Welcome to “Driving Businesses by Developing People” written by me, David Huynh. For those who do not know me, I am a people-focused business professional who builds team members to generate results. Thank you for joining me. If you are not on my email list yet and want to dive deeper into the intersection of business and people with me, you may subscribe here:
I am sure most of us have heard the phrase 'talking the talk and walking the walk.' For those that have not, in a nutshell, this aims to capture how one should focus on executing the words that come out of one’s mouth in order to succeed. This phrase exists because many people can verbalize actions, but cannot complete them. However, given that my audience is almost fully derived from top college graduates around the world, I expect that 'walking the walk' (i.e., achieving strong results) is not our limiting factor to advancing professionally. Instead, I argue, our biggest limiting factor rests on our capabilities to tell stories articulately.
For avoidance of doubt, talking is an umbrella term, where story telling is a specialized subset. In the context of this article, story telling will signify explaining historic events, particularly those pertaining to our professional lives, and connecting them to future plans. If done properly, story telling is not adding fluff or lying to hide mistakes. Story telling involves accurately and concisely connecting ideas together, that will demonstrate a higher level of understanding of the past, such that we can take better actions in the future.
Significance of Story Telling
In a utopia, advancing our careers would solely be based on results. However, in actuality, results need to be explained in such a way that further action can be derived. Therefore, results need to be supplemented with vibrant story telling to drive us forward. To dimensionalize story telling and results, let us refer to the following 2x2 matrix:
Each individual will produce work that correlates with one of these quadrants. All other things held equal, certainly individuals with strong results and vibrant stories will advance more quickly and individuals with poor results and lackluster stories will advance the less quickly. The pace of advancement of the other two quadrants, highlighted blue and orange, will vary from case to case based on the role and the organizational culture. It goes without saying that we should strive towards getting strong results. Then, after the results have come, whether strong or poor results, stories are the primary way we can demonstrate our understanding to uplift our work moving forward.
Let's take a look at these two quadrants from the perspective of a CEO of a public company at a quarterly call with investors. If we are in the orange quadrant, the company missed targets, but the CEO told a vibrant story explaining the relevant casual factors and enumerating action items to reach targets the following quarter. If we are in the blue quadrant, the company reached targets and the CEO told a lackluster story explaining why. In the first case, the vibrant story will likely uplift the current value of a company. In the latter case, the lackluster story will either detract or retain the current value of the company. A vibrant vision or story will emit confidence and demonstrate a higher level of understanding. Ultimately, investors will value a company on both the results and the story that ties these historic results to the future vision.
Story Telling Refinement
Whether you are the CEO, an entry level employee, or anywhere in between, refining your story telling capabilities will drive you forward. We can refine our story telling by reaching a "decision-based understanding" and an "organizational vision alignment".
Decision-based Understanding
Vibrant story telling is made up of details that give our words character and meaning. Therefore, to tell vibrant stories, we need to have the appropriate level of understanding. Ultimately our stories should point towards decisions about what action(s) to take, so our level of understanding needs to be deep enough to make these decisions for our next steps. I term this level of understanding as "decision-based understanding."
To elaborate, we will take the perspective of a social media marketing manager. Typically, these individuals are responsible for minimizing spending [on social media assets] while maximizing sales, installs, clicks, views, etc. So, if the cost per click has spiked up in a given quarter, this would spell p-o-o-r results for the marketing manager. At this point, said individual will need to explain or report these results to someone. If the individual does not have anyone to report to, they need to be able to explain the story to themselves. The way in which this story is told, along with the next steps, will dictate whether the p-o-o-r results are harmful or helpful to the marketing manager's career. Let us discuss two scenarios and their corresponding stories from the marketing manager:
Lackluster Scenario: Marketing manager makes assumptions about drivers for cost increases and does not provide suggested next steps. Sample story: "I believe the increase in cost per click has been driven by seasonal factors. The numbers should improve next quarter"
Vibrant Scenario: Marketing manager understands drivers for cost increases and can make data driven recommended actions. Sample story: The increase in cost per click was due to higher competitor bids for our primary key words. So we either need to increase our relevancy score for our key words or tweak our key words altogether in order to lower cost per click"
In the latter scenario, the marketing manager has reached a decision-based understanding. This is the level necessary to tell vibrant stories, which involve providing paths for the future by learning from the past. Alternatively put, if we can demonstrate a significant learning from a past failure through our stories, our forward vision will be more clear.
Organizational Vision Alignment
Last week, I discussed how motivating team members sits at the intersection of business goals and personal goals. In a similar manner, vibrant story telling sits at the intersection of your work with the company vision. After we have a decision-based understanding of our past events and thereby can begin to develop plans for the future, we need to align this forward plan with the organizational vision.
We have discussed the perspectives of a CEO and a middle manager, who both had poor results, but could uplift their future by telling an accurate story of the past with decision-based understanding. To ensure completeness, let us now take the viewpoint of an early career software engineer who has recently delivered strong results. Specifically, let's say the engineer is responsible for Amazon's suggested product recommendations, which has generated a higher amount of sales after a new algorithm was implemented. Taken from their website, Amazon's mission statement is "to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online." Now that we have a basic understanding of their work and the organizational vision, let us discuss two scenarios and their corresponding stories from the software engineer:
Lackluster Scenario: Software engineer does not tie strong results to company vision. Sample story: "The new suggested product recommendation algorithm worked well. What should I work on next?"
Vibrant Scenario: Software engineer ties strong results to company vision. Sample story: "The new suggested product recommendation algorithm helped improve customer discovery. I think we can further improve the customer journey by sharing our learnings with the Similar Products team."
In the vibrant scenario, the software engineer connected the algorithm back to the company vision. Then, thinking further about the company vision, which revolves around optimizing customer discovery, the software engineer suggested a solution for how these great results can potentially further drive the company vision. By finding this intersection, the already successful software engineer can further uplift the results achieved.
Closing Remarks
Story telling is not falsifying truths to make things sound better. Story telling is genuinely understanding the past, such that we can connect the dots to the future. This genuine understanding needs to reach the level of decision-based understanding so that we can learn from our past and make decisions for the future. Connecting the dots means aligning these past understandings with the organization's forward vision.
Past results are very important, but understanding them enough and connecting the dots towards next steps will produce stronger results in the future. Let us learn from past successes and past failures so that we can tell the story of the vibrant future.
In the beginning, I made the assumption that delivering results is not our biggest limiting factor. However, I understand that there are cases, such as experimenting with novel tasks, where delivering results may genuinely be the largest hurdle. Next week, I will discuss how to deliver results and excel in these new and unknown territories.
If you have any comments or questions, I would love to hear the feedback in the comments below or via email. If you found this piece useful, please share with individuals who might also benefit from my content.