's the, that's the

objective that we want: the supreme moment at which they must act, that drives that urgent action.

And a great emotional story is going to help you to do that. Whatever the responsibilities that you

have, whatever the band is that you are, you're going to have a responsibility for picking up the
conversation at a certain point and delivering to a certain point. And it may be that you pass it off to

somebody else. And that is perfectly fine, but the most important part is that you understand which

part of the journey that you're going to be running with. And also, that you are aware that, you know,

within the conversation, you're going to be adding something to it that's going to make it that much

more valuable for the person that you hand it off to. Sometimes, you're going to tell the story, the

whole thing. Beginning to end. And that's when SMUBA comes into play, when you could use all five

stages. Often for client accounts and executive summaries, that's what we do. But in many

instances, what I see when I work with Band 7’s, 8’s and 9’s is that they might just want to do the

story, you know, within the Hero’s Journey. Just need to describe what it is.

Tell me a client success story in three minutes or less. That might be perfect, just looking at

the Hero's Journey. Maybe you've got to try and do an executive summary, to distill everything down

within the huge deck. Well then, maybe a conversation strategy is going to work, the one

pager. Speak to the head and the heart. Maybe you’ve just got to collate everything together, that's

going to be Seeing. For the Action, comes from your words and your tone and your body language,

stats and the narratives and the numbers and everything else. All the stuff that we've spoke

about, all coming into play.

Some of the coaching that we have with our senior executives often boils down storytelling

like this into three stages: talks about Excite, Disturb, Assure. You want to excite them, you want to

disturb them, and you want to assure them. I've seen speeches and written some for our senior

executives, including CEO's. Tell me two things to excite them, tell me two things to disturb them,

and then tell me two things to assure them. This is why we're the only company that can do

this. This is why we've got a unique proposition. Unique value proposition, it is going to be something

it's differentiated, nobody else could do this. IBM is the only (blank) that can (blank). Right? How do
we start talking about what that is with confidence and belief? Obviously, that needs to be rooted in

data and scientific evidence.

Story is just data with a soul and that's where the Mission-Critical Script comes in. I purposely

called it those three words for a reason. First of all, it is a script. And I'm going to show you how it's

broken down using the tenants of a great speechwriter. It's also from the tenants of Aristotle’s

Poetics, thousands of years old. We know it works. So, I’ve just put it down in a template that's going

to make your life really easy. But also, this is mission critical. Now, whatever the mission is that

you're on, whatever the scale of importance (everything is important at that moment), but the

weight that may be in that moment. It could be that you just need to tell a compelling story that

raises everybody’s spirits, gets people excited. Maybe you're educating them around something that

you've done, a new learning, or a new product. It could be trying to win a deal. It could be that you

have a five-minute slot within some orals of a presentation, when you've got to demonstrate the

thing that you're responsible for and your team is. Could be the introduction to a workshop [and]

you’ve just got 10 minutes for some opening remarks. What do you do?

This is where the Mission-Critical Script comes in. And that mission-critical element is really

using language that you'd often see within special forces, you know, within the military, even within

hostage and terrorist negotiation. We often use language from the FBI in order to try and put

Mission-Critical Scripts together, because you need an urgent action. We can't waste time in the

commercial world. In the business world, we need people to do things quickly. We need to build

empathy as quickly as possible. We've got to drive the oxytocin with our audience and make them

feel things as quickly as possible. If you’ve only got 10 minutes and this audience has never seen

you before, you've got to tell them a story and build up that connection. Leading with your CV, and

here's who I am, and this is my CV, and this is what I've done, and this is my university. Nobody
cares. We are all humans. We’re natural born storytellers. People want a connection. How do you do

that?

So, you start off three pieces. First stage: the world as it is, [the] Hero’s Journey, Act

1 (Aristotle’s Poetics). Excite the audience. Tell them things that you're about to tell them. Three

great pieces of advice for any presenter: tell them what you're about to tell them, then you tell them,

and then you tell them what you told them. And those three bits of repetition, again the power of

three again, but that repetition is going to help your story line, especially within the business world.

And if you can start that on a high, and you can get them excited, then you start to raise the

expectations. Because when you use the word but, you’ve got conflict, contrast. We've got our

villains, there is an obstacle, there's an elephant in the room. Here's why this might not have

happen. They didn't like us because … It failed before because … No one has ever done this, the

man on the moon, because … Disturb. It's going to be an element of your story. You don't have to be

evenly spaced but disturb the audience. Create tension, conflict. That's what wraps theater and all

the dopamine, the oxytocin that they're going to be feeling. That need to want more of the story,

"and then what happened?" is going to come from alternating between excite, disturb, excite,

disturb, excite, disturb. It can go up and down as many times as you like. Three act structures work

well. I've seen have done this up and down 15 times for a longer presentation.

And then the transformation at the end. The solution. Now, if you have done the previous four

stages of SMUBA, you might be transposing from previous slides into this. The solution is going to be

coming from the plan, and the success that might be on your conversation strategy. It might be on

the map that you created. But, if you just want to write the script, think about how long you've got. It

could be 10 minutes. You’re going to speak like I am now, probably at roughly 140 words a minute.

So, you might need roughly about 1,400 words. So, it could be that you could narrow that down. You
might say, "OK, well I'm going to take, you know, 4 to 500 words for Act 1, to excite them, 4 to 500

words for Act 2, 4 to 500 words for Act 3, to show them the solution."

Write it long hand, put it in Word, read it out. Time yourself. People always mess up the

timings. Hardly anybody writes things long hand, they use bullet points, they always go over the

time. They don't have the right peaks and troughs. They're not telling a compelling story enough,

from the customer’s perspective They’re not putting themselves in the audience shoes often

enough. It's often, "Here's what we've got. Here is what I'd like to sell you. Here is why it works. We

did it for that customer. It was ROI, cost takeout, business value, thanks very much, please buy it.

Here's my project, here is what I did. I wasn't late for anything. Everybody was really happy. And

here's what the final design looked like."

Awesome! It’s not really a story though is it? That was just very transactional and operational.

If you want a story, we need heroes and villains, peaks and troughs, conflicts and obstacles. "This is

why at this moment I never thought it was going to work and it was midnight, and then my

computer crashed and everything fell to bits. I had a moment of, of crisis. I had writer’s block. I …"

Whatever the thing is, create the tension in your story.

So, the little bits at the bottom are really just the reminders for all the things that we spoke

about. You may have some prompts there within the box. There is always going to be a STAR

moment. There’s only really going to be one STAR moment in every industrial story, Something

They'll Always Remember. Think about what that one thing is that you want the audience to

remember.

And if you wanted to go deep enough, that you want to look at the, the quadrants in my little

charts at the bottom right there. Does your story include the four appeals? Now, you can Google

them and have a look later on and we'll dig into this in a later series of modules: Logos, Ethos,
Pathos, Kairos. That's what speechwriters talk about all the time. Logos: where's the evidence in the

data? Ethos: where's the credibility? Why me? Pathos: there needs to be lots of emotion.

Think about it more like this. Somebody once asked JFK’s speechwriter Ted Sorensen,

"Listen, how would you tell a great speech? How do you write a really compelling script?" Do you

know what he said? It just comes down to four words: brevity, levity, clarity, and charity.

Brevity: keep it short. Levity: keep it light; maybe even have some fun, dropping some quotes

anecdotes [from] your favorite song or movie. Clarity: [I] talked about that a lot, simplify complexity.

And then charity: have a purpose. What are you trying to do to make the world work better? And how

is this going to help move the needle forward on that? Rhetorical appeals, try and get all four

of those. Magic. 1 + 1 = 3. Something else has happened.

And then the last piece, the head and the heart. And I often just use this as a checkbox. Even

play it back to someone else, get them to read your script, record yourself on QuickTime

or Webex and play it back. [Ask,] did I educate enough? Did I inform and solve a problem? But more

importantly, was I engaging? Did this sound exciting? Was I monotone? [Was there] dramatic

pauses? Did I inspire in any way with a human story? And it wasn't just a robotic, you know,

regimented, [chit, chit, chit, chit]. Did I challenge people with my unique point of view?

Because if you did, you’re going to be well on your way to telling a great story. And now,

you’re going to be well equipped and well-armed with the toolbox of SMUBA at your disposal, so

that you really can change the world just by sharing your story.

And the reason all of this works? I know it's a little bit cheesy, but we're a technology

company and we’re focused on products and offerings. But at the end of the day, as a storyteller, as

a communicator, as an IBMer, especially as a wild duck: technology is nothing. What's really

important is that we have faith in people and each other, that we give people the right tools like
SMUBA [and] Communications Thinking. Because if you use the right tools and the right way, I

guarantee you're going to do something wonderful with them, that will make a significant difference

in your career. Hope you enjoy it. I hope you put it into practice. I can't wait to see you and speak to

you soon.