How to become a good story teller?

Special thanks to Henry Latham, Founder & Lead Mentor@ProdMBA and Ross Webb, Senior product Leader in the UK to share the ClubHouse AMA session stage with me to discuss "how to become a good storyteller".

Here are the Questions and Answers from the AMA session! Thanks to the audience for making it very interactive! (Link to the Clubhouse recording)

Hope you enjoy reading this. If you like this post then comment on the post what action you are planning to take or took that helped you to become a good storyteller!

(Q1) Question for Henry: what is storytelling and why does it work?

Answer:

Story telling includes some sort of struggle, why the struggle is worth it, how the struggle ends and turns into a successful transformation.

The format of a story can be:

1. Start with some sort of struggle and explain why it is worth the struggle.
2. What was the journey: Tell about some sort of trials, learnings and challenges along the way.
3. What is the goal: Tell what was the desire - finding fulfillment in some way and some sort of tension to accomplish the goal
4. What call to action to take to reach to the goal
5. Keep the curiosity till end whether you succeeded and more fulfilled person
6. Tell about the transformation and the accomplishment that happened along the journey

Pitching for interviews in professional context:

1. What are the goals in life (beyond the job)
2. High level version of that - the future role you are aspiring for and your career vision?
3. Tell a story - People inspired by stories

(Q2) Question for Madhumita: learnings from ProdMBA, how I leveraged the framework and how did it help?

Answer:

A strong story can help with a good start and first impression. A good example is “Elevator pitch” about your professional life. Once you have defined the story it can be repeatable. The story can be used on multiple occasions such as in introductions, interviews and while meeting new people or stakeholders. The framework breakdown with example:

Backstory:

1. While in my undergrad, I saw my grandmother struggled to walk and find her path due to poor vision. I wanted to help my grandmother with a robot assistant to help her with walking and finding her path. Due to this inspiration, I built an underfunded walking and talking robot which was not a great success.
2. Hint: In this story there is -? human touch and challenges?

Desire:?

1. My passion for building products was born in my undergrad.
2. Hint: Talked about the aspiration, goal and the journey that started long back

What was the plan:

1. I wanted to get more experience in building products that can scale to a large audience. Build and lead a great team to deliver the results and impact to users.
2. Hint: Talk about your goal and your plan to get there.

Achievements:

1. Worked at companies like Yahoo, LinkedIn, NetApp, Intuit, PayPal. I got to launch multiple data products and platforms that could scale a large audience solving multiple use-cases and problems for the users. I am proud of a few great success stories during this journey such as ThirdEye-anomaly detection platform, data quality, data discovery solutions, sales productivity and intelligence products enabling data driven sales.?
2. Hint: Talk about your achievements and success stories.

Transformation:

1. Thinking back to where I was and where I am now ie. working as Product Lead at StarTree.ai I feel very accomplished. I am extremely thankful to my mentors, coaches, leaders, great colleagues, family and friends who helped me along this journey
2. Hint: Talk about the hero's journey, learnings and the transformation - how you evolved to reach the end state.

(Q3) Question example of a hero's journey (a shorter/crisper version)

Answer:

Tips to develop a hero’s journey story telling script:

1. Who is the audience
2. Interview or meeting a team first time
3. What is the outcome
4. What is the context I want the audience to take away. Add curiosity and interest
5. What is the achievement?
6. Say something that is relevant to the audience. In this case landing in a product job. Career ladder in the product. Some business outcome.
7. What is the transformation
8. Showing how the story evolved

Example of Henry’s heroes journey

1. Backstory: Always wondered while starting a business how to not make every mistake possible.
2. Desire: My desire was to understand what makes some products succeed vs fail.
3. Plan: I worked in different roles to gain experience and understanding in this area.
4. Achievement: From my experience I published a book on this about 3 yrs ago.?I worked as a product leader and gained experience on how to develop and grow product teams.
5. Transformation:?Evolved as an influencer who is creating and delivering value in various magazines and social media forums.

(Q4) Question for Henry: storytelling techniques and how to leverage it to engage with stakeholders.

Answer:?Influencing stakeholders - get them to buy in to do something

A presentation is a great mode of communication to influence stakeholders. People usually switch off if we start with a task heavy story.?

Tips for Influencing:

1. Leverage data points wherever possible.
2. What can be done better:?
3. Start with a why and worth to solve.
4. Bring in color to the story with qualitative data. Add human touch and success stories. It helps build trust.?
5. Focus on voice modulation. Bring excitement.

(Q5) Question for Ross/Henry: What are the dos and don'ts of storytelling?

Answer:

Don’ts: Don't forget to tell a compelling story and apply the hero’s journey framework.

Dos:

1. Hero’s journey framework: Principles behind hero's journey - build trust, connect with audience => Define an end goal => Plan for achieving the goal => Result/Achievement => Transformation
2. Use tone: such as excitement, fear
3. Use silence? - good listening
4. Body language (connect with audience)
5. Zoom set up - look straight to camera
6. Raised eyebrows - signal of friendliness
7. Open hand gestures

(Q6) Question from audience: While presenting, some people cut your story short. What should we do in that case?

Answer:

1. This happens when audience is not connected to the story
2. Understand the intent and needs of the audience
3. Create curiosity (create the tension and how to achieve - plan)?

(Q7) Concluding question for Ross/Henry: Any tips, guidance that the audience can take with them to become a good story teller.

Answer:

1. Start practicing - consistency and execution
2. Take one action item and try it out.

For future AMA sessions and learnings please subscribe to my news letter - Product Mgmt Digest- Data & AI (link), follow me on?LinkedIn,?Clubhouse,?Twitter,?Medium?and?Instagram.