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:
The secret of Amazon’s success: High standards Amazon is highly respected and feted for its exemplary customer service. What drives their unprecedented success? In this fascinating annual letter to shareholders (which is also a great marketing document), Jeff Bezos details the most critical factor: their culture of high standards. High standards (of communication) Now “high-standards” by itself is a sufficiently vague concept that can have multiple interpretations. What Bezos does is to expertly dissect it in a vivid, structured manner. And so, this letter, apart from holding invaluable business lessons, also becomes a great example of written communication. Amazon is a famous …
This post is about a most common activity that business leaders engage in: attending review meetings. I think the existing format is ineffective and needs a significant overhaul. Let’s look at two examples that I came across. Story 1: An emerging technology company “Whenever a presentation needs to be made, the CEO calls me” stated Frank* proudly, as he browsed through his laptop to show me some decks he had made. He was part of a 20-participant batch undergoing training in better storytelling techniques at a rising technology company. Frank opened a document and ran me through the slides. He …
As a kid, I’ve spent hours immersed in Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha comics. One story from Tinkle, in particular is unforgettable for me – the King and Minister one. Here’s how it goes: In a small kingdom, the King had a favourite Minister, whom he relied on for all critical decisions. The other couriers weren’t happy with the Minister’s influence and complained to the King. In response the King told them: “Do you see that caravan of bullock-carts in the distance?” “Yes Sire” “Find out where it is from” They rushed and came back “It is from Rampur Sire.” …
Sanjay is the L&D Head at a leading data analytics firm. Business leaders at his company have a typical concern: their employees are great at working on various technical/analytics tools; but they struggle when it comes to telling the story of the insights (and the takeaways) that emerge from the analysis. Their slides end up being complex data-dumps and the audience struggles to understand what the presenter is trying to say. Sanjay believes that this problem is addressable: data storytelling is a trainable skill and he is keen to organise a workshop on the same. But he has one concern: how to …
It’s the big day. Wearing your best formals, you reach the venue 20 minutes before time. You make small talk with the interview co-ordinator, take a few deep breaths, and when it’s your turn, stride purposefully into the meeting room. A firm handshake, initial pleasantries – you’re all set to rock the stage. And then trouble starts. First up is that infuriatingly innocuous question, “Tell me about yourself”, followed by “Can you walk us through Project A” and then the dreaded, “Can you give us an example of a situation when you showed leadership”… For most of these questions, you …
For many startups, soon after the initial launch euphoria, comes the first trough. A series of daunting, crazy challenges, when the founders end up wondering: Is this what I really signed up for? Akansh Khurana, the thoughtful, articulate CEO of THB (India’s largest clinical data intelligence platform), reached that juncture fairly early – within just 8 months. But Akansh and his team persevered, pivoted and within 2 years had gotten investor validation of their achievement: a $2.1M fund raise in February 2018. How did they do it? I decided to find out. Over a long phone conversation with Akansh, I discerned five key …
Ram is the earnest, go-getter CMO of an exciting agri-tech startup. His was one among 10 promising ventures being mentored by Agri Udaan, a leading Hyderabad based agri-business accelerator. An ‘accelerator’ is a program that speeds up a startup’s evolution, and gets it ready for the next stage. In such programs, a key milestone is typically the ‘Demo Day’. On this day, the Accelerator gets folks from about 30-35 funds in one room and provides the startups with a rare opportunity – to tell their story to a large set of potential investors at one go. But here’s the challenge – …
You may or may not appreciate Kapil Sharma’s brand of humour, but there’s an interesting lesson in his comeback attempt. His is a classic rags-to-riches-to-rags case (in terms of reputation at least). His meteoric rise was followed by an equally meteoric fall. How could he even attempt a comeback after the last set of negative stories had left his reputation in tatters? One option could have been to ignore all those tales (many of which would’ve been malicious rumours) and just announce, “Hey guys, guess who’s back!”. But if he’d done that, it would’ve meant ignoring the ‘anti-stories’. Introducing: The Anti-Story When you make …
Prologue Nitish Saxena* is a typical corporate senior manager. He runs a multi-crore business unit for his company, which is in the travel space. Like most of his colleagues, Nitish is conscientious, target-oriented and professional. But there’s something different about him – his drive to learn is unparalleled. And it would really help him in an upcoming competition. But first, the context. Client context Nitish’s company (let’s call it Vayu) is India’s leading player in its space and belongs to a highly-reputed group (part of the Fortune-India 100). Vayu is led by Sam*, a genial, smiling CEO with twinkling eyes …
Writer’s block Do you sometimes sit to write an email or an appraisal note and struggle to find the right words? You aren’t alone – all of us face the writer’s block. On the other hand, sometimes you may find yourself writing in full flow, only to discover later that the words are all over the place and not conveying the intended message. This post will help you with that most basic task in creating a data-story: choosing the right words. Building blocks Think of a data-story as a completed house. Components such as walls, ceilings, windows, doors etc. are …
