INTRODUCTION
‘So what?’
At the end of a presentation, business leaders regularly ask one, single question: ‘So what?’ It’s one of the most uncomfortable questions in business.
They ask because they want to know why the ideas in your presentation should matter to them and to the business, and they want to know in one simple statement. You might have spent countless hours, days and weeks preparing, but they want a succinct answer that summarises everything for them in an instant. And you want the earth to open up and swallow you because you don’t know how to answer this question succinctly.
‘So what?’
If you don’t answer this question well, all of your work can be for nothing. Early in our careers, we were both on the receiving end of this question and not ready to answer it. Those memories are some of our most crushing, yet also our most instructive.
What’s the solution? To avoid the embarrassment and frustration of not being able to answer that one simple question, you must state the ‘So what’ clearly and unambiguously at the beginning of your communication and then make the case to support it, rather than trying to tie everything together at the end when your audience may have lost focus or interest.
That sounds simple, but there is a secret to doing this well – it’s what we call ‘storylining’. A business storyline1 is a simple map of ideas arranged into a logical order and hierarchy. It can be used to make a complex business case or structure a simple email, for a presentation or a speech, for a meeting or a workshop, and there are different storylines to use in different circumstances.
If you have not worked with storylines before, now is a good time to show you one. The key to a good storyline is the structure, as outlined in this example.
A storyline example
At first glance, when presented visually, storylines look like a lot of boxes with lines connecting them. When populated with someone’s ideas in a way that makes sense, however, they come to life.
Here is a real-life example. It’s the storyline a team used to map out their thinking about how to convince a Steering Committee that they should push forward and implement a new system.
We worked with the lead manager to pull together the storyline for the Steering Committee briefing, shown opposite. Take a moment to skim it and we will then explain more about how each of the elements of the storyline works together.
This storyline maps the key ideas the manager wanted to communicate. It works through the context, trigger and question, and states an overall idea – the ‘So what’ of the whole communication (that BigCo should implement SuperSys). It then lays out the hierarchy of ideas that support the ‘So what’, breaking each of those five supporting reasons down to provide enough detail on each to satisfy the Steering Committee audience. You can see from the diagram that the top-level ideas in this structure form a strong case to implement the SuperSys solution.
This communication worked. The manager used the storyline to structure a short verbal briefing to present to the Steering Committee. She talked the storyline through from beginning to end, stopping to answer questions when necessary, and she could deal with the tougher queries more easily because she was clear and confident in her recommendation. Surprisingly, she did not need further supporting slides as she was able to answer any question that came her way during the conversation.
This is an example of a storyline in action. It’s a fairly simple example. Many of our projects involve very complex ideas. Regardless of complexity, good business communication adheres to one simple maxim – developing clarity around a storyline helps drive clarity of thinking and communication. It’s all about getting to the ‘So what’. This book outlines seven classic storyline patterns that will help you get to the ‘Sowhat’ fast.
We like to practise what we preach, so here’s our ‘So what’ …
Example storyline: SuperSys recommendation
Storyline patterns are ‘the secret’ to structuring your ideas so you can succinctly convey your key points, enabling quicker decisions and better business outcomes.
These patterns emerged over time from our work with clients. In helping teams craft business communication, we started to see repeating structural patterns – all slightly different but nevertheless based around common plots, or what we now call ‘storyline patterns’.
It was while working with an organisation in Australia one day that we started to think about the power of these patterns. We had been helping the team think through the structure for a complex piece of legal ad vice and needed a way to cut through the complexity. To do that we outlined some classic business storylines on a whiteboard and asked the team if one of those storylines was useful for the situation they faced. Seeing someone point excitedly to a storyline and say, ‘That’s it! It’s an “options story”,’ we realised we were onto something, and the search for the great business storyline patterns began.
We’ve distilled them down to our top seven classics, which are outlined in this book. These are patterns for business communication that help you get stuff done, the stories that help you and your team make good decisions, understand complex issues, monitor activity and respond effectively to problems. These are not narratives in the literary sense, but are still stories all the same.
Once we started to share these patterns with our clients we found that they saved time while also creating more impactful and audience-focused communication. What’s more, we saw our clients become confident enough to share those stories even in difficult situations. When clients took a disciplined approach to thinking through what they wanted to achieve from their communication and how they would structure and communicate it, they had more impact and achieved better results.
The seven classic storyline patterns
GROUPING STORYLINES | |
1 | Action Jackson – for action plans. |
2 | The Pitch – for pitches and proposals. |
3 | Traffic Light – for updates. |
DEDUCTIVE STORYLINES | |
4 | Close the Gap – for improvement recommendations. |
5 | Houston, We Have a Problem – for explaining how to solve problems. |
6 | To B or Not to B – for explaining which option is best. |
7 | Watch Out – to counter emerging risks. |
Our experience also tells us this approach is cross-cultural and cross-generational. It applies in Australasia, the Americas, Asia and Europe, and it works just as well for experienced professionals, board members and millennials.
Given this experience, we think these storylines are too good not to share. To unlock the power of the ‘So What’ strategy, you need to take five steps:
In the following chapters we will take you through these steps one by one, and also explain in detail how each storyline works and when to use each one.
We wish you all the best with your business communication.
Davina Stanley and Gerard Castles
June 2017
1 | For the sake of simplicity, we’ll call all business storylines from now on ‘storylines’. We realise this term is used in many different contexts, but it has a specific use here that will be consistent throughout this book. |