Storytelling as a career tactic

If you are keen to master the skill of effective communication, Sandeep Das's book offers expert tips for a quantum leap in your abilities

How Business Storytelling Works: Increase your influence and impact

Author: Sandeep Das 

Publisher: Penguin Business

Pages: 247

Price: Rs. 399

A cricketer scored a duck in both innings of his Test debut and was dropped. He made a comeback after 21 months. His horrendous luck continued. This time he fell for zero and one and was axed again. He returned to the team again after 17 months, only to bag another pair. The inevitable sacking followed. He made yet another comeback after 36 months. This time he played to potential. He went on to score 16 centuries in Test matches, 11 in one day internationals, and even went on to captain the Sri Lankan side. The cricketer is Marvan Atapattu.

If a speaker were to begin his talk with a few platitudes about the need to be resilient in the face of failure, his words would bounce off his audience’s mind like water off a duck’s back. But if he were to begin his talk with a story like this one, he is likely to catch his audience’s attention. Such is the power of storytelling.

This is the theme columnist, ex-management consultant, and communication expert Sandeep Das explores in his latest book How business storytelling works: Increase your influence and impact. It explains why storytelling works, and how it can be harnessed to boost one’s career. 

Mr  Das begins his book with the rather bold assertion that the reason humans survived, when so many other species became extinct, is due to their ability to tell stories. If you find this claim rather over the top, Mr Das has a convincing explanation. Stories, he says, enabled humans to motivate and unify a large number of fellow humans and channel their energies into important causes. Religion, nation state, and in more recent years, corporations and clubs, he says, are all unifying constructs we have created through effective storytelling.

Next, the author reveals a few tricks that effective storytellers should incorporate in their arsenal. The end matters greatly, the author says. How our brain evaluates an experience is determined not so much by the start or the middle, but in large measure by how it ends. A decent shopping experience at a new mall is likely to be marred by a long queue at the check-out counter. By contrast, a restaurant that serves a pedestrian main course is likely to be judged less harshly if it manages to conjure up an excellent dessert. It is for this reason movie script-writers work very hard on creating a memorable ending.

The author urges readers to employ the “magical rule of three”, which essentially means communicating using three points. Less than three and the brain doesn’t receive sufficient material to weave a pattern. More than three and the cognitive load starts getting heavy, making processing and retention difficult.

Another smart strategy is to use pop culture references by sprinkling all communication liberally with stories from the lives of cricketers, movie stars, famous entrepreneurs, and even popular sitcom characters.

Minimalism is another weapon a savvy storyteller must deploy. When writing a story, compose a first draft that is longer than the final word count, then strip away mercilessly anything even mildly superfluous. The end-product should be a lean, fast-paced script that the brain finds easy to process. When movies are edited, every five-second clip is excised to see if the story can stand without it. If it doesn’t, it is reinstated. But if it does, that bit languishes on the editing floor.

Mr Das then illustrates how these and several other key principles can be deployed in diverse situations: To boost sales, drive organisational change, build legendary consumer brands, create brilliant presentations, speak like a master orator, excel in job interviews, and build a powerful personal brand.   

During the Pakistan cricket team’s 1987 tour of India, they were met with a rank turner in Bangalore. As Iqbal Qasim and Tauseef Ahmed, the two spinners from that team, narrate in recent YouTube interviews, they bumped into Bishan Singh Bedi on the rest day. They politely complimented Maninder Singh’s bowling. Mr Bedi retorted: “No, he is not bowling well at all. On a pitch that is spinning so much, you must spin the ball as little as possible, and let the pitch do the job.” The duo took Mr Bedi’s suggestion to heart and spun their team to victory. Minimalism can occasionally work in sports too.        

The larger point of this story is that hard work and practice can get you only so far. After a point, one hits a plateau. More practice amounts to polishing one’s imperfections further. The wiser course is to turn to an expert, who can spot our mistakes in a jiffy, and point us in the right direction.

Mr Das has spent a lot of time thinking and learning about the art of effective communication through storytelling. If you are keen to master this skill, read his book and practice its tips for a quantum leap in your abilities.