Episode 22: Building a Cohesive Story, Balancing the Story and the Structure

This article is written by Cam Welsh, a coach with over two decades of experience guiding successful case-solving teams at the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary.

This week, I spent time guest coaching a case-solving team and advising students on their final pitches for product ideas. The case-solving coaching involved a longer in-person presentation, while the pitches were short videos. In both cases, the teams were tasked with selling me their ideas and solutions for real problems. I noticed that while the ideas were generally good, the structure of the stories varied significantly. In many instances, the structure failed to effectively convey a story that made me fully enthusiastic about the proposed ideas. It's also crucial for the team to show their excitement about what they’re presenting; if they are not excited about the idea, why should I be?

My first rule is that everyone likes instant gratification, so start by telling me what you will talk about. I don’t want to wait to hear about the solution and how you are connected to it. The introduction should clearly explain why I should listen to you and provide a high-level overview of your idea or solution. Once you've established this credibility and outlined what you will discuss, you can then support your idea or solution.??

While supporting the solution, consider how the structure will reinforce your story and keep me engaged. It's essential to prevent me from asking myself key questions such as:

1. - What are they talking about?
2. - Why should I continue to listen?

During the support section, it's essential to establish a clear understanding of the situation and its complexities and to incorporate that understanding into the solution. As we do this, please guide me through the decision-making process. When I communicate with my teams, especially initially, they often do not recognize the decision-making process as an integral part of the narrative. However, it is a crucial element that guides the audience through the thought process and connects back to the context, especially regarding the organization’s mission, vision, and goals.

In problem-solving, the initial step involves analyzing the external and macro environments before shifting focus to the internal and microenvironments. This analysis will help identify several alternatives that need to be evaluated. It is important to guide the audience through each alternative, detailing every decision that must be made in a complex scenario. You can build the context and provide the audience with a cohesive story to show how you arrived at the solution.

The next step is to explain how the solution will be implemented. The key part of the implementation story lies in the details. This is where most narratives about the solution often fall short. Too frequently, the implementation plan is presented as a high-level overview filled with jargon instead of specific details.

A favourite example of this comes from several teams who worked on a case study about Warby Parker. They mentioned using their yellow school bus as a marketing tool at events but failed to elaborate beyond that point. I expect a detailed description of the customer journey, focusing on how potential customers interact with what is offered on the yellow school bus.

This week, I learned valuable lessons by listening to teams I had previously consulted with about developing potential market opportunities. These teams did an excellent job of implementing the feedback and advice they received in earlier sessions. A key takeaway for effective storytelling is that they understood what was important to their audience and addressed those concerns in their latest iterations. By doing so, they were able to engage their audience and establish emotional connections. These emotional connections are crucial, as they help to effectively "sell" ideas.

Next Time

As the holiday season coincides with my retirement from teaching, the release of upcoming episodes will be more sporadic throughout December. Starting in the new year, I will return to a regular schedule of biweekly episodes, along with additional content, as I relaunch my YouTube channel and start a new podcast titled "Discover Your Mad Skills Toolkit."