The Business of Executive Storytelling & Why Your Story Is Your Unfair Advantage

All right, Bob, thanks for like, I, so here's my view on executive communication, right? And, and, and storytelling is a part, is a, is a part of that.

I do appreciate that it's a skill that can be improved.

Obviously, with any skill, there are people that are savants.

I'm not going to ever be able to write at the level of a Bob Batchelor.

That's what I'm glad that we're partnering with.

But you've seen my writing over the last few years improve.

because I've worked at it, because I've been engaged.

And I wanted your respect that I had improved.

That was a real thing.

So when we think about storytelling, what are some of the things that we can do to create that desire, that understanding, that understanding of the business impact so that the executives do get on board? Because your point earlier was the executive that wasn't on board because some PR person that they didn't respect, they didn't understand why it was important, put them in media training to do a interview, and they were like, I just got to get through this because I've got to get to other stuff.

How do we communicate this in a way that executives start to put this in their skill set of what a successful executive looks like, talks like, behaves like?

It's a

tough one.

And part of it, I think, is selling the idea of you're not the first person to go down this path and have success.

Whenever I've heard executives talk about the power of storytelling, it's usually because somebody put them in a position where they had to respond and they got lit up by the experience.

They felt great about the experience.

And then all of a sudden they become advocates for storytelling.

But a book or a one pager isn't going to convince somebody that storytelling is important.

You have to probably put them in a position and demonstrate it.

So you're saying is don't argue what you can test.

And perhaps for many organizations, It's not go off and spend $100,000 on storytelling exercise or campaign.

It's start with something small with some very pointed outcomes and then measure against that outcome.

It could be.

a different kind of keynote presentation.

So rather than just giving the boring, same old, same old keynote presentation, you centralize it around the narrative of how your company came to create that product or service and the heritage and the pride with which your employees and you as an executive have in representing that idea.