Your Story

Storytelling in business has become a critical management skill over the last few decades. What was once relegated to Brand marketing is now at the forefront of C-Suite conversations:

• CEOs work with their CFO and Investor Relations to craft the quarterly filing story

• COOs work with their Product Management team on their products’ user stories. 

• CMOs work with their Marketing team to tell their story to the firm’s target market. 

A good business story is the same as a good regular story, be it Shakespeare or Scorcese. It starts with exposition, goes into a complication and a climax, then features a reversal and a release.

A recent story from my life was when I learned to never assume another’s intentions. 

[EXPOSITION] It was a Friday, and I was working through the afternoon and expecting a call with someone I networked with a few weeks ago. This person was older and more successful than me, and I was looking forward to the call to get advise and mentorship. 

[COMPLICATION] The call came through and within two minutes the person said, “hey, I’ll call you back.” I waited 30 minutes and the call back never happened. I was annoyed. 

[CLIMAX] I get a text on Monday from the person saying their dog had ran away, and that they spent some time retrieving him and then making sure the dog was okay. 

[REVERSAL] I could empathize with the stress of having a dog run away. Your whole world shuts down. 

[RELEASE] I learned that you can never assume another’s intentions, people’s lives do not stop for my own. I guess I did get some advise after all. 

You too can leverage the rhetorical powers of storytelling in your career: 

• In an interview, the STAR method is a common storytelling framework. Push yourself to tell the story of your entire career, and how the lessons you’ve learned make you a great fit for the role at hand. 

• When presenting at work or in school, tie back the key learnings to an overarching story about the topic. Your audience will be more engaged and will be persuaded easier.

• Write down all negotiations you go through in life. Negotiations tend to fall cleanly into a storytelling framework. 

• When selling a product or service, come prepared with a case study if possible. A case study is simply a story of how a product/service added value to a similar client with a similar problem.

Humans have used stories for thousands of years. Stories have a unique power to capture our imaginations and move us into action. Master storytelling, and you’ll be better off in every aspect of life.

PK