Welcome to the Story Rules Content Hub – the second best resource to learn all about storytelling techniques for work (after ‘Story Rules‘, my comprehensive book on the topic!).
In this Hub, Here’s where you get rich storytelling examples, analyses, viewpoints, interview nuggets, visuals, quotes, and much, much more. To find out how you can make the most of this resource, please watch this 12-minute video.
You can explore this (for now free!) resource in four ways:
In front of 50,000 raucous spectators and millions more tuning in, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a historic speech to Indians and the world on 22nd September 2019 in Houston, USA. Acknowledged as a stirring orator, Modi used all of his rhetorical flourishes to mesmerise the audience. But apart from his oratorical skill, what impressed me was the speech’s content itself. Sure it had the usual suspects: the playing-to-the-gallery lines, the too-clever-by-half puns (“Energy at the NRG stadium is a witness to the growing synergy between the two nations…” Groan) and the exhortations for standing ovations… But if you look beyond …
When I recently booked a cab at Chennai airport, I was allotted one which was quite a distance away. “Sir, I’ll come to the airport, but please don’t cancel the ride. I’m coming from 10 km away”, said M in a sincere voice. On hearing his genuine plea, I decided to wait, trusting that he wouldn’t cancel on me! It turned out to be a good call. I normally don’t get into the typical cab-driver conversations. But in this case, somehow I did… And his story was fascinating. A tough professional life… Life for M hadn’t been easy. Aged about 40, this …
What is wrong with the below slide* (apart from the poor resolution)? Everything right?! Let’s start with the most glaring issue – it has no ‘message’ on top. A neutral header (‘Income levels’) does nothing to tell the audience what the slide is actually saying. Now, in a previous post, we have seen the importance of crafting clear, surprising messages from your data. Messages that get the audience’s attention, using the principle of norm and variance. When you attempt to do this, however, you may get stuck at the next hurdle: choosing the right adjectives. Adjectives? Do you mean like ‘good’, ‘bad’ …
The phrase ‘Death by PowerPoint’ returns an inordinate 75M hits on Google. The reason? Many users just consider PowerPoint as ‘MS Word plus Headers and Bullets’ and end up creating dense, soul-draining slides. Perhaps that’s why Amazon did away with the use of PowerPoint presentations in its meetings… That’s a pity, because, if used well, PowerPoint is a great tool to tell a compelling, visual story. And you don’t need designer-level skills for that – these 10 guidelines are a great way to super-charge your presentation. I have divided these ideas into 3 sections: Narrative, Visuals and Delivery – Narrative: Your story in words …
Jeff Bezos published Amazon’s much-awaited annual shareholders’ letter on 11th April. It made the headlines for one particular inclusion: his ‘challenge’ to retail competitors, to match Amazon’s $15-an-hour minimum wage and employee benefits. Looking deeper into the document though, there are some critical storytelling lessons that can be gleaned. Here are my top three: I. Make it Surprising II. Make it Structured (here’s where we look at the 1-slide summary) III. Keep it real and relatable Let’s examine each one. I. Make it surprising I have blogged earlier about the value of surprise (using the principle of norm-variance) to get the audience’s attention. Bezos uses it multiple times …
Warren Buffett may be one of the most envied guys on the planet – for his unparalleled wealth, that magic touch in picking stocks, and decades of consistent outperformance. But he also has a most unenviable task: to write a 12-page annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders – a document that is eagerly awaited by the investing world at large. Why should that be so difficult you may ask? Consider the facts. 75 companies, 365 days, 12 pages Berkshire Hathaway is not your normal holding company. It’s the world’s third biggest by revenues ($247B) that owns an incredibly diverse set of companies – seventy-five …
Do you get stuck in any of the following situations: Your team has just completed a kickass project and wants to tell a story that does justice to their effort and outcome You are pitching your company/product to a key institutional client Your six-year-old never tires of asking you: “Papa/Mamma, can you please tell me a story” In each of the above situations, the issue is not that you don’t know what to say (ok perhaps in the third one it is). The issue is you don’t know how to structure your thoughts in a simple, engaging story format. If …
What if I told you there is a foundational storytelling technique that all successful business storytellers use – one, however, that isn’t noticed by many of us? I have a name for this secret tool: “Norm-Variance”. Let’s look at some examples. The iPhone launch January 9, 2007 was an epochal day in our times: the day when the first Apple iPhone was announced. Steve Jobs was in his element, mesmerising audiences near and far with his pitch-perfect storytelling. One sequence that stood out for me in particular, was how he introduces the iPhone itself. Initially he toys with the audience indicating …
Earlier this week, I had posted an article on the 7Cs Story Framework, by analysing the storylines of super-hit Bollywood films. However this is not just an Indian phenomenon. These constructs are universal and Hollywood is also adept at using them for its blockbusters. In this piece we will repeat the points made in the earlier article, but replace the movie examples with those from Hollywood. I have chosen some of the biggest hits for the analysis: Avatar, Star Wars and Finding Nemo. If you had already read the previous article, you can directly go to the section on Hollywood movies 🙂 …
Is there one Story framework to Rule them All? You have a big presentation coming up – pitching your product to a prospect, sharing a project success story, or just convincing your boss to approve a new training program. You have your standard credentials deck/project presentation, but have the feeling that it is more snooze-inducing than approval-winning. The slides are filled with information, the flow doesn’t seem right and there’s too much “me” and too little “client/you”. In today’s attention-deficit times, that approach cannot work. You can’t just inform – you have to engage. Is there a way to persuasively structure your …
