Communications Thinking transcript

One of my favorite writers is a lady called Margaret Mead. She said a famous

quote, I am sure you've heard it: "Never doubt that a small, thoughtful group of

committed citizens can change the world, [why, well] indeed it's the only thing that

ever has."

I'm sat here thinking about you watching this now. And whether you're new as a

Band 7, a Band 8, or a Band 9, you might be thinking, "Well, how can I change the

world? You know, maybe I still need to build up my experience, my portfolio." It

doesn't matter what age you are. Maybe you're trying to figure out your industry and

your career trajectory. Maybe you're trying to decide where exactly you want to make

a difference with the knowledge that you have.

Well, the whole thing about that notion of a small group of committed and

thoughtful citizens changing the world: that's us. You know, we could be in a small

group. You don't have to be the boardroom. You don't have to be on a multi-million-

dollar deal. Some of the big billion-dollar deals have exactly the same challenges as

some of the smallest deals, when we're just trying to land a proof of concept. Or

we're trying to do something around design thinking, maybe we're trying to build an

app just to try and get through the door with a client, maybe for a small amount of

money. We're always faced with exactly the same challenges. And those challenges

often start with, "How do we influence people to change? How do we bring people
along with the story that we have and the idea of how they should adopt our way of

thinking?" Especially for us as industrial storytellers, we're in a commercial

environment, it's incredibly competitive. It's not just enough] to tell people these

great compelling and emotionally engaging stories that makes them feel something.

You've got to make them do things as well.

Now this is a challenge that we've had for really long time. When IBM was

founded, it was founded originally making meat slicers and coffee grinders, weighing

scales, different types of tools, trying to either connect with an audience, trying to

help commerce, or trying to understand what audiences do in order to make

technology to help make the world work better. All of the principles that we've

learned over more than a century often follow a very similar set of rules.

Storytelling is exactly the same. In fact, the rules of storytelling are thousands of

years old. You can date them back to Aristotle in 335 BC. He wrote in little pamphlets

about 62 pages long and it was about the tenants of storytelling. This is where we get

the three-act structure from. That's why movies and plays even today are structured

in the way that they are. And these are tools and insights that I'm going to share with

you now through this process of Communications Thinking and through the small

framework that we have to try and help you connect with those competitive

audiences. The audience could be two people in your team, could be a manager,

could be a promotion panel. It may be that you're sharing with your industry, maybe a
service line of 100 people, maybe you're going to be fortunate at some point to be in

those boardrooms, to be on the stages, be on a podcast or video show. Whether not

you're looking at some type of a platform, when you need to tell a story that is unique

and differentiated and special, the audience wants you to win. The audience wants

you to be good. But you got to have something good to say. And maybe you're really

nervous. Most people are. Public speaking ranks up there with drowning in terms of

the things that some people are most scared of. True story, I read a survey about it

the other day. So, that's why when you have these tools and you're able to try and

understand, "Oh, I've never realized that I could use this in order to try and collate my

story together and I could hang it on this structure in order to speak like my favorite

presenter."

Well, we're all storytelling animals. Humans have been since the moment they

were born. It's what connects us completely to each other. Once we get past the

basic Maslow's hierarchy of needs, generally we want food and nourishment, we want

warmth and safety. From the moment we're born to the moment that we die, people

want connection. Tell me a story, engage me in some way. Well, I've been trying to

figure out how does this work in the commercial world for quite some time. Because

sometimes certain stories work and other times, for different audiences, maybe in

different countries, certainly different service lines, it doesn't work at all. So, why is

that? Why, if you're trying to put yourself in the audience's shoes, why do the same
stories? Because that's often the way that we treat storytelling, as a soft skill. Here's

what you do. Here's the story: beginning, middle, and end. Maybe there's "once upon

a time". It's a framework please going. And some of the audiences are just going,

"No." They don't get it. They don't like it. Maybe they don't like you. Maybe you've not

built up enough of a bond yet.

So, what are these frameworks that we can look at? Well, it's called SMUBA.

SMUBA is really built on a very similar principle. It's five stages. Like any great stage,

like any great principles, you want to understand the rules before you can break them.

But also, they don't necessarily need to go in order. It doesn't have to be linear. You

don't have to do all five at the same time. You could just choose one for any particular

thing that you may have that's just useful, right? You think about design thinking,

we're really big on that at IBM. We have so many design thinking practitioners and you

probably been through it. If you're not, you're probably about to do some of the

training. Think about what that does. You're just putting yourself in the customer's

shoes. Trying to see things from their perspective in order to try and solve a problem

that IBM, using all of these vast skills and resources, is able to help them with.

Well, Communications Thinking is exactly the same. You're putting yourself in

the audience's shoes and you're seeing things from the audience's perspective. You're

trying to solve a problem, often by simplifying complexity. So, just think of it like

problem solving and their structures and frameworks you can use it with. I mentioned
SMUBA, you ready? Seeing, Mapping, Understanding, Believing, and Acting. Seeing is

the first stage, and we're going to just do five short modules and we're going to go

through them each one at a time.

Seeing is about collecting everything together as much as you can. And the more

data that you've got, the more stories, the more anecdotes, the more statistics, you

can build onto these things that we call story canvases. That becomes the foundation

for a really strong story. If you don't do that piece right, often the other things will fall

over. May be an engaging story, but maybe the audience just doesn't do anything.

Maybe it doesn't drive them to action enough.

But once you've seen everything, what you now need to do is show people

where to go. Like any good strategy. Here is where we going and here's why we're

going there. What do you need when you do that? You need a map, right? You need a

map. You need to show people where it is that they're going to go and why. Another

one of my favorite writers, J.R.Tolkien said, "I wisely started with a map."

Understanding life begins with understanding maps and patterns, because

where patterns are broken new worlds can emerge. And as storytellers that's our

jobs; it's to create these new worlds. Because if we create the right map aligned to

exactly what our customers want, with the problems that they need to solve, now we

can help them to get to where they need to go.

lot. We'll look at that in a minute. And the trusted advisor is the guide. It's the guide

through the really treacherous journey that our clients need to go on. Whether you are

going through Middle Earth, or 100-acre wood, or trying to navigate your way around

Hogwarts. It's very, very similar in the corporate world. You need a trusted guide,

someone who's been there before that knows how it works, that there are structures

where you need to build empathy, you need to show authority, you need to a build

connection with the audience.

Because if you do, then they're going to believe you when you speak to them.

Because when you speak to them properly, you're going to give them a plan. You're

going to give them a conversation strategy that's going to be based upon the journey

that's going to help them hopefully transform for the better. And belief is one of the

most important things by far. It's often lacking in business. Sometimes it's a little bit

fluffy. People think, "oh well, we don't talk about belief." I believe. I believe. It's one

of the most powerful words in storytelling. What do you believe? Why? People want to

know that and they want to know your unique personal point of view as well, not just

the corporate: what does IBM believe?

Because if you do that right and there's some sort of relevance and a direct

connection, if there's a bond with the people you're trying to connect with. Like I said,

it could be on your team, it could be with a client. When you give them the
plan, of here's what we should do for this thing, it's going to drive action. And action,

the power to make people do things, influence, that ability to move people towards

your point of view, there's a fancy Greek word for it, it's called Kairos. It's one of my

favorite words. K. A. I. R. O. S. We're going to look at all this in just a moment. Kairos is

"the supreme moment at which one simply must act no matter how implausible or

inconvenient."

So, if you can tell an emotional story and you can use some of these tricks and

some of these methodologies and frameworks, it's going to drive action at the end.

And that's what we all need. We want people to feel something so that they do

something. Let's break this down piece-by-piece and let's have a look how you can

put it into practice.