Institute of Product Leadership showcases importance of story-telling in corporate world

Bengaluru-based Institute of Product Leadership (IPL) held the finals of the second chapter of its Shareathon, Shareathon 2018. It was a gameshow with skill-building, more than just entertainment, organised by the institute.

It had judges from the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore, Myntra and IPL along with a live audience poll picking the winner. There were 10 story-tellers as finalists with a wild card entry and Karthi Subbaraman was adjudged the "Best Business Story Teller".

The IPL believes that many professionals are good with logic and data-driven presentations but they often lack the ability to tell a story. The festival was an attempt to build the ecosystem with this very critical skill. Shareathon is a first-of-its-kind open, public-speaking (TED-type) platform for people to showcase their leadership skills by story-telling and ideas that they believe in. To be at the event, one needs to get votes to speak at the event.

As India aspires to step into the shoes of China as a manufacturing super-power, India would need the right people with the requisite communication skills to reach that goal. This was the message that emerged at the finale of Shareathon 2018, a unique Business Storytelling Festival which was a competition for the students of IPL testing their story-telling skills.

The event, a test of the story-telling and presentation skills of students of IPL, saw 11 of them competing for the coveted prize. Karthi Subbaraman came up trumps with her gripping story-telling style, after a grueling competition that had a three-member jury scrutinising every aspect of the presentations in the finals.

The Story-Telling Festival had started with 32 students, which was whittled down to 11 for the finale that was held at CMRIT in Bangalore. The competition had been in the works for many months now, with the participants being put through multiple rounds with each round seeing the number of participants coming down.

"Many people make it to the boards of companies by their sheer hard work. But, they do not know to articulate themselves and so fail to win over the clients from the West. To be leaders, they have the opportunity. But fail for want of a few skills," said Shaleel Nalakath, Leadership Coach, and one of the jury members.

"This is the second chapter of Shareathon. We intend to make it an annual event and we will make it an inter-corporate event. It would be between the employees of the companies," added Pinkesh Shah, Co-founder and Director of Programs at the IPL.

The Indian IT industry which has largely been outsourcing-oriented, over, the last decade has been evolving towards product creation. Yet, there remains a gross lack of Indian technology products in the global technology space.