The Art & Science of Storytelling: 10 Questions with Nancy Duarte

Nancy Duarte is the storyteller for the corporate world and she believes that ideas are the most powerful tools people have. Her passion is to help every person learn to communicate their world-changing idea effectively. As principal of Duarte Design, where she has served as CEO for 21 years, Nancy speaks around the world, seeking to improve the power of public presentations. She is the author of lluminate,  Slide:ology as well as Resonate. She shares her years of learning on storytelling with me on The CEB Talent Angle. Below is an excerpt from the transcript, you can listen to the full podcast at CEB Talent Angle.  And you can find it on ITunes here.

How can executives use stories to really connect with people?

One of the reasons a lot of executives or any people are hesitant or resistant is because to be a really great storyteller it does require vulnerability because the structure of a story is this really likeable person, which could be you as an executive, and you encounter these roadblocks and hardships. And, because you went through this really difficult time, it changed you. That’s the three-act structure—likeable hero, goes through some roadblocks, emerges transformed—three acts.

To be a great storyteller means you have to talk about your hardships, you have to say hey, I jumped in and lost, or hey, I jumped in and this battle was bigger than me and it was hard, and I eventually figured it out. A lot of people won’t stand up, especially in a politically-charged culture, they won’t stand up and talk that way.

So, sometimes executives have to start with third-person stories—let me tell you this story from history that happened, or let me tell you something that the R&D department did where it’s “they” stories instead of a “me” story. And, it is the “me” stories that actually, you could tell with more conviction and those are the ones that will get people to be more attached to you, are the stories you tell about yourself with great conviction.

They really do transcend any sort of “they” stories or “we” stories. It’s a really powerful tool.

How can you work to better understand your audience?

The only way to do that is to walk in their shoes. The only way to really think—and so often when we’re given a presentation or something to communicate, the boss may say hey, communicate this, make sure you say this, this, this. And we approach it from what I need to say, what they need to be told, how they need to change. 

We aren’t as good as pausing for those few minutes ahead of time to think about, oh that’s right, they just got a pay cut, oh that’s right and we just took away a vacation day, and oh that’s right they just worked really hard and are coming off a great big event, where we take a minute, and you wouldn’t want to ask someone in that situation to give more to the company. That’s wrong timing, wrong message. We need to empathetically understand the context in which they’re coming from and really understand it.

Empathy isn’t something that’s natural to us, how can we break that barrier down?

No, it’s not, and not to leaders, either. What’s interesting is my—I have surmised that one of the reasons leaders lack empathy is because we, as leaders, are fixated with the future, we’re constantly on that border between now and next trying to decide what strategic move should I make, where’s my competitors going to be in 18 months, how should I wrangle all these people, oh my God, we have to move our office to Boston in six years, whatever those things are, we’re constantly having to think about the future and it makes us less present. 

So, the only way to be really empathetic is to be very present, and I think that’s what a really good leader lacks because the really good ones are visionaries, we’re obsessing—in fact, sometimes I obsess about the future so often sometimes I talk about the future like it’s the present and then my teams like wait, what? So, you have to be able to be really, really present to have empathy, and I do think it can be learned, but I think a leader that has low empathy has to go through almost like a road to Damascus moment like St. Paul did where he had to be knocked off his horse and then literally the scales fell off of his eyes. 

And, we have to have this moment as leaders where it’s like I‘m stopped, I cannot go no further, I am completely and utterly ineffective if I don’t gain this new skill. And those are sometimes the moments that a leader needs to be able to help them understand that it really is about the people. It’s not about their own objective, it’s about moving people en masse, and the really good empathetic leaders can move people en masse which is important.

How do you work with leaders to help them connect and be great speakers?

I think that a big problem that we have that’s kind of systemic around the world right now is a listening problem. You can’t have empathy without listening and really considering what their perspective is in a really thoughtful way, like, really, truly learning to understand, not learning to gain, but learning to understand and not everyone can do that. 

You have to really understand where they’re at in a bigger journey. You don’t want them climbing this vast mountain without actually replenishing and giving them the right kind of respite at the right amount of time, whether it’s verbally. I think people can get really refreshed by just honoring their sacrifice or whatever’s the step along the way that they’re at. 

Can you describe the first part of the overall structure that you help executives use to develop stories?

It’s a three-act story structure, and the first act is dream and leap. So, you cast the vision and you say what this new alternate reality that you’re asking them to jump into, what it’s going to be, and then leap, you try to get them to make a commitment. 

So dream leap is Act 1, you’re actually getting the protagonist to jump into your story.

I think Steve Jobs was a magnificent dream leaper. He did some interesting things to get people to let go of the past so they could jump in, and one of the stores that we have in the book was the developers, when he was trying to get them to move to Mac OS10. 

And then from that day forward he never talked about Mac OS9, never mentioned Mac OS9 again because it was dead. Everyone in the audience knew right then that if they had not moved on, they had to have moved on to 10 because it was dead. They weren’t going to support it, they weren’t going to do anything. 

It was pretty dramatic as far as ceremonies go, but it sent such a crystal clear message that it was over. So, everyone that was still not jumped on, jumped on by that. It was a worldwide developer’s conference.

What is a Fight and Climb story?

The middle of every story’s the messy middle. Like I was saying, that’s where the transformation happens, but it’s the most painful, painful difficult part because there’s all these roadblocks you have to overcome. 

So, the middle is fight, climb, and even though they’re sequential, we put it fight climb. In reality it kind of moves back and forth, that middle. It’s like fight, climb, fight, fight, fight, climb, fight, climb, fight. And it’s hard. That’s the part where the people are having to work through, they’re having to gain new skills, they may have to go and try to find funding, they may not know exactly what they’re doing, it’s a risk to them, and they’re also having to maybe work really long hours to push things forward, but that’s kind of this fight, climb.

Yes, they slay the dragon but then they get impaled with a wound, and then they still have to climb up out of the side of a building, rescue the girl and 12 other people they didn’t know were there. It’s hard, but that’s the part we live for in a story.

What is an Arrival Speech?

I think sometimes that it could be a celebration, it could be a moment to lick your wounds or heal, but companies aren’t very good at endings and beginnings. There are examples in here like sometimes you’re shoved into a situation like an acquisition, you get acquired. 

So, a lot of times when you arrive you need to honor the heroes that brought you there or concede defeat. Like so often we say Blackberry should have done that, like you have to be like right away this needs to end, and sometimes people are—it’s a beloved thing and yet it needs to end, it needs to have an ending.

A lot of times the ending is also the beginning because—I think Steve Jobs did a quote, I’ll butcher it a bit, but it’s like if things don’t end new things can’t begin, so the ending is really about making room for a new thing too, and acknowledging that something failed is just as important. Papering over it isn’t the way to lead effectively.

What is the underlying structure of a great speech?

Great speeches borrow from story where it builds tension and releases it. So, as I reviewed the top 100 speeches of all time I realized it was like a cadence and a rhythm to them, but I couldn’t understand it, I couldn’t identify what it was because it wasn’t necessary a little story arc about a protagonist. It was like build tension and release it, build tension and release it. So, I studied that and found that it really is when they’re painting a gap between what currently is and what could be as a structural device.

So, the greatest speeches, it was really easy to throw phrases and paragraphs into oh, here they’re describing what is, here they’re describing what could be. Oh, here’s what is, here’s what could be. Structurally, I could go through and move things into one category or the other throughout the whole transcription.

And what they’re doing is they’re creating contrast. They’re building tension between the current realities and how great the hope of a future could be, and then it ends with the new bliss, restating again, how glorious the world could be with this idea adopted—and real breakthrough.

What are some of the key things that you see from great speakers besides the story arc and the connection that we’ve talked about?

Obviously, empathy and how they connect like showing up wearing the right things. There’s just certain other things you do empathetically that makes you feel like oh, they’re like us versus oh, that person is different than us. Now, you can bring somebody in that they intentionally want to be very different than the audience just to be provocative.

So there’s empathy that manifests in a form of delivery, but also your dynamics, how dynamic you are, meaning not only your vocal variety, but just your dynamism. I think your passion comes out. If you’re not that interested in what you’re about to say, why would you expect anyone else to be that interested? 

So, I think that’s one thing Steve Jobs had a real knack for is he would make these exclamatory bursts of affection all through his talk, sometimes hundreds of them in one talk. He’d say isn’t that great, isn’t this neat? Like he would do these explosive bursts of affection towards what he does, and it was contagious. 

And, I think that’s a big part of how you carry yourself, how you deliver yourself. Sometimes you need to be exclamatory, and excited, and you have this new dream and this vision, but there are other times you should reflect the emotion you want the audience to feel or there may be a moment you need to feel remorse, or morose, or melancholy. 

You can’t go into a situation where you’re doing layoffs doing bursts of exclamatory excitement. So there is an empathy where your energy level is connected and mirroring the level of emotion that you want your audience to have.

Do great speechmakers adjust in the middle of a speech to try and hit and match the tone of the audience?

Yes, they do. A lot of people don’t know it, but even Dr. King did that partway through his speech. He’d done his more prepared speech and then the audience was a little like disinterested a little bit, and then Mahalia Jackson from the stage screamed out, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” And he changed directions and he launched not a sermon, actually.

I have a dream that one day was actually a sermon and a speech that he delivered several times, and that became the most beloved one, and that was because she could tell the audience was waning, so he launched into one that he knew would bring the right level of energy to the group. So, yes, I think it happens.

What would you say to an introvert who doesn’t believe that they really have the juice to be a great communicator?

I think introverts are way better presenters because they prepare. An extrovert will just be like oh, I talk on Tuesday, I’ll just wing it. An introvert would never say that. They come prepared, they’re more careful, they’ve thought thoroughly about who they’re talking to, they’ve mapped their content to the other person’s needs most of the time. It’s just they’re scared to open their mouth. If they could get over that fear, introverts would rule the world because they’re very thoughtful and naturally more empathetic a lot of times than an extrovert.

So, I think getting over—like my husband, so brilliant, and so thoughtful, and so kind, and when he does speak it’s like that old, old, you’re my—you have to remember that old commercial when E. F. Hutton speak, people listen. When you can actually get an introvert to speak they’re usually the smartest person in the room, and nobody gave them enough oxygen to actually open their mouths and say something. 

Once you’re comfortable, empathetic and dynamic, those are the little trinity of things we think it takes to become a really good person doing delivery really, really well, once you have those three things, your message and your movement will be unstoppable.

Thank you, Nancy!

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