Imagine a gentle breeze.

You can't see it; you can’t touch it, but you can feel it. That's a lot like organizational culture—a powerful, hidden force.

Culture is not written down; it is distributed in people’s heads. Culture is how we do things around here. It drives behavior, guides decisions, and determines whether a company rises or falls. When culture aligns with strategy, it acts as a tailwind, accelerating execution. But when it's misaligned, it becomes a headwind, slowing everything down.

Shaping this invisible force is the challenge and role of leadership.

Every major company grapples with change. In this climate, shaping corporate culture becomes an intricate task. With employees scattered across countries in different work settings, the challenge is greater.

Shaping culture can seem like trying to catch the wind. The task is to build a culture that is cohesive and aligned with the organization's goals, despite these complexities.

Shape culture in six simple steps.

#1. Break down and analyze your culture.

#2. Align strategy, purpose, and culture.

#3. Embed culture into work.

#4. Use AI to uncover opportunities.

#5. Tell stories to shape culture.

#6. Continuously cultivate culture.

#1. Break down and analyze your culture.

Before you can effectively shape culture, you must first understand it. Culture is complex, composed of visible elements like symbols and less tangible aspects like unwritten rules. At its core, what informs how we do things around here, are collective habits. Start by breaking down your culture into its core components:

Symbols: The visible aspects of culture, such as logos, dress codes, and office setups.

Discipline: The principles that energize your teams, such as a focus on innovation, operational excellence, or customer obsession.

Unwritten Rules: The norms that guide behavior, which are not explicitly stated but are widely understood.

Collective Habits: The routines and behaviors that teams follow, often unconsciously.

By analyzing these elements, you can identify what to build around; and what needs to be preserved, transformed, or eliminated to support your North Star.

What hidden aspects of your organization's culture have you uncovered recently?

#2. Align strategy, purpose, and culture.

With a clear understanding of culture, the next step is to align it with your organization’s strategy and purpose. Culture never exists in isolation; ideally, it reinforces and drives strategic objectives. Left untended, it might impede them.

Leadership plays a crucial role in ensuring that the cultural elements—behaviors, values, and practices—support the company's mission. This is about translating strategy through the organization, through a strategic narrative and OKRs, that inform what people do every day.

When culture, strategy, and purpose are in sync, culture becomes a powerful force that propels the organization forward.

How well does your culture support your strategic objectives?

#3. Embed culture into work.

Too often, culture is an afterthought. For most leaders, conversations about culture are triggered once a year following positive or poor engagement surveys. For the few that build an action plan in response to that, those actions are often additional and separate from the ‘real’ work of the business.

Culture isn’t something that can be separated from the daily grind—it must be embedded into every aspect of work. Culture is how we do things around here. It’s the same do in strategy—what we intend to do, in leadership—what we inspire people to do, and in execution—what we actually do. In the best companies, the best teams that do is one and the same.

The collective habits that underpin a culture are evident in daily tasks and interactions. Leaders must be intentional about reinforcing cultural norms through consistent communication and recognition, as well as model the desired behaviors themselves. This ensures that culture is lived and breathed by every employee every day.

What rituals can you use to improve the collective habits in your team?

#4. Use AI to uncover opportunities.

Shaping culture requires more than just intuition; it demands data. AI can be a powerful tool for uncovering hidden aspects of your culture—the unwritten rules and collective habits.

What might have previously taken months of anthropological study by outside experts can be accomplished in weeks with a small, AI-assisted team. The trick is to prompt AI with the right models and data; then verify the results.

Through AI-driven analysis, leadership can identify patterns and trends that may not be immediately apparent; collective habits that hinder progress. This data provides a foundation for informed decision-making, allowing leaders to focus their efforts on areas that will have the most significant impact on culture.

What cultural insights would AI reveal about your organization that other methods might miss?

#5. Tell stories to shape culture.

Stories shape culture. While culture is often an abstract concept—difficult to see or measure—stories have the unique ability to make it tangible. They transform vague ideas into relatable, concrete experiences that resonate with employees at all levels.

Participatory storytelling brings culture to life. Creating fun, engaging storytelling experiences that go beyond traditional training. Imagine a game where employees face workplace scenarios, encountering both positive behaviors and "culture villains"—those collective habits that undermine strategy and execution.

This immerses them in culture, making it real.

As they navigate the game, employees have an "aha" moment: they see how their daily actions shape culture. They realize they're not just observers but active participants. This method makes culture tangible, embedding it into real work and sparking meaningful, lasting change.

What powerful story from your organization's history could you share to reinforce your desired culture?

#6. Continuously cultivate culture.

Connecting Edinburgh and Fife, crossing the Firth of Forth, is the Forth Railway Bridge. It’s one of the longest steel cantilever bridges in the world, painted in red, to avoid the ravages of salt water and pollution. At one time, the bridge was constantly painted. Starting at one end, scraping rust, and applying a new coat. By the time the workers had finished, they had to start all over again.

Culture is like that. It needs constant care and attention.

Leaders must regularly refine cultural practices to stay aligned with evolving goals. This means continuously assessing who you hire and promote, who you recognize and reward, how leaders communicate, and what behaviors are practiced.

To keep culture dynamic and effective, focus on four key levers:

Hiring and Promotion: Prioritize cultural fit based on values that drive growth and collaboration.

Recognition and Rewards: Reward behaviors that align with desired cultural outcomes.

Leadership Communication: Maintain message discipline; shape culture through stories and symbols of change.

Leader Actions: Model the behaviors you want to see; actions speak louder than words.

As you pull these levers, you shape culture, leading to faster product launches, greater customer focus, and increased agility.

Which of the four key levers—hiring, rewards, communication, or leader actions - do you think needs the most attention in your organization right now?

But remember, the work is never done.

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Imagine: a pleasant lunch with colleagues, then sauntering back to work.

There, you discover a fire. Not a fire drill, not an urgent situation you have to deal with, or a dramatic customer escalation. The real thing. An honest-to-goodness, smoke, flames, fire.

This, so the story goes, is part of the legacy of John H. Patterson. Frustrated with the lack of urgency and discipline among his top executives, Patterson sought to send a message. He felt they were too complacent, too bureaucratic, too comfortable in their positions, and not pushing as aggressively as he expected.

In Patterson’s mind, drastic action was needed. A symbol of change.

He ordered their desks removed from their offices and set on the lawn in front. Then, in a dramatic and symbolic gesture, Patterson set the desks alight in front of everyone. A statement. The executives, literally and figuratively, were fired.

That happened in about 1900. The company, NCR—National Cash Register. Patterson was the Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk of his day. A tech mogul who had started a company, radically innovated through technology, re-invented business models, and disrupted industries.

Here’s the irony: the man who ignited radical change also laid the groundwork for one of the most bureaucratic functions we know today: Human Resources.

The man who railed against bureaucracy, lack of urgency, and complacency created the function commonly regarded as “the pits of bureaucracy.” Studies show that HR has increasingly lost the trust of employees. A paradox where the department that preaches psychological safety has reached a point where “they (employees) would rather reach out to most anyone before turning to someone in HR.”

Not surprising, then, that personnel rebranded as HR, CHROs are rebranding as Chief People Officers, and HR departments are being reimagined as centers of employee experience.

According to Amy Hanlon-Rodemich, former Chief People Officer of Nokia and GlobalLogic, a “radical overhaul of the profession is sorely needed.”

HR as a product.

This radical overhaul of HR will not happen by simply swapping out infrastructure: Peoplesoft for Workday or Workday for Rippling—it comes from running HR like a business and thinking of HR as a product.

This is a tectonic shift in HR. Moving radically away from staid bureaucracy to agile operations. This is the vision of Bob Toohey, former Chief HR Officer of insurer Allstate and incoming CHRO of fintech giant FIS.

“I run HR like a business and think of HR as a product.”

Toohey continues. “You always have to ask yourself: Is your customer going to buy it? HR loves to roll things out that people don’t necessarily need. So how do you roll things out that they want to ‘buy?’  Are these products that will help their business?”

For Toohey and his team, this is a mission. To take a leaf out of Patterson’s book. To leapfrog. To shift to the next evolution of HR.

From policy to product.

In large part, HR is rooted in policy.

Policy implies compliance. Consistency is a virtue. One hundred percent adoption is a goal. Great if your policy is to pay people accurately and on time every week. But mandates and policy only go so far in shaping culture, creating engagement in the workforce, excitement around learning and capability building in the company.

For that, a product mindset—and a product manager function— is required. This is fundamentally different from a policy mindset. Rather than a policy of compliance, you build products for adoption. Instead of consistency as a virtue, innovation is a virtue. HR is the product, and everything communicates. Continuous improvement is woven into the work—it’s never good enough, never finished.

Toohey lays out the challenge ahead. “It’s a huge shift. I’m lucky—I’ve worked in product roles, in operational roles. But if you haven’t, getting to HR as a product is not an easy journey.” Making that trip—from a policy-led organization to a product one- requires six essential moves.

#1. Lay a foundation to work from.

#2. Build a product-first culture.

#3. Establish a product management framework.

#4. Nurture product management talent.

#5. Curate artifacts.

#6. Run around data.

#1. Lay a foundation to work from.

“It’s difficult to run the trains on time if the tracks need a lot of work.” HR as a product needs a modern HR infrastructure to run on. This is a core premise of HR as a product. A lot of the “old” work of HR can be automated. “If you start with the customer in mind, you can build a seamless digital experience around that.” Modern HRIS systems, if well architected, can, according to Toohey, “elevate the employee experience and add value where it matters most, with our people—our customers.”

Technology should allow the backstage—the back office function of HR to fade into the background, creating a simple, no-fuss, no-effort experience that puts useful HR products and services at their fingertips—one that automates or eliminates non-value-added work.

#2. Build a product-first culture.

Culture in an organization or function is “how we do things around here.” It’s a set of collective habits that—hopefully—positively influence the work. According to Toohey, “A product-first culture comes from a customer-first mindset. It comes from understanding who your customers are, what they’re in business to do, and what the business is driving at.”

Building a product-first culture isn’t just about changing processes—it’s about reprogramming how the organization thinks about value and innovation. Toohey continues, “Shifting this culture starts with an awareness of where we are.” In most HR organizations, this involves working through a continuum from policy-driven, and developing habits around consistent processes, a focus on employees, and the development and use of data.

#3. Establish a product management framework.

You don’t have to look far in most organizations to find product management frameworks. They usually exist in engineering, technology, or product development themselves.

Good product management takes lessons from project management, agile development, and design thinking. Whichever framework you use, it should cover two things: How you organize your work for smooth execution and how it connects with your customer to meet their needs and add value.

For HR as a product, Toohey talks about a flywheel: “It’s three parts, how we build, how we sell, and how we service. Simple.” Each step has phases and gates, covering everything from concept through design, adoption, and support. What makes the flywheel spin is the release windows. Setting a product roadmap with defined product launch dates that fit the cadence and appetite of the business and timeboxing work within that.

#4. Nurture product management talent.

For Toohey, getting the right people on the team makes HR as a product work. “You need the right team to get you there. And that team has to engage in the art of possibility. They have to be able to see beyond the usual constraints and ask, ‘What could we create if we weren’t limited by how things have always been done?’”

Upskilling talent should be second nature to HR and runs the gamut from training and development to creating cross-functional collaborative teams and fostering a growth mindset. Basic product management skills come to the fore; data analysis, visualization, storytelling, customer-centric thinking, UX design, and agile methods.

#5. Curate artifacts.

“Think of artifacts like building blocks for HR as a product. They allow you to standardize the way you solve problems but also provide flexibility for innovation.” Says Toohey. “Get the artifacts right—concept cards, demos, user stories—and you have a springboard for the art of possibility. Something teams can collaborate around.”

Artifacts provide something tangible for teams as they navigate from an abstract idea to a concrete reality. More than that, a collection of successful product iterations serves as a library of best practices. They underpin clear documentation that serves to communicate ideas and facilitate rapid feedback.

#6. Run around data.

Toohey believes in data. “In HR, we’ve been too reliant on gut feelings or tradition when making decisions. That has to change. When you treat HR like a product, every decision should be backed by data. Whether it's employee engagement metrics, adoption rates for new tools, or the impact of development programs, data should guide every step. You can’t improve what you don’t measure.”

A successful HR as a product program means using OKRs to drive strategy and execution. Tracking key metrics allows the team to understand where they're succeeding and where adjustments are needed. Dashboards inform daily decisions with real-time data. A collection of metrics—reactive and predictive—on employee engagement, adoption rates, and performance to continuously refine HR as a product.

Just like Patterson's fire shook up his team, HR needs to spark its own change. The future isn't about managing policies—it's about creating products that employees actually want and help drive the business forward.

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Business works because of people.

People have ideas, form decisions, build products, make deals, and count money. Some people specialize in finding, hiring, and growing other people. Lining those people up against a strategy is the path to revenue, scale, and relevance.

All to sell stuff.

Over centuries, humans have figured out how to bring this together—to lead people and manage work. Pharoes handed administrative duties to Viziers. Roman rulers gave authority to Governors in far-flung corners of the empire. They had a word for it; in Latin, delegare: to appoint authority. Feudal monarchs delegated land and authority to Lords, who in turn delegated to vassals in exchange for military service and loyalty.

When Adam Smith proposed a division of labor, breaking down large jobs into smaller tasks, he saw that delegation fueled the Industrial Revolution. Delegation—giving someone the choice, agency, and autonomy to complete tasks or make decisions on your behalf—makes the world go round.

But what if it doesn’t?

Without delegation to grease the gears of business, work gums up. Without delegation, you have frazzled leaders, team members twiddling thumbs, bottlenecks, slow progress, increased errors—in short, increased bureaucracy, and a lack of speed.

Delegation equals drive.

In his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Dan Pink argues that traditional rewards—money, and bonuses—are table stakes in the motivation game. What ups the ante is autonomy—the desire to direct our own lives, mastery—the urge to get better at something, and purpose—the need to find meaning in our work.

Drive and delegation go hand in hand.

Delegation inherently gives aligned autonomy—team members have the intrinsic motivation of control over their own tasks; leaders have alignment against the greater goals.

Delegation allows team members to take on new tests of skill and strive for mastery. Work without challenge is dull; challenge allows growth. Challenging work continuously improves the capability of your team.

Delegation helps people connect to purpose. They feel trusted. Shared context and meaningful tasks allow people to see the impact of their work and know their contributions matter.

What stops delegation?

For first-time leaders and even experienced executives, delegation can be difficult. There are many reasons, some based on personal factors, some systemic, and some practical.

Personal factors: Individually, we fear loss of control or may have a streak of perfectionism. We may resist delegation—as ‘doing’ is wrapped up in our identity; we’re emotionally invested in specific tasks, or we believe ourselves to be the ‘go-to’ for that type of work and don’t want to give it up.

Systemic barriers: These may be more perceived than real. Functionally, we may lack trust in the team’s abilities or want to maintain control of key relationships in the organization. Strategically, we may worry that delegation will further misalignment or that a delegate’s lack of context will hamper execution. Operational factors may hinder delegation. Cultural norms around hierarchy and bureaucracy, or misaligned incentives.

Practical issues: These largely stem from poor prioritization, poor communication, and large backlogs of work. Time shrinks. Work becomes urgent and overwhelming. Everyone, eventually, prioritizes, but without clear goals (OKRs), inefficiencies build up. Team members pick and choose their own work, work in a fire-fighting mode, or a last-in, first-out system.

Personal factors

• Fear of loss of control
• Perfectionism
• Personal attachment to tasks
• Identity and role perception

Systemic barriers

• Lack of trust in team members
• Control over key relationships
• Fear of misalignment
• Organizational culture
• Misalignment of incentives

Practical issues

• Poor prioritization
• Poor communication
• Large backlogs of work

If you don’t delegate effectively, one or more of these reasons is in play, masquerading with the thought, “It’s easier to do it myself.” The non-delegators may recognize themselves once they recognize their other lament, “I have no time to do anything.”

The result: a team optimized around you rather than an optimized team.

How do I delegate?

What can you—practically—do to achieve delegation mastery? to move from frazzled to focused, twiddling thumbs to taking action, bottlenecks to breakthroughs, slow to swift, and from increased errors to increased execution?

Here are six practices to try on for size.

1. Embrace (a little bit of) imperfection.
2. Let go.
3. Context matters.
4. Rethink your role.
5. Share the load.
6. Optimize the team.

The goal with all of these is to drive scale and speed in what you do and remove yourself as a bottleneck.

#1. Embrace (a little bit of) imperfection.

Here, you're likely tackling a fear of losing control and a streak of perfectionism. This is something I struggle with. It’s not uncommon to think others can’t or won’t meet your standards or that only you can do the job right.

Start small with low-risk tasks. Delegate a specific, non-critical, low stakes, task to a team member, something routine or administrative. Make this a weekly practice. Every week, choose a different small task to delegate, with the reminder that the goal is progress, not perfection.

Set clear standards and step back. If you choose a task that is slightly more significant, get clear on the outcome and any critical standards that must be met. Take the time to communicate those standards and outcomes, and schedule a midway check-in to ensure alignment. Remember that’s an opportunity for you to teach and offer guidance, not micromanage.

It’s a hard message to hear, but you’re training yourself as much as you’re training the team.

#2. Let go.

If you’re not sure of your team’s abilities, or you worry that delegation will lead to poor outcomes, you need to let go.

Assign a low-risk project. It might be managing a recurring process or an upcoming event. Make it a habit to make sure you’re delegating a couple of these low-risk projects every month. As above, you’re clear on outcomes and standards, and stepping back. Learn from the project as well. Conduct retrospectives, where team members are encouraged to share their perspectives, what they learned, and what they want to work on for next time.

It could be the relationship you’re afraid to let go of, not the work.

Invite a team member to a key meeting. In the beginning, this could be just to observe the dynamics between different stakeholders and a deeper context around their work. You might want to add your team member’s involvement—ask for their point of view or contribution. Most importantly, debrief with them after to provide the subtext and political nuances.

The goal is to build your comfort with your team’s comfort level—making sure they can step in on your behalf.

#3 Context matters.

In any organization, the higher you climb, the broader your view becomes. A CEO will naturally see things differently from a customer service rep. It’s this divergence in perspective that stymies delegation. On one hand, you have the “bigger picture” and “strategic context;” on the other, you have the “technical expertise” and “day-to-day realities."

It’s not that one perspective is more important or valid than the other; both are essential to success. However, the CEO’s viewpoint is perceived as more critical, leading to concerns that subordinates lack the necessary strategic context to make critical decisions.

This perspective gap can make leaders hesitant to delegate, fearing that team members lack the necessary political insight or strategic understanding, all adding to the bottleneck and bureaucracy.

Share the strategic context. This could be a briefing document or briefing session. Either way, it includes the strategic objectives around the work, context, social dynamics, and political nuances. Share the interests and agendas of different stakeholders, the optics around the situation, as well as any potential landmines to avoid.

Make sure that the briefing is not a one-time deal but an ongoing conversation with your team.

Leading is not parenting. It’s not a leader's job to shield team members from the political realities of a job but to educate them on it.

#4 Rethink your role.

If you’re emotionally invested in specific jobs, it’s hard to let go. For me, that’s creative and strategic processes. Whatever it is that you are attached to—even if you see it as integral to who you are—delegation means letting go.

Identify what you typically hold onto. List them. They probably align with your strengths and interests, or you see them as critical to your role. Find a trusted team member, and delegate one of those jobs to them.

At the beginning, you may collaborate on the work. Later, you may allow them to run with it. Work with them one-on-one to talk about “why it's good”—a ritual that looks at the work and how to improve—build a shared understanding of standards and what good looks like.

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

#5 Share the load.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it’s faster to do something yourself rather than taking the time to teach someone else. That’s short-term, tactical thinking. When everything is on fire, work is overwhelming; it can feel impossible to find the time to delegate.

Use OKRs to align and prioritize. Clear goals define what success looks like. The team is aligned; everyone understands the most important priorities and how their work ladders up to those goals. Discuss them frequently. Align all work to your OKRs.

Every year, set your OKRs. Every quarter, adjust them. Every week, prioritize and delegate tasks that move you toward those goals.

Create patterns of work. Every job has recurring tasks, routines, and standard operating procedures. Look out for them. Make it your job to build patterns for the team, or better yet, delegate that to a trusted team member.  Build guidelines, templates, and checklists to support the work and increase the flow and quality of work through the team.

Your job is to build systems, not bottlenecks, and create scale.

#6 Optimize the team.

Hubs and spokes are great for wheels but terrible for teams. In teams, hubs—leaders—become natural bottlenecks for centralized decision-making and a hurdle slowing execution. Everything must pass through the leader, reducing the capacity of the team to act.

For the leader, naturally in the center of the action and privy to flows of information, it feels like they are running at max capacity. But in reality, the team’s performance is sub-optimal.

Decentralizing authority—delegating—allows team members to take action without seeking prior approval. It frees you from the daily grind of decision-making, soothing the feeling of “herding cats.” This leads to faster execution, increased innovation, and a more engaged team.

Autonomy and the ability to operate without constant oversight are a characteristic of a high-performing team.

Invest time in coaching. Set aside a specific time each week to coach team members on tasks. Teach. This is an investment in efficiency. It’s an investment in the next generation of leaders. While it might take more time upfront, it pays dividends in the long run.

Align to and run to OKRs. Clear goals, and constant communication around those goals, allow the team to operate more independently. In staff meetings, make sure what you’re working on is clearly aligned against those goals, and use OKRs as tie-breakers in prioritization decisions. When everyone understands how their work aligns with OKRs, daily tasks become more meaningful, driving motivation and accountability across the team.

Constantly raise standards. A leader’s job is to set the tone, connect the dots, and push. The easiest way to push is to raise standards. Set challenging but realistic deadlines. Communicate new expectations clearly, and regularly check in when you are stretching the team to higher standards.

Move from being a bottleneck to a springboard for scale.

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There are two types of power in organizations; hierarchical power and storytelling power.

Hierarchical power comes from position on an org chart. This is hard power endowed by title: Director of disruption, SVP of synergy, Grand Poobah of best practices. Your boss, and your boss’s boss. That power, simply put, is the ability to compel action. It's not absolute, and it can be abused.

The limits of hierarchical power are tested by culture, intransigence, lack of know-how, or the ability to work the system. You see its limits with a team that swirls, scrambles, or hunkers down. Faced with change, the unit motto is “This too shall pass.” Inaction leads to reaction; a spiral of bosshole behaviors: micromanagement, dismissiveness, or favoritism.

All of this can be remedied by the other type of power: storytelling power. This is a soft power that influences behavior and inspires action. It is the carrot to hierarchical power’s stick—the ability to shape culture, drive change, and create movements.

So, how do you tap into this storytelling superpower? Is there a silver bullet, a magic bean, or a genie in a lamp? Not quite. Instead, a humdrum list, hard work, and practice: six ways to up your storytelling game:

#1. Understand the structure and mechanics of story.

#2. Read, write, write.

#3. Get people and politics.

#4. Speak.

#5. Cultivate empathy.

#6. Collect and curate stories.

#1. Understand the structure and mechanics of story.

Stories are vehicles of influence; information daubed with emotion that wriggles into your brain. They have common elements: heroes, villains, inciting incidents, magic bullets, and highs and lows. The hero is your audience, the villain is the problem they're struggling with, the inciting incident is the spark of your idea, the magic bullet a solution, all strung together with “but,” “therefore,” and “meanwhile” to keep the highs high and the lows low.

Use tools to help you understand your audience, such as a T-leaf. Get comfortable with concrete language, and learn basic story structures—a hook, meat, and payoff.

Your structure carries the story, giving a familiar and followable cadence. Use visuals to amplify the mechanics of your story—to highlight major points, explain nuanced topics, or help people remember.

#2. Read, write, write.

Words are the fundamental unit of communication. Business storytelling requires that you string them together in a commercially rewarding order. That you choose words that stick. Vivid, relatable phrases to inspire.

This starts by paying attention to what moves you. This could be a line of dialogue, a lyric, or a passage in a book. Rarely is it a bullet on a PowerPoint slide. That wordplay, with statistical certainty, will be a rhetorical device: a metaphor, a word hack, allusions, or parallels.

Write for clarity, brevity, and impact. Author and writer Nicolas Cole advises a rapid rate of reveal—make your point and move on. Don't dwell or meander, slot your argument together quickly, each line punching through a new piece of information.

Use emojis. 😉 Founders of news organization Axios, and authors of the book, Smart Brevity, Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz, have fully embraced the humble emoji as a cornerstone of the modern world. In their words, “Take an emoji for a 🏃. Your results will be a 🥇.”

One last tip to practice in your writing, from Gary Provost, author of 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing. “Don’t just write words. Write music.”

#3. Get people and politics.

Storytelling is human engineering. The engineering part is easy, the human part is hard. Understanding those humans, their wants and needs, hopes and fears, is basic physics. So too, is navigating the political currents they swim in.

The motive triangle is a simple tool to divine the agenda of your audience. Never mind the ruthless logic of your business case, what are your audience’s secret wishes? What are their hopes and fears?

Answering that question gives you insight into their agenda—a baby step in negotiating organizational politics. Add to that a sense of timing and optics—when to position something and how. Using opportunities to presell ideas, or using your political capital to gain air cover. Politics, in this sense, isn't a dirty word, it's a Latin one: gravitas, the weight and influence you hold within the organization.

Tailor your stories to address the concerns, interests, and aspirations of different audiences; make your narrative relevant and persuasive.

#4. Speak.

“It” —whatever it is, has to sound good. Word choice gets you some of the way, but the way you say it carries even more weight. Tone, emphasis, and pacing can turn whatever you say into something better. This is why Morgan Freeman reading a shopping list sounds profound.

Before you rush out for elocution lessons, remember there is no one right way to present. Robin Williams was frenetic. Steven Wright is deadpan. Where Williams would electrify a crowd with his energetic delivery, Wright would use simple, mundane phrases that, on their own, aren't particularly funny. However, his monotonous tone, slow pacing, and deliberate pauses make the delivery work. For example, he might say, "I spilled spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone." The humor doesn't just come from the clever wordplay, but from the way Wright delivers it—completely deadpan, as if it's a serious matter.

In speaking—especially in a business context—you want to be authentically you, but the best version of you. Are you clear and concise? How do you add ‘entertaining?’ Are you witty and memorable, but need to be more crisp? Know what’s missing and work on it.

Whether you're presenting an idea, giving feedback, or telling a story, how you speak can make all the difference in engaging and persuading your audience. It's not just what you say, but how you say it.

#5. Cultivate empathy.

Storytelling is an exercise in emotion. It’s minimal. With a story conveying some information and sensation, it leaves the audience to fill in gaps. Ultimately, a story is a shared experience between the teller and the told. Subtlety and nuance, not technical detail, make a story sing.

Empathy plays a crucial role in creating emotional impact. People will forget what you said, but—according to Maya Angelou—they will never forget how you made them feel. Empathy, as a storyteller, is the fuel for context and subtext.

Cognitive empathy, aka "perspective-taking," aka “walking in someone else’s shoes,” provides a glimpse into what someone else is feeling or thinking. It allows storytellers to tailor messages that resonate, ensuring relevance and effectiveness.

Compassionate empathy; caring for and wanting to help your audience, fosters trust, encouraging the audience to engage with you as a storyteller. This form of empathy is not just about understanding or sharing someone’s feelings, but also about being moved to supportive action.

Empathy goes beyond sharing stories, it forges bonds.

#6. Collect and curate stories.

Everyone has experiences. Life, happening in moments that are funny or sad, surprising or routine. We all have triumphs and disappointments. Your job as a storyteller is to collect and hone them. Figure out what makes the story work; what to keep in, and what to leave out. What to embellish, and what to downplay.

These become your signature stories. A repository of narratives that suit the situation. They have a moral, a surprise, or a lesson learned. They establish a point of view or highlight a value. There are origin stories—how you started in a particular place or field; stories of triumph over adversity, with a moral to keep going; horror stories of mistakes you have made and learned from.

They all have one thing in common—they're compelling. But that’s not all. They stick in the mind, becoming stories your audience won’t easily forget. They’re relatable, striking a chord with universal truths we all share.

Most importantly, they're authentic, grounded in reality that cuts through the noise. This authenticity gives your stories weight, making them more than just narratives. They resonate, leaving a lasting impact and sometimes, maybe a little, prompting change.

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Almost 4,000 subscribers, nearly 60 articles, and a good chunk of them about storytelling. Here they are, organized for you.

Storytelling essentials.

Simplicity in storytelling:

Why do we make it so complicated?

Simplicity is a leadership superpower that combats the villain of complication by making complex processes and communications clear and accessible.

Frame and Action:

Cut through the noise.

Cut through the noise by framing your message effectively and inspiring action to ensure clear and impactful communication.

Abstract to concrete:

We’re not as concrete as we could be.

Concrete language improves communication by making complex ideas clearer, actionable, and memorable, avoiding the pitfalls of abstraction.

Storytelling tools.

T-leaf:

Good communication, duh.

Good communication requires clarity, simplicity, and relevance to effectively capture attention and convey messages in an overwhelming information landscape.

Motive Triangle:

“Narrative” is never enough.

Emotion is the crucial ingredient that transforms a well-reasoned narrative into a compelling story that moves people to action.

Wordplay in storytelling:

A guide to word hacking.

Use novel, attention-grabbing words to engage your audience, but avoid overuse to keep your message fresh and impactful.

Structure in storytelling:

Three little words to tell a better story.

Use "but," "therefore," and "meanwhile" to create engaging and logical connections in your storytelling, avoiding monotonous and boring narratives.

Effective beginnings.

Hooks:

How to begin.

Begin your presentation with a strong hook to capture attention, making your message compelling from the start.

Story beginnings:

In the beginning.

Engage your audience by starting with a strong hook and using narrative techniques that evoke emotion and convey information effectively.

Importance of business storytelling.

Business storytelling:

Why business needs stories.

Business needs stories to effectively exchange information and influence decisions, ultimately increasing value and creating a shared context for success.

Data storytelling:

The greatest data story ever told.

Effective data storytelling is about making clear, concise, and relevant comparisons that evoke emotion and stick in the audience's memory.

Storytelling for strategy and change.

Translating strategy:

What was your strategy again?

Most people don't understand their company's strategy because it's often buried in complex jargon and lacks clear communication.

Leadership storytelling:

Seven stories of leadership and change.

Effective leadership during change requires telling clear, consistent stories that provide clarity, purpose, and direction, helping people navigate uncertainty and understand their roles.

Crafting a strategic narrative:

Building blocks and strategic narrative.

A strategic narrative combines clear strategy with compelling stories to align and engage people, driving successful change.

Using stories to lead change:

Change stories.

There are two stories essential to driving change in a business: Story 1 and Story 2. Story 1 is about the journey, Story 2 is the destination. To lead change, it’s essential to tell both stories.

Storytelling for business impact.

Message Discipline:

Master Message Discipline.

Mastering message discipline involves delivering clear, consistent, and emotionally engaging communication to drive alignment and action.

Product storytelling:

Product storytelling.

Effective product storytelling turns ideas into compelling narratives that emotionally engage and resonate with different audiences, driving adoption and success.

Leaders tell stories:

Leadership stories.

Leaders use memorable phrases to teach key values like accountability, improvement, vision, hard work, knowledge, action, service, and teamwork.

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On a cold April day in Portland, Oregon, in 2010, Dan McLaughlin putted for two hours. Dan, a commercial photographer, had never played 18 holes of golf in his life. Those two hours on a putting green were the start of an ambitious journey. Dan set out to test Dr. K. Anders Erickson’s 10,000-hour theory. He had 9,998 hours to go.

The 10,000-hour theory proposed by Erickson is this—it takes 10,000 hours of what Erickson called deliberate practice to excel at any skill. Erickson noted, “Elite performers engage in what we call ‘deliberate practice’–an effortful activity designed to improve individual target performance.” He found top practitioners—in any field— needed roughly 10,000 hours of ‘deliberate practice’ to become world-class.

Malcolm Gladwell, Geoff Colvin, and—can you believe it?—Justin Beiber have popularized the 10,000-hour theory.

At 5,100 hours, four years and halfway into the ‘Dan Plan,’ McLaughlin was a 3.3 handicap golfer. Then his back gave out.

You can get better at anything you do, any skill, with deliberate practice. Obviously, there are limits, as Dan found out. Outside factors: age, opportunities to train, your physicality, dexterity... Perhaps the largest limit is the muscle between your ears — do you have the passion and persistence to get better?

Dan did.

He went from a hacker to a three-handicap golfer in under four years.

If you want, with time and deliberate practice, you can improve at anything, whether it’s cooking or critical thinking, lacrosse or leadership, dancing, or data visualization.

Six practices will sweeten your deliberate practice:

#1. Enjoy the process.

#2. Break practice down.

#3. Make feedback work for you.

#4. Practice at the edge of your comfort zone.

#5. Use tools and play games.

#6. Keep going.

#1. Enjoy the process.

If you believe you can’t, you won’t.

If you don’t like it, despite all the willpower in the world, you won’t do it. To get better at anything, you must learn and practice. Enjoy the process; turn learning and rehearsal into a virtuous cycle. That cycle is a flywheel of positive feedback.

Begin with the belief that you can improve through practice.

Belief is your motivational fuel. Start your study with the parts you enjoy. Take any skill. You might enjoy research—hate public speaking—but, you want to improve.

To get started, start with what you like. In this case, it might be researching what “good looks like” in public speaking. You may move on to active listening, paying attention to what people say and how they say it.

That’s the first step on the flywheel.

You’re starting to enjoy the process. As you enjoy the process, you engage more deeply. Focus is easier. Learning improves. Note small improvements. You might reflect, doodle, or journal your journey.

The more you see improvement, the more you believe you can.

Mix fun elements into your routine. Perhaps you’re listening to your favorite music while you drill. You may choose to rehearse in inspiring or comfortable settings. Try habit stacking—incorporate your training into something you already habitually do and enjoy. If you enjoy walking the dog, try running through routines that are part of your practice while you do it.

Above all, celebrate the tiniest victories. They add fuel to keep you going.

#2. Break practice down.

Skills are made from smaller skills.

Good golfers can hole three-foot putts with metronomic reliability. They can bomb drives and shape shots. They’re confident chippers and great green readers.

All a host of small skills; never practiced all at once.

Effective communicators are clear thinkers. They’re active listeners who pay full attention to others. They speak clearly, often in threes or repetitive structures. They have picked up, by osmosis or study, rhetorical devices in their repertoire. They tell stories; they know when to pause; when to breathe. They know their own verbal fillers and tics and work on them.

To practice deliberately, break out sub-skills and work on them.

Chunk the sub-skills you are after into checklists to track progress and ensure thorough preparation. Two seemingly opposite, science-backed approaches work here—sequential tasking and interleaving skills.

Sequential tasking is best used early in learning.

Build the foundational skills you need—hitting a ball or creating a logical talk track. Sequential tasking suggests that you pursue the next logical step once you have the first small skill down. Once you have a clear talk track, you might want to figure out how to edit it for rhythm. Both are separate but related sub-skills.

Interleaving skills places you on the path to mastery.

Here, you alternate between related skills during training sessions. Take a critical presentation, and instead of working from beginning to end, tackle the middle. Later in the session, you might rehearse your opening. You might switch to transitions, then tackle answering tricky questions.

Interleaving skills is a fancy term for practicing chunks in random order. This method of switching deepens learning and retention; it’s a good proxy for real-world situations—prepping you for when, inevitably, things don’t go to plan.

#3. Make feedback work for you.

Olympic athletes and Formula One drivers use feedback.

They study film, pore over data, and bring in coaches to give them guidance in real time. Feedback can work for you, too, but first, you have to learn to like it. In business, this is tough because most feedback is delivered poorly.

Establish feedback loops for yourself.

These feedback loops can be formal or informal. At fassforward, my co-CEO, Dave Frost, and I run a 360 on ourselves every year. It’s the same process we use with our coaching clients, but it has a double benefit for us. First—we get candid, thoughtful, and themed feedback on our performance and areas of opportunity. Second, we get to experience the process ourselves—eat our own dog food or drink our own champagne—and find ways to improve the process.

Digital feedback tools are helpful. Hemingway app, for example, is a tool that delivers real-time critique of your writing. You might use polling tools like Slido in your presentations to build interaction and see what’s landing.

Encourage constructive criticism on the team.  Run “why it’s good” sessions. These sessions look at the work product of the team (or related work product). Setting aside the time and space for teams to think deeply about their work builds the lesser-used muscle of critique and creates a safe space where constructive feedback is valued. It allows you to regularly review each others’ work to provide insights.

The rise of AI gives you another powerful feedback tool. You can use it to find key opportunities. Prompt ChatGPT (or whatever tool you use) with the raw material you wish to improve—this could be captured feedback, the transcript of a Zoom call, or your work product, and prompt the AI for feedback. Use terms like “themes,” “polarities,” or “unusual ideas” in the prompt.

This will render a more palatable, easily digestible view.

#4. Practice at the edge of your comfort zone.

Don’t practice from a couch.

This metaphorical advice is, perhaps, the most important element of your practice. Practice can’t be too easy. Stress teaches us. It rewires our grey matter.

Neuroscientist and author Friederike Fabritius argues that we all have a “sweet spot” of stress. Too little arousal and we get no benefit; too much, and our performance diminishes. Our brains want to conserve energy, so we won't reach our full potential unless challenged. Without some stress, we’re bored and unfocused.

In short, we need to get to the edge of our comfort zone.

Fabritius advises finding our optimal stress point, which "occurs when you are just slightly over-challenged. ... We need to experience fun to get into flow, and a little bit of fear is just the trick we need to get there.”

In flow, we are distraction-free, with complete concentration on the task at hand. Time slows. Things become easier. We’re at the tipping point between challenge and skill. It’s our state of peak performance and where we should aim to practice.

We can nudge ourselves there through controlled challenges, slowly increasing the difficulty of the task at hand and increasing stress. We can simulate high pressure. Use time constraints, peer pressure, or role-play complex situations, all ratcheting up stress and pushing us to the edge of our comfort zone.

Practice in a stressful place at a challenging pace.

#5. Use tools and play games.

Fun is part of flow.

Dopamine flows—we feel good. Our brains tickle with endorphins—the pain relievers that give us a “runner’s high.” A squirt of oxytocin—the cuddle hormone—kicks in. This is crucial to the process of forgetting old learned behavior, allowing us to learn the new.

This is why games work.

Gamification has been over-used in learning. It’s become a hodge-podge of points and scoring, badges, rewards, and leaderboards. Challenges and quests compete with levels and progression, storytelling, narrative, and visual design.

And in all that, we can’t forget the fun.

You don’t need badges. We made up games in the schoolyard; you can do it for yourself and your teams decades later. Just rid yourself of the professional embarrassment of childish things and embrace your inner child.

Build tools.

After all, that is the most basic human characteristic. We picked up stones to cut, chop, and scrape. We made fire. Bring that tool-making to your practice.

Use basic apps like MURAL or Miro to create frameworks, simulators, and collaboration spaces.

#6. Keep going.

Like anything in life, you have to keep going.

The wonder drug that makes you an overnight expert hasn’t been invented yet. If the books are right, you might need to dedicate 10,000 hours. So you must keep going.

Put aside time. Set yourself a schedule. Set micro-quotas to bring you back to practice. Create rituals. Little routines that enhance your focus and readiness. Teach others. You get better by helping others get better. It deepens your understanding. Explaining, showing, and answering questions are all on the path to mastery.

Along the way, embrace errors. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn.

How do you practice?

To quote Dan McGlaughlin, “The word ‘talent’ gets thrown around too much. What makes someone ‘talented’ is a single-mindedness to push through the lows and to allow themselves to change and grow.”¹

If that’s true, your skill at anything you do is dependent on your focus, the work you put in, and how you practice. Ask yourself first what skill you want to develop. Do you practice? And then, do you deliberately practice?

Talent isn’t genetic or ordained. It comes from work and will.

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At fassforward, we don't just offer intern work experience; we ignite their potential and transform it into excellence.

Our interns don't just participate; they lead, innovate, and collaborate. We believe that by equipping young professionals with essential skills and providing them with opportunities to contribute meaningfully, we can foster the next generation of leaders. 

In this article, we share key insights and experiences from our current interns, Logan and Adam, to help you refine and enhance your own intern programs. 

Whether you're looking to increase productivity, improve collaboration, or encourage initiative, these firsthand accounts offer practical advice and inspiration.

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1. Productivity Tips: Get into the Suite 

Logan: At fassforward, much of your work will involve having a solid understanding of technology and how to use it to enhance your productivity. 

We embrace AI as a powerful tool to enhance our consulting and coaching services. Learning to leverage AI is key to streamlining tasks and boosting efficiency. One of my own personal go-to tools throughout my internship is ChatGPT, which replicates natural speech patterns to our work faster and more productive. 

Another tool we frequently rely on is Google Sheets. During my time at The University of Richmond, I learned various Google Sheets formulas and shortcuts that significantly enhance efficiency.  One specific project I did employing my skills at fassforward is using a formula to connect information between two separate workbooks. These skills have proven invaluable in my daily workflows at fassforward, enabling me to analyze data more quickly, create detailed reports, and streamline numerous tasks.

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Adam: An advantage of having a well-developed tech structure is that communication is super easy. As a hybrid office, we have to be flexible as we work. By using Google Suite, I’m able to quickly connect and collaborate. Instead of waiting for an email chain for clarification or the next steps, I’m able to quickly hop on a call and make progress. 

Another key feature of our tech suite is Mural, a virtual whiteboard essential for virtual teamwork. While there was a brief learning curve, it quickly became my most powerful tool. I can use it as a central spot for ideation, compare workshop formats, and tie together big ideas, all on the same board as my teammates. 

Through the efforts of my mentors and I, my understanding of our tech suite enables me to tackle projects faster and produce better outcomes. Taking the time to begin this process has yielded great results. 

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2. Collaboration is Crucial: Build Those Relationships

Logan: Collaboration is especially important for interns. My fellow intern, Adam, and I are teaming up to develop AI models to integrate companywide, aimed at boosting the company's efficiency. 

Working together allows us to combine our skills and ideas, proving that two brains really are better than one. By pooling our resources and expertise, we're able to tackle challenges more effectively and innovate in ways we couldn't on our own.

Working with my mentor, Cristina,and absorbing the insights and lessons she’s shared has been one of the most positive experiences of my internship so far. Cristina has been incredible, not just in teaching me essential business skills and guiding me through various projects, but also in explaining why these skills and projects matter. She’s made me feel like I have a genuine role at fassforward, giving me confidence and a sense of belonging within the team. Her mentorship goes beyond just the tasks at hand; it’s about understanding the bigger picture and my contribution to it.

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Adam: The greatest privilege I’ve had throughout this internship is developing a great relationship with my mentor, Brandon. As our creative director, Brandon touches on almost every application of creativity and design thinking in the firm.  The conversations we have are beyond simple technical competence, and I get to learn from years of experience in leadership, work ethic, and finding purpose. Having the opportunity to learn from and work alongside a veteran creative thinker is helping me grow like never before. 

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3. Employ Strategic Self-Awareness: Play Your Strengths, Minimize  Your Weaknesses

Logan: Being conscious of your role and presence when working with others is key. If you're collaborating on a project and recognize your strengths in one area while acknowledging that your colleague excels in another, it's important to communicate that openly. 

Additionally, understanding how others not only communicate but also think can help you better connect with them. At fassforward, we use a tool called the Thinking Patterns survey, which helps leaders identify and appreciate the diverse ways people process information and make decisions. This insight allows for more effective collaboration and ensures everyone's strengths are leveraged to achieve the best outcomes.

Sharing this awareness not only fosters a more collaborative environment but also ensures that everyone can play to their strengths, leading to a more successful outcome. 

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Adam: At fassforward, we often refer to our thinking styles to help discuss strengths and weaknesses.  (I personally am an Evangelist!). This helps us identify how we can help contribute to projects, and potential blind spots. 

In our internships, we are applying ourselves further, honing in on areas of growth. I’ve developed confidence in my attention to detail through workshop review projects, identifying key opportunities for further engagement. I’ve also grown my comfort in a rapidly changing professional setting. My contributions to engaging projects have pushed my creative mindset into overdrive. 

4. Time Management: Learn to Multitask

Logan: I'm juggling multiple projects simultaneously, so I prefer not to be frequently checked on or assigned tasks sporadically. Instead, I like to receive all my work at once. This approach might make it seem like I have a lot to handle at once, so I need to prioritize my tasks and set clear deadlines.

For example, the "Touch/Task" tool is a method used at fassforward to help leaders balance the relationship with their team members alongside the tasks that need to be accomplished.

 Understanding the touch and task balance is crucial here; touch refers to the level of interaction and check-ins, while task focuses on the specific work that needs to be done. By minimizing touch and managing tasks efficiently, I can maintain a productive workflow.

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Adam: I prefer to hone in on one individual project, but I always have more on my plate. Having great time management skills has been crucial to my success across my workshop engagement projects, strategy gamification work, and other collaborations. I’ve relied on setting personal deadlines, and establishing good planning through task breakdowns and Google calendar. This puts me ahead of schedule, and gives me room to dive in deep on my work.

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5. Take Initiative: Reach Out.

Logan: At fassforward, our culture thrives on support and collaboration, where everyone works together to achieve our goals. Everyone here is more than willing to help if you just ask. It’s really important to reach out because if I don’t, I might miss out on valuable guidance and assistance. Internships are a fantastic opportunity to build your skills and gain insights, but it’s up to you to take the initiative. Set up meetings, engage with your colleagues, and learn from their experiences.

It’s all about being proactive and making the most of the resources and people around you. For instance, I'm really interested in the financial aspects of our business. I reached out to our Head of Finance, Max Cohen, and he's been incredibly helpful. Max has taken the time to walk me through various financial practices, including how to file invoices and handle expense reports. Thanks to his guidance, I've gained a much clearer understanding of our financial operations.

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Adam: My favorite aspect of our culture is the encouragement of questions.  When I want to understand the deeper purpose of a project, or how to prepare it for scale, there’s no information held back. When I’m targeting the minutia, like “why is this our shade of green,” I know that detail hasn’t been overlooked. And when I have ideas on how I can contribute, I know my voice will be heard.

But in order for my questions to be answered or my contributions acknowledged, I have to take initiative and reach out. Having an internship where I am not only supported, but encouraged to reach out has allowed me to achieve so much further than I thought possible.

6. Foster a Growth Mindset: Make the Mistake 

Logan: Starting my internship at fassforward, everything was a fresh experience. The only thing I was certain about was that I would make mistakes. These mistakes, however, have been my gateway to new ideas and invaluable lessons. 

Embracing a growth mindset during your internship is crucial because it helps you understand that progress isn't always straightforward and that mistakes are a natural part of the learning process

For example, one of my tasks as an intern is to create LinkedIn posts for fassforward. Initially, I wrote my first post in my own style instead of using fassforward's voice. After realizing my mistake, I took the opportunity to understand fassforward's unique language and style, enabling me to craft better posts in the future. 

It might be intimidating to stumble as an intern, but accepting and learning from your mistakes is the key to gaining real, tangible insights.

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Adam: Embarking on an internship with a growth mindset is needed to get down to execute.

As a newcomer to any organization, you’ll lack context and knowledge of long-standing projects. Asking questions help, but you may not know the right questions to ask. And starting to create a project when you can’t clearly see the deliverable can feel impossible. All of this can be incredibly overwhelming.

A growth mindset reminds us that uncertainty is okay. More than that, the current murkiness is needed for clearer waters in the future. With that in mind, fear can transform from paralyzing, to motivating. When I set out to design a new system or solution, a little uncertainty is part of the game. Taking the creative confidence I’ve developed and applying it to my work at fassforward has let me complete the great work that I want to be doing. 

While developing a new set of talk tracks for our workshops, I realized very quickly that I would need more familiarity with the content to do my best job. Instead of backing down, I was able to schedule viewings of live sessions with our coaches, and with extra effort, successfully completed my project. A few iterations were needed as I learned, but a growth mindset contributed to a great success. 

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Ready to take your internship program to the next level? 
Incorporating the lessons highlighted by our fantastic interns can turn your internship experience from great to transformative.

Imagine interns who are highly productive, thanks to collaborative tools like Google Calendar and Mural. Now, add a supportive environment that encourages initiative and self-discovery through mentorship and collaboration. Combine that with a great mindset, and you’ve got a success story. 

Together, we can nurture the next generation of leaders.

Leaders, I have noticed, tell stories.

Those stories aren’t always long-form. Often, it's a pithy, repeatable phrase that packs a lot of meaning. It is message discipline in the form of aphorisms (a pithy observation that contains a general truth) and axioms (a self-evidently true statement).

Denny Strigl, the former CEO of Verizon Wireless, who oversaw its meteoric growth, had a few. “Inspect what you expect” was an exhortation of accountability and attention to detail. “Shadow of a leader” was a phrase that packed a lot—the idea that everything we do as leaders communicates and has an outsized influence on the team and organization. His successor, Lowell McAdam, employed, “There’s always a higher gear.” An ode to iteration and constant improvement. At Mastercard, former CEO and Chairman Ajay Bhanga encapsulated his vision in “A world beyond cash.” Elon Musk, at SpaceX, goes even bigger—to “make life multiplanetary.”

This truth—that leaders boil down teaching and messaging to a few simple phrases has been around for a long time. It’s not just Stephen Covey, “beginning with the end in mind,” or Tony Robbins, “raising your standards.” The O.G. of leadership maxim-ization adorns the $100 bill—Ben Franklin.

On returning from England in 1726, Franklin started the Junta—a self-help group. He made his fortune in printing, publishing “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” and penned his own leadership guide, “The Way to Wealth,”  in 1751.

Franklin preached practical wisdom and simple rules.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

This aphorism from Poor Richard’s Almanac in 1736 encapsulates the idea that hard work pays off. It’s an idea that’s been around for a while.

Seneca, the Roman Stoic Philosopher,  said, "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." Thomas Jefferson may have picked the sentiment up from Franklin; he said, "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." The notion has transcended industries and disciplines. Sam Goldwyn, the film producer, said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Golfer Gary Player borrowed and altered the quip, “The harder I practice, the luckier I get.”

However you phrase it—there’s no substitute for a good work ethic. Emphasizing the value of hard work is never a bad thing. Creating a culture of proactive effort and perseverance improves the odds of success.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

Franklin wrote this in Poor Richard’s Almanack in 1738. It reflects his belief in making a significant contribution—contributing something valuable and lasting to the world.

The modern version of this is Steve Jobs’s, “We're here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why else even be here?” It’s a refrain you hear in various covers: To make your life a story worth telling. To do work that matters. To inspire and be inspired.

The aphorism elevates the twin virtues of communication and action. Encouraging innovation and creativity, leading by example, and building a legacy. It’s a notion that connects personal contribution and organizational success.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

Another of Franklin’s philosophies from the 1758 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanac—that learning, or knowledge, is the best investment.

Franklin was an avid learner. While he undoubtedly discovered this first-hand, the concept goes back to Aristotle in the 4th century BC, “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” Francis Bacon knew that “Knowledge is power.” Da Vinci was convinced that “Learning never exhausts the mind.” Franklin himself had another—perhaps better— axiom for this, “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.”

It’s an idea that’s repeated by Malcolm X, Gandhi, and B.B. King. Be a student. Be a teacher. Leaders who invest in learning and know-how create a footing for future success. Curiosity is the driver of innovation and the foundation of resilience.

Speak little, do much.

Franklin has been credited with other similar sayings; “Well done is better than well said.” —which sadly doesn’t hold as much water as it used to, and "Speak little, listen much, and learn all you can."

This proverbial wisdom of actions outwitting and outweighing words goes back to Confucious, “The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.” The Roman playwright Plautus picked it up with “Let deeds match words.” In modern idiom, it’s “lead by example,” “walk the talk,” and “show, don’t tell.”

In leadership, showing, not telling, is an astute idea. I’ve written before of the Art Doctrine: “Do something, declare victory, and move on.” Franklin’s commentary is a critical reminder that “the most effective way to do it is to do it.” (Although this version is a cautionary tale, it’s Amelia Earhart’s.)

If you would be served, serve others.

Although not appearing in Poor Richard, this is often attributed to Franklin.

The encouragement of service as a calling dates back to Lao Tzu, “A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” Humble leadership is reflected in the sayings of Gandhi, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others,” Albert Schweitzer, “The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others,” Martin Luther King, “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve,” and Mother Teresa, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

“If you would be served, serve others” is a maxim that promotes servant leadership, builds strong relationships, encourages engagement and a positive work culture. It underscores responsibility and reciprocity.

We must, indeed, all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.

Reputedly, Franklin said this in 1776—a declaration to teamwork and collaboration, spiced with ominous threat.

Again, it’s an old opinion. “United we stand, divided we fall” comes from one of Aesop’s fables, The Four Oxen and the Lion. “All for one and one for all” comes from Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. Shakespeare had it slightly differently, and for once, not quite as catchily, “one for all, or all for one.” Presidents have used it. Abe Lincoln, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Kennedy, “United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do.”

Variations are a staple of modern leadership axioms. “There’s no I in team.” Collaboration and teamwork are principles laid out in employee handbooks everywhere, from Verizon’s credo: “We know teamwork enables us to serve our customers better and faster,” to Allstate’s shared purpose, “Collective Success,” and “Collaboration: Being united helps us reach collective goals and brings out the best in each of us individually.”

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Leaders lead change.

Change must come with a sense of urgency. The longer a transformation is in transition, the more likely it is to fail. So it’s essential leaders grasp two change stories: Story 1 and Story 2.

Story 2 is the destination. The vision. The 'where' and 'why' in "Where are we going and why?"

Story 1 is the journey. The path to get there. This is the 'how' and 'when' in "How do I do that, and by when?"

Both stories are equally important. Symbiotic.

Product people have figured it out.

Imagine you, as a consumer, have just bought a new widget for your home. And let's imagine that the widget has a service element to it. It could be a streaming box, or a doorbell cam, or a fitness tracker. The company that sold it to you has spent millions of dollars on product development, marketing, distribution... All to get that widget into your hands. That's change. It will revolutionize the way you watch TV, or answer your door, or the way you exercise.

But, you leave it in the box. The quick start guide is unread. The widget is never switched on. You paid a product fee but never activated the service.

This is a frustrating partial hit for the company that sold you the widget. When the cost of customer acquisition and the cost of goods sold are accounted for, you, as a customer, are a net loss.

The problem: you were sold on story 2— the destination; but story 1—the journey, never quite landed. This happens more often than you might think. Data isn’t readily available, but an educated guess might put up to ten percent of smart home devices left in the box. This unboxed widget isn’t just a product; in fact, this ‘servicification’ of products to create product-service systems is increasingly common.

Manufacturers work, therefore, on Story 1 and Story 2.

Compare Story 2 for two experiences: setting up cable TV a decade ago to activating a streaming box today. Before; a frustrating, time-consuming process, prone to user error. Today; a streamlined step-by-step and user-friendly experience.

Competition and commercial interest have led businesses to redesign today’s experience; where each missed activation costs money, designers have redesigned the service; where every customer call is expensive, engineers have leaned in; where every frustrated customer review damages the brand; managers have leaped into action.

Not so with change.

In a recent Bain study, only 12% of organizations have undergone transformations where the business outcome has met or exceeded expectations. More often—in three out of four cases—the business settles for mediocre results—and then embarks on another large-scale change within two or three years.

People have to see themselves in the picture.

Inevitably, leaders miss a central tenet of change—that people have to see themselves in the picture. This doesn’t happen, and there are a few reasons why.

In trying to set out the destination (Story 2), the vision is vague or unrealistic. There’s a lack of concreteness. The vision is more Motherhood and Apple Pie and less practical and actionable. Worse, the story is told in business lingo. Story 2 is dry and boring. High on jargon and acronyms; low on relevance and emotion. There’s no message discipline around Story 2, with mixed signals: on Monday, it’s all rah, rah, and strategy; by Friday, it’s back to business as usual.

Story 1, the journey, can miss the mark. When this happens, it’s the 1️⃣,2️⃣,3️⃣ that is missing. The roadmap is unclear, complex, or, worse, ambiguous. The steps are too big; too overwhelming. It ignores the personal challenges and obstacles that people feel—leaving them isolated and unsupported.

What we see most often: Story 2 is told without Story 1, or vice versa.

In the case where it’s all destination (Story 2), there is no movement. There is plenty of ‘why’ and ‘where’—it’s the ‘how’ and ‘when’ that is lacking. In the case where it’s all the journey (Story 1), there’s spin. It’s the classic, “Are we there yet?” A lot of activity, while old ways of doing things get jumbled in with the new, causing overload and burnout.

Fixing Story 2.

Story 2 is the answer to the question, “Where are we going, and why?” This appeals to the thinkers and visionaries in your organization, as well as the team players—those who are committed to doing the right thing.

Painting a rich and detailed picture of the destination—what it will look and feel like for individuals, teams, and the business—is essential. More essential still—is the reason. The rationale has to work at all levels, not just business ROI. Answer these questions:

For Individuals:

1. How will this change impact my job and daily responsibilities?
2. What will my day-to-day work look like once we get there?
3. How will this help me grow and develop?

For teams:

1. How will this lift the team and improve how we work?
2. How will each team member’s role and contribution change?
3. How can our team reinvent itself to thrive in this new direction?

For the business:

1. How does this change fit with our mission and purpose?
2. How does this change strengthen our company’s future?
3. How will this change help us better serve our customers?

You can detail out these questions using the Motive Triangle. This is a tool we use to understand the secret wish of your audience in business storytelling. It is the triangulation of hope, fear, and reason.

Hope moves you further. Fear moves you faster. Reason gives you a story to tell yourself—and others—about why you made the choice you made.

Fixing Story 1.

Story 1 is often misunderstood. It’s not that people haven’t bought into the change—perhaps they have. Story 2 is clear. But people are still doing what they did yesterday.

You are trying to build an army of advocates and change stalls for two reasons; either people are bought into the change, they just don’t know how to do it, or they are exercising a pocket veto, thinking, “This too shall pass.” Both are fixed through Story 1, the journey.

Where Story 2 was ‘where’ and ‘why’ Story 1 is ‘how’ and ‘when.’

Give people clarity on how to get there. This is the equivalent of quick-start guides and step-by-step how-to's.

Establish clear objectives and key results to track progress and keep everyone aligned. These goals are crucial. They have to be translated into the work: setting OKRs, testing OKRs, and running to OKRs.

Most importantly, to clear pocket vetoes, clear the busy work. Remove from people’s ‘todo’ list old work and old ways of working—get rid of anything that isn’t covered by OKRs

Make things concrete. The abstract goal of ‘getting fitter’ (story 2) is not going to have the same impact as a step-by-step plan of dietary changes and exercise routines. It’s as important to say what to do (do this) as it is to say what not to do (not that) when it comes to changing the way we work.

All of this is embedded through rituals. Rituals build habits, and habits build skills. Daily stand-ups build a habit of regular communication, collaboration, and accountability. This has a knock-on effect on skill: improving team coordination, problem-solving, and time management.

To get clearer on Story 1, ask yourself these questions.

For Individuals:

1. What specific steps do I need to take to adapt to this change?
2. What should I start doing and stop doing to align with this change?
3. What resources and support will be available to help me?

For teams:

1. What are the immediate actions we need to take as a team?
2. How can we set and achieve our OKRs to stay on track?
3. What rituals can we establish to reinforce our new way of working?

For the business:

1. What are the key milestones and deadlines we need to meet?
2. What outcomes are we aiming for, and how will we track them?
3. What are the potential risks, and how will we mitigate them?

Message Discipline.

Leaders must seamlessly weave Story 1 and Story 2 together.

Master message discipline. It is crucial in driving change. Story 1 should flow into Story 2, making the journey clear and the destination compelling. This requires consistent communication, reinforcing the narrative across all levels of the organization. Share stories of progress, celebrate small wins, and remind everyone of the ultimate goal.

By telling both stories effectively, leaders can inspire action, maintain momentum, and achieve lasting change.

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Execution validates strategy.

That’s a Rose-ism—a piece of axiomatic lore that sounds right and is right. Strong execution of a bad strategy may feel good but won’t get you where you want to go. Flailing execution of a good strategy leads to finger-pointing, failure, and a return to the drawing board.

Whatever your job, it’s your job to execute.

The word comes from the Latin Exsequi—a fancy way of saying ‘to carry out.’  More Latin—Acta Non Verba; deeds, not words.

The least fancy way to say it—GSD. Get s*** done.

Exsequi is the root word for Executive. It’s the foundation of executive function—the part of our brain that handles carrying out tasks and making decisions. It’s the nub of executive presence—which returns us nicely to deeds, not words.

But what does all this Latin and wordsmithery mean, practically? It means:

1. Getting to outcomes, not scheduling tasks.
2. Getting to, not putting off. Acting with urgency and pushing.
3. Simplifying, Saying no, removing things, not adding things.
4. Building capability and muscle on the team.
5. Translating, not auditing.
6. Giving people the space to lead change.

For some, it’s in the job title—executive. But how do you get better at this Excsequi thing?

#1. Work to outcomes, not tasks.

The biggest obstacle to GSD—the ‘D.’

When you’re looking down the barrel of an imminent product launch, about to go live with an event; you find dots left unconnected.  D becomes delay, not done.

You walk through the project plan. The team reports in. “My part works.” Each team member has checked off their task. “I did my bit.” But it doesn’t all work. And it only works—whatever it is—when it all works.

Many of us share a bad habit in the pursuit of productivity: focusing on managing tasks rather than on outcomes. Outcomes are the north star; tasks are just steps along the path. In the endorphin rush of finishing something, we forget the end result is what counts. Activity doesn’t matter, and how hard everyone worked doesn’t matter.

As a leader, you have to prioritize strategic objectives over transactional work. We have to continually connect dots—deeply understand customer needs—focus on solutions, not problems. This is an outcome mindset. It means leading the team to work systemically rather than tick off problems.

If this is something you want to practice, try asking yourself this:

What are we trying to achieve that will always be true? E.g., Customers will always want...

Does this task move the ball forward? How does it connect to the outcome?

What is the biggest barrier we have to remove to get to this outcome?

We have to lift our heads up when we have the urge to put our heads down.

#2. Act with and instill urgency.

Speed matters.

Speed captures competitive advantage. Speedy responses equal happy customers. Speed closes deals. Speed is the secret sauce behind innovation. But it's easy to give in to inertia.

Top executives have a bias for action. They roll up their sleeves and act. They hold people to a higher standard. They continually build momentum. They know that a good decision now with imperfect information will beat a perfect decision later. What they seek to avoid—missed opportunities; competitors moving faster, and seizing advantage.

Deadlines matter.

The little ritual of small, measurable goals with clear deadlines. “So, Julie, this will be sent out end of day Tuesday?” It’s amazing how many meetings are held without these small details—assigning a single person with a specific date. More likely, there’s a laundry list, with groups of people attached to it and a vague “as soon as possible.” As soon as possible leaves too much wiggle room.

Keep the momentum going with regular updates, celebrating wins, and providing help and clarity. Remove obstacles that get in the way. Encourage quick decision-making over lengthy deliberation.

If this is something you want to practice, try asking yourself this:

What is the risk we run by running late? What can we proactively do now?

How do we maintain speed and quality?

Who will be responsible for each specific task, and what is the exact deadline?

Speed drives success.

#3. Better to remove than add.

Subtraction beats addition.

That’s difficult for anyone. Shedding, deducting, reducing—all go against human nature. Given a list of things, it’s easier to add one than take one away. Confronted with project priorities, we would like more capacity, not fewer projects.

We’re just not good at simplification.

Instead, we like science projects. Adding feels like a contribution. It feels more creative. The result? We add complication to complexity. But subtraction works. If you have a struggling performer on your team, give them less to do, not more to do. Have them focus on one thing. If you have a change initiative that isn’t getting through, simplify the message. If you have a looming project deadline and a sense of panic, figure out the next best step.

Singular, not plural.

Learn to say no. Prioritize ruthlessly. Make tough decisions. Streamline. Subtract to create focus and efficiency. Great executives create clarity out of chaos. They define clear strategies, communicate priorities effectively, and ensure cohesive execution. They interpret strategy into action and help teams find an effective rhythm. They use simple rules to translate strategy.

If this is something you want to practice, try asking yourself this:

Does this help us meet our goals (OKRs), yes or no?

What is the busywork we can shed?

How do I say this more simply?

Simplicity is the hallmark of mastery.

#4. Optimize the team.

This, I believe, is the most common mistake leaders make.

It’s a trap I easily fall into. It’s invisible. I see it easily in other people, because there, it’s in your face. Leaders can either optimize the team around them or optimize the team.

The first one is easy. It feels more productive, more effective. But it isn’t.

Your work is done through people. Your job is to teach, to make their work easier, more productive, and effective. This is done by balancing TOUCH and TASK to suit the team and the situation. TOUCH is relationship—the trust, psychological safety, and security provided to show up as your best self at work.  TASK is the work—the priorities, expectations, and objectives that drive growth.

When you optimize the team, you cede control and give agency and autonomy. You provide alignment and support—the right combination of connection and guidance to enable team members to learn, grow, and perform at their best.

If this is something you want to practice, try asking yourself this:

What are the core strengths of each team member? How do I help them improve?

How can I better value and recognize what good looks like for the team?

Are the current team structures and rituals best suited to achieve collective success?

Put your team first and push them to GSD.

#5. Translate, don’t audit.

To translate is to work on context more than control.

This works to outcomes; it optimizes the team. You create clear alignment and push autonomy down. Translation is more collaboration, more coaching, more teaching. You use questions and stories to create context. This is taking the time to explain the reasoning behind a decision, not just a decision.

To audit is to correct.

Feedback is valuable. The right answer is usually better. But feedback that isn’t taken is useless. An answer that isn’t accepted is a waste of time. Auditing is directive, top-down, command, and control. It’s focused on short-term fixes, not long-term growth and development.

There are times when correction—auditing, is necessary.

Looming or missed deadlines, time-sensitive projects that need swift and decisive action, critical safety or compliance issues, and consistent underperformance—all short-term problems. In the long term, audit mode undermines trust and the team's effectiveness.

If this is something you want to practice, try asking yourself this:

Share context: what is the secret wish of the intended audience/ user of this project?

Tell stories: how have you engaged with, learned from, made mistakes with this intended audience/ user?

What is the top-of-mind question we must answer? What is a difficult question that we might have to answer?

Translation fosters learning, innovation, and growth. It optimizes the team.

#6. Lead change, not swirl.

Be the constant.

Imagine business as a whirling, roaring river. Too much information flows around you. You can only dip your head in the stream and drink, but you can’t possibly drink it all. Undercurrents of competing priorities and shoals of shifting priorities grab at you. In that change and chaos, people are overwhelmed. They revert to something that will help them stay afloat.

They do what they did yesterday.

Change stalls, and work slows. Your job is to create pools of stillness, not eddies of chaos, and to help teams find an effective rhythm in work. Give people the opportunity to tune out distractions and tune into what truly matters.

Effective executives have a keen sense of what really drives success. They relentlessly raise standards around the vital few priorities, not the trivial many distractions. They balance short-term execution with long-term vision, and they guide teams to outcomes, not just busywork.

Communicate your vision and strategy at every level, at every turn. Prioritize ruthlessly. Run with simple rules. Create a roadmap of what lies ahead and establish rituals to create alignment and improvement.

If this is something you want to practice, try asking yourself this:

What narratives am I amplifying unintentionally? Can I get clearer?

How am I balancing speed and stability?

Where is my blindspot, where am I getting stuck?

Leading change is a clichéd marathon, not a sprint. The cliché doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

*** of course, the S*** stands for stuff. Did you think anything else?

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If you aren’t into F1, watch Drive to Survive on Netflix. You will be.

If you are, you will know it's a high-octane chess game with engineers, strategists, and drivers working in a coordinated cacophony. All in pursuit of speed.

In an effort to go faster, mass is critical. F1 cars are aerodynamic sculptures of speed: grams shed by stripping paint; metal zippers replaced with fabric fasteners, heavy steel swapped for lightweight carbon fiber.

F1 is a festival of physics with a singular obsession: winning.

The teams that compete are small and agile; eighteen hundred people would be equivalent to a medium-sized business—a tenth of the staff of Workday or Intuit. Salaries—for some drivers and team principals—are up there with the CEOs of Netflix, Microsoft, and American Express.

Budgets and revenues are huge. Scuderia Ferrari, the most storied F1 team, pulls in $243 million per year in sponsorship. The cars are 300+ kph billboards; the teams' iconic brands worth billions of dollars and netting millions in operating profit each year.

So, how can teams whose #1 job is speed help your team go faster?

Six lessons, each engineered with winning in mind, can be drawn.

1. Do less (weight saving).
2. Set higher standards.
3. Run with simple rules.
4. Help people get better.
5. Decide, and make sure it’s decided.
6. Prioritize little rituals.

#1. Do less (weight saving).

The weight loss that adds speed to a Formula 1 car is built from a clear constraint: every surplus ounce adds fractions of a second in lap time.

At work, we don’t see a direct tie between weight and speed, but it exists.

Every extra minute in a meeting, every meeting that could be an email, every wasted conversation adds delay. Delay leads to missed opportunities. Missed opportunities lead to missed revenue. But we’re more used to extending deadlines and pushing out dates than bringing them forward—why?

Because we do too much.

In companies large and small, the “to-do” list is long. More priorities compete for scarce resources, more pet projects, more legacy, more technical debt, and commitment debt that we owe—all extra weight. Every line item in a spreadsheet, every “extra” priority, every additional KPI—all slowing us down.

Get rid of busywork:

If it isn’t part of your strategy, why are you doing it? Get rid of it.

If it doesn’t filter through your OKRs, stop doing it.

Ruthlessly prioritize; aggressively stop doing.

It’s hard; you might do it once, feel good, and then slip. Put rigor in your regimen. Speak in threes. Simplify. Take weight from your slide deck. Use AI to clarify and shorten emails before you send them. Focus on fewer in a meeting rather than a laundry list.

When people and teams struggle to perform, take things off their plate. Cut meetings and cut meetings short. Start presentations with clear objectives. Put outcomes before problems. Glorify effectiveness over busyness.

Bring everything back to your objectives and key results—they are your formula for winning the race.

[Image: Headline: #GO FASTER by doing less. Image around this idea—If it isn’t part of your strategy, why are you doing it? Get rid of it., If it doesn’t filter through your OKRs, stop doing it. Ruthlessly prioritize; aggressively stop doing.]

#2. Set higher standards.

There’s a story about Toto Wolff, the team principal of Mercedes-AMG Petronas. He was unhappy about the state of the bathrooms trackside in the Mercedes garage, so he hired a full-time “hygiene manager” who travels with the team. Wolff showed him how he wanted the toilet scrubbed, “how to wipe the floor, how to put the soap bottles with the front facing forward, how to sanitize the handles, and so on.”

I’ve heard a similar toilet story about Jack Plating, a former Chief Operating Officer at Verizon. To hear him tell it, he found an employee bathroom in a mess on a store visit, took off his jacket, and started scrubbing.

Both lavatorial stories point to higher standards: they send a message.

Frank Slootman was a teenage toilet cleaner. Now, he is the Chairman and CEO of Snowflake, with a track record of accelerating companies like Data Domain and ServiceNow.  “Try applying insanely great as a standard and see how far you get.”

Higher standards are a pursuit of better.

Your standards must directly link to your mission, vision, and purpose—your strategy. Everything aligns with that—see rule #1: Do less (weight saving). Then, communicate, communicate, communicate.

Establish a rhythm of “doing” aligned with your strategy.

Rally the team around your objectives. Adopt a sense of urgency and intensity. Move fast, then move faster.

#3. Run with simple rules.

Simple rules are a way to manage complexity through simplicity.

Simple rules translate strategy; they are straightforward and memorable, help raise standards, and, most importantly, are applied at the point of need. At fassforward, we have some—“touch a client every day” and “don’t compromise on the deliverable.”

Simple rules play a dual role—steering people and strengthening culture.

First proposed by Donald Sull and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt in the book Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World, they come in different flavors:

Boundary rules clarify what is in and out; what is acceptable and unacceptable.

Prioritizing rules help with trade-offs and frame the allocation of resources.

Stopping rules tell you when to stop, avoiding the pursuit of sunk costs and white elephants.

How to rules are a simple ABC guide to stuff done.

Coordination rules synchronize and connect disconnected activities or efforts.

Timing rules tell you when to take an action or make a decision.

Formula 1 pitstops are a symphony of timing and coordination rules—necessary to arrange a crew of twelve around a car and driver: a front and rear jack operator, four tire carriers, four wheel gun operators, and someone holding a fire extinguisher. Pitstops are the sharp end of a synchrony of tire-swapping that wins or loses races. Done well, four sets of rubber are replaced in a remarkable 1.8 seconds.

Do you have simple rules to help you go faster?

How do you know what is and is not in bounds for your team? Can you rapidly allocate and prioritize resources? Do you have rules to help people stop doing? Those rules, and others, must be a translation of your strategy, spoken of repeatedly in simple, concrete terms, to shed weight and allow people to move with speed.

#4. Help people get better.

Unlike Formula 1, it’s not machines that you want to go faster; it’s people.

The goal of your team and a Formula 1 team is the same—to continuously improve. The mechanisms for improvement are the same: analysis, feedback, coaching, space, and practice.

Modern F1 cars are networked, connected intelligent machines with hundreds of sensors. Instrumentation provides terabytes of streamed data from car to crew. That data is feedback; pored over to eke out fractions of a second in lap time.

During the race, the drivers see and hear only a limited amount of that data—precisely what they need to know. Each car and driver has a race engineer who filters feedback, providing vital information to the driver when he needs it. The race engineer will let the driver know who is behind, who is in front, and who is closing on who. The driver signals clearly. “Shut up and let me drive,” or tenser variations during the race.

Off-track, the race for speed is more urgent. Engineers, designers, and drivers all seek tiny improvements. Drivers work on their reaction times and physical strength. Aerodynamicists fight a war with physics to lower drag and increase downforce.

As leaders in business, we must first improve ourselves. We have to provide hearable, useful feedback. We have to be able to coach and build capabilities and confidence in teams. We have to use data to cut through noise and provide clarity and direction for our people.

Most importantly, and echoing a driver’s request to “shut up and let me drive,”—we have to create pools of stillness instead of swirl. Space and time for our teams to focus, do their work, and improve themselves.

#5. Decide, and make sure it’s decided.

Data doesn’t make a decision. You do. The best in F1 know this.

Toto Wolff; “you need the right balance between data and gut feeling.”

For each race, the team, car, and driver go in with plans. You’ll hear it in the comms chatter between driver and engineer: "Tyres are dead, I think plan B,” or “Looks like plan A.” As a fan, you don’t know what plan A or B is—you just know the team had a run plan on when to pit and which tyres to use in which stint.

When the time comes, the decision to change tires comes from the race engineer—with feedback from the driver, input from race strategists and reams of data, and guidance from the team principal. The race engineer, not the driver, makes the call to “box, box, box”—the signal to pit.

In F1, what decisions to make and who makes them are clear.

In business, this is much more confused: requests for control disguised as requests for decision rights. Pocket vetoes pop up; hidden agendas appear, blinking in the cold light of day. A new strategy or plan is met with a mute, “this too shall pass.”

This swirl is fed by the hobgoblins’ other rules battle. A backlog of work—because you didn’t do less—allows favorite projects to be chosen and critical ones to stall. Standards aren’t clear, and in the fog, a well-meaning workforce clings to “how we’ve always done it.” There are no simple rules to prioritize resources or guide choices. Or—perhaps worst of all—the decision is clear: people want to do it but don’t know how. People are not getting better.

Decisions are better framed as what, not who.

Make the decision-making criteria—the context—clear and explicit. How does the decision align with the strategy? What were the options considered? Why was this path chosen?

Ask team members to verbalize their commitment and make clear the course of action, who has what task, and when it’s due.

#6. Prioritize little rituals.

Decision-making is a ritual.

Too many meetings have big “what” and “why” conversations. Great ideas are floated. Options are explored. Strategy and tactics align. And a decision is reached. But it stalls after that. Or it’s slow-walked among a dozen other priorities.

Why?

Because we didn’t do less. We have too many other options. We didn’t set—and agree—on higher standards. We don’t have simple rules to help us move quickly. For that, and a host of other sins, there is a cure—little rituals.

Drivers have pre-race routines, practicing reflex ball drills with their trainers. Crews repeatedly rehearse pit stops to improve speed and coordination. At Mercedes, the entire team comes together, and team photos are taken at victory celebrations—when a driver and car reach the podium. But there are no celebrations and no photographs for fourth place.

Little rituals are small, repeatable practices done in groups that improve collaboration and coordination. They build culture, strengthen mindset, and reinforce patterns of work.

In your team, it could be a daily or weekly stand-up; shout-outs that applaud others’ contributions; tech tips during staff calls. Meeting wrap-ups: action item reviews document what needs to be done, who is responsible, and when it is due. In our workshops, we have a little ritual of a two-word checkout—two words to describe participants’ experience at the end of the session.

The little rituals build habits. The habits build cohesion, and cohesion builds speed.

Not as fast as Formula 1, but faster.

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The average person knows about 30,000 words.

I dare say you know about 40,000. Arrange those words in a row from concrete to abstract. The practical, you-can-easily-describe-it words are on the left. That’s about 14,000 straightforward words, starting with “cat,” “sat,” and “mat.” The words you hope to get in a game of charades.

On the right are the game-losing words.

These words are sophisticated. An abstract, theoretical, inaccessible group. Roughly 26,000 of those you-know-it-when-you-see-it-words, like “zeitgeist,” “qualia,” and “existentialism.”

Trust sits at number 26,262 in this thought experiment.

It’s squarely in the middle of the abstract words, about two-thirds of the way along the concrete-abstract spectrum. Yet it’s a very popular word, easily outperforming “cat” and “zeitgeist.”

Trust is a word we use a lot but don’t really grasp.

Perhaps some principles might help? Here are six.

#1. Trust is self-referential.

Trust is a feeling.

We trust, you trust, I trust. And “I” am the only one I am sure about. We remember (psychologists call it encode) information better when it’s about us—when we have a personal stake. This is the self-reference effect. This is about your experience. How you feel. Take the directions to a restaurant. No matter how good you are with navigation, you remember the directions better if you have been there. If someone explained them to you, not so much.

So it goes with trust. We have a personal stake.

In the saying, there’s no "I" in team; in reality, there is. It’s “I trust.” Trust in teams is a collection of “I’s.” Same with culture. Same with organizations, the root is “I.” Our own unique, individual biases, foibles, and personal judgments directly impact how I trust.

I trust.

#2. Trust is a relationship.

You may have a trusty steed or a trusty sword. More likely a trusty sidekick.

When I trust, it’s a relationship between you and something else: a trusted source, a trusted brand, a trusted service. We use the word trusty when we have a personal relationship and affection for something dependable and reliable. We go with trusted when there’s a more professional sense of reliability, reputation, and quality.

But what about I trust you? I trust another person or group.

That’s the face-to-face, ego-to-ego, “I” to “I” relationship—the one that powers teams through cooperation, information sharing, problem-solving, and productivity. Built from shared moments over time, social bonds and community.

I trust you.

#3. Trust is operative.

What do I trust you with? I trust you to do something.

Complete a project, follow up on a call, fix a problem, launch a new feature; the list of do’s at work is endless. Trusting others to do is what makes teams work.

When trust is not operative, bad things happen.

Micromanagement: the excessive oversight that kills morale and hamstrings innovation. Information hoarding: I don’t trust what you will do with a particular piece of information, so I don’t share. Over time, this lack of operative trust turns bureaucratic. Ingrained in the system, along with risk aversion, silos of information, and learned helplessness.

When trust is operative, the situation reverses.

Micromanagement gives way to autonomy. Information hoarding turns into information sharing. People take risks and offer forgiveness.  Silos break down, and discretionary effort increases.

I trust you to do...

#4. Trust is shared goals.

If I trust you to do something, that something better be a shared goal.

That shared goal may be a purpose that creates a sense of belonging and shared identity. A shared why unites a team. A strategic narrative clarifies expectations, scope, and role. It reduces uncertainty and increases trust. People can see themselves in the picture.

Shared outcomes are what we aim to achieve together. They provide more clarity and a shared ambition. It grounds what you are doing and what I am doing in a tangible way. Knowing you are shooting for the same goal can help me back off an approach I might question or a concern I might have.

Common goals, set as OKRs for the team and well run, build trust on the team. Shared Objectives and Key Results create a platform for open communication, fostering trust. Regular, transparent progress check-ins on OKRs create an opportunity for learning.

[We’re on the same page, so] I trust you to do...

#5. Trust is tested.

[We’re on the same page, so] I trust you to do something.

And then something happened, and I didn’t like it. We were fine at the “Why” and the “What” stage, but I didn’t love your “When” and “How.” My micro-managey tendencies come out. To misquote Mike Tyson,

“Everybody trusts until they get punched in the mouth.”

When your eyes are watering and ears ringing,  trust is tested. This may be the most crucial principle of trust. You’re near to crossing the line. When you want to give feedback, get into a colleague's area, or tread on their expertise, there's a keep off the grass sign.

Your natural instinct is to hold back. Don’t go there.

But you must. It’s better for the business. It will avert a problem. It will, in the long run, help your colleague. You have two options.

1. Give direct feedback the way you see it. Here, you’re spending your social capital. Depending on the individual and your partnership, they are going to take all of your feedback, some of it, or reject it outright. Whatever the outcome, you risk damaging the relationship.
2. Give trust-building feedback. Here, you’re building social capital. You don’t talk about the individual or their potential shortcomings. Instead of “about them,” you talk about what “the team needs from them.” This depersonalizes the feedback. It makes it an action and a choice. It focuses on growth and improvement.

Whether the feedback is digested is all in the framing.

[We’re on the same page, so] I trust you to do... [but here’s some feedback.]

#6. Trust changes.

How much I trust you, and to do what, will change over time.

We call change over time: experience. My experience with you changes my perception of you as someone I do, or don’t, trust.  Much of that change has more to do with me—my life experiences and personal growth—than it has to do with you.

But you can influence that change.

Trust, by nature, is skewed. When trust is self-referential (I trust) and trust is a relationship (I trust you), there is an inequality of information. I will always know more about myself than I will about you. This is where signaling comes in: giving hard-to-fake cues about yourself that others can pick up on.

Those cues come in the form of Consistency, Clarity, Capability, Credibility, Candor, and Care—the six C’s of trust.

Consistency:

Consistent behavior over time fosters trust. People are more likely to trust someone who acts predictably and reliably than someone whose actions are erratic or inconsistent. (Lewicki, McAllister, & Bies, 1998)

Clarity:

Clear and transparent communication builds trust by reducing ambiguity and uncertainty. People appreciate being kept informed and understanding the reasoning behind decisions. (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995)

Capability:

Demonstrating competence and expertise fosters trust, as people are more likely to rely on those they believe are capable of delivering on their promises. (Colquitt, Scott, & LePine, 2007)

Credibility:

A reputation for honesty and integrity is crucial for building trust. People are more likely to trust someone they perceive as truthful and ethical. (Krackhardt & Bhattacharya, 1999)

Candor:

Being open and honest, even when admitting mistakes, can strengthen trust. People appreciate authenticity and vulnerability. (DeConinck & Schmidt, 2012)

Care:

Demonstrating concern and empathy for others builds trust by promoting a sense of shared values and mutual respect. (Mishra & Mishra, 1993)

Signaling, through word and deed, can change others’ perceptions of you. It takes trust from the abstract to the concrete. Those trust-building conversations and trust-building actions have given others evidence to bolster what they feel.

I trust [we will get better.]

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You have three children. The twins, who are pre-teens, and a younger one. You buy them a toy to play with.

You have two options: Toy A or Toy B.

For those who bought Toy A—congratulations. It’s a hit. The twins take to it. They take turns using it. They bring their younger sib into the game. It’s soon the younger ones' number one toy. You buy two more so that each can play on their own. When their friends come over, all the kids play with Toy A. It’s the talk of the neighborhood.

Other parents call and ask you where you got Toy A.

If you bought Toy B, you had good reason. It was cheaper, and it was immediately available. You bought it from a big, reputable toy retailer. The retailer mostly sold you on the Toy’s parental controls. You could set the maximum play time, even the frequency and intensity of play. But it was a miss. The twins played with it once but had better things to do. The younger one played with it occasionally, mostly when they were bored, and you reminded them about the Toy.

In the back of the cupboard, gathering dust, lies Toy B.

Toy A was a Rubik’s cube.

Toy B was a BeatBo.

If you haven’t heard of a BeatBo, that tells you everything.

In this wildly made-up story, the twins went on to big business. One is the VP of product-something. The other a  VP of corporate-something. The younger one is an entrepreneur.

But, the parents in the story are more interesting. The parents who bought Toy A have a product mindset. The parents who bought Toy B have a bureaucratic mindset.

Why are some products successful and others not so much?  It comes down to the decisions—big and small—on the way to building that product. The culture that informs those decisions. It comes down to the difference between a product mindset and a bureaucratic one. It comes down, in the end, to product leadership.

Product leadership requires a product mindset. When you talk to product leaders, people who have the scars and experience of building things and bringing them to market, you see, over and over again, six rules that they hold dear:

1. Borrow ideas from everywhere.
2. You have to understand constraints.
3. Design for how people work (or live).
4. 90% of the job is how it looks.
5. Patterns make things repeatable and scaleable.
6. It isn’t a product unless you can sell it, deliver it, and people use it.

#1. Borrow ideas from everywhere.

Aka. pay attention to the world around you. Product people are idea magpies. They take in and connect, think systemically, and look for inspiration in all sorts of ways, from looking at how customers behave to new technologies. It's the innovation that comes from the collision of ideas.

Behaving this way encourages openness to inspiration from a variety of sources and staying attuned to external changes. This rule advocates for continuous innovation and adaptation based on trends, user behavior, and market dynamics, fostering a culture of learning and flexibility.

If this is something you want to practice, try asking yourself this:

1. What sector outside my expertise is ripe for exploration today?
2. Can I identify a trend in another industry that solves a similar problem differently?
3. What recent technological advancement could be applied to my current project?

A warning comes with this rule. While it’s good to feel as though “it can always be improved,” it’s bad to get to a point where “it’s never done.”

Products have deadlines to hit and markets to meet. See rule #6.

#2. You have to understand constraints.

Everything has constraints. They are the engine of creativity.

Humankind’s greatest achievements had constraints. Constraints give us focus and direction. A firm foundation to push off. The Pyramids were built with limited technology and limited resources. What wasn’t a constraint? Time and labor.

Constraints free creativity. The limitations are pathways to invention. The movie Apollo 13 dramatizes this ingenuity. When an oxygen tank exploded, the Command Module (CM) was crippled. Three astronauts sheltered in the Lunar Module (LM) for the remainder of the trip; a vehicle designed for two astronauts and seventy-five hours of operation.

The engineers at NASA had to—literally—put a square peg in a round whole. The great grandaddy of constraints.

Their solution, using the materials on board, plastic bags, duct tape and other scavenged parts, was built through understanding constraints.

If this is something you want to practice, try asking yourself this:

1. What is the most significant limitation facing my project, and how can it drive creativity?
2. How can I turn a current constraint into an advantage?
3. What would an ideal solution look like if resources were unlimited, and how can I approximate that within my constraints?

A warning comes with this rule. Functional fixedness. This is the cognitive bias where we assume constraints even when none exist. We have a hammer, so everything is a nail.

We must push against constraints to fully understand them.

#3. Design for how people work. (or live)

In this rule, water flows downhill.

That doesn’t mean you can’t get water to flow uphill—you can—it just takes a lot more work and energy. It's much easier, for instance, to put in a CRM system built around a user's email because they have built-in email habits. It’s much more difficult to get people to log in to a second system.

You may spend 100% of your time and energy thinking about your product. I can guarantee your users won’t. If water doesn’t flow downhill—if your product doesn’t slot into their routine, if it isn’t a straightforward fit or an easy habit to build, you will struggle.

Adoption will lag. Usage will drop. Excitement will wane.

Venmo and Uber snuck into the smartphone ecosystem and made things easier. More convenient payments, more convenient rides. VR, despite the hype, struggles because we don’t wear bulky headsets as part of our everyday wardrobe.

Think frictionless. Don’t make me think. Intuition over instruction.

If this is something you want to practice, try asking yourself this:

1. Which aspect of my product fits seamlessly into the user's daily routine?
2. Is there a feature in my product that could be simplified to enhance user experience?
3. How can I gather feedback on the ease of use of my product from real users?

Warning: Fitting into existing routines doesn't guarantee long-term success. Think TiVo. The black box checked a lot of boxes. A mashup of VCR and hard drive; dressed in a sleek design and user-friendly interface, it commercial-skipped its way through your favorite shows on hundreds of cable channels. It fit perfectly into household viewing habits. Except it missed streaming, cord-cutting, and binge-watching—the once pioneering product is a niche afterthought today.

#4. 90% of the job is how it looks.

If it looks difficult to use, people will shy away from using it. And vice-versa, if it looks inviting, comfortable, or tempting to try, people will.

Take a Smeg refrigerator. Beautiful. Retro. Colorful. Charming. But also pricey, energy-inefficient, and noisy. Yet they’re incredibly successful, with glowing product reviews, a celebrity following, and brand recognition.

Contrast that with the Pontiac Aztec: a bug-like front end, endless amounts of plastic, and boxy proportions. Ugly. Yet it was a versatile, spacious, all-wheel-drive loaded with standard features.  But still—a flop.

Humans use products—and you want them to. But we’re capricious. We like things to look a certain way, to feel a certain way. Perception and first impressions are a powerful tandem.

If this is something you want to practice, try asking yourself this:

1. What first impression does my product give, and how can it be improved?
2. How can the design of my product enhance its usability?
3. Which design element can I tweak this week to make my product more inviting?

Here’s the warning: Concorde, Delorean, Fisker Karma, Yeezy Foam, Palm Pre. Beauty is only skin deep. Everything else has to work.

#5. Patterns make things scalable and repeatable.

This isn't Etsy.

Hand-crafted, difficult to maintain, and difficult to scale don't make profitable products. Patterns are reusable design elements, code component, or business processes that simplify development, maintenance, and growth.

They’re everywhere.

A design pattern might be the reusable elements like buttons and menus that create a familiar and intuitive user interface. They’re part of the design language that makes your product look like your product. In a luxury car, the shape of a front grille, headlights, the overall proportions, and body creases: all to distinguish a BMW from an Audi without ever seeing the badge.

Code patterns are pre-written snippets of code or modules. They save developers time. The single sign-on through your Apple or Google ID, the shopping cart functionality that tracks items you select and updates prices, or the social media-like functions. All pre-written centrally and used over and over.

Business process patterns: repeatable workflows that onboard new employees, or new customers, service processes that handle customer inquiries and complaints. The patterns are codified as process and practice to allow smooth experiences and focused work.

Build patterns into your product. They offer scale: foundational components that can adapt and grow as your product expands. They offer fit; for a consumer, patterns are “the way things work.” The affordability of a button that looks like you can press it or a menu item where you might expect it to be—making products easier to learn and navigate. They save time (and resources); developers don’t need to invent everything from scratch, established workflows streamline production.

If this is something you want to practice, try asking yourself this:

1. What design or code pattern can I standardize across my product for consistency?
2. Is there a business process I can streamline to save time and resources?
3. How can I balance the use of patterns with the need for innovation in my product?

Patterns have a downside. Taking a cookie-cutter approach to product stifles creativity and reduces innovation. It makes your differentiator the same as everyone else’s. Mindless use of patterns can increase complexity, ignore context, and reduce agility.

#6. It isn’t a product unless you can sell it, deliver it, and people use it.

Says it all really. No one cares about your theory.

What validates a product’s success is not that it’s finished. Or that the development came in on time and under budget—although if it did, congratulations. Success is confirmed by every sale, verified by every install, and backed by consumption and use.

This is where the real work of product leadership begins.

Measurement matters. Product leaders become product champions, driving adoption and usage. Crafting compelling product stories. Developing go-to-market strategies and building strong customer relationships. Building a feedback loop to improve the product in its next cycle.

The real test of a product lies in the hands of the users.

If this is something you want to practice, try asking yourself this:

1. What's one channel I haven't explored yet for marketing my product?
2. How can I make the onboarding process for my product simpler for new users?
3. What's the smallest feature improvement I can make that users have requested?

To this, there is no downside.

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Discover how effective data visualization enables businesses to cut through complexity and drive better decisions.

Quick, can you make a clear decision using the information on this slide⬆️?

Visualizing data in this manner is a surefire way to lose your audience. You're asking them to decipher information and find insights for themselves.

Now imagine if we applied data visualization principles to the above data. The below chart is an excellent example of how to make data easily digestible. I'll explain why...

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Deconstructing effective data visualization:

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1. Start with a clear headline.

Beyond clarity: A compelling headline hints at the value the reader will gain. (Example: "The 3-Word Headline That Makes Data Irresistible")

Test options: Come up with 3 to 4 headline variations to see which feels strongest.

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2. Use direct labeling.

Remove extra steps: Direct labeling is when a label is placed next to a data point. It saves viewers the burden of referencing a separate legend, improving understanding.

When legends are needed: Keep them simple and position them close to the corresponding visual elements.

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3. Show the percentage symbol only at the top of the chart.

Decluttering: Removing redundant symbols allows more space for the important elements – the data itself.

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4. Use highlights to consistently differentiate data segments.

Consistency is key: Use consistent highlighting to create a visual pattern the audience learns to recognize quickly.

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5. Use accessible colors and visual elements.

Accessible colors: Blue and orange is a common color combination that's friendly for people who are color blind.

Arrow alternatives: The start of the arrow is 2013 and the end of the arrow is 2022. For smaller changes, a '+' or '-' sign can also indicate direction.

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6. Source the data.

Trustworthiness: Always cite the data source! This builds trust, adds credibility, and allows viewers to investigate further if desired.

Formatting matters: The source should be visible but not distract from the main visualization.

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7. Use comparisons.

Benchmarks matter: Contextual data anchors the viewer's understanding. Other benchmarks could include averages, historical trends, and/or targets.

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8. Order the data.

Purposeful sorting: Data can be sorted by magnitude, alphabetically, or another logical pattern depending on the story you're telling.

Ranking is optional: Rankings can be useful, but consider if highlighting the top/bottom few items would be more impactful.

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9. Apply visual hierarchy.

Descriptive and concise: Labels should accurately guide the viewer without being wordy.

Consider hierarchy: If one category is the primary focus, make that label slightly more prominent (size or boldness).

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Unlocking insights and driving better decisions.

Data visualization isn't just about making things pretty. It's about unlocking the insights that drive better decisions.

Effective data storytelling goes beyond individual slides or presentations. In business, it empowers us to cut through complexity, align teams around a shared understanding of the numbers, and make faster, more informed decisions. Whether you're analyzing sales performance, customer trends, or operational metrics, clear visualization is the key to unlocking the insights that truly drive success.

Now, I challenge you to find the stories waiting to be told using your data! Try applying any of the above best practices to your work. Share your before-and-after transformations in the comments below – let's learn and improve together!

For the original chart and analysis, see @ashleywu's article, "The Nation’s Top-Performing Public School System" published in The New York Times. (Oct. 10, 2023).

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2012. Glitch shut up shop.

2021. Slack sold to Salesforce for $27.7 billion.

What happened in between was an object lesson in product storytelling.

The backstory.

Glitch was a whimsical online game that never caught on. As the game stalled, the developers at Tiny Speck pivoted.

The team, under Stewart Butterfield, went into stealth mode with a new focus—communications software. Venture Capitalists bought in.

From the ashes of Glitch, Slack emerged.

Slack was the “Searchable Log of All Communication and Knowledge,” an easier, centralized way to collaborate and communicate. At launch in 2013, Slack and Butterfield had a villain squarely in their sights—email glut.

A successful beta ran for six months, with Slack gathering user tweets into a wall of love:

“It's officially the best tool for team communication I've ever used. Period.”

“I should be working. I am NERDING out  about Slack.”

“Pro tip: @slackhq is like @yammer and @skype without the bad parts.”

In Months, Slack broke through as “Team messaging that works.” Soon, Slack had five million users. Among them: NASA. Slack was “A messaging app for teams who put robots on Mars.”

Slack kept growing.

In 2019, it traded publicly. Its NYSE  ticker symbol—WORK. The company proclaimed, “Whatever work you do, you can do it in Slack.”

In July 2021, Salesforce acquired Slack for $27.7 billion.

This is a product story.

And a valuable one.

Product stories are born in people's heads. They pop up in garages, showers, and on long walks. The product story takes root before writing the first line of code or building the first prototype.

Product stories are, by necessity, a science fiction.

They are stories of a future world—better than today. The buyer is the protagonist. The hero of the story. The product is a magic bean, a device that propels the hero forward and gives them special powers.

The product story breaks conventional thinking and spurs innovation.

When product stories work, products sell. So, if you’re an entrepreneur, or an intrapreneur; a marketer, or an engineer, if you’re building anything, you want to crack this particular code.

Here are six rules of product storytelling.

#1. People don’t buy products; they buy better versions of themselves.

Modern product development starts with jobs to be done, wicked problems, use cases, or user stories. Each is an offshoot of the other, starting with Ted Levitt’s insight that, when hanging a painting, "People don't want a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!” That kernel of truth points to customers' desire for outcomes, not the product itself.

Taken together or individually, jobs to be done, wicked problems, and its ilk are not product stories.

They are the data in the story, lacking emotion.

To tell the product story is to understand the psychology of the buyer. It’s to understand that people don’t buy products; they buy better versions of themselves.

Products are filled with transformative potential. Narrative translates that.

Slack tapped into this ethos.

"Who Do We Want Our Customers to Become?... We want them to become relaxed, productive workers who have the confidence that comes from knowing that any bit of information which might be valuable to them is only a search away. ...We want them to become masters of their own information [not] overwhelmed by the neverending flow."

This was from a memo—We don’t sell saddles here—penned by Stewart Butterfield to the team at Tiny Speck— weeks prior to launch.

#2. Use old words to describe new things.

We like our comfort food. Our go-to traditions. Our favorite playlists.

Human nature prescribes predictability.  Habits and routines save us time. We don’t have to think too hard. The tried and true give us a dopamine hit. The familiar gives us comfort, safety, and belonging. That doesn’t mean humans don’t try new things. We do.

But product builders overestimate our fascination with the new and underestimate the bundle of biases that make us back off.

Therefore, in product storytelling, we must use old words to describe new things. We see this rule in action over and over again. Product storytellers have to bridge the gap between the familiar and the unfamiliar.

What we now call a car was first called a “horseless carriage”—a name with a descriptor and comparator. In the pre-dawn of the internet, it went by the moniker “information superhighway.”

In a never-look-back-moment in 1979, a little company called Taylor Made introduced an innovation to golf. When Lee Trevino won the 1984 PGA championship with Taylor Made’s “metal wood,” a whole generation of golfers rushed to trade in their persimmon drivers for metal ones.

The name carries power.

Old words compare and describe new things. The Comparator and Descriptor work in tandem like a horseless carriage. The order doesn’t matter. It’s a descriptor (metal) and comparator (wood) plus the promise of a better version of yourself (I will be a better golfer).

That’s the title of the product story.

If the name has power, it doesn’t have to be the name alone.

Analogies help—the verbal art of making the unfamiliar familiar. They could be abstract: Steve Jobs introducing the computer as “a bicycle for the mind” or an iPod as “1000 songs in your pocket.” Or, more concrete, the apocryphal story of Bill Gates's internal product demo to Windows investors by showing them a Mac.

You are using old words to describe new things to create vivid, relatable scenarios that highlight the product's benefits in everyday terms.

Slack used its early adopters masterfully. More from Slack’s wall of love:

“Heard someone at work say that @slackhq was just another chat client. I slapped them. Hard.”

#3. Craft stories for backers, builders, and buyers.

There are always three versions of a product story.

The consumers of each version have different wants and needs. They buy into the story at different times, but the story is the same. Think of this as the book, the movie, and the video game.

The three unique audiences: Backers, builders, and buyers.

The backers: They’re investors in the story. They’re more likely to buy into the concept and the team because when they’re read in, the story is a few slides long or some sketches on a whiteboard.

The backers believe in the idea and the capability of the team.

The builders: This is a crucial audience. They’re turning vision into reality. Designers, creators, coders, engineers—whoever is on the team—will make thousands of decisions as the product goes from whiteboard to bench to production.

The builders make a product that lives up to the story or make it a lie.

The buyers: These are your customers and users. Depending on what you’re selling, there are people who write the check and people who use the thing. That could be the CIO whose budget pays for security software, the CISO who insists on it, or the developer who uses it. There’s usually more than one buyer in the loop, even for something as simple as candy: the kid who points to it at checkout and the parent who pays for it.

The buyers are the heroes of the product story, even as an ensemble.

The trick is to adjust the narrative to address each unique perspective. For backers, the story might focus on potential and return on investment; for builders, on innovation and challenge; and for buyers, on the product's practical and emotional benefits. This is message discipline at its finest.

Stewart Butterfield hinted at his pitch to Slack’s backers in 2013.

"We want to do what Gmail did for e-mail. All your communications just goes into one big place, and you don't worry about it."

His “Saddles” memo adjusted the story for builders.

“We get 0 points for just getting a feature out the door if it is not actually contributing to making the experience better for users or helping them to understand Slack."

#4. Demonstrate, don't declare. (If you can)

Product storytelling is like Aesop’s fable.

The tortoise is concrete and tangible. The hare is abstract and hyperbolic. It’s tempting to bet on the hare, but the tortoise wins every time. Human nature strikes again.

Our brain prefers demonstration to declaration.

Showing a product in action reduces uncertainty. Seeing, hearing, or touching something creates a visceral understanding. Stories activate mirror neurons. The reflected experience of others primes our personal narrative. The product story borrows credibility from testimonials and user accounts.

The demo is everything.

At product launches, they surprise and delight. Think of Boston Dynamics' inventive videos of robots breakdancing, performing parkour, or backflips. None of the reasons you might actually buy a robot, but impressive nonetheless.

Putting the product in people’s hands is powerful juju.

The demonstration is visual and visceral; concrete evidence makes benefits tangible and believable. For the buyer, it becomes sunk cost. This is the motor of the freemium business model— use creates a personal and persuasive narrative driving purchase.

Mark Roberge, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Stage 2 Capital and Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, has turned the demo into a science. For him, it’s a leading indicator of product-market fit.

In Slack’s case, sending 2,000+ team messages in the first 30 days was an objective, data-driven “aha” moment where products stick.

#5. Adapt and grow your stories over time.

A product story isn’t static. It evolves from hope to fear.

At no stage are you done. The story changes in response to new insights, market changes, and user feedback. Flexibility allows the narrative to remain relevant and engaging.

The technology adoption lifecycle changes the product story. In the early stages, innovators are buying in. A tiny population taking a risk on new inventions. It’s the rush of the “new.” Half the appeal is life on the bleeding edge.

The early adopters are fractionally more cautious. They will take risks if the benefits are there, buying into early results and case studies and looking for practical solutions to specific problems.

The product story crosses the chasm to the early majority.

Another shift in the story. To get to that group, the story has to amp up social proof and track record.  The story is no longer about avant-garde; it’s about value. The product story quells fears of incompatibility, reliability gaps, complexity, or potential obsolescence.

The story shifts again in the next phase.

Here, it’s FOMO. The fear of falling behind. A product story for the late majority asks, “Why aren’t you...?” instead of “Why don’t you...? The story highlights elements of essential and proven. It’s a story for market leaders and mainstream adoption.

The laggards are the natural skeptics.

Any product story will have a countervailing one. The one laggards are more likely to believe. You have heard them: windmills cause cancer, or vaccines are tracking you. And laggards are not easily persuaded.

For Slack, every “one hour in, and I’m ready to burn every email server into the ground” has a story that swings in the opposite direction. “We already have email, I have messages, I have texts. I don’t need another way for people to get hold of me.”

#6. Product stories fit into a world.

This last rule of product storytelling connects them to brand storytelling.

The simple version is that the product story has to be “on brand.” That doesn’t mean an unquestioning dedication to selected fonts and colors. It means the product story has to fit. It has to be believable. A nuanced understanding is that the product fits into a broader world.

This is true in the real and in the imagination.

Months of work and obsession by the builder translate into fleeting attention from the buyer. In the real, the product fits within the buyer’s broader context. Their environment, their community, their workflow, their day.

In the imagination, it’s the world-building. The product itself is a doorway to a world that the buyer wants to be part of. The in-crowd. World-building, the arena of sci-fi and fantasy nerds everywhere, plays a role. This is the magic system that powers your product. The rules of what you would and wouldn’t expect.

Tiny Speck started with the idea of creating an online civilization, the world of Glitch. The craft of world-building was brought into the product and the product story. Custom emoji reactions let users infuse playfulness and personality. Shared channels created member-only spaces to reinforce bonds, inclusion, and identity.

Butterfield knew this: "We are unlikely to be able to sell “a group chat system” very well: there are just not enough people shopping for group chat system...That’s why what we’re selling is organizational transformation."

This is the better future—the science fiction of the product story.

What is your product story?

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You have built your OKRs. You have tested them. Now it’s time to run them.

If you get this right, you have a system to manage work. Better yet, that work executes the strategy. It’s aligned. You have a rugged scaffolding for team performance. Your people have autonomy and clarity.

Your job gets easier.

Here are six routines to run your OKRs smoothly.

1. Free up space.
2. Build a rhythm.
3. Get comfortable with data.
4. Create patterns of work.
5. Teach to learn.
6. Celebrate outcomes.

Free up space.

If your OKRs pass the 90% test, you know with certainty that they will cover 90% of the team’s work and be strategically aligned with higher goals. This gives you an opportunity—to get rid of busywork.

Any team will have three types of work.

Core work—the work at the heart of the job. This is the building, selling, and running that helps the business succeed today. Think of it as the work that keeps the money rolling into the business or keeps the lights on—it’s what you’re paid for.

Critical work—the work that ensures the future. This is the planning, improving, and innovating that positions the business to succeed tomorrow. This is the work that makes what you do current, relevant, and efficient—it’s the persistent change that is management.

Busy work—the work that gums up the gears of business.  It’s the quarterly report you were once asked to produce, and now, no one reads. The old system that no one has asked you to switch off. This is the inertia in the business. The work that people cling to, not because it’s important, but because we’ve always done it this way.

You will never completely get rid of busy work, but you want to squeeze it out of the week as much as possible. Your first order of business, once you have your OKRs: Create a “don’t do” list. The work or projects you can put on hold or simply stop because they are not core or critical.

Build a rhythm.

OKRs inform your work.

That applies daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.

Daily—everyone on the team is working against OKRs. The tasks, projects, emails, and meetings are all moving the ball forward. The OKRs set the playing field. They are a filter. If the work makes progress against the OKRs, good, keep doing that work. If it’s not, stop. It’s likely not a high priority and not worth the time and effort.

Thought for the day:  “Is this [the work I am doing] progressing my OKRs?”

Weekly—regular check-in or stand-up. These are focused on the work. The team collectively looks at some kind of scorecard or dashboard tracking work against OKRs. These check-ins keep everyone focused and allow for real-time adjustments if you’re veering off track.

Ask: How are we doing? What help do you need? What are we moving forward this week?

Monthly—(or as needed) set and reset the work against the OKRs. Close out completed assignments. Conduct retrospectives. Assign new projects; spin up new workstreams—all to progress work against OKRs.

Celebrate progress: This is your operational rhythm. You do something, declare victory, and move on. Your efforts are moving you closer to your OKRs. What’s next up? Do we have too much on the plate that’s slowing us down? This is a time to adjust.

Quarterly—(or sooner, if needed) revisit your OKRs and refresh. Business isn’t static, and neither are your OKRs. This is a strategic conversation. The job is the same as when you set and tested your OKRs. Making sure they are concrete and clear enough for people to work with and aligned and relevant to the strategy.

Meet with your team: Ideally, run this as a live, in-person session. Encourage frank and free-ranging conversation. Adjust your OKRs as needed. This is the critical work that improves how your team executes.

Get comfortable with data.

OKRs work because they are objective. Ironically, that’s the KR piece.

Using OKRs moves work along in a strategic direction, and you know you are making progress. Thank you, data. Except. The “Except” is the downfall of data; it’s easy to fall into the habit of measuring everything. As you do, the act of measuring slows progress and causes spin. You soon move from Key Results (KRs) to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to a Whole Lot of Performance Indicators (WLPI). Not good.

Quick story. We once worked with a company that was swimming in data. They believed in it. They measured everything. They split markets into regions and had twenty regional vice presidents. Each RVP was competitive and transparent with data. That was how they drove execution. The problem was that they had so many KPIs; every vice president was #1 in something. Not good.

Use data. Be transparent. But don’t measure for measurement’s sake.

Have a system or tool where everyone can see progress against OKRs. That visibility maintains accountability and shared ownership. Everyone is aware of how their actions impact the team’s Objectives.

But it’s better when transparency is coated with understanding.

Try tier-listing your data. If you don’t know, tier-listing is a ranked classification system originally used by gamers. Tier lists are all over the internet, rating everything from Formula 1 to medieval helmets.

In the not-quite-as-interesting but definitely useful category, build a tier list for your data.

S-tier: (S for superb) These are the measures that drive the business. The ones Wall St. cares about. Revenue, Profit Margin, Market Share.

A-tier: These are the direct measures for your OKRs.  The primary KPIs in your key results. In a product organization, these might be market share by product, adoption rate, or customer feedback score on new features.

B-tier: These are the KPIs that move the needle of the A-tier. In that same product organization, they might provide insight into the efficiency and effectiveness of the product development process, time to market for new features, bug fix time, and percentage of roadmap complete.

C-tier: These KPIs are proxy measures. They are easy to measure, sometimes useful, and rarely indicative of a business outcome. In that same product organization, proxy measures might be feature deployment frequency (indicates the team is working hard, but not that the work is driving business outcomes) or uptime/ stability metrics (important, but only tells us if the product is working, not if people buy it or are using it).

D-tier: These are KPIs that don’t tie or correlate to business outcomes. You can measure them and maybe do, but they’re rarely useful. For example, hours worked per week, number of meetings held, lines of code written, all measure activity, not progress.

When the team understands the value of each measure, you can separate the signal from the noise.

Create patterns of work.

You might have heard the term “patterns of play.”

You see it in football (both types, the world version and the American one). The pattern is a set of repeating tactics. They’re codified. Everyone on the team understands their role. Routines and decisions boil down a complex strategy. The play is an effective amalgam of the teams’ strengths to produce results.

All sports have them. They name them. Tiki Taka (football), Ground and Pound (American football), Triangle Offense (basketball), Small Ball (baseball), Bomb and Gouge (golf). Patterns of play create a common language for players, coaches, and fans. Everyone involved has a sense of shared ownership. Every player understands their role in achieving the team's goals. Everyone knows what good looks like.

So it goes with patterns of work.

The pattern of work is effectively “what good looks like” for business. If your OKRs define the win, the pattern of work is how you win. Repeating the pattern is a path to speed and scale. The pattern is deliberate and simple.

You might create a pattern of work through a product launch process or checklist. The patterns operationalize and sequence tasks. Everyone knows the “how.” They have shared ownership and a common language. A pattern might be how you take in customer input or produce a particular report. It might be ritualized—customer advisory panels, idea funnels, or performance reviews.

As important as establishing that pattern is coaching to it—everyone understands their role and brings their particular skills to the table.

Teach to learn.

As a leader, your job is to hold your team accountable to their OKRs.

But it doesn’t end there. Much of your time will be spent teaching, focused on two goals: the OKRs of the team (the “what” and the “when”) and upgrading the skills and capabilities of the team.  This is where you teach to learn.

A missed Key Result is a learning opportunity. So is one you hit.

That starts with a growth mindset. You hear this in different ways: there’s always a higher gear, what got you here won't get you there, raise the bar. A growth mindset is the change in change management. The idea that we can get better and the optimism to believe it.

As you run the team to OKRs, praise effort and process, not just outcomes. Encourage taking risks and experimenting, but only if you’re comfortable learning from setbacks without blame. Encourage team members to continually work on “one thing;” their own personal growth opportunity.

Use patterns. Turn a growth mindset into a ritual. A retrospective focused on collective learning. Or a “why it’s good” session, where you tear down a piece of work, not to find out why it didn’t work, but what worked well.

Teach. Obsess about demystifying and simplifying. Explain. Break things down into simple steps. Tell stories. Use analogies. Encourage curiosity.

When you give feedback, make it about the team. The focus is collective success, not personal failure. Don’t cover harsh feedback in a s**** sandwich. Make the feedback about what the team needs from you; how you can help, not what you did wrong or what you can improve.

Celebrate outcomes.

This routine could have been “celebrate completed OKRs,” but it’s not.

OKRs done right execute strategy. They offer clarity. The team is aligned and engaged. People feel autonomy and purpose. That is the outcome you celebrate. The journey, as much as the destination.

You’re looking to balance data—objective results; with feeling—trust, engagement, and personal growth. Every milestone met shows you have done something. You declare victory and move on. That’s an opportunity to highlight the team’s great work and note exceptional individual contributions.

Pick out the hard, soft stuff.

Not just getting a project over the finish line but the way the team collaborated, where they challenged each other, where people took bold stances or exceeded expectations.

Paint a picture. Remind everyone of the journey and make time for storytelling and symbolism—the challenges overcome and the impact on customers or the business.

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You have your OKRs. But are they any good?

If OKRs are to do their job—translate strategy, guide execution, and allow teams to work productively—then it’s not a question of filling out a form or checking the “yes, I have done my OKRs” box.

You must test them.

Six tests can take your OKRs from “meh” to “marvelous.” The Goldilocks test, the Hallway test, the 90% test, the “good year” test, the Autonomy test, and the Fettling test.

The Goldilocks test.

If you have written your Objectives well, you have three of them.

But are they the right three?  To understand that, ask the Wright brothers. When Orville and Wilbur were solving powered flight, they could have broken down the problem into three objectives:

1. Solve how to get up in the air.
2. Make the aircraft go along.
3. Get the plane down.

This might seem reasonable to someone who knows nothing about aeronautics or engineering. But it wouldn’t have gotten them very far.  Instead, they broke the problem down into three objectives.

1. Solve the problem of aerodynamic lift.
2. Build a light, powerful engine.
3. Control the aircraft in the air.

This was the Wright approach. It took their experience and applied it to three distinct but relevant objectives. Going after lift, power, and control instead of up, along, and down.

That, in essence, is the Goldilocks test: Make sure your objectives are not too hot (or soft), not too cold (or hard), but just right.

The hallway test.

This may seem anachronous in an age of distributed work.

We don’t walk down hallways together much anymore. But imagine if you did. Imagine if you have someone new on your team. You explain your OKRs. And ideally, you would like your new team member to understand and remember them.

Which means they have to be brief, clear, and simple.

Your current OKRs may be too long or full of jargon, big words, and bullet points. They’re not memorable, and if you want OKRs to direct day-to-day work, you want people to remember them.

Ruthlessly simplify and clarify to pass the hallway test.

The 90% test.

You might call this the 80% test, but let’s stretch.

OKRs must govern the work of the team.  That’s all the work, not just some of it. Or at least 90% of the work. Otherwise, you have fake OKRs.

The 90% test rests on a crucial assumption: that your work, the tactical, day-to-day, executes your business strategy. Obvious. You set (and or align to) a strategy, define tactics, and execute—that’s what you and the team are paid for, right?

You might be surprised how many other “types” of work crop up that don’t execute. “Business as usual.” “Fire drills.” “Busy work.” Let’s deal with them in order.

“Business as usual” is the big suck. It happens when OKRs are overly focused on the shiny new work and don’t take account of the core work of the business—the type that keeps the lights on and money rolling in. Make sure your OKRs encompass the entire strategy, not just the transformative part.

“Fire drills” you will never get rid of—the email from the boss over the weekend, the project missing deadlines, and other assorted sparks. But you can minimize them. Use OKRs to separate fire drills that are truly urgent and important from those that just appear urgent.

“Busy work” is where OKRs are your friend. If it’s not executing strategy, don’t do it. If the reason to preserve that work is “because we’ve always done this,” then watch out.

Use the 90% test so that you and the team are focused on what’s essential and shed everything else.

The “good year” test.

Look at the Key Results underlying your OKRs.

Ask, “If we achieve all of these Key Results, will we have a good year?” (Or a good quarter, depending on how you set and reset your OKRs). If the answer is yes, you have the correct Key Results. If the answer is no, you’ve missed something.

That’s the “good year” test.

The autonomy test.

This one’s all about me and a little bit of extra effort.

Per Dan Pink's book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, “Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.” Intrinsic effort comes not just from working independently but from a sense of control over one's work and environment.

If your OKRs don’t give control and, crucially, the creativity for the team to approach and solve its own challenges, you don’t have a set of OKRs—you have a task list. If it fails, you have a task list. It’s the quasi-freedom of a TaskRabbit gig worker or an Uber driver: Empowered but not Autonomous.

The fettling test.

Assuming you’re not from the North of England, I’ll explain.

Fettle, the word, comes from Norse and Old English. It means "in good condition” or “fit.” As the Industrial Revolution took root, “fettling” and the job of a “fettler” was to take cast iron parts, trim the rough edges off from the casting process, and make the parts fit together.

That is the fettling test—do the parts fit together? As you look across the organization, perhaps a group of directors in the direct reporting line of a function, do the OKRs fit together? Are you using the same measures and the same language for the same KRs, or have some rough edges and unnecessary parts crept in? Do OKRs in one department support and mirror the OKRs of another?

Six tests, six passes. Marvelous.

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To OKR or not to OKR, that is the question.

And to answer that question, we must first ask, “What is an OKR?” Similar but different from other alphabet soups of strategic goal-setting frameworks:

MBO— Managing by Objectives. These are OKRs’ older, more rigid, annualized Father. MBOs emphasize personal performance and meeting set targets.

OBP— Outcome-Based Planning. These are OKRs’ longer-term, wonkier Uncle. While OKRs drive strategic initiatives, OBPs explore them, starting with Outcomes and working backward.

KPI— Key Performance Indicators. The costume and scenery of other goal-setting frameworks. So overused, we swim in data and argue over its accuracy, giving us Many Performance Indicators.

The original question is part of a familiar tragedy.

One that starts with lofty ambition, well-argued strategies, and clear principles. The tale ends with fire drills, competing priorities, and urgent requests. In the middle: mixed messages, complexity, and bureaucracy, the ghosts of burnout.

Something is rotten in the state of our strategic planning.

OKRs wire strategy to tactics.

Well-written OKRs flesh out the strategic narrative and bring it to life. They align people, allow engagement and autonomy, and improve productivity. Done well, they define work, tether accountability, and shape a culture of execution. They help people navigate through a dark forest towards a common north star.

Good OKRs begin the job of translating strategy into tactics.

Don’t make OKRs a science project.

Keep them simple. Make sure each team has a set of OKRs, following a 3x3 structure: Three Objectives, each with three Key Results.

The Objective is a goal that you want to achieve. It's qualitative and motivational. For each Objective, three Key Results specify, measure, and show progress. They are quantitative and trackable.

A formula for good OKRs.

OKRs must be well-written and clear. They follow a pattern, starting with a verb: Drive. Expand. Launch. Develop. Grow. The Objective concretely and plainly states the goal and, optionally, the rationale behind it.

Key Results move things forward; from  “X” to “Y.” That thing is important and measurable: Revenue. Employee Engagement. Customer Satisfaction. Productivity.

Objective.

Verb + What you want to do + to/for/so that (rationale for the objective).

Increase awareness of the company in the market to increase sales.

Key Results.

Verb + What you will measure + From “X” to “Y.”

Certify 100% of employees on OKR expectations and process within Q1.

Whose OKRs are they?

Do not make the mistake of setting OKRs and associating them with a single person.

OKRs work for teams, not individuals.  For example, Ophelia, a Chief Product Officer, might set her team’s OKRs at the beginning of the year. At the strategic, enterprise level, goals may exist that involve capturing new market segments, rolling out enhanced functionality, and launching new products.

Ophelia’s product team would support those goals.

Her top-level Objectives in her OKRs might be:

1. Establish a strong foothold in emerging market segments.
2. Elevate our product experience to exceed evolving customer expectations.
3. Innovate and diversify our product portfolio to drive market growth.

These are good. They follow the formula for good Objectives. The goals are clear. Assume also that each of these objectives has three clear, quantifiable KRs along with it.

But here’s the important point. These are not her OKRs. They are the OKRs of the product team. Ophelia’s job is to hold the team accountable to these OKRs.

Next up for Ophelia—to set OKRs down through her organization.

Aligning or Translating OKRs.

Every team in an organization should operate against a set of OKRs.

The teams’ OKRs either align with the OKRs of the layer above or translate them. At each rung on the ladder, the OKR must be strategic enough to lift and align the work to the goals of the business and concrete enough to drive practical execution.

You would align your OKRs if your team's scope of responsibility is a territory. Sales teams, obviously, but also, for example, HR Business Partners. In the first case, a sales team might have an Objective to increase same account revenue by five percent. Each sales team in a territory would directly align with that Objective. The KRs might vary, but the team’s Objective mirrors the Objective in the layer above.

For teams not organized by territory, OKRs are translated through the organization. They support and contribute to objectives higher in the business, given the role and scope of the team.

So, for example, in the case of the Ophelia, the Chief Product Officer. She has several teams reporting to her. The responsibilities and scope of the Product Design and UX team are very different from the scope and responsibilities of the Product Engineering team.

The Product Design and UX team might have the following Objectives:

1. Design a simpler, more user-friendly interface.
2. Incorporate customer feedback into design improvements.
3. Enhance aesthetics and functionality for emerging market segments,

Whereas the Product Engineering team has the following:

1. Migrate product range to a unified infrastructure.
2. Enhance product security posture.
3. Accelerate development cycles for new product features.

Both sets are well-written Objectives, yet they are clearly different. They do not directly align with the Product Team’s objectives. Rather, they are a translation of them, given each team's pressing needs, scope, and role.

Importantly, each team's objectives support the higher-order goals.

For example, the Product Design team’s Design a simpler, more user-friendly interface supports and translates Elevate our product experience to exceed evolving customer expectations.  For the people on that team, the Objective and its accompanying KRs, are more concrete and

Objectives are written in such a way that the team has both alignment with the strategy and the autonomy to create, innovate, and execute.

Setting OKRs.

Don’t set OKRs in isolation. Revision and calibration takes time. And don’t set them as a form-filling exercise. OKRs are best set as an output of strategy. Follow the Vision, Mission, and Goals of the business.

Have the strategic, goal-setting conversation in your team, and use that as the jumping-off point to set and clarify OKRs.

Follow this cadence to set your OKRs.

1. Ground yourself in the business's strategy and goals, including the OKRs set above you in the organization. (You can do this individually or with your team).
2. Ask, “How do we translate these into Objectives for my team?” Good questions to ask yourself are: How do my team's efforts fit within the larger goals? What critical areas can we impact most effectively? How does this support the company's Vision and Mission? What opportunities or trends can we leverage? What needs improvement or change?
3. From this brainstorming, write three strategic Objectives. Follow the guidance above for a formula to write good Objectives.
4. For each team leader in your team, write a draft of their three Objectives.

If you haven’t brought the team into the process yet, now is the time to do so. Clarify with them the strategy and goals of the business, as well as your Objectives to bring them into the conversation.

1. Discuss the strategy and goals of the business and how the team Objectives support and translate the strategy.
2. Discuss and agree on three Key Results for each Objective with your team. Follow the guidance above for a formula to write good Key Results.
3. Repeat the process with each team member’s Objectives. Write three KRs for each. Each team member should hear their colleague’s KRs, which helps ensure the Key Results interlock and reinforce each other.

Working to OKRs.

OKRs, once set, become part of the rhythm of work.

That working rhythm keeps teams tactically rather than transactionally focused. Setting OKRs occurs at the beginning of Q1. A lighter re-examination and re-set of those OKRs occurs at the end of each quarter. This allows an agile approach to execute strategy.

Between OKR set and reset is execution.

You have set and have shared ownership of the team’s OKRs.

Now, work with team members to develop initiatives, action plans and progress to advance them. Schedule regular check-ins (weekly or bi-weekly) to discuss progress.

You have elevated some KPIs as part of your Key Results. Track them, and discuss them transparently. Teach. Coach and provide feedback to your team around progress. Encourage collaboration, learn from failure, and celebrate progress.

Keep aligning activities to OKRs. Use them to ruthlessly prioritize. Take away busywork (any work that doesn’t help you set or execute on the OKRs.)

Are you using OKRs? That is now the question.

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It was spring, 1989. De La Soul’s hit single “Me, Myself and I” was atop the Billboard R&B chart. 

I was one of the younger members of the PMHS Varsity Tennis Team (Go Pelicans!), and  had just won a thrilling match……in my mind, at least. I ran over to an older teammate, and could not contain my excitement. 

I extolled my grit and “never give up” attitude as I was down big and had just won in a 3rd set tiebreaker! Rather than sharing in my elation, my teammate stood up, walked away and muttered: “tell me more about how great you are.” 

I sat perplexed on the bench with just me, myself, and I. 

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We are our own favorite subject

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While my younger self can be forgiven for my self-aggrandizement, it is a common trap.. 

But, it’s not our fault. 

It’s how we are wired. According to Scientific American, we spend 60 percent of our conversations talking about ourselves (80 percent when we’re on social media). Neurological studies show that our bodies release dopamine when we do. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a young kid sharing your tennis triumph or a business leader describing your vision or strategy.

As my partner Gavin McMahon says “we know too much and are too passionate about it.”

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The problem is this: those same neurological studies show that your audience becomes disengaged when you focus on yourself, your views, your strategy, etc. It doesn’t take a neuroscientist to understand that if you flip the script, and make the conversation about them, engagement increases and they are the ones producing feel good chemicals. 

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In her recently released 2nd book, The Leadership Conversation fassforward Chair Rose Fass states that “Leadership is a privilege.” True leadership is about people who work with you, and not for you. 

As leaders our default is to have 80/20 conversations in which we drive 80% of the conversation, and others get 20% of the airtime.  

Using leadership tools that fassforward has refined over the past 22 years, I created the simple concept of 20/80 conversations to show our clients how to have more effective leadership conversations. 

How to have a 20/80 Conversation

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#1 Think about how other people think

Our belief is that it’s imperative to understand how you think, so that you can understand how others think. 

We define the 4 elements of your thinking pattern as Courage (think Vladamir Zolenskyy), Ethics (think Mother Theresa), Vision (think Martin Luther King Jr.), and Reality (think Ruth Bader Ginsberg). 

If you are a courage-based leader, but are talking to someone who is an ethics-based thinker, avoid your impulse to talk about taking action, deadlines, and moving forward. Instead, focus the conversation around collaboration, getting buy-in, socializing the idea, etc.

If they are a vision-based thinker, have conversations for possibility, ask about their ideas, what’s inspiring them, and what’s next. If they are a reality-based thinker, have conversations for facts & assessment. Ask about they’re current focus and their thoughts on current challenges. 

#2 T-leaf your conversations

“T-leafing” is a tool we created to help you apply your understanding of their thinking pattern to an effective conversation. It prepares you for conversations by having you think about what they want to feel, know and do before you decide what you want them to feel, know and do. 

It addresses the universal challenge outlined by Dale Carnegie: “the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want, and show them how to get it.” 

This is especially effective before leadership team or board meetings. T-leafing allows you to put yourself in their shoes, and speak to their listening. 

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#3  Flip the script

Now that you are prepared for the conversation, let them know up front that you are flipping the script and will be primarily in listening mode. 

This is particularly helpful when you are in a new leadership role or having a performance. Formal performance reviews are typically 1-2 times per year. However, as my colleague Frank Mazza writes, managing performance should happen throughout the year.

During your next conversation about performance, ask your colleague to provide their own feedback. This conversation will likely go down 2 paths: 

1. They have a self-inflated view. This allows you to respond to their views by providing a dose of reality to ensure that you are on the same page (and there are no surprises at the year end review). 
2. They are too self-critical. By flipping the script they are  raising challenging topics about their performance that can be uncomfortable to bring up.  This allows you to lift them up by dampening their self-criticism.

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#4 Practice Attentive Listening

My colleague Jill Vander Putten often reminds our team that  “listening is not waiting for your turn to speak.”

Too often when someone is talking, we are formulating our response rather than truly listening to them. Attentive listening means a singular focus on what they are saying, making consistent eye contact, nodding, and keeping your devices and other distractions away.

This is particularly applicable to video calls. We all know when someone is multitasking with email, IMs, or texts. Attentive listening on a video call means looking into the camera to replicate eye contact. Or if it is more natural to look into their eyes on video, move the video window as close to under your camera as you can.    

It also means getting comfortable with silence. 

Often, profound insights emerge when you provide the space for others to think and express themselves without interruption. You can also embrace silence as you formulate a thoughtful response rather than jumping in as soon as they’re done speaking. 

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#5 Don’t say “Look” or “Listen.” Do say their Name.  

Have  you ever thought about the irony of saying “listen” or  “look” when you are talking to someone? If you have to say “listen” or “look” you are not having an effective leadership conversation. 

These are filler words, similar to my old go to  “ummmm”, but worse, as you are making a command (a conversation killer). These words buy you time while you think about what you are going to say next. It often means your words are outpacing your thoughts, you are unprepared, or are  uncomfortable with silence (see above). 

Embrace the silence, ask a thoughtful question, or if you need a filler word, use their name (another dopamine trigger). 

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#6 Summarize what you heard and next steps

If saying their name is a dopamine trigger, reciting their thoughts, ideas, or visions back to them is a dopamine tsunami. 

This is a great way to validate that you have heard what they have to say, and are not having a “chocolate conversation.” If you did not understand everything they said, ask for clarification. 20/80 conversations are worthless if they’re just an exercise to make your colleagues feel heard. 

Ending the conversation by acknowledging what they said and letting them know how you plan to act on it is the key to a successful leadership conversation.

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Validation from 20/80 Conversations

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The best leaders surround themselves with those that are smarter than they are and think differently than they do. 

In my time on Wall Street and as an Executive Coach, I think this is one of the most difficult things for a leader to do.  Just as we are wired to make ourselves our own favorite subject, we are also wired for self-preservation.

20/80 conversations are a great way to validate that you have a strong leadership team. If you are not leaning on your team to drive the strategy, vision, and future of your business, then you too will fall into the trap of making it all about “me, myself and I.”

AI is a wild frontier.

As you first explore the realm, it feels part science project, part Oregon trail, part Twilight Zone.  If you're skeptical about its unpredictable nature, consider this revelation from DeepMind, an Alphabet/Google subsidiary. Researchers found that instructing an AI like ChatGPT to “take a deep breath and work through the problem step-by-step” nearly tripled the accuracy of its response.

OMG. Take a breath and think about that.

This finding questions the age-old principle of "garbage in, garbage out." Through a technique known as Optimization by PROmpting (OPRO), researchers are adopting a meta-strategy to extract more accurate responses from AI. They're essentially having one AI guide another.

When those same researchers subjected an AI to a standard set of high-school math problems, it barely passed, with an accuracy of 34%.

A solid “F.”

When prompted to “think step by step,” the AI got better. The accuracy score leapt to 71.8%. The game changer? Asking the AI to “take a deep breath and think step-by-step.”

Wild.

It’s time to adapt or...  get better at prompting.

Generative AI is so startling because it mimics a very human quirk — the ability to learn and adapt. And it does so relentlessly, which should serve as a kick in the pants to all of us. But, like any machine, you get better results if you know how to use it. So it is with AI. The challenge for us isn’t just about getting answers; it’s about asking the right questions.

AI is not just a tool; it's a force multiplier for those who know how to wield it.

Better prompt engineering.

Simple prompts are useful. Type in “TLDR:” before cutting and pasting an email from your boss, and a rambling email turns into a clear explanation.

For a more complete list of handy prompts, here’s a free resource we made.

Or, you could take a course in prompt engineering. DAIR.AI has a great—and free—Prompt Engineering Guide.

The input/output model.

To get the best out of generative AI, use the input/output model of prompt engineering.

At fassforward, we used this model to do something that would have been humanly possible but tedious and terrifically expensive—using AI to accurately describe an organization’s culture.

The AI: In this case, Anthropic’s Claude.

The input: We gave the AI input on how to act (as a business anthropologist) and how to frame the problem (fassforward’s proprietary cultural framework) as well as reams of data to sift through (ten thousand rows of clean, but unstructured verbatim employee feedback).

The output: We specified the output format (a number of positive, neutral, and negative cultural aspects), told Claude what we were NOT interested in, and gave it an example of what an output might look like.

The result: Work that would have taken months, ready in hours. A practical and actionable description of a corporate culture.

While perhaps not as groundbreaking as predicting 3D protein structures, it is a testament to the transformative power of generative AI.

You, too, can write better prompts.

Follow the input/output model. First, the input.

Ask the AI to act as an expert. Are you seeking advice from an expert chef or an award-winning screenwriter?

Next, offer a framework. If you have a specific way of understanding culture or strategy, include it here.

Then, share any crucial data you have. This could be raw data or even a draft you've written.

Task the AI, outlining the work you want it to perform.

And finally, tell it what not to do, such as words or subjects to steer clear of.

Clearly state the output you are looking for.

Format the output you want. Are you looking for a listicle? You want the three different versions?  Or the output organized as a table?

Who is your audience? Giving guidance on who’s consuming your output will guide the AI’s level and tone.

Give an example of what you want. This gives the AI something concrete to work from.

Rank or Rate the output in some way.

And remember, it’s a conversation. An ongoing dialogue can only refine the output.

Here’s more detail on each step.

Why speak to a generalist when you can ask an expert?

| Act (Clarify the AIs role)

ChatGPT, Claude, and Bard are general LLMs. But in many cases, you might want the AI to act as an expert... data analyst, marketing strategist, project manager, communicator/ storyteller, HR advisor, leadership coach, or business anthropologist.

Ask the AI to “act as” an expert. This will guide it to a better outcome.

Example prompt line: Act as an expert [Act as an expert...]

Context is king for AIs, too.

| Framework (Offer background details)

Generative AIs, like humans, crave context. It's not just useful; it's vital for effective interaction.

Let's say you've tasked the AI to act as a business strategist.  Share your company's goals, challenges, and strategic frameworks like the Balanced Scorecard or Playing to Win. This context sharpens the AI's advice, aligning it with your specific needs. The more you share, the better the AI performs.

Example prompt line: Use the [Framework Name] to guide your work.

Data, useful data.

| Data (Share crucial data)

The devil is in the data. If you've tasked the AI to act as a project manager, the specifics you offer—timelines, available resources, and current project status—are crucial. One of the advantages of AI is you don’t need structured data, but avoid a data dump; take the time to provide clean, curated information.

The more focused your data, the more precise and actionable the AI's project plan will be. This is the foundation for a useful result.

Steering the AI.

| Task (Outline the work for the AI)

The task you outline is the AI's roadmap. For instance, if you've asked the AI to act as an expert sales coach, be specific. Are you looking for cold-calling scripts or strategies to upsell existing clients?

A well-defined task gives you a well-defined answer.

Example prompt line: Make your work [Prompt word]  — OR — Give me [Prompt word] answers

Set boundaries.

| Not (Tell the AI what not to do)

Be explicit about what you do not want. That is as important as specifying what you do want. For example, if you've asked the AI to act as a project manager, you might want to specify that you're not interested in methodologies that require a long lead time or high costs. This could be as simple as saying, "Avoid Agile or Six Sigma approaches."

With boundaries, you're not only preventing unwanted outcomes but guiding the AI to spend its computational power on generating the most relevant and useful solutions for you.

Example prompt line: Do NOT reply with [Do not/ Avoid]

Now you have the input, it’s time for the output.

What format would you like?

| Format (Specify the output format)

You can save time by specifying the format you are looking for. This could be a list. You might want a table. Maybe you are looking for step-by-step instructions. In what way is it easiest for you to consume the information?

Example prompt line: Output as a [Output Format]

Make the work relevant to your audience.

| Audience (Identify the target audience)

In a flood of information, relevance beats data. Tune your output to grab the attention of your audience. Specify who the audience is. For example, “produce output suitable for an executive audience.”

This will prompt the AI to be concise and focus on key points.  Better yet, simplify and clarify the output.  Add “make it understandable for a 6th-grade level.”

Example prompt line: Target your work for an [Audience type] audience.

Provide an example.

| Example (Provide an example)

An example serves as a concrete model for the AI. If you're asking the AI to draft a business proposal, for instance, providing a sample proposal can set the tone, style, and structure you're aiming for.

Think of it as giving the AI a "north star" to guide its output. The closer your example is to what you want, the more useful the AI's output will be. It's like showing a stylist a picture of the haircut you want; what you see is (hopefully) what you'll get.

Rank and rate.

| Ranking (Rate accuracy, relevance, etc...)

Organizing output isn't just about answers; it's about value. Whether you're looking for a list of marketing tactics or project milestones, specifying a ranking or rating provides a nuanced understanding

Ask the AI to prioritize its suggestions based on any number of criteria: feasibility, impact, urgency, confidence. This helps you focus on what's important and gives you a sense of the AI's certainty in each recommendation.

You could also request categorical groupings, like "high-impact but resource-intensive" versus "low-hanging fruit." Think of it as a way to add another layer of utility to the AI's output, making it easier for you to take action.

Example prompt line: Categorize the output by [Ranking and rating] in this [Format].

Chat. Have a conversation.

| Conversation (Maintain the dialogue)

AI has been around for years. What made ChatGPT blow up? I suspect it wasn’t the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) but the Chat. The ability to have conversations. It lowered the bar for accessibility to AI from a specialized few to the rest of us.

Don’t forget the chat part in your prompting.

You might hear the terms “iterative prompting,” “conversational threading,” or “chain-of-thought” prompting.

Iterative prompting is the back-and-forth between you and ChatGPT (or Bard or Claude). It’s the sense of conversation that will provide more nuance and refinement in each successive answer.

Conversational threading isn’t something you do. It’s the AI. Keeping track of what was said earlier so—like a human—it maintains context in the conversation.

Chain of thought prompting is asking for the AI to work through a step-by-step solution. Particularly helpful when it seems confused, overwhelmed, or going off the rails.

Happy trails.

Remember, it’s a wild frontier. The advice contained here may be horribly out of date in a year.

Meanwhile, take a deep breath, follow the duck, and watch the elephant.

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One-pagers are a great way to communicate your brand's value proposition in a concise and effective way, but they can be tricky to design.

Have you ever been asked to design a one-pager but didn't know where to start?

Don't worry, I'm here to help! In this article, I'll share five tips to help you create a one-pager that is both informative and visually appealing.

1. Understand the use case
2. Understand the content
3. Use a grid
4. Iterate often
5. Know when to stop

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1. Understand the use case 🧠

What is the purpose of your one-pager?

Who is your audience?

Consider the purpose, audience and information.

My use case was designing a letter-sized document for the marketing team. I have five pages of text to fit on one page, and the text doesn't include any visuals or branding. This means I need to add more elements and do it without losing any important information.

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2. Understand the content 🤔

Read and understand the content of your one-pager carefully. This will help you to identify the most important information and to organize it in a way that is easy to read.

Think about the relationships between the different pieces of information. How are they connected? What is the most important information for your audience to know?

The more you understand the content, the better you will able to communicate it.

Understanding the content helps me with brainstorming design ideas, and creating visual metaphors. This helps me tap into my design knowledge and come up with creative solutions.

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3. Use a grid 📏

A grid is a basic design principle — it can help you to create a balanced and organized layout. It is a system of horizontal and vertical lines used to place your content on the page.

Grids are a design superpower for everyone, from first-year students to experienced pros.

Using a grid will help you to keep your design organized and to avoid making unnecessary design choices.

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4. Iterate often (and quickly) 🔶🔴🟦

Don't be afraid to experiment with different layouts and designs. Once you have a draft(s), get feedback from others and make changes as needed.

I did 10 iterations, trying out different layouts. Most teams find it helpful to have something to respond to, even if it's just a rough draft. High-fidelity mockups are great for these conversations. I chatted with our designers and writers, and together we were able to improve the organization of the information by making the sections clearer and adding labels. We also freed up more white space by cutting down on the text.

It's important to be able to communicate your ideas clearly and receive feedback openly.

At our office, we have a saying: "Eat our own dog food." It means we follow the advice we give to our clients. In this case, putting the audience at the center of the story. Switching the words from "about us" to "about them" is a big step and it's essential for successful business storytelling.

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5. Know when to stop 🛑

I often have to sift through a lot of ideas and feedback from different stakeholders. It's important to decide what to keep and what to ditch. Try using your own mental checklist to decide when a design is ready.

For instance:

• the design has a clear information hierarchy
• is consistent with the brand's style
• is proofread

The stakeholders and I are happy with it, so I'm going to proofread it again and then call it done!

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Bonus tip: Have fun 🎈

You made it to the end! As a reward, here's a bonus tip: have fun! I had a blast creating this one-pager, and I think it's our best effort yet at telling the fassforward story.

Good luck with your own one-pager!

A special thanks to everyone who worked on this: Jess Gozur, Eugene Yoon, Andreas Pichaeli, Shannon Cullen, and Gavin McMahon.

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“I’m hungry. What can I make with a parsnip?”

Words guaranteed to spike the stress levels of any Mother. The child in question: a university student. These words usually trigger a frantic Google search, looking for quick and easy parsnip-based recipes to feed a starving twenty-year-old.

The story is true. The parsnip, irrelevant.

What is relevant is how we use Google. Faced with the same situation, you would type in the search bar, “parsnip recipe.” Google autocomplete might helpfully suggest “parsnip recipe ideas,” “parsnip recipes roasted,” or “parsnip recipes easy.” You click on “parsnip recipes easy,” aware of your son’s culinary skills. If you have used Google autocomplete, congratulations, you’re already using AI.

Meanwhile, back to the parsnip.

You know how the story goes—time whiled away clicking on food blogs, scanning through recipes, only to discover you don’t have Italian Seasoning.

Click. Scan. Repeat. Click. Scan. Repeat. If only there were an easier way. Something magical that could work on our behalf, step in and accurately predict what we need, and guide us on the way.

There is. It’s here. AI.

Magically accurate prediction.

Science-fiction genius Arthur C. Clarke, he of the plummy British accent, horn-rimmed glasses, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Rendezvous with Rama fame, defined three “laws” of prediction. The most famous, his third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." For non-experts, magic is a good approximation of AI.

Magic can explain how AI works.

Large Language Models (LLMs) like Google’s Bard, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, or Anthropic’s Claude predict a token. Picture the token as a magic coin. On one side of the magic coin is a dumb guess; on the other is a really good guess. The mystic ingredient is that the coin, more often than not, lands on the side of the really good guess.  But there’s a downside. The coin isn’t that big. The token only has room for a word or a few characters. When the AI you’re chatting with is “speaking” to you, it’s rapidly flipping its magic coin.

Each flip predictably charmed, an artificial sleight of hand appearing as thought.

As an AI progresses through its training, the coin’s odds of unnervingly accurate prediction increase—to the point where it lands, almost all the time, on the side of a really good guess. A few good guesses turn into intelligent sentences. Strings of them turn into coherent answers.

You can see the coin flip in action and begin to understand how an AI works by seeing an approximated response to a child-like question.

Why is the sky blue?

That question provides insight into how LLMs are trained.

An AI, in response to “Why is the sky blue?” might answer the question differently, depending on its stage of development.

*Note: This table and its approximations were produced by ChatGPT4.

The increasing cost of training explains why, despite all the AI-washing, few companies are large enough or well-financed enough to enter the AI arms race with their own Large Language Models.

Of course, counting AI as a magic coin is magical thinking.

Reality is more complex. Multi-layered, interconnected neural networks talk to each other—algorithms pass along information—each “coin flip” is better informed by a rich history of past data, complicated calculations, and previous “coin flips.”

Clarke’s magic comes from advanced mathematical algorithms and statistical models.

Wanted: magicians.

ChatGPT hit the hype train like a hurricane.

In five days in November 2022, ChatGPT hit one hundred million users. Goliaths like TikTok took nine months to reach the same mark. Netflix took three and a half years.

Eight months later, ChatGPT’s users are on the decline.

Why? Concerns about privacy and regulation might be a factor. Getting burnt by hallucinations (AI just making stuff up) may be another. A third reason could be large companies banning the use of AI at work, among them Apple, JP Morgan Chase, Gartner, and Verizon, citing data leakage concerns. Another—is that after the initial trial period, people are back to Google.

If you treat AI like Google, you’re doing it wrong.

My supposition is that we know AI is a thing; we know it can do things, but we (most of us) haven’t figured out how to make good use of it yet. We’re treating AI like Google. Asking it questions and expecting immediate answers.

Which brings us back to the parsnip and leads to prompt engineering.

Asking Google, “What can I make with a parsnip?” will bring you over six million results; far too much information to process in your lifetime. At the top, Google has used AI in the background to helpfully show you recipes like “Simple Parsnips with Oil and Herbs.” Or lists, like “25 Best Ways to Cook Parsnips.”

Then you run into the problem that, while you really like the sound of Carrot Parsnip Soup, you don’t have any carrots.

Rohit Chauhan, Executive Vice President of AI at Mastercard, explains why we’re stuck in an old way of thinking.

“It’s helpful to think of computers and AI as a triangle. The corners of the triangle are input, output, and algorithms. With a computer, you define the algorithm, and you feed the computer input. You get output.

An example is a calculator. The algorithm is mathematical; the input is two plus two, and the output you would get is four.

AI changes the triangle. You feed AI input. You define what output you would like. AI gives you the algorithm.”

In the Google example, the algorithm is already defined: find published information on the Internet based on the keywords provided. You provide the input. What can I make with a parsnip? Google spits out six million results.

Don’t get me wrong. This is a magical leap from the dawn of the Internet, where we had to dial up a modem, click through AOL’s cooking section, and find a recipe. It’s a step up from books.

We are doing less work. But we still have work to do.

With the current iteration of Google, the work is click, scan, repeat. Click. Scan. Repeat. Sorting and sifting through results to get to something you want to eat and can cook.

With AI, it’s different. It’s input and output.

Go to ChatGPT, or Bard, or Claude, and feed it input. I have a Parsnip, some pasta, garlic, olive oil, and various herbs. Define the output you would like. Act as an expert chef. Give me something tasty that I can make for two people. I don’t have much time, and I am not a great cook.

Generative AI will give you the algorithm—the recipe:

A step-by-step guide to Roasted Parsnip and Garlic Herb Pasta.

That’s a step up from Google, which gives you a thousand recipes and leaves you with more work.

To use AI well—to perform the magic—we have to think about input and output and start looking for algorithms.

This flips our thinking.

Try it.

If you haven’t played with them yet, try out Claude 2 by Anthropic, Bard by Google AI, and ChatGPT by OpenAI. They are all slightly different.

Each model has its own strengths and weaknesses. I’ve found Claude and ChatGPT to be the most useful of the big three.

My unofficial synopsis, as of the end of 2023, is that they’re like three tween siblings. Claude is the smart one, ChatGPT is the more versatile one, and Bard tries hard. Oh, and they all lie—hallucinating—the technical term for a Gen AI going off the rails and making stuff up.

You still have to be smarter, more versatile, and try harder.

Try Claude 2 for obtaining accurate and unbiased responses, particularly when precision matters. Claude stands out for its focus on reducing bias. It seems slightly brighter than the others. It also has a more updated training data cutoff, making its output more current.

ChatGPT, to me, is more versatile, especially with its array of plugins. Try ChatGPT for creative writing projects and brainstorming sessions where context and nuance are important. And it's just gotten even better with Turbo, custom GPTs, and enterprise services.

Bard, I think, is competent. It has some neat tricks. It has a double-check “Google it” feature, which can help catch the hallucinations. Most useful in the world of distributed work is its ability to share chats and prompts.  It’s the clunkiest of the three, but with Google behind it, I imagine it won’t stay that way for long.

To help you on your way, here’s a handy dandy prompt guide.

AI prompt guide. fassforward

It’s time to learn some magic tricks with AI.

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“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

2001: A red glass eye gleams as HAL 9000 politely refuses to open the pod-bay doors. Psychotic space AI tries to kill clean-shaven, mild-mannered astronaut.

“I’ll be back.”

1984: A time-traveling T-800 trips in from the near future to kill anyone named Sarah Connor.

Every time—in books and movies—humans give machines the power to think, bad things happen. It’s not just Kubrik or Schwarzenegger. When the AI is beautiful (Ex Machina), a child (The Creator), or built to defend humankind (Ultron), the formula is the same—AI plus humans equals disaster.

The horror makes a good movie and a great headline.

February 16, 1999: Headlines screamed. “Armageddon! Year 2000 computer bug will turn machine against man!” 319 days later, calm settled in. “World Rejoices; Y2K bug is quiet.” If you lived through the 90s, you remember the existential threat of technology run amok.

It’s always this way.

From smallpox vaccines rumored to turn you into a cow to radio waves accused of mind control and trains so fast they'd make Victorian ladies swoon—the pattern of hype and horror is all too familiar.

Now, AI: “How could AI Destroy Humanity?” (The New York Times).

Fiction is almost always more frightening than fact.

Here’s another headline.

“The AI ‘gold rush’ is here. What will it bring?” (The Washington Post)

Businesses are paying attention.

AI’s impact will be massive. Tom Wilson, CEO of Allstate, predicts that AI will “rip through this economy like a Tsunami.”

Michael Miebach, CEO of Mastercard, compares AI to electricity, “It powers our fraud prevention and personalization services. It helps us protect over 125 billion – yes, billion – transactions on our network every year. We’re looking to do even more with AI.”

PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests that AI could boost global GDP by $15.7 trillion by 2030, with $3.7 trillion of that impact in North America. That equates to $30 million of GDP per minute, born from productivity and products.

We’ve noticed. 2023 was AI’s coming out party, dressed by ChatGPT.

Where will AI show up?

Everywhere.

Bala Maddali, head of conversational AI at Verizon, breaks it down.

“AI already operates in the background, unseen and untouched—for example, email filtering or fraud detection. Then, there are AI-powered experiences—traffic prediction in Google Maps or Netflix’s recommendation engine. And finally, at its most visible, where AI itself is the experience. Here, humans interact directly with AI. ChatGPT, Siri, Alexa...”

Gains in productivity come from replacing or augmenting human labor. This allows us to work more effectively or on higher-value tasks. Meanwhile, AI operates behind the scenes in products like Google’s autocomplete, Spotify, and Quickbooks. Yet to come: a range of as-yet-not-invented, increasingly sophisticated products poised to boost consumer and business demand.

$15.7 trillion reasons to pay attention to AI.

So whAt Is it?

Here’s a definition for non-experts by a non-expert.

AI is about crafting machines to think, speak, move, and see—like (or better than) humans.

AI is a big, geeky topic.

As newcomers, we often glimpse one part of the elephant — ChatGPT, Boston Dynamics robots, self-driving cars — and think we see the whole thing.

What I'll tackle here is the aspect I believe we'll quickly get familiar with—the part where AI isn't just a tool but the experience itself. The subset of Machine Learning and Deep Learning that gives us something to think with—an intelligence that can augment our intelligence—Generative AI.

If you’re overwhelmed by all the autonomous, neural, learning, AI-related word-smithing, and word-hacking, here’s a quick primer.

#AI: Artificial Intelligence: the ability of machines to mimic human thinking or actions, often through problem-solving or learning.

#Anthropomorphization: The attribution of human qualities to non-human entities, such as machines or AI models. Try not to say please and thank you.

#ML: Machine Learning, a technique where computers learn from data without being explicitly told how to perform a task.

#DeepLearning: A type of machine learning that uses multi-layered neural networks to analyze various factors of data.

#NeuralNetworks: Computing systems inspired by the human brain, made up of interconnected nodes, used to process information.

#GenerativeAI: AI that creates new content, like images or text, by learning from existing data, recognizing patterns, and making predictions.

#LLM: Large Language Model, a type of deep learning model trained on vast amounts of text to understand and generate language.

#ChatGPT: An AI chatbot by OpenAI that can converse and answer questions.

#OpenAI: A company focused on creating and promoting friendly AI for the benefit of all.

#Bard: Google's AI chatbot designed for conversation; still experimental.

#Claude: A chatbot by Anthropic aiming for safe and ethical AI conversations.

#Anthropic: A company focused on creating AI to be helpful, harmless, and honest.

#ImageGenerationModels: AI models that create new images based on learned data.

#DALL-E: An AI by OpenAI that turns text descriptions into images.

#Factuality: The accuracy or truthfulness of the information generated by a generative AI model.

#Midjourney: An AI tool similar to DALL-E focused on generating artwork.

#Transformers: A type of algorithm in a neural network architecture that's particularly good at handling sequences like text.

#SupervisedLearning: Training AI using labeled data, where the answer is provided.

#UnsupervisedLearning: Training AI using data without explicit answers, letting it find patterns on its own.

#ReinforcementLearning: Training AI through trial and error, rewarding it for the right decisions.

#NLP: Natural Language Processing, making computers understand and generate human language.

#PromptEngineering: The technique of crafting specific inputs to get the best outputs from AI models.

#Robotics: The science of designing, building, and using robots for tasks.

#ComputerVision: Giving machines the ability to interpret and act on visual data.

*All definitions provided by ChatGPT-4

AI changes everything.

Now that we're fluent in AI-speak, let's explore why it's more than a buzzword—it's a game-changer from retail floors to boardrooms. Sundar Pichai, head of Google, calls AI “more profound than fire.”

That’s big.

Bigger than computers. Even bigger than the internet? Let’s try to size this latest wave of technology.

To do that, I spoke to Rohit Chauhan, Executive Vice President of AI at Mastercard, as he explained it:

“In the 1980s, computing became affordable. The cost of calculation effectively went to zero. Business challenges were reframed to become arithmetic problems characterized by spreadsheets and databases.

In the 1990s, the Internet effectively brought the cost of communication down to zero. Business challenges were reframed as communication problems characterized by APIs, email, and media.

Now, AI will bring the cost of prediction down to zero. Business challenges will be reframed as prediction problems. The scope and impact on productivity of AI will be bigger than computing and the Internet combined.”

Come on in, the water’s lovely.

Inevitably, technology comes at us fast and changes things slowly.

Email was the province of government and academic institutions when it was first invented in the 1970s. By the time Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan rom-commed to You’ve Got Mail in the 1990s, it had reached a majority. In the first and second decades of the twentieth century, email had spammed its way to near-ubiquity.

Waves of technology are crashing faster and faster.

Instead of the forty years of email, Social Media spread quickly, taking less than twenty years to become part of the fabric of our lives. Technology waves build on each other; we went from the first iPhone as a prized possession to the what-number-are we-on-now of the iPhone 14 less than fifteen years later.

We don’t know—yet—how big the AI wave will be. Pichai could be right.

The idea that AI paves the way for a spectacular future is shared by Emad Isaac. He’s the Chief Data Technology Officer at Allstate and is paving the way for the responsible use of AI within the company, as he puts it:

“It’s a little like learning to drive a car. When you’re young and you first get behind the wheel, it’s terrifying. A massive, powerful machine that can be dangerous if you can’t operate it properly. So you sit with an expert — a driving instructor — and gradually learn how to operate it. There will be a few minor incidents along the way, but over time and with practice, we get to the point where today, we drive and don’t even think about the act of driving anymore.

AI is like that. In time, it becomes routine to use and interact with. However, there’s danger in the hype cycle. That we don’t understand its promise and its limitations. We overplay the return and don’t understand the investment.

One thing I am certain about; it’s not going to replace people. But it will change the way people work.”

Ready or not, AI is here, and we—humans—need to get to grips with it.

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Three little words help you tell better stories.

Have you ever wondered why some people are great storytellers and others not so much?

The answer is [and then].

You've heard it before. Blah...blah... blah... [And then] Blah...blah... blah... [And then] Blah...blah... blah... [And then].

It's not the Blah...blah... blah... that makes you reach for a double shot of espresso. It's the [and then] that makes you wish for a Red Bull chaser.

[And then] is monotonous, dry, and boring.

[And then] is a list you could put in any order. Your brain doesn’t like it. Your brain listens for a twist, a reason, a cause and effect in the story.  But with [and then], it doesn't get it. Instead, it gets the dry, droning, over-explanation of Uncle Colm in Derry Girls.

You don't want [and then], you want a connector.

Connectors are words that build a logical thread in your argument. They are conjunctions used to establish relationships between ideas and events. They're the antidote to [and then] and the nexus of your narrative.

Three words: [But], [therefore], and [meanwhile].

But first, a source.

Tony Zhou is a filmmaker and video essayist known for his YouTube series "Every Frame a Painting." In one essay, Zhou examines Orson Welles's storytelling technique and his use of three little words as narrative devices on display in the movie F is for Fake.

[But]: This word introduces the idea of opposition. For example, the hero has done something, but the villain has done something to oppose it.

In Zhou’s F is for Fake video example:

“You’re a painter; why do you want people to do fakes?” [But] “Because the fakes are as good as the real ones, then there’s a market, and there’s a demand.”

[Therefore]: This word introduces the idea of progression. For example, the hero has done something, and therefore the world adjusts to her actions, usually introducing a new struggle the hero must overcome.

Back to Zhou’s F is for Fake example:

[Therefore] “If you didn’t have an art market, then fakers could not exist.”

[Meanwhile]: This word introduces the idea of parallelism, of two things happening at the same time. For example, the hero is saving the world. Meanwhile, her friend is off dealing with the fallout.

Zhou makes this work in an essay film:

“Let’s say you have two stories. Let one of them build up. When it reaches peak interest, switch to the other. Let this one build. And when this gets to the top, go back to the first.”

This connecting logic is a must-have for filmmakers. It's equally applicable to narratives of all stripes, from a board deck to Bridget Jones's Diary.

It works to build a structure that isn’t boring.

Therefore, it's applicable to you.

That is if you want to up your business storytelling game.

[But] isn't just a new struggle for a hero. It can be used to introduce a problem or challenge after a point has been made.

For instance, you have just pointed out a successful result. E.g., "Our sales have increased by 20%."  The next slide is a "but." E.g., "But our profit margins have shrunk.

[Therefore] may not be the world embracing our hero's actions. It can be used to present a solution to the situation on the previous slide.

For instance, if one slide presents a problem. E.g., "Our profit margins are shrinking,"  the next slide could present a solution using "therefore," E.g., "Therefore, we need to reduce our production costs."

[Meanwhile] can introduce a parallel development or process.

For instance, if one slide talks about efforts to reduce production costs, the next slide could discuss another aspect of the business using "meanwhile"

E.g., "Meanwhile, our marketing team is working on a new go-to-market campaign."

Meanwhile, you’re creating a board presentation.

Or it could be a keynote, sales pitch, or other high-stakes presentation. Whatever it is, “and then” won’t cut it. More [But], [Therefore] and [Meanwhile] will. Which, by the way, will explain the curious reason I’ve been using [ ] around those words.  But more on that later.

Think of PowerPoint as a movie or a screenplay.

Movies have storyboards. Three acts. They have beats in the story—moments that propel the story forward. Those moments compel the viewer to process and engage.

Those moments are connected by [but],  [therefore] and [meanwhile].

In PowerPoint, the storyboard is the “slide sorter” view. “Grid view” in Google Slides. The three acts are a Hook, Meat, and Payoff. Each slide is a beat in the story. Each slide has a point. Each slide has a headline.

[But],  [therefore], and [meanwhile] fall between each headline.

They’re often silent or implied. Therefore, the [ ]. So, an example of a series of slide headlines might look like this.

Last year, our team had tremendous success.

| Sets the stage, highlighting the positive achievements of the company.

[But]

We face significant headwinds in today’s market.

| Introduces a problem or challenge, creating a contrast with the previous positive note.

[Therefore]

Our strategic plan to overcome these headwinds.

| Presents a solution or response to the problem introduced in the previous slide.

[Meanwhile]

Exploring exciting adjacent opportunities in the market.

| Shifts the focus to another topic, discussing new opportunities that are arising at the same time as the company is dealing with its challenges.

[But]

Understanding the risks of these new opportunities.

| Introduces a new problem or challenge, this time related to the new opportunities.

[Therefore]

A strategy to mitigate risks and seize opportunities.

| Presents solutions or responses to the new problem.

[Meanwhile]

Tracking the progress of our ongoing initiatives.

| Shifts the focus again, this time to discuss other initiatives happening simultaneously.

[But]

Identifying areas for improvement in our initiatives.

| Introduces another problem or challenge related to the ongoing initiatives.

[Therefore]

Our comprehensive plan for continuous improvement and growth.

| Presents solutions or responses to the problem, wrapping up the presentation on a positive and forward-looking note.

You can see in this fake set of headlines the transition isn’t an “and then.”

But, therefore, meanwhile, worth a try?

‍

I trust you... ish.

Trust, along with autonomy and flexibility, is an essential ingredient for productivity. If people feel trusted, they are more likely to put in more effort and to go above and beyond.

In a high-trust relationship, we’re more engaged in our work.

Trust makes distributed work ‘work.’ Trust retains and attracts talent. It allows teams to be more collaborative. Trust is a factor that moves us from “my part works” to collective success.

Trust is a factored relationship.

That relationship has many forms: between individuals, between people and information, between teams, a leader and her team, or a customer and a brand. For simplicity, I’ll bundle trust into two groups.

Foundational trusts and functional trusts.

Foundational trusts enable and support team alignment, shared purpose, collaboration, resilience, and performance. Foundational trusts are human, informal relationships. They are intrinsic and emotionally based.

Foundational trusts exist between colleagues who have worked together for years. They have weathered tough days, impossible deadlines, and multiple pivots together and have an unspoken confidence in each other's abilities and understanding of their needs and styles.

Foundational trusts run deep. They enable collective performance.

On the other hand, functional trusts provide supplemental credibility, assurance, and confidence in specific situations, transactions, or partnerships. Functional trusts are formal mechanisms. They are more superficial and situational.

Functional trusts exist between a freelancer and her client. It’s secured through conversations that clarify roles and expectations, the reputation of the client and freelancer (E.g., Employer brand reputation on Glassdoor and seller levels on Fiverr), and the contract itself.

Functional trusts provide confidence in narrower contexts.

Foundational trusts, more than functional trusts, are essential for the team. Bruce Daisley, author of the book Fortitude: The Myth of Resilience, and the Secrets of Inner Strength, alludes to this; “resilience is the collective strength we gain from each other.”

That’s what trust does—build collective strength.

Breaking down foundational and functional trusts.

Foundational trusts come in many flavors:

As do functional trusts:

Building a firm foundation.

Building trust in a team requires a firm foundation. And that firm foundation is built on vulnerable, human, gut feel, hairs on the back of your neck, relationships.

You have a choice.

If you think of trust as a relationship, you can do something with it. You can actively nurture that relationship or damage it.

If trust is a relationship, are we swiping right or left?

Trust isn’t a universal pass or get-out-of-jail-free card. Just like a relationship, trust evolves. There are levels.

I. Low trust: the stranger zone.

At the lowest level of trust, we’re strangers.

Here, we either don’t know much about the other, or we assume a lot and don’t like what we assume. We hold suspicions, assumptions, and inferences about the other’s motives and behaviors.

The upside? Caution protects us from risk. The downside? No collaboration, politicking, territorialism, silos, and low productivity.

The stranger zone lacks foundational bonds. We rely on basic functional trusts based on incentives and deterrence.

II. Mid-level trust: the acquaintance awkwardness.

This is the next level.

Here, we work with each other as colleagues but tend to stick to our lanes. There are many reasons for this; we might be new to a team, or the team might be new. The pressure of work may force people into their corners. Zoom and hybrid work make it difficult to form social connections and bonds.

This level of trust allows each to do their own thing, with minimal coordination or collaboration. Individuals can work independently and focus on their own goals and objectives.

It feels faster; more productive.

The upside? we’re more transparent with each other. We have role clarity. There are no mal-intentions. We coordinate through email, Slack, and meetings. Consensus is sought, but collaboration—true collaboration—rarely happens.

It’s “my part works” territory.

III. High trust: Powerful partners.

This is the third circle of trust.

Foundational trust is fueled by shared experiences over time. We become willing partners. I seek out your advice, trusting your involvement. I know you’ll enhance my work.

This goes beyond trusting me to do my job and trusting you to do your job. There is a level of intimacy in the relationship. I also trust you to get involved with my work.

The “keep of the grass” signs disappear.

The downside? Without attention, side-by-side collaboration and coordination can be highly inefficient. It requires significant time and significant effort. By inviting someone in and valuing their input, you leave yourself open—and vulnerable—to criticism.

But, there’s a significant advantage.

Together, we amplify each other's contributions. The “I’s” in team morph into an “e” and an “a.”

Building trust requires work.

Trust is a relationship that allows you to have healthy debate and conflict; it allows you to commit to decisions and align with the team's goals.

But you have to put in the work. That work comes in six C’s.

Consistency.

Research shows that consistent behavior over time builds trust.

If you follow through on promises and your actions align with your words, it establishes you—in people's minds—as reliable and predictable. You are perceived as dependable, which strengthens trust.

The counter is true. Consistently overpromise — say, you commit to deadlines but are constantly late; even for reasons beyond your control, you are not dependable. People trust you not to follow through because that’s what you consistently do.

Be aware of what you commit to. Set realistic expectations. Underpromise and overdeliver, and follow through relentlessly to demonstrate consistency and build trust.

(Sources: Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995; Six, F, 2007)

Clarity.

Concrete rules.

Clear, unambiguous communication cements trust. Studies prove it.

If you work to communicate clearly, you avoid confusion. Misunderstandings are prevented. Transparency of expectations, objectives, decision processes, and reasoning increases mutual understanding and lays a foundation of trust between people.

The opposite erodes trust.

Vague expectations, unclear requirements, and opaque decision-making breed uncertainty. Uncertainty counters the predictability and reliability people want, damaging trust.

Make it your work to clarify objectives, priorities, processes, and, most importantly, the reasoning behind choices. Ask questions to check understanding. Summarize conversations. Leave no room for guesswork, misinterpretation, or ambiguity.

(Sources: Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995; Thomas, G.F., Zolin, R., & Hartman, J.L. 2009)

Capability.

Competence fosters trust.

Research shows that when you demonstrate the skills and expertise to fulfill obligations, you are perceived as capable and relied upon more.

There are two vital words in that sentence—demonstrate and perceive. It’s not enough to be capable; you have to appear capable. Trust is built on the perception of your competence. Displaying ability through strong performance builds confidence that you can deliver.

In contrast, hyperbole, bravado, and overstatement sew doubts.

Build competence. Even the best improve. They have a growth mindset. Focus on building competence for yourself and your team. Trust flourishes when others experience consistent, capable, performance.

(Sources: Mishra, A.K., 1996; Colquitt, Scott, & LePine, 2007)

Credibility.

Credibility indicates trustworthiness.

Research has shown that people are more likely to trust someone with a good track record.

People judge you. You come off as credible if you have a track record of aligning word and deed. If you honor commitments and uphold principles.

The opposite is true. When words and actions conflict, trust suffers. Even occasional lapses make dependability and integrity seem questionable.

Build credibility by making decisions guided by shared values and modeling ethics in words and deeds. Seek genuine win-wins. Follow through consistently. Trust grows when credibility is established over time.

(Sources: Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995, Whitener, 1997)

Candor.

Candor and trust are uneven bedfellows.

Transparency builds trust, yet candor makes people uncomfortable. Research shows sharing openly signals authentic intention, even if the news is bad. But you might avoid transparency, dodging unease and sidestepping self-doubt.

This tension exists because candor is difficult. Admitting mistakes, welcoming criticism, and revealing shortcomings are brave but unnatural.

Push past discomfort to encourage candid conversations that build trust. Straight talk. Start small by acknowledging an area of your self-improvement. Ask for blunt critiques. Discuss the long-trunked, grey-eared elephant in the room. With practice, candor becomes easier, bringing relationships closer and building foundational trusts.

(Sources: Wolfe & Kim, 2021; Karau & Williams, 1997)

Care.

Caring behaviors nurture trust.

Studies show that expressing empathy, listening actively, and building rapport through compassion deepen foundational trusts.

Demonstrate authentic interest in team members' well-being and human needs. Be vulnerable. Ask thoughtful questions to learn team members' aspirations. Be present and focused when others speak. Provide support, especially during difficult times. Show you view people as whole human beings, not just work resources.

Trust builds when people know you genuinely care. This emotional foundation strengthens collaboration, unlocks discretionary effort, and fosters organizational commitment.

(Sources: Mishra, Aneil K., and Karen E. Mishra. 2005; Colquitt, Jason A., Brent A. Scott, and Jeffery A. LePine. 2007)

Trust me, and work towards a culture where colleagues feel connected. Where they have a sense of community. Where performance soars.

‍

Trust me; I'm a doctor.

Or an engineer. Or trust me, I'm a professional. Or trust me, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Trust is a word we hear a lot in our work—or, more precisely, its lack.

Trust is the superglue that holds teams together. Without it, even the most well-engineered project can fall apart. The "absence of trust" is the first of Patrick Lencioni's five dysfunctions of a team.

That absence leads to other dysfunctions—we fear and avoid conflict, phone in our commitment, and avoid accountability, all of which lead to disastrous results.

With a lack of trust, team members feel hesitant to open up. They won’t rely on each other for support. And in Lencioni’s view, they’re unwilling to be vulnerable with each other.

What is trust anyway?

Trust is a word people frequently use, but mean different things by it. That’s unfortunate. Leadership is messy.

Trust cleans up the mess.

Vulnerability.

Trust, according to Patrick Lencioni, is the belief in the vulnerability of one another.

In Lencioni’s thinking, leaders must lead by example, showing vulnerability—admitting mistakes, asking for help, and sharing personal stories. Create a safe space where team members can do the same without fear of ridicule or judgment. Be real, be open.

Lencioni sets the stage with vulnerability.  Stephen Covey delves into character and competence.

Character and Competence.

Stephen M. R. Covey, author of the bestseller The Speed of Trust, believes trust is the one thing that changes everything.

To build trust à la Covey, the twins of character and competence are central. Be consistently honest and show you're skilled at what you do. Regularly deliver on your promises—no excuses. Trust accelerates success.

If trust is character and competence, Daniel Goleman wants you to put it on display—with emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence.

Daniel Goleman, the father of emotional intelligence, describes trust as the glue that holds relationships together.

To build trust in Goleman's vein, master emotional intelligence: recognize and regulate your own emotions while empathizing with others. Build the emotional currency of trust. Make time for one-on-one conversations; see David Frost’s advice on no-agenda check-ins.

Goleman adds the feels. But how are they used? To build relationships.

Relationship.

Bob Burg sees trust as a relationship. For him, it is the foundation of any successful relationship.

To build trust the Bob Burg way, prioritize giving over getting—consistently add value to others' lives without expecting anything in return. Be a reliable resource, always ready to help or offer guidance. Trust is earned generosity.

Building relationships, for some, is hard. It takes bravery.

Braving.

American professor and writer Brené Brown describes an arena where we engage in vulnerability, risk, and emotional exposure.

Brené Brown’s advice on building trust is to be brave. To embrace vulnerability by sharing your own fears and failures openly with your team. Foster a culture where vulnerability is celebrated, not shamed. In her mind, courage begets trust.

But trust isn’t just bravery, relationship, or philosophy. There’s science behind how we build trust.

Lubricant.

Neuroscientist Paul J. Zak researches the brain’s role in trust. For Zak, trust is a mechanism for creating social bonds of all types.

Paul Zak's insights into the chemistry of the brain give us oxytocin-friendly actions to follow: give autonomy, publicly praise, and foster social connections. Make it a habit to celebrate small wins and individual contributions. Trust is social glue.

So, trust me?

Not so fast. Trust takes time.

There’s a reason trust is described as a verb, not a noun. It takes work on your part to build trust.

Trust is nuanced, not monolithic.

You would not trust anyone entirely in everything—not even yourself. If you knew me, you might trust me to help with your strategy. If you knew me well, you would not trust me to cook you an edible meal.

Trust has shades of gray.

Trust is a many splendored thing.

Trust underpins psychological safety, is in the fabric of high-performing teams, and acts as a salve for toxic culture. Inside groups, it’s a social lubricant. Trust amplifies productivity and engagement.

However you define trust, for leaders, it’s essential. A culture of trust starts at the top. That culture of trust adds speed, quality, and resilience to work. Leaders set the tone. What you say and how you act send signals.

That requires work. You can’t just stay at a Holiday Inn Express.

‍

“Be better.”

That’s Brandon Chin’s mantra. For Brandon, fassforward's creative director, it’s a belief. “Be better” is a half-joking chide used with his team to make sure their work is at its best. It’s an outcome the creative team strives toward. And it's simple.

Those two words capture the essence of Carol Dweck’s growth mindset.

Carol Dweck is an author and professor of psychology at Stanford University. Dweck argues that our thinking falls into two camps.  A fixed mindset: where people believe their intelligence and talents are innate, and a growth mindset.

You hear evidence of a fixed mindset in our language.

“She’s a born leader.”

“I’m not good at public speaking; it’s just not my thing.”

“He has natural charisma.”

This is rigid thinking, to believe that our intelligence and talents are static and permanent—that little can be done to change our abilities.

The opposite of a fixed mindset is a growth mindset, to believe that you can “be better.”

A growth mindset contains expansive thinking, where we are curious. Where we believe our talents can be developed through application and persistence.

Again, you hear it. You just don’t hear it as much.

“She’s grown into her leadership role.”

“I’m working on my storytelling skills.”

“Charisma takes practice.”

A growth mindset is about learning and can be learned. That learning takes positive reinforcement and practice. That’s what’s behind Brandon’s belief.

Do you have a fixed mindset? Take this quick test.

How do you develop a growth mindset?

Developing a growth mindset requires setting your mind to “be better.”

To make that abstract more concrete, here are six practices you can build into your working routine: Fuel change through challenges, view setbacks as comebacks, value effort over ease, learn from criticism and others' success, harness the power of 'yet,' and relish the process more than the result.

Challenges fuel change.

View each challenge as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Work with your team to clarify the outcomes you’re working toward. That allows you to pick and set clear goals.

If you don’t know already, learn what kind of challenge people enjoy. Encourage your team to take on new projects or tasks that push their abilities.

For yourself, step to the edge of your comfort zone, not outside it. Outside your comfort zone is a place of paralysis. At the edge is where you learn and grow. Encourage your team to do the same.

Setbacks are setups for comebacks.

Treat setbacks as temporary obstacles, not insurmountable failures.

Establish a routine of post-mortems or after-action reviews. The name doesn’t matter. Get into the collective habit of reviewing how work was done and how it could be improved.

People make mistakes. If you’re going to criticize something, critique a lack of effort instead of a mistake. Foster a team culture that views mistakes as learning opportunities, not failures.

Share stories of success—especially those people who experienced setbacks and used them as an opportunity to learn.

Effort trumps ease.

Hard work and persistence are more valuable than innate talent.

You see this over and over again with sports teams. The fairy-tale success stories come from hard work and perseverance rather than a team built around an all-star.

When you bring the team together, talk about and reward effort in the workplace, regardless of the results.

Great leaders teach. Encourage curiosity, continuous learning, and development within your team.

Be transparent about your personal development goals and share your progress with your team to set an example.

Criticism is a classroom.

See constructive criticism as a source of feedback. View others' success as an inspiration, not a threat.

One of the rituals that Brandon practices with his team is the “Why it’s good” meeting. Picking a topic—web design, copywriting, PowerPoint slides, or games—the group brings outside examples of what they think is “good." Each team member will, in turn, introduce work and talk about “why it’s good.” Others in the team then build on that. This upbeat, constructive criticism reveals patterns of work that everyone can learn from.

These meetings foster a culture of constructive criticism within your team, where everyone feels safe to give and receive feedback. But don’t just seek feedback; filter it.

What’s more important than seeking feedback? How you listen to it.

Remember Henry Ford, when building the first mass-produced cars, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” There is some debate as to whether Ford said that, but the point stands—feedback is useful—to a point.

Use it to “be better.”

Adopt the power of ‘yet.’

Don't say, "I can't do it." Say instead, "I can't do it yet."

This is the stubbornness of a growth mindset. It’s the recognition that what you do is learned, and you can learn from anywhere.

“Yet” is the ability to think differently, to look for and recognize patterns.

“Yet” is building those patterns into your work. It could be a better way of running a meeting, or making a decision, or navigating the internal politics around a project. It could be the way you produce a report or a PowerPoint.

Then, make those patterns habitual to the team. Make it a collective habit, the way you do things. It’s part of getting faster and battling bureaucracy.

Enjoy the process more than the result.

Strive for the outcome, but enjoy the process.

This is, perhaps, the ultimate expression of a growth mindset. It’s building a rhythm the team can sustain—one of constant improvement.

This is where we get to what I will call The Sean Doctrine. It’s similar to The Art Doctrine in that it’s a piece of advice learned from a client. They are the best ones. It’s a smart, simple way to be better.

Sean Barry is the Vice President of Talent Acquisition at Allstate. He does something profoundly simple at his weekly team meeting. He asks a question.

“What’s better this week than last week?”

Those seven words capture Dweck’s work on a growth mindset. They are a gateway to “be better.” As the team answers, the language of the question and the answer communicates continuous improvement. It allows autonomy. Sean is not saying how to be better. His team has the agency to figure that out.

It’s a constant rhythm.

Knowing that question comes up every week means the team can celebrate small wins and progress, not just the final result. It encourages learning and reflection, not just execution.

Like all good questions, it has a follow-up.

“Who is happier, as a result?”

This is a focus on the client or customer. It’s a nod to leadership as a service. It’s knowing that your team—whatever it does—is part of a greater whole.

How do you get to be better?

‍

A baker’s dozen of articles on storytelling and leadership from the first half of 2023.

If you haven’t signed up for the forward-thinking newsletter, please do.

If you have, thank you, and would you like to forward it to a friend?

Gavin

How to begin.

🎬 Ready, set, go.

How do you start your hashtag#story? Here’s a useful guide on how to begin.

Set your hook.

hashtag#storytelling hashtag#communicationskills hashtag#storytellingtraining hashtag#forwardthinking

https://lnkd.in/egwGGw4b

Why business needs stories.

💼🛡️👑🐉⚔️ Business is just stories.

Those stories help you build stuff and sell stuff. Understand these four genres of business storytelling.

The brand story, the product story, the sales story, and the leadership story.

hashtag#storytelling hashtag#communicationskills hashtag#storytellingtraining hashtag#forwardthinking

https://lnkd.in/eyaE3aQi

The greatest data story ever told.

1010010001000111 01000100011110100010111111111101101

101THE101GREATEST101DATA101STORY101EVER101TOLD101

1110011101000111 01000101010010100010110000011101100

hashtag#storytelling hashtag#communicationskills hashtag#storytellingtraining hashtag#forwardthinking

https://lnkd.in/egtc7q-g

Master Message Discipline.

🔁 REPETITION 🔁 REPETITION 🔁 REPETITION

Message discipline drives operational discipline in your organization.

Use it to transform your business.

hashtag#storytelling hashtag#communicationskills hashtag#storytellingtraining hashtag#forwardthinking

https://lnkd.in/e6DbuM79

“Narrative” is never enough.

😌 Once more, with feeling. 🤗

How do you turn your “Narrative” into a hashtag#story?

Time to get cuddly.

hashtag#storytelling hashtag#communicationskills hashtag#storytellingtraining hashtag#forwardthinking

https://lnkd.in/epnvv7uX

We’re not as concrete as we could be.

Concrete language is:

Easier to understand.

More Memorable.

More Engaging.

More Credible.

So why wouldn’t you?

hashtag#storytelling hashtag#communicationskills hashtag#storytellingtraining hashtag#forwardthinking

https://lnkd.in/eiRKjP_y

Building blocks and strategic narrative.

💣Why does your strategy have no traction?

💭Because you haven’t connected the dots with a strategic narrative.

hashtag#storytelling hashtag#communicationskills hashtag#storytellingtraining hashtag#forwardthinking

https://lnkd.in/efn27s9j

Battling bureaucracy.

⛔ Let me check with my boss. ⛔ That’s against policy. ⛔ Due to unforeseen circumstances. ⛔ Please submit a comprehensive report. ⛔ Let's touch base offline. ⛔ I know this is a bit of an eye-chart.

hashtag#storytelling hashtag#communicationskills hashtag#storytellingtraining hashtag#forwardthinking

https://lnkd.in/edn5eKjW

A new hope... for your communication.

The law of improving communication: pay attention to what you pay attention to.

hashtag#storytelling hashtag#communicationskills hashtag#storytellingtraining hashtag#forwardthinking

https://lnkd.in/eK7jRDA9

A guide to word hacking.

💗 Digital dexterity 💗 Social snacking 💗 Digital lingering 💗 Soft vacation. WordHacks.

hashtag#storytelling hashtag#communicationskills hashtag#storytellingtraining hashtag#forwardthinking

https://lnkd.in/eTjFtNsN

Yes, your agenda is bad.

If you have to have another meeting, can you please make it interesting? Or if not interesting, useful?

hashtag#leadership hashtag#meetings hashtag#forwardthinking

https://lnkd.in/epHYvsch

Bite-sized stories with a side of innovation.

Four stories to celebrate the 4th of July. All built around the humble hamburger.

hashtag#storytelling hashtag#communicationskills hashtag#innovation hashtag#forwardthinking

https://lnkd.in/ezgbpjRQ

‍

Consider framing as you munch on your burger on the 4th of July.

Not the burger itself. The meaning behind it.

You might think of its Americaness, of flags and fireworks, of motherhood and apple pie. The humble burger as a representative of the very American values of commercialism, entrepreneurship, and capitalism. The flavor of the burger, with its dance partners of lettuce, tomato, and sesame seed. Or even the word “burger” that makes your mouth water on independence day.

Apologies to the non-US readers of this Article. Over here, the holiday is a big thing.

Framing is essential to leadership. It is the essence of storytelling.

Framing is the concept in communication theory and social sciences that refers to how we portray information, events, and ideas. The framing effect is a cognitive bias that helps us choose. And leadership is a choice. Storytelling is how we amplify those choices.No alt text provided for this imageAnd the burger has been framed.

And the burger has been framed.

‍

64 AD.

Gaius's stomach growled as he trudged through crowded streets. The city is alive and bustling; merchants hawking wares, children playing, and citizens about their daily business.

The smell of cooking drew Gaius to the thermopolia. The shop owner greeted him, standing behind a counter of dolia—large terracotta jars filled with different kinds of food.

"Isicia Omentata, sodes" Gaius handed over a few sestertii and munched into his Isicia Omentata as he turned for home.

The thermopolia of ancient Rome were what we would call fast-food stalls today—the precursor to McDonalds. Sestertii were a lower denomination bronze coin worth less than a denarius, a silver coin—the equivalent to modern-day cents and dollars. A common laborer might earn a few denarii for a day’s work, and a dish like Isicia Omentata would likely cost less than a denarius.

Isicia Omentata was a spicy grilled meat patty, the forerunner of the hamburger.

The Founder.

If you need a movie to watch on the 4th of July, watch this one.

Michael Keaton stars in The Founder as Ray Kroc, the American entrepreneur. The story is an object lesson in the cornerstones of capitalism; persistence, ethics, ambition, and innovation.

It is the story of McDonald’s.

As the movie starts, Kroc is a struggling Multimix milk-shake machine salesman. His job and workaholic nature mean a distant relationship with his wife. Kroc’s travels take him to San Bernardino, California, where he meets Mac and Dick McDonald—owners and founders of McDonald’s.

The McDonald brothers' burger tasted great, but their true innovation was the "Speedee Service System," an orchestrated ballet of efficient hamburger production. That system revolutionized the fast food industry.

On a handshake deal, Kroc partnered with the brothers to expand and franchise the business. His first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, proved a runaway success, allowing him to bring in more investors and open more franchises.

But Kroc felt he wasn’t earning enough.

Kroc worked around his contract with the brothers. He incorporated a new company, Franchise Reality Corporation, which bought and leased the real estate each McDonald’s sat on. After the speedy service system, the land-lease model was the second foundational innovation in McDonald’s history.

Land-lease was a piece of strategic genius.

The Franchise Reality Corporation was also the chess piece that allowed Kroc to force out the McDonald brothers. Land-lease gave Kroc a second, stable, high-profit income. He could collect rent from the franchisees as well as the franchise fee and percentage of sales. This gave him more control over the operators. He wasn’t just the franchisee; he was their landlord.

Kroc's original agreement with the McDonald brothers gave him the right to franchise McDonald's but also gave the brothers a degree of control over the operation, which led to conflict. In 1961, Kroc bought the McDonald's brand and operation rights from the McDonald brothers for $2.7 million. This deal allowed Kroc to take complete control.

Part of the buyout was a verbal agreement to pay the McDonald brothers a 0.5% royalty on future profits.

Kroc, now framing himself as the founder of McDonald’s, opened a new restaurant in San Bernardino, close to the original McDonald’s store. Kroc forced the brothers to rename their store.  The newly monikered “The Big M” ultimately closed.

The McDonald brothers never saw their royalties, which would have eventually been about $100 million a year.

Would you eat pink slime?

Probably not. But maybe you have eaten lean, finely textured beef.

AKA boneless lean beef trimmings. It’s a food product made from the processed offcuts of meat packing plants. Heated, spun in a centrifuge, and then treated with ammonia gas to kill off nasty bugs, it’s used as a filler to reduce beef’s overall fat content—and price.

Critics call it pink slime.

If you’ve had a Big Mac or two in your lifetime, you’ve eaten it. Although it’s safe, according to the USDA, McDonald’s stopped putting it in their burgers in 2012, probably because it doesn’t sound too appetizing.

It’s all in the name.

That’s the beef the Cattleman’s Association has with Beyond Burger. The patty is from California-based startup Beyond Meat; the plant-based burger looks, cooks, and tastes like traditional beef burgers. Except it’s never seen a cow.  The Beyond Burger derives from beans and rice.

To consumers, the compound noun of Beyond Burger quickly conveys meaning. It’s like real meat, but not. That wordhackery skates too close to the edge for cattlemen. They insist it’s fake meat, and they’re ornery about it. To date, the debate rages in law courts and state houses.

McDonald’s, sensibly, has avoided that particular fire with the McPlant.™

A burger from the other side of the world.

That quintessential Roman American invention, the hamburger.

The legend of its creation dates back to 1885 at the Outgamie County Fair in Seymour, Wisconsin. Fifteen-year-old Charlie Nagreen flattened meatballs he was selling between two pieces of bread to make them easier to eat. Or—it was first served at Louis’ Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1900 to allow a customer to eat on the go. That’s another claim.

Also in the mix is Fletcher Davis at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. He ran out of pork for his sausage patty sandwiches and instead used ground beef, probably delighting any visiting cattlemen.

The name itself originates 4,516 miles from St. Louis, Missouri. Hamburg, Germany. Hamburger. Hamburgian immigrants, who enjoyed finely chopped beef in their homeland, found it used in this oh-so-American delicacy.

Snack on that as you eat your burger.

‍

Many years ago, I worked at Gartner.

It was a time of transformation. We were on the cusp of becoming a billion-dollar business. Technology was transitioning from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. An old CEO was stepping down, and a new one was stepping up.

Consultants were brought in.

If you’re thinking McKinsey, Bain, or BCG—you wouldn’t be far wrong. During this time, I learned the importance of other c’s that go with change: clarity, conviction, communication, and certainty (among others) and how much humans need them.

Week after week, the consultants sat in conference rooms.

Paper privacy screens hung on the windows, and a trail of people visited these rooms for interviews. I had my turn, telling of my corner of the business, where it was going, and how it could be improved.  Others trailed in after me. I returned for “follow-ups.”

The interviews ground on.

In place of any real communication, the rumor mill whirred. We were merging with another company. A radical reorganization was about to happen. Cuts were about to happen. Products would sunset, and new groups would spin up. Everyone—and no one—knew.

In this communication gap, I noticed three distinct reactions among my colleagues. 

No decisions will be made today.

That was the first reaction. “Why would we make a decision if everything would change in a matter of weeks? We’re paying consultants millions, and they know best. Pointless to make a decision today that will be reversed tomorrow. Let’s just defer that and hold off on this.”

The next reaction?

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Keep your head below the cubicle.

In an age of open-plan offices and working from home, this second reaction seems quaint. But it’s a legitimate human reaction to uncertainty—fear. “Not only will I make no decisions, but I won’t rock any boats, make any false moves, or take any action at all. If heads may roll, I want to make sure mine isn’t one of them.”

I know what the strategy is.

This is the most dangerous reaction of all. Worse than delay or inaction is action in a hundred different directions. That’s what happens when people think they’re so smart they already know what the strategy is or should be, so they just act as if.

This is the camp I was in.

With change comes uncertainty.

With uncertainty, we need to tell stories to give people clarity. We need to have message discipline—to repeat those stories until they bed in and help people navigate through change. Consistency. And they need to be true stories, not fairy tales. Certainty.

This is a little like parenting. When you take your kids on a trip, they want to know why. They want to know, “Are we there yet?” They have questions.

A lot of questions.

Except employees are definitely not kids. And I wouldn’t recommend infantilization as a leadership strategy. But the messaging needs are similar. The answer lies in story.

Seven stories for seven questions.

These questions—and the stories that answer them, help people navigate. They help people understand their role. The answers give people confidence. They see their place in the world.

The questions are:

1. Where are we going (and why)?
2. Who are we?
3. What do I do?
4. How do we make money?
5. How do we do things around here?
6. How are we doing?
7. How will this be used?

The "Where are we going (and why)?" story.

This story fronts your strategy.

People need to know where and why; otherwise, they won’t go with you. In the second world war, Patton answered that question with clarity and certainty. He famously said, 

"Berlin. I'm going to personally shoot that paper-hangin' sonofabitch." 

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One of the best examples of a “where” was from JFK. For America and for NASA, it was the moon. The “why?” Because it is hard.

“But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

The Where and Why define a vision and shared purpose, one that everyone can get behind. 

Do you have a where and why story?

The “Who are we?” story.

Who am I? isn’t just an existential question for a mid-life crisis.

Self-identity is as critical to organizations as the people in them. For individuals, that social connection identifies their tribe. Identity guides actions and decisions in times of change.  It aids clarity. Self-identity helps us work with others; it allows us to be autonomous, navigate tasks, and find our place in the world. The same applies to business.

Without a strong self-identity, businesses flounder and fail. 

Kodak could not shift its core identity. Despite inventing the digital camera in 1975, “digital” was not part of the company’s identity. Film was. Steve Sasson, the Kodak engineer who invented the technology, couldn’t get anyone to identify with it. It wasn’t who they were.

“But it was filmless photography, so management’s reaction was, ‘that’s cute—but don’t tell anyone about it.”

That was a Kodak moment for the company. 

As you tell the story of “who we are,” people have to see themselves in that picture.

The “What do I do?” story.

This story guides the work. It allows coordination and collaboration.

An old Superbowl commercial gave life to the expression, herding cats. In the spot, a grizzled cowboy faced the camera over a swelling western soundtrack. A herd of cats roaming a dusty plain, being wrangled by ‘catboys.’ The grizzled cowboy husked;

Anybody can herd cattle. Holding together 10,000 half-wild short-hairs, why that’s another thing altogether. 

There’s certainty and pride in knowing what you do well.

The story that answers the question, “What do I do?” reduces role ambiguity and lines everyday activity up against strategy and tactics. A clear understanding of “what do I do” deepens autonomy, allowing people to remove transactions and busywork.

The “How do we make money?” story.

This is a question of understanding the business.

In any business, there are organizations — engineering, product, and sales—that make and sell the stuff customers buy. And there are executive functions—HR, finance, and legal—that help the business. 

It’s the “how” that’s key.

Both are vital, and both need to understand how the business makes money. Telling these stories allows autonomy. It allows teams to focus on vital improvements that can improve revenue, increase margins and avoid waste.

An employee’s increased financial understanding builds on other stories: where we are going, why, the identity of the business, and my role. 

The “How do we make money?” story allows everyone — from the C-suite to the frontline — to make business-savvy decisions.

The "How do we do things around here?" story.

These cultural stories tell of how we work.

These cultural stories are more powerful than a manifesto. They resonate more deeply than a set of values inscribed on a wall. They shape how people behave. What is more effective? A poster with the word ‘teamwork’ on it or the story of how the team rallied together in a crunch to deliver for a client?

Simply put, culture is “how we do things around here.” Underneath that are the collective habits and unwritten rules that inform the way work gets done. Are people running from one meeting to the next with no time in between? That’s a habit. Do you say yes to the boss, even when it doesn't make sense? That’s an unwritten rule.

Neither of them is good.

Stories shape behavior. These collective habits and unwritten rules help groups do (or not do) things together. They must be shaped. The positive ones reinforced, and the negative ones weeded out.

The "How are we doing?" story.

This is the feedback loop. 

The story that emerges from this question tells the truth, or the lie, to all previous stories. It’s the story that tells people where they are. We’re moving the project forward. The transformation is underway. We’re doing something, declaring victory, and moving on.

This is the affirmation that we—the team, the project, the business—are moving forward.

The “How will this be used?” story.

This is a story from the future.

It’s a story that creates the future. It could be a product story or a story of change. It paints a vivid picture of a new product, solution, or business transformation. 

“How will this be used?” is a science fiction, a story of the near future. The story explains how your protagonist (customer/ user) and product (solution) come together to solve a problem. This is the story that helps product, engineering, and project teams build what they are building, and sales and marketing teams sell what they are selling.

This “How will this be used?” story is studded with rich detail that shows the value or benefits that you will provide. 

Are you telling a story of the future?

These are stories that you should be telling. Are you?

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TL~DR: Topic-laced agenda; bad. Outcome-driven agenda; good.

Many of you have weekly staff meetings. Or perhaps, in an attempt to modernize them, these meetings go by another name—check-ins, stand-ups, sync-ups, or huddles.

Whatever they are called, you need them.

The meetings help you manage. Done well, they help with the big three goals of work—engagement (people are enthused about the work), alignment (the team has shared context around the work), and productivity (the work is efficiently and effectively completed).

You might even actually do work in these meetings.

But those same meetings are usually too long, not as effective as they could be, and a big time-suck.  And there isn’t just one of them. You run your own, and you probably sit in a dozen others.

You’ve tried a few ideas to mitigate the murder of meetings.

What else can you do?

It’s the topic, stupid.

An agenda full of topics will inflate like a terrified puffer fish.

The problem is the way people treat that topic as a line item on the agenda. On the agenda is something called “Workstream 2 update.” (Yours might be called something else.) You intend that line as an item for discussion, information, presentation, or review.

And so, on the agenda: Workstream 2 update. You assign it to the team lead on Workstream 2.  You allot fifteen minutes. The meeting happens.

Fifty minutes in, you wonder: Why is Workstream 2 update so bad? You sneak a glance at your phone. Your mind wanders. The speaker drones on. Is it bad because you’ve already sat through Workstream 1 update? Is it bad because this week’s update is the twin of last week’s? Or is it bad because you know there are four more workstream updates to go?

What happened here?

A topic-driven agenda isn’t a meeting; it’s an information dump.

You need meetings to work for you, not make work for you.

Spend a little time upfront to make the meeting work.

People want to know why they are there.

Be clear—and singular—on your purpose; whether it’s to coordinate, prioritize, run the business, shape the culture, learn, or create something.

A coordination meeting or stand-up.

Purpose: alignment.

These allow teams to quickly get a sense of all the moving parts. See who is doing what, and ask for help if they need it. They answer two questions, what did you do? And what are you doing? Coordination meetings and stand-ups work best in short intervals and are best kept short. You run them daily before work starts, or weekly at the beginning of the week, or some cadence in between.

At fassforward, we call them "Task" meetings because they are all about the work.

Participants would identify roadblocks, ask for help, or gain clarity on who is responsible for what.

Outcome: shared understanding, promoting effective communication and efficient collaboration among team members

Prioritization meetings.

Purpose: alignment.

Prioritization meetings are about making decisions, particularly about what work to slow down, what to speed up, and what work to tackle next.

Simple prioritizing rules help guide decision-making. For example, if client deliverables drive work, working to agreed dates drives prioritization and alignment of resources. Conversely, a project plan or major business initiatives might drive the prioritization decisions. The cadence for these is typically longer than a coordination meeting, monthly rather than weekly, or weekly rather than daily, as prioritization is at a more macro level.

At fassforward, we call them "roadmap" meetings because they are all about the path of the work.

Outcome: a shared understanding of priorities, optimized resource allocation, and a roadmap for effective execution.

Run the business meetings.

Purpose: productivity and alignment.

The snarkier name might be “follow the money” meetings; they form the core of your team's commercial activity. As such, they’re wide-ranging: discussions related to operational updates, financial reviews, strategic planning, and addressing organizational challenges. These meetings are crucial for effectively running day-to-day operations

For a sales team, these meetings might revolve around reviewing the sales pipeline, discussing prospects, and discussing ways to boost revenue. An engineering team might review and evaluate customer reviews feedback and align product development with customer needs. In the case of an HR team, these meetings could cover topics such as talent acquisition, employee retention, and organizational development. Similarly, for a finance team, discussions might encompass budgeting, financial analysis, and resource allocation.

Outcome: improved commercial performance, alignment with strategic objectives, and the ability to overcome operational hurdles.

Culture meetings.

Purpose: engagement.

Culture meetings build social connections in and across the team. They can often be part of, or attached to, other meetings. These meetings focus on activities such as recognition, rewards, celebrations, and acknowledging important milestones like birthdays. They are typically agenda-less, allowing for a more informal and interactive approach.

Organizing effective culture meetings can be difficult, as engagement is in the eye of the beholder. It’s easy to cross the line into something performative. Some team members might thrive on public recognition, while others may appreciate more personal gestures or meaningful touchpoints.

At fassforward, we call them "Touch" meetings because they are all about relationship.

Outcome: increased motivation, improved team morale, and a sense of belonging among team members.

Learning meetings.

Purpose: engagement and productivity.

Learning meetings build business capability. They improve things. They aren’t training; they are the application of learning to improve both the work and how we work. They take advantage of the concept that learning is social.

The primary goal of learning meetings is to encourage team members to expand their knowledge, acquire new skills, and stay up to date. These meetings create opportunities for sharing expertise, conducting training sessions, and discussing best practices. They are part of a culture of continuous learning, contributing to the growth and development of individuals and the team as a whole.

Outcome: better (changed) business practices and work outputs, increasingly capable team members.

Creative meetings.

Purpose: alignment, engagement, and productivity

Creative meetings build things. That could mean a focus on generating ideas, kickstarting projects, planning, brainstorming—anything aimed at building innovative solutions or driving creative endeavors.

Creative meetings harness the collective creativity and expertise of team members. They serve as a platform to kick-start projects, set direction, and align the team's efforts. By providing a space for open discussions and idea generation, creative meetings encourage active participation and collaboration among team members.

They’re used to re-invent, crack difficult problems, or align the business (or part of the business) in a new direction. These creative meetings could be big or small, formal or informal, frequent or infrequent.

Outcome: a shared vision, increased engagement, and the generation of innovative solutions, ultimately driving successful project outcomes.

Four things you can do to get better.

Know why. Why you are having the meeting in the first place, and work to an outcome. Be clear on that outcome. Use the meeting types here as a starting point.

Answer questions—not just in the meeting but for the meeting. Build your agenda not as a series of topics but as a set of questions to be answered.

Sum up. The ratio of how much is said in a meeting vs. what is written down is incredibly bad. So many great ideas are glossed over or lost in the ether.

End early. It doesn’t matter how great the meeting is. It’s better if it ends early.

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A long time ago, in our galaxy...

George Lucas sat down to write Star Wars. It was a different time. An analog world. The 1970s. Oil shocks, cold war, flared trousers. Apollo missions went to the moon. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey portrayed mankind’s early exploration of our solar system.

And a young George Lucas typed.

Lucas had a guide. Joseph Campbell, literary professor. Years earlier,  Campbell had published "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," an exploration of the monomyth. The monomyth, or hero’s journey, Campbell argued, was found over and over again in legend, myth, and story—it represented a profound aspect of the human experience.

The hero’s journey was a repeated pattern.

The pattern, according to Campbell.

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The hero’s journey in Star Wars.

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Can you use the hero’s journey?

In a word, no.

It’s too complicated. As a structure to build a strategic narrative, marketing campaign, or sales presentation, it’s literally useless. Try to match your yearly kick-off to a supernatural aid or atonement of the father, and you will soon be reaching for Advil.

But there are lessons to be learned.

The hero and the villain.

Your story isn’t a story without a hero and a villain. In your next presentation, pitch, or high-stakes conversation, your audience has to identify with both. You are not the hero. Your product isn’t the hero. Your idea isn’t the hero. The audience is.

When you watched Star Wars, don’t forget you weren’t up on the big screen, but remember that you identified with the characters on it.

The call to action.

Too many meetings just have a set of topics. Emails just contain information. Where’s the outcome? What are we expected to do with it?

In the hero’s journey, the protagonist receives a call to action. It motivates them. It’s the inciting incident. In your business story, emphasize the call to action—both as the problem you’re trying to solve and the outcome you’re taking people to. The call creates a sense of urgency and relevance for your audience.

Yes, there are trials and tribulations.

I know we don’t like to talk about them.

Business is about change. Leadership is about choice. That means that not everything is an “opportunity.” Some “opportunities” really are actually problems to solve, things to fix, and situations to improve. Acknowledge them, just like real people.

Life has ups and downs. So should your business stories.

People want a better version of themselves.

The hero’s journey is about the transformation of the hero.

In the end, after the supernatural aid, crossing the threshold, trials and tribulations, and the innermost cave, the hero becomes better. We all want the same. We just don’t want to go through the same hassle. We instinctively prefer the promise of a get-rich-quick scheme or a pill to make it all go away.

But we also know that’s not real.

Your business story has to project the transformation. It has to show the journey, where the hero becomes a better version of themselves, with just a hint of trial or tribulation to make it seem worth it

Connect with emotion.

It’s a story. Therefore emotion. A business story wraps emotion around information. It’s the “feel” that makes people connect.

Start with a hook.

Star Wars had a great hook. It grabbed attention from the beginning and didn’t let go. That’s the lesson Lucas learned best and the lesson for you. Whether it’s a comment in a meeting, an opening to a conversation, or the beginning of a pitch, you want to set your hook.

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Choose zesty words, not sterile ones.

This is the rhetorical sleight of hand that buries earworms in your head. The attention-grabbing word-play that packages your point of view. The linguistic trickery that plants a thought in your mind.

You hear word hacks all the time as they slip into your consciousness.

You sit, sipping an oat-milk, pumpkin-spice latte. Doomscrolling through headlines of “Prompt engineering could be the hottest job in tech, with a paycheck to match.” “Kim Kardashian, Sponcon, and the Rules of Being an Influencer” and “A polarized US hurtles toward a fiscal cliff.” Your phone pings. A friend texts, lamenting the shoepidity of their latest purchase. You sip again and wonder if you should trade that smartphone in for a dumbphone.

Note: For fun, I’ve used a lot of word hacks. They are in italics. Definitions here.

Novelty equals attention.

These made-up words work because we’re not used to them. They trip off the tongue and sound interesting to the listener. They work on the brain, telling it to “sit up, switch off autopilot, and translate this.”

We’re wired for novelty. A hit of dopamine seeps into the mind as the pattern is disrupted, and we seek to successfully understand each new word. More gray matter lights up.

The prefrontal cortex, involved in attention and working memory, kicks in. It helps us keep the new word in mind long enough to understand it in context and to learn its meaning.

The hippocampus, a part of the brain associated with memory and learning, gets involved in processing the new word, working to integrate it with our existing knowledge and store it in our long-term memory.

All that brain activity sifts signal from noise. It helps the story stick.

Time to do some word-hacking.

Making up new words (that’s neologisms for the wordanistas out there) isn’t a cyberspace invention. Although the Internet does seem to spawn more than its fair share. Literature has given us Scrooges, Polyannas, and Snarks. Science and technology have given us lidar, Google, and Photoshop.

Why do we do it? So people can grok what you’re talking about.

To wordhack.

Neologism. A new word.

They come, often, in two forms.  The portmanteau—think of two words slammed together to form a new one, with the edges shorn off. Metaverse or Affluenza. Then we have compound nouns. These are wordhacks made from two words standing side by side. Think digital dexterity or zoom ceiling.

Used sparingly by clever speakers, writers, and educators, the wordhack screams, “Look at me, listen, pay attention.” The best ones are not only unusual but have enough familiar parts to make them understandable and memorable.

How can you play along?

Let’s start with a few simple portmanteaus.

There are some near-universal endings to add. Adding a “-y” turns a name into an adjective. So, for example, we might want to transition the business to be more SaaSy, meaning we need to take on the attributes of a successful Software as a Service business.

Or we can “-ify” things. If we Amazonify something, it takes on aspects of Amazon. Depending on context, that means a relentless focus on operational excellence or innovation or getting a product ready for e-commerce.

Let’s turn it up a notch.

An “-athon” implies a long, intense process. “We’re going to figure out how to build AI into our work processes in a hackathon.” Or “Boy, Julie’s offsite was a real meetathon.”

Add an “-ology” or “-omics” if you want to give something or someone some extra IQ points. “We need to understand the buyology of our customers.” “Jim’s leading our RTO effort; he has a master's in deskology.” “We’ve hired a consultant to help with our internal communications; she will help clean up our jargonomics.”

The tech industry, and by extension, consulting, and by extension, every company using technology, loves its “-ications;” the conversion from one state to a future, better state. Think gamification, tokenization, digitization, and virtualization.

The list goes on. Add an “-Ops” to a word and hint at an operationalized, automated, streamlined, better version of that word. DevOps, GitOps, and TeamOps.

Want to turn a noun into a tasty adjective? Try “-alicious.”

Runs some type of code, use “-ware.” Software, malware, and wetware.

Noodle with “-preneur” (solopreneur, intrapreneur), “-cast”(podcast, webcast, narrowcast), and “tech” (Fintech, Edtech, Agtech)

Compound nouns are fun too.

First, pick a modifier. Digital, Data, Social, or AI will do. Stand a base word next to it. The thing that Digital or AI modifies. Think dexterity, debt, snacking, and washing.

Mix them together, and what have you got?

Digital dexterity—the ability for organizations and employees to pivot quickly using digital tools.

Data debt—the build-up of data-related problems over time, including quality, categorization, and security issues.

Social snacking—brief, informal, positive interactions which contribute to a sense of happiness, belonging, and identity.

AI washing—the marketing claim of artificial intelligence (AI) technology when they really don't or the connection to AI is minimal.

Or just stick the word digital in front of a bunch of other modifiers: Nomad, footprint, divide, first, or hub.

Digital nomads—people who travel freely while working remotely using technology and the internet.

Digital footprint—some or all of the actions left as you use and interact with various technical systems.

Digital divide—the gulf between those who have ready access to computers and the internet and those who do not.

The list goes on, but I won’t.

A warning on clichés.

Once you have your wordhack, it’s time to use it. But shed it as soon as it becomes cliché.

Coinage: This is the stage where a new word, phrase, or idiom is created and introduced into the language. This could be due to cultural trends, specific contexts, or an individual's invention.

Fad: The hot stage, where the word, phrase, or idiom gains temporary popularity and becomes a trend. It captures the interest and enthusiasm of a specific group or community.

Common use: Here, the word, phrase, or idiom is widely accepted. It’s consulting-speak, used in various contexts and beyond a fad.

Stale: The word, phrase, or idiom is overused, predictable, and lacking freshness.

cliché: At this final stage, the word, phrase, or idiom becomes worn out. It lacks punch. It’s trite due to its pervasive and unoriginal usage.

Always use with context...

Great storytellers do this. They will drop in a new word or a term of art as a nod to the in-crowd. Subtly signaling, “I am one of you; I know my stuff.” But they aren’t exclusive. They surround the new word with simple language, enough to welcome new members to the club.

Beware—a blizzard of brand-new (as you will appreciate if you have made it here) is too much. It will overwhelm your story. But just enough novelty cracks the code for attention.

The trick is to remove the clichés, sprinkle in one or two wordhacks (for novelty and attention) and aim for simple.

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When was the last time you simply talked to someone and walked away feeling lighter, smarter, energized? It’s a wonderful feeling when it all goes right.

However, simply having a conversation isn’t always that easy. Conversations are layered. They come with preoconceived notions or worldviews. They come with tones, attitudes, and differing points of view. 

Fassforward is all about having meaningful conversations, it’s in the lifeblood of what we’re built on. So when we heard it was National Conversation Week, we wanted to be a part of that conversation. We tapped our expert coaches to get their advice on the top challenges they hear from their clients. 

In celebration of National Conversation Week and in support of Executive Coaching Month, we proudly present another compilation of invaluable "how-to's" to help you feel lighter, smarter, energized.

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Dave: How to recharge & avoid burnout. 

It starts with recognition that you need to move yourself up on your priority list. 

Almost everyone I coach has their job and their families as their top 2 priorities. They are a distant 3rd (sometimes 4th behind the pet). The key to recharging and avoiding burnout is self-care. Carve out time for whatever you do to de-stress (exercise, meditation, etc.). Put “focus time” on your calendar so you have time to think and ideate and not just check boxes on your “To Do” list. 

Encourage and demonstrate these habits to your team, so they follow your lead.  

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Sheri: How to find/reignite passion in what you do.

Many individuals, including my clients, often reach a point in their career where they feel unfulfilled and disillusioned. 

They may have excelled in their roles and met new challenges, but the passion and energy they once had for their work has dwindled. It's not uncommon to question whether they want to continue on this path or if it's worth it. This is where finding purpose can make a significant difference. As an executive advisor and coach, I use a process called Life Crafting to help clients uncover the small seeds of purpose that exists in anything they do.

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Jill: How to say no without saying no.

Many of the people I work with have an “automatic yes.” They take on too much work and wind up doing too much. Eventually, they either burnout, resentment sets in, or they just leave. Priority-setting works, until someone else’s priority shoves yours out of the way.  

Learn how to say no, without saying no. “Of course I can deliver that. Which one of the previous priorities can I put on hold?” “I can get that done by this date, unless you want to speak to so and so and change their timeline.” “I can get it to you by (date), however if you assign more resources I can get it to you by the  date you requested.” It’s always harder   to have “the not no” conversation, but in the long run you’ll be better off, get everything done, enlist help and satisfy everyone, including yourself. 

After all is said and done though, sometimes you do just have to say no.

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Frank: How to maximize your coaching experience.

Congratulations! You’ve been identified as a high potential employee. 

Are you ready to invest time and energy in your professional development? That’s code for are you ready to do the work?

If  you want to ensure time well spent with your executive coach, set the agenda for your call. Sharing your goals and priorities ensures your time together is productive. It also helps shape  a development plan tailored to your needs.

Practice what you’ve learned. Give your executive coach feedback on what’s working and what isn’t. Be willing to step out of your comfort zone and take some risks.

 A successful engagement is a routine of practice and feedback. 

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Christian: How to show up how you want to show up. 

Start with a simple question: “How do you want to show up?” 

First, get complete clarity about how you want to show up. Create a blueprint around how you need to act if you want to hit your goals. 

Then start tracking how you show up. Practice showing up in the manner that you want and see when you hit the target. 

Like any other skill, practice, repetition, and reflection transform you into the person you want to become.  

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Rose: How to have conversations that change hearts and minds.

There's a conversation we are having with ourselves. Often that translates to a conversation that tells us we’re not enough. 

That’s the first conversation we need to change. Each of us comes into this world with our brilliance and our muddy shoes. We need to accept our imperfections as what makes us uniquely us. 

There is also a conversation going on that is not taking us in the right direction. Making ourselves vulnerable in front of others begins to change that conversation. 

It starts with being human, sharing openly, and allowing others to do the same; without judgment or immediately pushing our point of view. Listening attentively and objectively opens the conversation. It allows for a sharing of perspectives and opinions that can lead to finding common ground. 

When we move from obsessing over  the conflict to finding the compliment, we humanize the conversation. 

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Gavin: How to use questions to boost your executive presence.

Executives underestimate the power of questions.

Questions are a clarifying, confidence-building, credibility-inducing, curiosity-triggering, communications superpower. 

Used well, they are a “how” that unlocks gravitas and adds presence. Questions set up stories. Socratic questions help leaders teach. Pointed questions solve thorny business problems. Rhetorical questions connect and grab attention. Questions both align and empower.

A caution, though.

Beware the “drill-down”—where questions feel like an inquisition. Or questions that “over-couch”—a poor disguise to a blunt statement. “Have you thought about...”

Are questions in your quiver?

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Shannon: How to professionally elevate your LinkedIn presence.

Welcome to LinkedIn. There's more to it than meets the eye. If you present yourself correctly, you'll be able to unlock its full potential and elevate your career.

LinkedIn has over 700 million users. Those users are on LinkedIn for a specific reason. They're looking to professionally connect and create with relatable, like minded people. They're looking for trustworthy thought leaders in their industry and solutions for their business challenges. They're looking for business trendsetters and to be a part of their industry's communities. 

But you need more than just a well-crafted profile to stand out. The key to elevating your presence and setting you apart from everyone else, is to be creative, authentic and passionate about what you do. Confidently, showcasing your unique talents and personality goes way beyond setting up the basics. Events. Articles. Newsletters. Influencers. Groups. There are so many opportunities for success if you just step outside of the box. 

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Large organizations are afflicted with largeness.

Largeness has outsized benefits. Economies of scale, where buying in bulk saves bucks. Or market power,  where you are the 800lb gorilla in the room. It allows organizations to diversify, with eggs distributed among multiple baskets and smoothed out revenue flows. Brand recognition comes with largeness, the familiar—and safe—face in a crowded room. 

It’s not quite too big to fail, but it’s close.

Largeness brings access to capital—money and investors seek you out, not the other way around. Brand recognition has a halo effect, and talent is attracted to you. For many industries, largeness comes with network effects, a self-reinforcing flywheel as more people buy and use your stuff.

Large is great. But there’s a “but.” Another “B” word.

Bureaucracy.

It’s fear of the dark side that makes big companies want to act small. Jim Gerace, Chief Communications Officer of Verizon, first penned its Credo, a document of Verizon’s culture. It contains a passage designed to keep largeness at bay. 

“We know that bigness is not our strength, best is our strength. Bureaucracy is an enemy. We fight every day to stay "small" and keep bureaucracy out.”

Large companies seek an antidote to largeness.

Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and Alphabet, declared a “Simplicity Sprint,” asking employees to think about “how we can minimize distractions and really raise the bar on both product excellence and productivity.”

It’s a constant fight against inertia.

When Michael Miebach became the CEO of Mastercard, he declared “moving fast” as one of the three pillars of the Mastercard way.

But largeness and speed require work.

Are you suffering from largeness?

Largeness, aka big thinking, aka bureaucracy, has roots in optimism.  

The Big Gulp-size, Market Power, Brand Recognition, Economies of Scale flavored Kool-aid has been guzzled. Largeness means organizations try to do too much. What would be a quick decision in a small organization is pondered, analyzed, sent up the chain, and considered for input.

Multiple people with hands in multiple pies.

Projects get layered on top of projects. Work expands to occupy time and team. Groupthink expands to even bigger groups. Goals are proudly ambitious. Too much is put on the “to-do” list. As a result, the pace of projects shifts from agile to inexorable. 

Sufferers of largeness look on in envy at smaller, nimbler businesses and skunkworks teams who can move things along at a rapid pace.

Why do the gears of business grind so slowly? 

Largeness gets in the way of change.

Would you cook your next meal without cleaning the counter?

Would you leave pots boiling from lunch while you start to make dinner? Leave pans to soak while you’re washing vegetables in the same sink? You would not, I hope. You would clear the decks. Clean the kitchen. Give yourself some room.

But large organizations don’t do that. They take on too much. It’s difficult to do [the new thing] because we’re still working on the old thing.

Overthinking doesn’t help. That one-page decision-making framework turned into a 40-page user guide. Rules and procedures designed to deal with the main use case, as well as the rainy-day, once in a blue moon, it’ll never happen again use case.

Or the (true story) internal training guide describing a new product. Guide length: sixty-two pages. The opening description of the product on page three: “intuitive and easy-to-use.” 😢

I don’t think they know what intuitive means.

How do we get faster?

Two words. Neither of which you will like.

Do less.

Start-ups know this. They might want to change the world, but they don’t have world-changing resources. A focus on minimum viable product and outsourcing non-core activities are ways of doing less.

Athletes know this, where rest days and reducing training volume result in performance gains.

Engineers know this. It’s why they apply principles of lean manufacturing, minimizing waste, and continuous improvement.

But when it comes to big business, largeness sets in.

Lean becomes less lean. A previously good idea is enterprised, scaled, and “for large organizations.”

Agile becomes SAFe (scaled agile framework). Growth Hacking morphs into Enterprise Growth Hacking. 

How can you do your part?

If you’re mentally checking the bureaucracy box, thinking perhaps, your team, organization, or business doesn’t move fast enough, look in the mirror.

Here are nine ways you can change your own behavior, guard against the lesser demons of largeness, and hack your—and your team's—productivity.

Seek flow in your day.

Flow is a state of mind where you are completely absorbed, and time seems to fly. This leads to increased productivity, creativity, and enjoyment in your work. 

To achieve it, set aside time on your calendar. Cut out meetings. Focus on tasks that are challenging but not impossible, with clear goals and deadlines. Eliminate anything that will hijack your brain—open tabs, message alerts, a growling stomach—and other distractions.

Find flow.

Obsess over operational discipline.

Think about how you and your team work.

Now think about how you and your team can work faster. Take time to review workflows, eliminate bottlenecks, and reduce unnecessary steps. Is that meeting necessary? Do you need to review that item? Who can be removed from the process? It may seem tedious, but it will pay off in the long run with increased efficiency and better results.

Execute. Build a routine of Do something-Declare victory and Move on. Push decision-making and autonomy down. Encourage your team to take ownership of their work and trust their judgment. This will increase speed, build agility and boost engagement.

Build patterns.

Before you can build patterns, you have to be aware of them.

A pattern isn’t a template. They’re like a dressmaker’s pattern or a cake recipe. Something repeatable that you know leads to a good result. In work, they come in two flavors; patterns that influence behavior and patterns that lead to better output.

A “why it’s good” meeting is a pattern of behavior. You run them as and when needed to look at work. Not to negatively critique the work, but to look at what worked. This is so you can identify a work pattern and repeat it. In fassforward’s design team, we look at work from adjacent disciplines to understand why it’s good and how that can be applied to our own work.

An output pattern could be a standard for how you produce something that will be used in your day-to-day work. It could be a use case, a creative brief, a customer journey, or any number of artifacts. The first time the team builds one or upgrades one, you want to be heavily involved, as it sets the pattern. 

Once you have patterns, people know what good looks like and have a recipe to follow.

Build your communication muscle.

This is the storytelling, concrete language, and message discipline that every leader, big ‘L’ or little ‘l,’ must practice.

You might set out to be a data-driven organization, but you have to tell stories with data and cut through the noise.

Work to outcomes.

Set goals, yes, but create work around outcomes.

Make those outcomes clear and concrete, yet evergreen. That allows people the autonomy to set their own goals and figure out how to get there. It creates alignment without micro-management and frees creativity without excess oversight.

Outcomes

Goals

Outcomes are something to strive towards. They are clear, concrete, evergreen, and freely shared.

Goals may be F.A.S.T. or S.M.A.R.T, with  targets to hit, specific, measurable, and usually timebound.

Put a smile on every customer's face

Increase NPS score by 5 points

Give our employees a reason to want to run to work

Improve to a customer engagement score of 80% or higher

Build minimum lovable products, not minimum viable ones

Bring project Athena to market in Q3.

When they write the book on collaboration, they write about us

Increase the number of cross-functional projects by 50% within the next year

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Anchor your team to outcomes. Work together to set and meet goals.

Join the translation team, not the audit committee.

Just like ogres and onions, bureaucracies have layers. People inhabit those layers. People who check-in, see the email before it goes out and weigh in on the PowerPoint slide.

Checking in itself isn’t a bad thing. It’s how it’s done that puts the snarl in largeness. Those people that add to the snarl are auditing. They look for fault as a way to weigh in. “The font is too small.” Or, “Change this word...” 

Why are you doing that? (If you do).

If it’s because you’re in the chain of command, and this has to go to your boss, check yourself. You are on the audit committee. If it’s because everyone else has weighed in, so you think you should, too, then stop.

Weigh in to teach people how to do it better, to improve work, and to create patterns. Weigh in because you are helping others do the work, or the work gets done better or faster. If that’s what you do, you are on the translation team.

The team to root for, obviously, is the translation team.

This is where you look at the email, document, or slide and think, “How do I translate that?” or “How do I get my team energized around this?” translation is about making it relevant, interesting, and driving action.

Set Simple rules.

Say no to complicated.

Simple rules are an antidote to a complex world. Donald N. Sull, a Management Professor at MIT, and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, an Engineering Professor at Stanford, introduced the idea in their book of the same name. 

Unironically, the idea is simple.

Simple rules are concise, easy-to-follow guidelines that help you make better decisions in complex and uncertain situations. They codify how to act when you come across a known pattern.

The "two pizza rule" is a simple rule popularized by former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. If a team can't be fed with two pizzas, it's too big. This rule helps keep teams small, which can improve communication, decision-making, and innovation.

Eat the frog is a rule that dates back to Dwight D. Eisenhower. He didn’t call it that. His rule—do it now—was a politer version of the same thing. Do the difficult work, the work you would like to put off, early in your day while you have the time, creativity, and energy.

Simple rules are a way to translate strategy and shape culture. They make it easy for people to decide what to do.

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Use AI to juice your working routines. 

You have heard a lot about AI.

You will hear more and more in the years to come. Like many of us, I am learning along with you. What I strongly suspect—but don’t know to be true—is this. Experts that learn how to use AI to enhance their work will produce better work and produce it quickly. You are using it in many ways already, from the auto-complete in your text messages, to the fraud detection protecting your bank account.

If you haven’t started figuring out how to bring ChatGPT into your life, start now. 

Are you ready to let go of largeness?

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We’re not as concrete as we could be. That isn’t good.

When we’re abstract, communication fails. 

Failure is expensive. In large companies, the cost of poor communication robs millions of dollars from the bottom line. Strategy confuses instead of clarifies. According to research by The Strategic Agility Project, less than a third of executives and managers can list three of their company’s strategic priorities. 

In the absence of clear communication, we do yesterday’s work, not today's. Projects fail. Transformation efforts stall. Change turns to swirl. Engagement dips, and employees leave.

So we try to make “it” clearer. To simplify.

But, in our effort to be simple, we go in the wrong direction. We go for abstract, not concrete.

The curious case of Trello and the pivot from abstract to concrete.

Trello didn’t burst onto the scene in 2011; it gently materialized.

Joel Spolsky, a co-founder of Fog Creek Software, was there. “It [Trello] started out as a small project, and then it caught on, and more people moved to that team to work on it. When we saw the traction it got internally, we decided to push it public.” 

At launch, Trello was announced as  “a super simple, web-based team coordination system.”

Spolsky took Trello to TechCrunch Disrupt, an annual gathering of founders, investors, developers, and business people interested in the startup and technology world. 

Disrupt is the place for technologists looking for a spotlight.

With a tagline of “Organize everything, together,” Trello placed but didn’t win. At Disrupt, the audience heard about a “team workflow platform and list manager.” Six words strung together that could not be more abstract. 

Trello had potential, though. 

A tech journalist described it as “easy to grasp (easier than it is to explain), easy to use, instantly shareable.”

(Easier than it is to explain). Ouch.

Even the name—Trello—was abstract. Clever but not clear. “Trello” came from "trellis," the wooden lattice in your garden for climbing plants. Trello's creators wanted the platform to support work, much like its namesake-supported plants.

Three years on, Trello took in its series A funding. 

The explanation had evolved—from the abstract, “team workflow platform and list manager,” to the more concrete, “visual to-do lists.”  

By the time Trello hit 5 million users, it was a “project and task-management system, functioning like a visual to-do list.”

Topping 7 million users a year later, Trello was “A digital whiteboard; a collaborative task-management software.”

By April 2015, Trello reached 8 million users and was described as a “task management App.”

In 2019, at 50 million users, Atlassian acquired Trello. The move from the abstract (easier to use than to explain) to the concrete coincided with an exponential increase in users and a $425 million acquisition.

You hear abstract language all the time in business.

It doesn’t help. It leads to chocolate conversations.

To identify abstract, all you have to do is ask, “What does that mean?” The explanation given will quickly move to concrete territory.

For instance, a CFO describes customer churn in basis points. 

“We’re experiencing a 7bps increase in our measured churn rate.”

Abstract.

“What does that mean?” 

“It means we’re seeing a 0.7% increase in our churn rate month over month.” 

Slightly more concrete.

“What does that mean?” 

It means we’re losing an average of 10 customers a day. 

Concrete.

You hear it everywhere. Economic Value? Abstract. Empowerment? Transformation? Abstract. NPS? Abstract.

Putting a score on it doesn’t make it more concrete. A score quantifies an abstract concept.

When we use concrete language, people get it, and they act on it.

This is dual coding theory.

Psychologist Allan Paivio argued that concrete words, which have both verbal and image-based links, are easier to remember and process than abstract words, which primarily have verbal associations.

Think, “put a smile on every customer’s face.” That’s a verbal and image-based association—you can see it in your mind's eye. “Increase our NPS score” means the same thing, but we have to think more and process more.

Our brains interpret concrete language like a clear roadmap. 

Abstract language is fuzzier and takes more work, like a set of vague directions. The roadmap gives us specific landmarks and distances. The vague directions, “go north for a bit” and “turn left when you reach the corner,” create confusion.

Over and over again, studies validate concrete language.

We’re more likely to recall what was said. We’re more likely to believe. We’re better able to solve problems. We are more empathetic. We’re more likely to achieve goals, make better decisions, and work together as a team.

So, why don’t we use it?

The usual reasons. Habit. Our own lack of expertise when faced with a complex subject. Preferring the looseness and ability to fence-sit by making a broad generic statement rather than a specific one.

All understandable but not helpful.

How can you get better at using concrete language?

Here are six things you can do today to get more concrete.

Make it about them.

The more “you” is used in the sentence,  or “we” or “our team,” the more concrete it is. It’s not for the greater good. It’s not for an abstract concept like a brand or an organization. 

Go from “Our data protection services protect critical business information” to “with our data protection services, you and your team can protect your critical business information.”

It’s this, not that.

Starting as a column in Men’s Health magazine, "Eat This, Not That!" has become a successful series of books selling millions of copies. It’s a lifestyle brand built around the power of concrete expression.

Do the same for your strategic imperative. Take the fairly ambiguous phrase, “build market-ready capabilities.” You might make that more concrete in a this/ not that way. "This means we will build specific capabilities across the organization—critical thinking, storytelling, change management—but we will not invest in an all-you-can-eat buffet of individual skills training.”

Before and after.

Before and afters don’t just work for Dyson, Weight Watchers, and home improvement shows, they make your initiative more concrete too. It’s the From/To or Yesterday/Today/Tomorrow construct that makes progress palpable.

For a digital transformation, that might look like this:

[Before] Fragmented customer data made it hard to get a complete view of their behavior and preferences.

[After] Centralized customer data provides improved insights, targeted marketing, and higher satisfaction.

Make a comparison.

You may be as confused by Analogy, Metaphor, and Simile as I am. It doesn’t matter. The point is comparisons make things concrete.

Imagine you’re a product manager trying to explain why you’re making improvements to a user interface. A comparison will come in useful. Even better—to make it concrete by supplying the picture for the mind’s eye.

You might show a picture of one of Concorde’s control panels.

“This is one of eighteen instrument panels of Concorde’s flight deck. An engineering marvel. The first, and to date only, supersonic civilian airliner. As you can see, all the controls are in one place, easy to hand. What you might call a “single pane of glass.” 

You can also see that a “single pane of glass” may mean unified, but it doesn’t mean simple. Consolidated doesn’t mean clear.

That’s why we are starting project clarity—to radically revamp our Ux. ”

Short-term, not long-term.

We’re procrastinators. So we put off important decisions.

We like a bird in the hand, instant gratification, and certain rewards. Two birds in the bush, the prospect of a delayed, maybe greater reward, is fuzzier and in the future. It’s not as appealing.

This is what economists call hyperbolic discounting. It’s the marshmallow test. Would you like a marshmallow now, or will you wait, staring at the marshmallow on your plate, for the prospect of two marshmallows later? 

Less than one in five of us will wait.

So why do we talk about grandiose visions and long-term plans without giving people a path to instant gratification?

Former world-class athlete and current CEO Darren Webster used the same kind of concrete thinking in setting goals for the World Championships in sprint kayaking. “The ambition was medalling in the 500M. But that doesn’t work on its own. It’s the process and the daily or weekly goals that keep you moving forward. Completing a series of gym sessions or beating a PB on the water.”

That same type of concrete thinking and short-term goal setting is what Goalster, a goal-setting app that helps people execute, is all about.

Scale numbers to human size.

The Piraha people live in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil, along the banks of the Maici and Branco Rivers. Their language—Piraha— contains three numbers. “One,” “two,” and “many.”

You might think that strange, but we are not that different.

Despite conceptually understanding zero, infinity, and all the numbers in between, our brains have to work hard to interpret them. Our working memory starts to become overwhelmed after five to nine items.

We lack concrete reference points for large numbers. A $billion? That’s a large number. A $trillion? That's a larger number. A $100 billion? Isn’t that a trillion? No, wait, that’s $1000 billion. Let me check Google.

See what I mean?

If you’re the CFO, and taking people through your numbers, scale them to human size. Instead of “We did $ 1 billion in sales last year,” try, “we did $ 1 billion in sales last year, that’s nearly $ 3 million a day. That’s $ 2,500 per day, per employee.”

Now you can be more concrete. That’s better.

Once upon a time, LEGO’s toy kingdom teetered on collapse.

It was 2003. LEGO faced a net loss of DKK 1.4 billion ($220 million) and was on the verge of bankruptcy. LEGO’s colorful bricks were scattered far and wide (over-diversification). Towers of blocks began to look like Rube Goldberg machines (product complexity). LEGO’s once-loyal subjects wandered, lost in a world of distraction (loss of brand identity). 

Enter a new champion. CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp.

Knudstorp introduced a multipart strategic plan.  Simplify the product line. Invest in innovation. Improve supply chain and manufacturing efficiency, and rebuild brand identity.

But strategy alone isn’t enough. People had to be moved. 

Knudstorp knew this would be challenging. "Innovation is what LEGO is all about, but the company had a tendency to over-innovate. It is not always a good idea to innovate when you have a solid brand." 

For strategy to live, ingrained organizational habits must change. "We had become too complex, too inward-looking, too driven by our own agenda rather than being driven by what the customer wanted. The company had lost its focus."

Knudstorp needed a narrative. 

"I wouldn't say we were going back to basics, but we were going back to the core idea of what LEGO was about." Knudstorp’s story of the future was grounded in the past. "The brick is our main building block for the future. We need to protect the brick, protect the brand, and protect the people."

With strategy and narrative in place, the kingdom’s fortunes rose.

Under Knudstorp’s leadership, LEGO reduced its product portfolio by more than 50%. The company's revenue grew by more than 600% between 2006 and 2016. By 2017, LEGO became the world's most valuable toy brand, surpassing Mattel and Hasbro.

All strategies demand a narrative.

The narrative helps articulate the need for change. 

Take Microsoft’s re-emergence. When Satya Nadella became the CEO of Microsoft, he introduced a new strategic narrative that focused on a "mobile-first, cloud-first" world. This narrative aimed to pivot the company's strategy towards cloud computing, enterprise services, and cross-platform experiences.

The narrative aligns with the organization’s values and purpose.

For Ford, this was a return to its roots. When Alan Mulally became the CEO of Ford, the company was struggling with a complex organizational structure, multiple brands, and a lack of focus on core products. Mulally introduced the "One Ford" strategic narrative, which emphasized unifying the company, streamlining the product portfolio, and focusing on the Ford brand.

Why is the story important?

The truth is the story we tell. Data is a prop.

Case in point, some widely circulating statistics. The first, “stories are 22 times more memorable than facts alone.” Often attributed to Stanford University marketing professor Jennifer Aaker. Or, when asked to recall speeches, “63 percent remember the stories. Only 5 percent remember any individual statistic.” This is a story cited in Chip and Dan Heath’s thought-provoking book, Made to Stick.

Convincing data of the power of story. Except neither is exactly true. Aaker’s 22 times fact isn’t validated by any research. Heath’s story is exactly that—a story, not a study. But both “facts” are often cited to prove the power of storytelling. Evidence itself that “truth”—what we choose to believe—emerges from story.

A story is a device that persuades. 

What will a good strategic narrative do?

A strategic narrative is, in fact, a collection of stories.

These stories stand between success and failure. They tell the need for change. People can clearly see the burning platform and the holy grail. The question of “Where are we going, and why?” is answered. A shared context and common language beds in. The strategy is translated from a synonymous word salad to a clear, concrete plan. Buzzwords are jettisoned, acronyms expanded. Heroes and villains come to light. Concerns are spoken of openly and addressed.

It’s a team effort, a journey, a quest.

How do you build a strategic narrative?

Your strategic narrative has three acts.

Act I. Clarify the strategy. Building the strategic narrative and the message blocks.

Act II. Go from narrative to story. Curating a collection of stories and equipping an army of storytellers. 

Act III. Bring the narrative to life. Socializing, measuring, and stewarding the narrative.

Act I. Clarify the strategy.

The worst crime of a strategy is that it is ignored.

Your strategy sits in an unaccessed PowerPoint file attached to a string of emails. The strategy had fifty minutes in the sun, lauded by the CEO at an annual kick-off, then everyone went calmly back to their day job.

Why?

It’s too confusing, too complex. No one has connected 30,000 feet to 10 feet. The strategy ignores cultural concerns, resistance to change, and pocket vetoes. Leaders don’t clear away the old work to make way for the new work. The strategy remains the job of one person or department.

To clarify the strategy is to translate the strategy.

That’s everyone’s job. Tease apart the confusing mish-mash of vision, mission, and goal. The why (purpose), where (vision), what (mission), and how (strategy/ plan) of it all. Get clear on what’s in and what’s out. What you will do, what you won’t do. What the end state looks like. Define the outcomes you’re working toward and what behaviors need to change.

End of Act I.

Act II. Go from narrative to story.

Simply christening your strategy a “narrative” isn’t enough.

You must turn your strategic narrative into a collection of stories. A creative mix of characters, conflict, context, continuity, and conclusion.

Those stories have a specific audience—the heroes of your story. That’s where the T-leaf and Motive triangle come in. The internal heroes—your team, employees, and other stakeholders—are dealing with the villains of change. Loss of control or status, clinging to the past, excess work, worries about our own competence, uncertainty, and surprise all stack up like gremlins.

These are all perceived, yet very real.

The traditional antidote is to show the business hockey stick. A rationalized plan that shows the current state intended actions and then a steady stream of good results on the way to a better future. Planning fallacies and excess optimism kick in. If there is conflict at all, it’s to declare that this will be “challenging” or “difficult.”

This doesn’t seem real. It is perceived as Kool-Aid.

A real story has real ups and downs. So too, your narrative has to embrace highs and lows. Acknowledge the difficulties ahead and the quest your heroes face.

Visual metaphors can help.

To do things differently, people have to see things differently. Literally. More, visuals allow people to see and discuss challenges in detail, without personalization. This is part of our process of developing a narrative—to show a map of change. This shows the strategy and the journey. It includes both where you are and where you are going, the challenges you face, and the new behaviors you want to embrace.

You want people to be able to see themselves in the picture.

Years ago, two well-known marketing agency networks merged. Draft, a leading direct marketing firm, and FCB, a top-tier creative agency. DraftFCB was born. The strategy covered multiple pages of decks and slides. As a way of translating that into a strategic narrative, we created what became known as “the blue board.”

Styled after Keith Haring, the blue board became a totem for the new agency. Blown up and displayed as a ten-foot-high mural in offices around the world, it was the first thing customers (and employees) saw when they entered the building.

On stage at conferences and in town halls around the world, the blue board was a vehicle that carried DraftFCB’s strategic narrative.

Employees, who understood their presentation style; all trained to tell DRAFTFCB’s story and coached in rhetoric and connecting language.

End of Act II.

Act III. Bring the narrative to life. 

You might have heard of the legend.

John F. Kennedy (or Lyndon B. Johnson, depending on where you heard the story) is touring NASA headquarters and comes across a Janitor late at night. He asks him what he’s doing. To which the Janitor replies, “I’m not mopping the floors; I’m putting a man on the moon.”

That’s the goal of bringing the narrative to life.

You haven’t finished when your boss has the slides. You are on your way when every employee can see themselves in the picture. They understand how their daily work impacts the overarching mission. External stakeholders see and understand the narrative; the stories they tell add value to the company.

At this point, you don’t really control the narrative.

The strategic narrative is not a script. It’s more like a joke. One that, hopefully, everyone repeats. As people repeat their own version of the joke, the beats in the set-up are the same. The punchline is the same. But how each tells it depends on the context and the audience.

The net effect is that you are socializing the narrative through formal and informal networks. Andreas Hoffbauer, an expert in the social dynamics of organizations, sees strategy fail when we don’t tap into our informal networks. “Sometimes strategies fail because they are bad. But [more often] I see backlash because leaders did not build incremental buy-in, ensuring those most impacted by the change feel like they are part of the real conversation.”

Armies of advocates tell the story of change.

They help translate the abstract concepts of vision, mission, and strategy to the concrete; what am I doing today? How do we behave as a team?

Message discipline stewards the narrative.

This is not just keeping up the drumbeat of communication but ensuring that actions sync with words. This is a challenge for Mastercard. Their strategic narrative, The Mastercard Way, is a definition of how to create value, grow together, and move fast, a “how” as it reshapes its culture. Michael Fraccaro, Chief People Officer of Mastercard, wants to measure and incent that change. He is tying performance reviews and measurement (pulse surveys, etc.) to a scorecard of “what goals and targets people achieve, and how they do it.”

End of Act III.

Your turn. Don’t leave your strategy scattered in PowerPoint like a pile of LEGO bricks. 

Build a narrative. Bring it to life.

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As an executive coach, I get asked the question, "Can I think bigger and bolder?" The answer is, "yes you can".  But not without deliberate practice. 

It's like being right-handed or left-handed. Most people hardly consider it. We rarely see a reason to change our dexterity. In leadership however, as in baseball, that inability to do so, leaves us vulnerable.

Baseball dexterity; business agility.

Using our left-hand, right-hand analogy — roughly 13% of major league baseball players are switch hitters. Their batting averages are markedly different when they go from their dominant side to their less dominant side.

The exception is Chipper Jones. A 19 year Atlanta Braves veteran, he was a rarity amongst switch hitters. Jones posted a batting average of .303 left-handed and .304 batting average from the right side. Contrast that with all-time great, Mickey Mantle. Mantle posted a .330 batting average from his right side and a less than stellar .280 batting average from the left side. 

Mantle’s power came from his left side. He claimed the crown of best all-time switch hitter because he hit an insane 369 home runs from the left side. Bear in mind that roughly 76% of active players stick with their dominant side.

What does this have to do with thinking bigger and bolder? 

If you apply the same stats to business leadership, 76% of the people I coach have a business-batting average of .300. They’ve learnt to use their dominant side to hit a fastball, curveball, slider, sinker, knuckleball, etc.¹

They’ve learned to deal with ambiguity and complexity. They are good critical thinkers. They use this skill to hit the leadership equivalents of those fastballs, curveballs, knuckleballs, etc. 

These leaders have developed muscle memory for how to to solve business problems.

But what if a complex problem doesn’t go away? Or worse, resurfaces after it was thought to be solved? 

Switching from problem-solving to outcome-creating.

In business, when we move from just solving problems to more expansive thinking, we create better outcomes. Like the switch hitter in baseball, we become more agile. It doesn’t matter if the pitcher is right or left-handed, the batter can switch it up and respond. 

It’s the same for leaders in business. You are an agile leader when you can close the gap between “fixed” thinking; “I’m committed to being right,” and  “expansive” thinking, which equals “I’m committed to learning.”

Much like in baseball, it requires deliberate practice. Switch hitters are rare both  in baseball and business. It takes work. 

The ability to be always learning.

Most people assume that learning happens when we’re developing into adults; at school and university. This was a commonly held belief. The idea that our brains can constantly learn, what scientists call neuroplasticity, was first advanced by William James in 1890.² Even then, it wasn’t widely accepted.

Until the 1960s, researchers believed changes in the brain only took place during infancy and childhood. By early adulthood, it was believed the brain's physical structure was mostly permanent.³

Modern research demonstrate that the brain continues to create new neural pathways and alter existing ones as it adapts to new experiences, learns new information, and  create new memories. 

Brain plasticity refers to the brain's ability to change and adapt to experience, throughout our lifetime.

Thinking new pathways.

We all think differently and have distinct thinking patterns made up of four elements: Vision, Courage, Ethics, and Reality. Expanding your Thinking Pattern℠ helps you explore ideas, collaborate across silos, take action, and plan better. 

When we’re “fixed” in our thinking we rely on the two strongest elements of our thinking pattern, much like relying on our dominant hand. 

When we allow ourselves to be more “expansive” in our thinking, we learn to take advantage of the two quieter, less dominant elements. We give ourselves the mental dexterity to think differently. 

For example, if I’m a big thinker, focused only on my idea,  I may have the tendency to exclude the thoughts of others. Keeping with this example, I may ignore the evidence or planning stages that could bring my idea to fruition.  

When we consciously move to the less used areas of our thinking pattern we become more “expansive.” We are developing a new skill. We are practicing. 

With continued practice, we narrow the gap between “fixed” thinking and “expansive” thinking. We build our leadership muscle and practice being a switch-hitting agile leader. 

Now we’re ready to hit the curveballs of business.

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It was the best of plans; it was the worst of presentations.

It happens. A crushing bore of a meeting. A presentation that failed to move people. The dish for “dreary” is simple. Take your PowerPoint deck and re-christen it as a “narrative.” Tweak a couple of slides. Present.

What you have is a boring imposter. Walter Mitty dressed up as a dashing adventurer. A sheep in wolf’s clothing.

Maybe you heard of storytelling as a way to inspire, convince, and motivate. But your “narrative” trick didn’t work.

A simple re-badging won’t cut it. 

You wouldn’t expect to re-brand Facebook as Google+ and get overnight success, would you? Or think Tidal has a better “narrative” than Spotify? You would not.

There’s a gap to fill between your re-named “narrative” and a story.

What is the special secret ingredient?

One word: emotion.

Emotion fills the gap between dusty and delightful, between re-worked and re-invigorated, between  “narrative” and story.

A story is a persuasive device. A mechanism of influence. 

Inside your story is a piece of information wrapped in emotion. 

The mechanism of story has wondrous qualities. It’s a time machine—transporting audiences to different futures. It’s a camera—capturing moments, recalling memories and feelings. It’s a transformer—changing perspectives and opening up new vistas.

With story, beats of emotion mesh with a ticking gear of information.

That connection is missing in so-called business “narratives.” Yes, there is information—a relentless, well-articulated stream of logic—immortalized in PowerPoint. But emotion is a no-show.

If there is no emotion, there is no movement. 

Reason leads to judgment; emotion leads to action.​

This is the classic premise in neuroscience and psychology. 

It’s human 101. 

For example, we’re more likely to donate to charity when presented with a specific emotional need. Showing the charity’s impact with plain old statistics won’t cut it.
(Sarah McLachlan sings Angel, and you care more about puppies).

We buy products based on marketing that strikes an emotional chord, even when the “other product” is objectively superior.
(Hello, all you Apple fans 😏). 

We’re more likely to support aggressive responses—to terrorism, military encroachment, and political opposition—when we feel fearful or threatened.
(9/11).

Emotion. 

This is the communication lesson we see over and over again in the big wide world, yet in the smaller confines of business; we miss it.

Business, despite being full of humans, ignores feelings.

But business has to move people.

Business needs people to make decisions and to take action. 

You want customers to pass on positive word of mouth. You want employees to execute or lead change. You want people to buy what you sell.

So why don’t they?

You made a well-reasoned case. You have an ROI, you’ve worked out a USP, and you have a business plan. 

But no dice. No movement.  

Somewhere along the line, we have made the mistake of assuming people are rational—that we act based on logic.

We won’t. People don’t. 

How often has a great idea moldered on the shelf inside your business? Or does an innovation stall with no path to market? Perhaps you are stymied. Your movement to simplify a product portfolio gains no traction? Or does your big transformation flames out?

Then, suddenly, the competition makes a move. 

Fear.

Executives now pay attention. Your moldering idea is pulled from the shelf and quickly dusted off. It becomes the new bright, shiny object. The innovation is rushed to market. All hands are on deck to simplify and transform.

Why? Emotion. 

To move people, you need a holy grail and a burning platform.

Logic and good intentions will only get you so far. To the point of stillness, inertia, and immutable refusal. Employees simply “wait out” the latest push to transform. 

All recognizable reactions to anyone who has led change.

This apathy was the case for the CEO of a large US-based multinational. “We have a money printing machine in the basement.” He lamented. “People are too comfortable. They see what we want to do, and they understand it, but we keep getting dragged back into what we did yesterday.”

This wasn’t the fault of his plan. It was his articulation of the plan. 

It had no emotion. No burning platform. No holy grail.

Enter the Motive Triangle.

Your audience has a secret wish.

You will find the wish nestled in the triangulation of hope, fear, and reason. 

Hope is personal. 

Hope isn’t just eternal; it’s internal. It’s intensely personal. 

Hope comes in many forms: Hope for autonomy; to be self-directed, and to have control over your own work. Hope for mastery; to build skills, reputation, or competence. Hope as belonging—being part of a community or group or hope as recognition and appreciation for your work.

Hope motivates over the long haul.

Fear, on the other hand, is abrupt. 

Fear, with its conjoined twins of uncertainty and doubt, is the “mind-killer.” We avoid it at all costs. And avoidance spurs us to stand still or run fast.

When we stand still, wheels spin. We stick to the status quo. You see it in the form of the flashing neon sign of business bureaucracy, replete with semi-wise axioms of not “rocking the boat.” Or, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” 

Inertia is the inquisitor of progress.

But we can use fear in our favor to move people. Whole businesses are built on this. Think: “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.” Or Gartner’s hype cycles, which tap into a fear of obsolescence. The result? Conference attendance swells, and IT invests in the next new technology.

Fear on its own drives urgency, but it doesn’t last.

Reason is our public face.

At the bottom of the motive triangle is reason. 

Reason is the foundation of our rational arguments. It’s the justification we pass on to others. It’s required to rationalize the emotional decision we have made.

Reason may be the public face of the decision, but it’s never the trigger.

Your audience has a secret wish, but what is it? 

People don't make decisions based on reason; we make decisions based on emotion. The reason is how we justify the decision. When your argument stalls, you aren't looking for a rationale; you're looking for emotion. 

What do they hope for, what do they fear?

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In war, the first casualty is truth. In business, it's communication.

Chaos. Confusion. A story from the front lines of WWI: A British Army Captain messages regimental headquarters: "Send reinforcements; we're going to advance." 

Word travels through trenches by telephone and runner, reaching a puzzled adjutant. The message is in a sorry state, indecipherable: "Send 2 and 6 pence; we're going to a dance." 

This 'slightly' exaggerated story is of the need for message discipline.

The military knows it needs clear communications; that's why they teach radio discipline. In basic training, you're trained to speak clearly, spell things out, and e·nun·ci·ate numbers. 

Because garbled communications cost lives.

Business needs the same clarity.

This is a story told to me by Bryce Hoffman.

Bryce is the author of the book, “American Icon” which chronicles The Ford Motor Company’s turnaround under Alan Mulally. Bryce shadowed Alan for months to research his book. This included a trip to New York, where Mulally presented progress on Ford’s turnaround to Wall Street.

Bryce, the story goes, was in the audience, sitting next to a gaggle of analyst types. Alan gave his guidance on the company and reviewed progress to date. 

This was the third or fourth time Mulally had spoken to financial analysts since the plan’s introduction.

Afterward, Alan asked Bryce about the audience's reaction to his presentation. 

Bryce: “Well... the feedback seems to be they’ve heard all that before. They’re looking for something new.”

When Bryce tells the next part of the story, he switches to an impersonation of Mulally’s drawl. 

Bryce (recalling Mulally): “Why would we change the plan when we’re still working the plan?”

This is the essence of Message Discipline. 

The turnaround story of Ford and Mulally’s leadership practices is a chronicle of iron-clad operational discipline.

And operational discipline is driven by message discipline.

But Message Discipline has a bad name.

It’s a favorite tactic of politicians and political consultants.

When a politician is asked a question, he or she doesn’t answer. Instead, they veer off into canned talking points. 

The non-answer answer is an abusive offspring of message discipline.

Here, it’s carefully scripted and usually deliberately obtuse. Why do they do politicians do it? They want people to do something— vote or donate. They use message discipline to craft a powerful, emotional message that resonates with “their” voters. They stick to the message, find ways to repeat it, and often ignore anything that doesn't fit. 

We must shed the bad and keep the good.

Why practice Message Discipline?

Message discipline is the fix for broken communication.

Poor communication causes a litany of ills—low productivity, employee turnover, missed deadlines, confusion and errors, reduced innovation, and poor customer service.

For these ills, there is a cure—better communication.

It’s not surprising that organizations that practice Message Discipline see benefits in clarity and focus, unity and shared purpose, improved performance, better decision-making, increased employee engagement, and better customer satisfaction.

So, how can you practice Message Discipline?

There’s a simple cocktail—four ingredients to mix in and two to serve.

First, pick a few things. 

Three or four is probably enough. You cannot communicate everything.  That’s a recipe for confusion. Overloading and overwhelming do not drive the kind of action you need.  

Prioritize.  

Even when you are down to a few, some things are more important than others.  Make that evident.  Priority, urgency, and order must be clear.  Otherwise, everything appears important, and then nothing is important.  Things stall.

Keep it Simple. 

You can’t put this across in a way that is gobbledygook to someone.  Make it as simple and as understandable as possible. Eradicate “corporate speak.”  If a middle schooler can understand, you have it at the right level. 

Add Emotion.  

Remember, you are trying to move people.  So clarity and understanding are not enough.  Put “human” in the message.  People respond to emotion more strongly than they do to fact. 

People respond to stories.

Now you have the message; the hard part comes next.  

You have to Stay on Message.  

Flip-flopping is a red flag for politicians and for you.  It creates confusion. Mixed messages. Panic.

Connect the new initiative to the old one.  Don’t chop and change what you ask people to do every month or every quarter.  This is where storytelling is a superpower. It’s like telling a joke—as long as the punchline stays the same, how you set up the message can vary depending on the audience and circumstance.

And last, Keep it in Sync.  

The message and your behavior have to line up.  Saying one thing and doing another.  Asking for some result and inspecting an unrelated metric. Doesn’t work. Don’t ask for growth with a plan to sell solutions and then measure the success of products.  If you are asking for an outcome, inspect that outcome.

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Join us as we celebrate the remarkable significance of Women's History Month and feature a variety of articles from our women leaders.

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Change happens. It happens all the time. It happens all around us. 

In her second book, The Leadership Conversation, Rose Fass follows up her debut book, The Chocolate Conversation, by examining how effective leaders make bold change, one conversation at a time.

To launch the book, she joined Michal Flanagan for a LinkedIn webcast. As well as discussing the book, Rose enjoyed receiving questions from everyone who was able to join her in the live audience. We’re delighted to reproduce a small selection of those questions here, along with Rose’s answers.

Thanks again to everyone who was able to be a part of the event. Miss the event? You can watch the recording here. 

“Can you let us know what are the top three takeaways you would select from your book?”

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The first is to know how to unpack a chocolate conversation. A big takeaway for people is to know how to recognize them, and how to unpack them.

The second is how to work in three spheres: the technical, the social and political. Our technical expertise, our social networks and our political standing. I don't mean politicking, I mean our political standing, our ability to position things to be both credible, likable, and plausible. Those things are very important. (If you’re unsure of where you fall in the three spheres, take our free conversation survey.) 

The third one is, how can you have a civil discourse and not necessarily agree with the popular opinion? Can you turn conflict into a civil conversation? Major takeaway, keep it civil. 

My father used to say, if you have to shout, you can't stand up to your side of the argument. 

I never forgot it. I think being passionate is wonderful. I'm a very passionate person and I love when people show emotion and passion. When it turns into anger, there's something else going on. It's not just the other person having a different opinion. It's something attacking something very personal in you.

That's when we have to ask for a pause, get some level bodies, lower the temperature a little, bring the decibels down and recognize if I'm shouting and talking over someone, I've left the conversation. I'm no longer engaged. I'm having a dueling monologue, not a conversation.

“Do you have thoughts or actionable advice on managing and crafting message clarity for the teams when there is often so much message ambiguity.”

My co-founder at fassforward, Gavin McMahon, has spent a lot of time in this area in what he calls the art of storytelling.

The ability to build a narrative with all the technical, social, and political aspects covered. That creates three elements: a hook -- something that invites people into the discussion, the meat -- substantive, absolute evidence that supports your premise, and finally a payoff -- which allows people to see what's in it for them. 

Often if you look at conversations, whether they're happening in a PowerPoint deck or happening in an exchange between people, we jump right into the meat. 

They don't open up with any kind of a hook or an attempt to bring people into the conversation. And then there's no real payoff.

Think about what's going to be the one or two sentences that invite somebody into this conversation. What's going to draw them in?

Be substantive. Make sure you have the right facts and evidence and data to support your premises or hypotheses. Remember what's in it for the person who is engaged with you. That's the way to craft a good message. 

“How can we, as leaders, influence executives to be more deliberate about framing conversations?”

One of the things I find is when you want to get an executive to think differently, you don't start with what they're not doing right. Start instead with what they're doing that's really making a difference. 

That opens the conversation up to have a dry run; to have a little bit of back and forth and to ask what it is they want to get across.

We also need to be asking how we connect and make things relatable to the people we're talking about. We need to be thinking about how we position something so that it feels like an easy transition from where we are today to where we want to go. 

We have to connect a lot of dots in these conversations.

It’s lonely being an executive. Many executives don't have someone to think with. When you offer to think with somebody and you do it in the right way, they welcome it.

We don’t take that risk though because we're so afraid that if we go in and offer our help, it's going to be rejected. Always start with something really positive that gives that executive the opportunity to say, “Hey, this person really cares, wants to talk with me, wants to help me. I'm in.”

“What inspired you to write these books. Did it energize you or exhaust you?”

A little of both. It was exhausting, but I was energized every time I finished a chapter. Every time I read it back, I realized I had memorialized someone or something that mattered to me in my life. 

I've had wonderful mentors in my life, wonderful experiences. Writing that 50 year conversation was like a memoir. I got to write about men and women who had an impact on my life, some of whom are not here anymore, but they left an indelible mark behind them.

For me, to be able to share those stories with people coming into this leadership world in this new generation, it just might shed light on what it means to have those kind of mentors and those kind of conversations.

So sometimes exhausting. Sometimes energizing. It's a paradox.

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You can hear a recording of the the leadership conversation between Rose, Michael, and their audience by clicking here.

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Hungry for more? Order your copy of The Leadership Conversation on Amazon or read more about Rose and her new book on the leadershipconversationbook.com.

You can also snag a copy of her first book, The Chocolate Conversation.

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Join us as we celebrate the remarkable significance of Women's History Month and feature a variety of articles from our women leaders.

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In the Spring of 2020, I was coaching a finance executive who did not take a step outside his house for 5 straight days (despite beautiful spring weather).

He was working longer hours and seeing his family less even though he was sharing the same four walls with them 24/7.  In the years before COVID-19, work-related burnout had been a growing issue. The pandemic accelerated several trends, and near the top of the list — increased work-related stress and anxiety. According to a MetLife report in early 2020, 66% of employers expected a mental health crisis within three years.¹

We believe that the crisis is upon us and now is the time to address it.  

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Pre-covid stress.

The trends for workplace burnout have been in place for decades.

According to a 2019 Korn Ferry study, overall employee stress levels "have risen nearly 20% in three decades."² In the years before COVID-19, the primary drivers for our clients were:

Too many :

• meetings
• powerpoints (as one client said during the peak popularity of the show “Say Yes to the Dress”,   for us it’s “Say Yes To The Deck”)
• short term targets/focus on quarterly results

Too little:

• time for innovation and creativity
• work/life balance
• time off and/or inability to disconnect on vacations

By the end of 2019, 67% of full-time employees in the US felt some form of work-related burnout.³ Then COVID-19 hit.

The mother of all stressors.

Nothing like a once-in-a-century pandemic to take an already challenging situation and make it worse.

While burnout rates are elevated across all levels, a survey by Development Dimensions International found that  “86% of high-potential employees are feeling burnout, and they’re twice as likely to leave compared to their peers.”⁴⁵ And it’s not just employees who are burning out at record levels, so too are leaders. Many leaders are learning the hard way that while work can be remote, leadership cannot.

The same study by DDI showed that the  majority of business executives don’t think they are effective at leading virtually.⁵ For many leaders, it’s their own stress and anxiety that is driving their desire to get people back to offices as soon as possible. However, many of these leaders are missing the fact that by issuing blanket policies about the return to office, they are only adding to the burnout that their employees are feeling.  

A recent survey of over 4,500 global employees who worked onsite pre-pandemic and were fully remote during the pandemic revealed that,  “100% of them felt some anxiety about returning to work. 77% cited being exposed to COVID-19 as their top source of anxiety, followed by less flexibility at 71% and commuting to work at 58%”.⁶

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How are companies responding?  

Long before Zoom Gloom existed, Unilever was pioneering the importance of employee wellness.

Seven years before COVID-19 hit, they began a journey to change their culture and incorporate mental health into their learning program. They have used both internal resources and external coaches in a coordinated program. The results have not only led to healthier employees but have had a  significant impact on their business.

According to their CHRO, Leena Nair, the company has realized a $2.50 return for every $1.00 invested in employee wellness.⁷⁸

Another example of a comprehensive and visionary approach to this crisis was recently announced by Verizon Media, Kellogg Company, Snap and Spotify.

They have combined resources to launch a joint program called “Mind Together.”⁸ It’s an initiative to “address mental health and set a new standard in how employees are supported at work.” The goal is to develop awareness through improved communications, offering mental health education programs, and hosting conversations with mental health thought leaders. The four companies plan to meet regularly to share feedback, course correct and develop blueprints for future plans.

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3 ways to identify work-related burnout.

How do you know if you, or a member of your team, are experiencing work-related burnout?

The Maslach Burnout Inventory - General Survey (MBI-GS) is the leading measure of burnout and has been validated over 35 + years of extensive research. The survey focuses on 3 specific areas; exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy.  

Exhaustion is often one of the first signs of work-related burnout and also one of the easiest to identify in yourself and in others. Keep an eye out for employees that start arriving late, and look or act unusually tired or run down. Notice statements like:

• “I’m just so exhausted when I get up in the morning and think about facing another day at the office.”
• “I don’t have the energy to deal with this person/that situation anymore.”
• “I just can’t seem to keep my energy level up no matter what time I go to bed.”

Cynicism or indifference toward projects, clients, and/or co-workers is often correlated with burnout as well. Cynicism can be more difficult to detect, but can be sensed in defeated body language, think: eye-rolling, crossed arms, or mumbling under the breath; as well as through unanswered emails or phone calls. Cynicism can sound like:

• “I really don’t care what happens with this project/that client anymore.”
• “I used to love my job, now I can’t stand having to interact with people.”
• “This job is making me really dislike dealing with people.”

Professional efficacy measures whether a person believes they will be effective at their work moving forward as well as a sense of satisfaction with past and present accomplishments. Lack of professional efficacy can also be subtle; some cues include submitting uncharacteristically low-quality work, missing important meetings or deadlines, or an overall sense of disengagement or distraction. A lack of professional efficacy might sound like

• “My work doesn’t even matter to anyone.”
• “I don’t think I’m really accomplishing anything here; I’m just going through the motions.”
• “What’s the point of working overtime on this, no one is going to read it anyway.”

Leaders who are in tune with their teams are more likely to notice these early signs of burnout and are therefore better able to address them more effectively.

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4 ways to enhance mental health and optimize peak performance.

Educate

Awareness always precedes change.

Comprehensive and consistent educational programming can empower leaders and employees to bring awareness to areas of concern as well as arm them with the tools, resources, and confidence to address issues as they arise and before they become problematic.

• Host regular seminars, workshops, and classes designed to illuminate and normalize common issues such as stress, anxiety, and burnout as a means to both inform and enable people to proactively address these mental health concerns.
• Include how-to classes on effective stress reduction techniques such as yoga, meditation, and gratitude practices to give people tools to effectively manage difficult thoughts, emotions, and situations.

Set the example by attending the workshops and using the resources yourself, and watch your team follow suit.

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Mindful Leadership

Mindful leaders are present and in tune with both themselves and their teams.

When challenges arise, mindful leaders approach them with curiosity and openness. Obstacles will then become an important opportunity for understanding, presence, awareness, and even large-scale transformation to take place.

Mindful leaders are able to recognize and express appreciation for the hard work and efforts of their team and are adept at delivering both positive and negative feedback with compassion and warmth. They guide with humility and grace, recognizing their own strengths and weaknesses, and have a willingness to ask for help or advice when it’s needed.

• Implement company-wide mindfulness training sessions and weekly or even daily group meditation or ‘silent moment’ breaks.
• Ahead of any wide-scale return to office, create a dedicated quiet space or meditation area with a no-phone policy; bonus points if you let your team see you using it.

Teams with mindful leaders experience an enhanced sense of cohesion, collaboration, and group engagement; all attributes of a secure and thriving workplace.

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Shared Purpose

I (Carolyn) vividly remember my orientation days at the well-known NYC hospital I worked at in my 20’s.

Everyone, from entry-level employees to top doctors, was required to attend, and the overall purpose was made crystal clear: we are committed to excellence, community service, and hope, and every employee is an integral part of this community; what you do matters. Top-down messaging to that end was consistently repeated through regular programming, education, special events, and reminders.  

A clearly defined shared purpose helps people visualize how their work directly contributes to a larger goal. It allows them to appreciate the positive aspects of their jobs, boosts morale, and enhances workplace culture. These are all effective ways to reduce stress and burnout.

• Get crystal clear on your company’s purpose - the what, why, and how of it, and then share it and talk about it regularly.  

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Is the purpose so simple and inspiring that every employee knows it by heart? Starbucks has a great purpose statement, “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.” Short, achievable, and inspirational.

• Review and modify your organization’s purpose as needed; work to incorporate it into the company culture.

Culture can be shaped through simple rules. At fassforward, we “fill buckets.”  This is based on the philosophy of a children’s book. In short, we all walk around with invisible buckets; positive actions fill the bucket and negative actions empty it. Our goal is to fill buckets by encouraging a culture of empathy, compassion, and kindness both in our treatment of clients and our colleagues.

• If changing the company's purpose is too big of an undertaking, create a team motto that promotes harmony, well-being, and recognition of contributing to a larger shared goal. In Apple TV’s new hit show “ Ted Lasso”, he tells his team to  “Be a goldfish.” This motto encourages his team to have short-term memories,  keep moving forward, and not dwell on mistakes.

Remember, people are happier and will do more when they feel that they are contributing to a worthwhile purpose.

Promote Well-being

We are often so focused on what’s not working (too stressed, overloaded with work and responsibilities, too many zoom meetings), that we lose sight of what is.

Well-being is essential to fostering improved physical, mental, and emotional health. Daily activity, nourishing foods, and a sense of connection, both to yourself and to others, are critically important components of well-being and should be practiced consistently to realize the full spectrum of benefits.

• Promote regular exercise: yoga classes require little more than some open space and a mat.  Incorporate movement into the daily routine by encouraging stretch breaks, walking meetings, and outdoor coffee or lunches.
• Include some healthier options when ordering group lunches. Keep a bowl of fruit or other healthy snacks in easy reach.  
• Check in regularly with your employees. Remember or jot down notes about important things that are happening in their lives, and then follow up on them. Seemingly small gestures like this can have a significant impact on a person’s sense of self and well-being.
• Reward a job well done. Have a system in place to recognize and subsequently reward excellence; encourage your team to celebrate each other’s wins.

When considering more comprehensive health and wellness promotion programs, keep a keen eye out to identify and subsequently mitigate common barriers; what’s preventing active participation?

• Lack of interest (switch up the programming!), inopportune time (try a different day/time slot), lack of space (take it outdoors!)  

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The best way to get this information?

• Ask! Survey your employees and ask them what would be most desirable and/or helpful. When you have employee buy-in, they feel valued, engaged, and connected - emotions that drive positive well-being and professional motivation.  

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It might be tempting to throw a few programs together and then move on. But it is important to regularly review and solicit feedback so that efforts continue to meet and exceed the needs of the participants and of the company.

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Your health is your wealth.

In a recent OpEd, Nike CEO John Donahoe demonstrated a great leadership moment by making himself vulnerable and opening up about his own mental health.

“I’ve embraced a lot of help. I’ve had the same therapist for the last 30 years. I have spiritual advisors and business mentors, who I call often for guidance. I can’t imagine being able to perform today without getting help.”⁹ Under his leadership, Nike has initiated several programs to address work-related burnout including access to wellness coaches, free wellness memberships, support for families (including paid parental & family leave, back-up care, childcare subsidies), and more.

It’s time for business leaders to take active steps to address this crisis. As our grandmother/grandmother-in-law Annie Doorish constantly reminded us: “your health is your wealth” (she recently passed at 101).  

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Join us as we celebrate the remarkable significance of Women's History Month and feature a variety of articles from our women leaders.

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How many people, on their deathbed say, “I wish I’d spent more time establishing best-in-class HR policies,” or “If only I had more time to strategically manage pricing, sales, revenue, and profits.” The answer is no one. No one. But chances are you may be spending a significant part of your life focused on those very things.

During these times of uncertainty and disruption, people are starting to question this. They understand the need to work, but other things are under consideration. They’re reconsidering not just how and where they work, but why they work. It’s a question that has taken root, adding to a general malaise. More and more of my clients are coming to me looking for a way to work it through.

The purpose of purpose.

The value of some work is obvious. Teachers impart knowledge and skills. Doctors, nurses, and EMTs save lives and heal the sick. The military defends the country and its citizens. But others stand on murkier ground. Launching a marketing campaign or a sales kick-off can be invigorating. Crafting an impactful brand message can induce pride while adding to the bottom line. But does it meet a deeper purpose? If so, what is it? These are  heavy questions. But these are heavy times.

“Do what you love, and you will never work another day in your life.”

Expressed or not, that’s the ideal. But if you haven’t figured out what you love, what then? Does it matter? Simple answer. It can. Studies¹ have found that having a purpose in life leads to several life-enhancing outcomes — improved sleep, better physical health, improved memory, longevity, and beneficial changes in gene expression. These are benefits that transfer to the work we do. They contribute to a sense of fulfillment and improve performance². Simply put, having something outside of yourself that drives you is good.

Find your Ikigai.

The Japanese concept of ikigai captures this concept in a word. It has no direct translation in English. But it roughly means “happiness in living.³” In Japan, it’s considered essential to well being and key⁴ to living a long and fruitful life. It presents a contrast to the western concept of purpose where life’s purpose means “going big.” A grand or noble cause. “I want to save lives!” “I want to improve education!” “I want to end racism!” “I want to save the planet!” Take your pick. This is what’s lost in translation. Linking purpose to big may be the concept’s greatest weakness. These pie-in-the-sky ambitions are often a set up for disappointment.

Ikigai is more realistic and achievable. Rather than going big, it embodies the ordinary, personal, and small. They're the things that allow us to look forward to the future, even if our days aren’t currently so bright. The sweet spot is the intersection of what you love, what you are good at (not always the same thing), what you believe the world needs, and what you can get paid for.

Ikigai⁵

noun

One’s reason for being, which in principle is the convergence of one’s passions, beliefs, values, and vocation: those who follow the concept of ikigai undertake the activities of their life with willingness, and a satisfying sense of meaning:

How to find your Ikigai.

In my work as an Executive Advisor and Coach, I’m seeing a similar scenario play out. My client, let’s call her “Ann,” has buckled down to meet the new demands and responsibilities of her job. She’s meeting the many new challenges of our time.  She's doing what she was always capable of,  but perhaps not received the recognition for. This is the peak of what she'd always strived for. But instead of feeling triumphant, she's burned out. Instead of excited, she’s unfulfilled and disillusioned. “Do I really want to do this anymore?” “Is it worth it?”

As ikigai suggests, there's always a small seed of purpose in anything we do. The daily grind overshadows it a lot of the time. It gets lost in the stream of what needs to get done, but it’s there. It's the thing that energizes us, the request we say yes to without blinking or thinking. It's the thing we're known for and would spend all our time doing if unencumbered by money or time. I've been helping clients, like Ann, to take a step back, reflect, reset, and uncover it.

The life crafting MURAL.

There are many suggestions on how to find your ikigai. Most focus on an individual thinking about the ikigai categories. But simply asking yourself - what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can get paid for, can leave you no more informed than when you started. This approach also discounts the many ways Japanese society supports their version of life's purpose. It’s a culture⁶ geared towards thinking beyond one's personal needs, perhaps fostering a sense of purpose more easily.

At fassforward, we have created a tool that is more geared towards the western concept of purpose while arriving at the same point. It's called the Life Crafting MURAL.  It is a guided, one-on-one, in-depth interview to uncover my client's ikigai. Using the digital  “whiteboard and post-it tool,” MURAL, my clients record their answers to questions in four categories. We explore their hidden values, reputation, dreams, and typical steps they take to achieve them. By the end of the exercise, patterns emerge highlighting what really matters to them. Most importantly, they have clear, actionable steps they can take.

Making life crafting work for you.

If it’s just reflection, you may ask, why can’t I do it myself? For a Life Crafting MURAL to be effective, three elements are essential:

Direct non-judgmental, questioning and challenging.

On the face of it, you can fill out a Life Crafting MURAL alone. In the name of time-saving, many of my clients ask to do just that.  But doing so would be a waste. Honest, detailed answers are required for the exercise to be useful. Most people don’t realize that their answers don’t make the cut.  Post-it notes don’t talk back after all!

Writing is a good example of this. Many of my clients say that they are good at it, and they enjoy it. If left to fill in their MURAL alone that might be all that would go on their post-it. They would move on. But they would be missing an opportunity. Even if you write the world’s best pre-reads or white papers. Even if you do this often, it may not be what you are referring to when you say that you like to write. There may be something else that taps into your passion.

What kind of writing is important to you? Think-pieces, essays, short stories, blog posts, proposals, screenplays? Are there opportunities to do this type of writing where you currently work? Can the kind of writing that you have to do, help develop the kind that you want to do? The list could go on but the distinction is important. The questioning gets to it. Only targeted reflection and thorough answers serve the process. Guided questioning, and crucially, challenges by a trained interviewer, avoid this common pitfall.

Self-recording.

Respondents write their answers on virtual post-it notes. They share a screen with the interviewer. The extra step of searching for the right word (and sometimes how to spell it!) highlights and reinforces repeated themes. The limitations of the small post-it like squares also force respondents to be precise. Precision and detail provide the clues to what is important. They ensure that the final MURAL is meaningful. Short-hand and broad terms may make sense to the respondent in the moment but be forgotten later. This potentially life-changing document would be useless if you didn’t remember what you meant in a few weeks’ time!

Analysis.

The Life Crafting MURAL exercise ends when all four sections are completed. Patterns emerge across the categories. They are often things that people understood about themselves intuitively. They are often things that they have never voiced. But when we are done, their most tightly held values are revealed. Their strengths and passions (personally and professionally) are identified.  New next steps are outlined. They are left with an actionable guidepost for making decisions going forward.  Together they encompass their ikigai.

What’s your way forward?

We spend a significant part of our lives working. If we’re fortunate, we get opportunities to learn and get better at what we do. But if your work does not tap into your sense of purpose or ikigai, the returns on investment may never catch up to all you’ve put in. We are at a moment in time in which many are finding this to be the case. Aligning what you do with your values and passions, what you know how to do, and can get paid for could be the way forward.  In other words, uncovering your ikigai may be the answer. The Life Crafting MURAL exercise helps many uncover this elusive concept.

Not everyone has a coach to guide them through this process. This doesn’t mean that aspects of this process aren’t accessible to everyone.  The next time you get lost in something, the next time you volunteer or say “yes” to something before the request gets out of someone’s mouth, take note.  Ask yourself, am I excited about this? Am I looking forward to it? Will I be disappointed if I don’t get to do it again? Chances are you are tapping into  elements of your ikigai. It’s a starting point worth uncovering. Shouldn't we all be among the lucky ones whose life’s work reflects their purpose? Shouldn't we all enjoy the benefits of a satisfying, purpose-driven life?

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G.O.A.T. is quite a claim.

Debates rage over Messi or Pelé, Schumacher or Hamilton, Williams or Graf. We’re animated by our sporting heroes. A select, slightly nerdier few are equally animated at the intersection of data and stories.

Imagine the scene; an establishment populated by passionate data fans and storytelling nerds, each arguing their corner for the greatest “data story” ever told.

Which data story wins?

An early contender.

The clever OG answer: DNA. The twisted ribbon of sugars and phosphates that encodes life. Packed with data and information? Check. Does it tell a story? Check. Our genetic code not only informs our story but how we interpret all other stories. 

Seems like a no-brainer.

But: disqualified. That clever answer of DNA isn’t something we can learn from and readily apply to business.

Sorry, my competition, my rules.

It’s a data story, not a story about data.

Fan favorites like Moneyball must be weeded out. 

So too, The Big Short (investors use data to bet against the US mortgage market), The Imitation Game (Alan Turing and the boffins at Bletchley Park build data crunching machines to crack Nazi codes), and The Joy Luck Club (women play mahjong and share life stories, with the use of data to tally wins and losses.)

All great stories where data is the McGuffin that moves each respective plot along. 

But the category is not stories about data. The category is data stories.

Like any G.O.A.T. argument, the winner depends on definition.

Before settling this, the rules of the game must be defined.

What determines the G.O.A.T. in sports? The number of Major Championships? The ability to transcend the sport? The selection of “greatest” depends on how you define greatness. 

(BTW, sports G.O.A.T, IMO—Jahangir Khan.)

We have to define a “great” data story.

Clear and Concise.

To tell a great story with data means the audience has to “get” it. 

Like any story, the structure has to aid engagement and understanding. You want attention. The story has to cut through, it has to be crisp. 

Crisp is at the core of Axios’ business model. The news organization, founded in 2016 by former Politico journalists, practices “smart brevity.” It’s a way of storytelling that uses subheads like “why it matters,” “the backstory,” and “yes, but” followed by a bulleted list detailing the news. 

A modern journalistic style is built on an AI-powered toolset, which condenses and scores prose. 

The aim: to cut through the noise.

Relevant data.

There is always more to the story, and there is always more data. 

The trick is in selecting what’s essential. This is the editorial decision to “goldilocks” the data and pick not too much nor too little, but just the right amount.

Relevant data is a tricky one. It’s audience dependent, and for most business audiences, it’s not just a matter of selecting the correct data but ordering and emphasizing parts of the data. The Economist’s Graphic Detail does a great job of taking big data sets and exposing just enough interesting nuggets to tell the story.

Visualization.

Visualization often gets a nod in great data stories. 

Allowing people to “see” the data reduces complexity and makes your story engaging and understandable.

Here, you might look at the classics. One popularized by Edward Tufte is Joseph Minard's map of Napoleon's Russian campaign of 1812. Or John Snow’s London maps studying the spread of Cholera. The New York Times’s work in COVID-19 data visualization is a modern-day example of visualization in action.

A clear point.

The story has a point. The data punches that point home. 

It’s the insight, the ‘aha,’ or the moral of the story. Think Aesop’s fables: the lesson pulls the story along. 

This is true of Kevin Hartman’s nomination. The insight behind Amazon's inception as a bookstore rather than a pet store or furniture store. As an investment banker, Jeff Bezos learned that books were highly correlated to high-net-worth individuals. This gave him a starting point. Which is why Amazon began its journey as a bookseller before becoming the everything store it is today.

Emotive.

To check the box of story, a data story has to tug on the heart and head. We should feel—awe, surprise, inspiration, or curiosity—an emotion that drags on our attention and sears the data into memory.

Alberto Cairo’s G.O.A.T nomination is certainly that. Ida B. Wells's investigative journalism documented the atrocity of lynching through her articles and pamphlets, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases, and The Red Record, in the 1890s.

Sticky.

A data story is pointless if it doesn’t stick. Great ones occupy memory. Like Little Red Riding Hood’s cloak, there is something vivid—and usually visual and repeatable—in the story that sticks like a burr in your brain.

This is the anti-chartjunk argument. While it’s good to remove tick marks, unnecessary lines, and irrelevant detail, a strong visual metaphor or cue can make your story memorable. 

Think of USA Today’s classic visual explainers or this graphic of incarceration rates from the Prison Policy Initiative.

The greatest data story ever told?

My entry is a short one.

In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised the Indian space program, saying they had put a mission to Mars for less than it cost to make the movie Gravity. 14 words. One line in a speech. 

Can it be the greatest data story ever told?

To date, that story has been picked up in over 10,000 news articles. It has been the subject of reporting at CNN, the BBC, Reuters, and in newspapers all over the world.

A story in one sentence.

Let’s check our checklist. 

Is it clear and concise? 

Let me repeat. The story is one sentence. You don’t even have to remember the numbers.

Does it have relevant data?

Two lonely data points and the comparison between them drive the story. We don’t know even know the actual figures. This is minimal storytelling at its best. It relies on our ability to fill in the blanks and self-complete the story, even when all the detail isn’t there. The numbers, for the purpose of this story, don’t matter. It’s the comparison that does.

In case you are curious—the cost of a Hollywood blockbuster, $100 million, and the cost of the Mangalyaan mission, $76 million. 

Is it visual?

Yes.

Modi’s statement fills the mind's eye, drafting off Gravity’s reported marketing budget of $80 million. No need for more visualization when people can easily picture the courage of Clooney and the bravery of Bullock in space. It’s close enough.

Does it have a point? 

That is the beauty of this story. It is so on point. It’s what Modi later attributed to “frugal engineering” and the “power of imagination.” For an economic power like India, it’s on brand—technologically advanced and cost-effective.

Dig deeper into the numbers and make a comparison, and you will see other countries’ efforts. The U.S. Maven satellite cost $671 million. The European Space Agency’s Mars Express, $386 million; the Japanese Nozomi, $189 million and the Russian Fobos-Grunt, $117 million.

Is it emotive? 

Are you not floored that it can cost less to go into space in real life than it does to make a movie about it? It’s a surprising statistic, and it’s the crazy, lateral comparison that makes it stick.

Is it sticky?

You be the judge.

A version of this story has stuck in my head for eight years.

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...........

Thanks to the folks that crowdsourced ideas to the data story playoff bracket.

Anthony Lombardo, Michael Gooch-Breault, Sheila Johnson, Alberto Cairo, Nolan Haims, Stewart Wolfe, Daniel Harrison, Bob Scavilla, Stephanie Evergreen, Kevin Hartman, Ray Vella, Ash Kanagat.

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Here’s a sentence you might not like:

You sell stuff; we all sell stuff. 

This is the two-word cornerstone of capitalism "sell stuff." The brief “sell stuff” gives you a basic understanding of every company’s business strategy. 

Still not buying it? Let's continue.

Every client we have sells stuff. Mastercard sells the convenient transfer of money between buyer and merchant. Mastercard’s convenient transfer is sold to you through a bank. Verizon sells connection, along with phones and devices, through retail stores and direct to business. Allstate sells peace of mind in the form of a policy through its agents. Chick-fil-A sells chicken sandwiches through its franchises.

We all sell stuff. It is the “what”—the stuff—and the “how”—the sell— differ.

 “Sell stuff” describes the basics of your business strategy too. Always has, always will. 

"But," you say, “I don’t sell stuff. I work in engineering.” You build the stuff other people sell. 

“I don’t sell stuff. I work in HR.” You hire people to build and sell stuff. 

“I work in finance; that’s not selling stuff.” It is. It’s making sure the stuff is sold efficiently and profitably. 

“What about IT? I just keep the systems running.” Yes, the systems that sell stuff.

Buying it now?

Selling stuff creates value.

Value for ourselves, our customers, and our stakeholders. 

The best way to understand the value game is to visualize a line.  At one end of the line are you and your business, creating value by selling to customers. At the other end of the line are all the inputs you need to make the stuff, market the stuff and sell the stuff.

This line is a value stick.

This “value stick” is the brainchild of Harvard Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee. He is the author of Better Simpler Strategy. To play the value game is to extend the length of the line. The greater the length of the stick, Oberholzer-Gee argues, the greater the value created. 

This is a profound idea.

The value stick connects all the strategies in your organization—product strategy, financial strategy, HR strategy, sales strategy, and others. Strategies, left unattended, exist in silos. Connecting these strategies and having them reinforce each other creates additive value.

And all along the length of the stick are people.

Those people are talking to each other, emailing, and PowerPointing. They exchange information and influence each other. Collectively, they make big and little decisions. And the quality of information and influence exchange either creates or destroys value. 

The value of any business is the sum of the decisions it makes.

Now we get to story.

If we can create more value by getting better at exchanging information and influencing each other, and therefore making better decisions, then how do we improve?

American writer Jonathan Gotschall points to an answer. “A story is a trick for sneaking information into the fortified citadel of the human mind.”

The information and influence exchange is improved through storytelling. As communication improves, decisions improve. Value increases.

Storytelling is not the province of marketing. It’s on all of us. We all sell stuff. We all influence decisions. We can all improve our storytelling skills.

But first, we have to understand four genres of business story.

The first is the one you naturally think of with business storytelling.

Brand Stories.

Brand stories create a relationship between the consumer and the brand. They build worlds. Done well, they reinforce the qualities of the brand, put the brand in the buyer’s consideration set, and create a world the buyer wants to live in.

Think about the brands you admire, and you can see this world-building at work.

IKEA does this literally. Its stores and commercials are little worlds filled with Swenglish Billy’s, Poängs, and Stockholm rugs. You can touch and sit in these worlds, and afterward, as you aspire to Scandi living, enjoy some meatballs. 

Apple  leads a masterclass of world-building, Putting a dent in the universe with cult-like fanboys convinced their stuff is “iBetter.” 

Patagonia’s values are at every touchpoint, showing it’s in business to save our home planet.

Brand stories and the worlds they offer create enormous value.

They lengthen the value stick with the brand's intangible asset. A cushion of goodwill covering poor decisions and wobbly execution.

 Just look at the recent ride of Tesla, with its story of a battery-powered future. At its peak, the Tesla story created a market cap of over $1.2 Trillion. With that, you could buy IBM, Mastercard, Coca-Cola, CVS, and FedEx and still have $241 Billion in change for a fleet of private yachts and a social media platform.

Stories equally damaged the Tesla brand, with a recent market drop bigger than the legacy car market Tesla competes with.

The brand story creates a world where our hero wants to live. A world where the hero/ buyer covets your product. A world full of...

Product stories.

Products sell because of stories. 

And a product story is far more than a list of features and benefits. If you get the story right, people repeat it. The user hears the product story and imagines a better version of themselves.

A product story is, by necessity, a science fiction.

The product story places objects and services in a future world, one better than today. The product story has the buyer and end-user as the hero/ protagonist. The product is a magic bean, dispelling the troubles and fears of our hero.

And the product story has a second function.

In the product’s journey from whiteboard to code or napkin to manufacture, there are many people and decisions. Product stories make believers of investors and engineers. They clarify fit for purpose and ultimately allow teams to build products people love.

Those product stories are adapted into...

Sales stories.

Great salespeople tell great stories.

They’re also consummate listeners. They have the gift of getting others to tell their story. Like a character from Rumplestiltskin, they can spin this straw into gold. The cues from the prospective buyer’s story are woven into what they’re selling.

Within the genre of sales story are love stories and horror stories.

The love story is told of a similar customer with a similar problem who used the magic beans the salesperson is selling. The horror story is told of another who made the error of not buying your product.

One of our clients, Commvault, sells data backups to IT organizations. What could be a very dry story of speeds and feeds is a story of providing protection in a scary world. 

The horror story. When a May ransomware attack brought a major gas pipeline to a standstill over the summer, desperate drivers resorted to hoarding fuel in plastic bags. The pipeline failed to protect its systems and flailed in bringing them back online. 

The love story. A month later, a meat-packing company suffered a similar attack. You didn’t hear about it and ate burgers on the 4th of July because of Commvault’s “magic beans.” Their customer was back online in hours. 

Sales storytelling is personal.

Hand-to-hand and face-to-face, good salespeople adapt and weave stories together to explain, connect dots, and move their customers over the line.

In the process, they frustrate marketers.

Those marketers have carefully crafted a forty-slide “narrative.” They might even have trained people to tell the narrative, one slide at a time. Then those same marketers howl in anguish as each salesperson selects their three favorite slides to tell their customers some sales stories.

This brings us to the last of the genres of business story.

Leadership stories.

Leadership and storytelling are two sides of the same coin.

On one side are choices. Decisions. Life happens, and leadership follows. The flip side of the coin executes those decisions through people. Storytelling clarifies those decisions. It amplifies them and creates followership.

Both are vital.

While a decision or choice rests on a leader or group of leaders; bringing people along, inspiring them toward a future, and allowing them to see themselves in the picture requires storytelling.

Leadership stories are the foundational genre of business stories. 

They bring together disparate pieces of the puzzle. They are the stuff of influence and information. These stories align and motivate people. They fuel and connect brand stories, product stories, and sales stories. 

It’s about shared context.

Ronan Dunne is the former CEO of Verizon Wireless and the Chairman of Six Nations Rugby. The gregarious Irishman is a master storyteller. A believer in and practitioner of leadership stories. For Dunne, storytelling is about context. “When people have common context, our shared opportunities are markedly better... Leaders, by virtue of the fact they are managing towards outcomes—create a common context. Not just their context, but a common context.”

And common context is part of the leadership conversation.

This is a topic central to Rose Fass’s new book, The Leadership Conversation. She warns of chocolate conversations: the malaise of information sharing without context, which causes mixed messages, confusion, and swirl. 

These conversations destroy value.

According to Rose, “Chocolate Conversations are everywhere in an organization. And, Chocolate Conversations can cost a company its relevance—people inside and outside the company lose track of the story.” 

The signs are everywhere. 

Shuttling information back and forth without adding value. Meeting overload, dense PowerPoint, fire-fighting, poor prioritization, and distracted thinking.

Leadership stories paint a picture—one people see themselves in. 

Look up the word “inspire.” It's about giving people the urge to want to do something. These are the twin leadership conversations of framing the world and moving people to action. 

We are in the game of creating value, which comes from people, which means storytelling.

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Ideas merely stated aren’t enough. We need to see, smell, taste, feel. Then ideas become real.

In author Karen Chance’s description of a less than positive first impression, we smell impatient irritation. We edge away from the volatile unpredictability. In one descriptive sentence we receive a world of sense impressions. It’s impossible to not feel emotional response. Written words coming real.

When we think of the words in the average business presentation though, verbal vivacity is better summed up by artist Gerhard Richter: “Grey is the color… the most important of all… absent of opinion, nothing, neither/nor.”

Business presenters who inspire action are far from gray. 

We might not always like or agree with what they say, but we still hear when they say it. Their messages find us while other presenters fade into the background.

Vivid description is a bright spotlight. It makes things tangible to our senses. It triggers recall and moves us to action. 

What though if your message is of a bad news variety that you’d frankly rather went unnoticed? (Politics anyone?) In this case, deliberately toning down the description and fading to gray has precisely this effect. Your content becomes a shell. ‘Absent opinion, nothing, neither/nor.’

Full force color or shades of gray is a conscious choice. 

Feel it. Know it. Do it.

Emotion is essential to action.

Successful presenting isn’t just about what you want the audience to know. Humans aren’t logical. You need to consider feelings and attitudes. That’s why great stories are flavored with vivid descriptions. 

Our brains respond to vivid words and actions. Descriptive phrasing lights up the parts of the brain that deals with the senses and emotions.

To make people move, you need to work out which emotions you need to work with. How does the audience feel about your message? What do you want them to feel about it? The recipe to get them from point A to point B is where sensory language does it’s work.

Here are four easy ways to bring flavor to your content:

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Seasoning

Facts (and certain green vegetables) might be wholesome, but without the zesty zing of descriptive seasoning, fail to appeal.

Adjective lists, like this one, provide a spice cabinet of description.

When we add descriptive adjectives, facts come to life.

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Metaphor

A literal ‘spice cabinet of description’ would be strange indeed. A metaphorical one however? That would work.

Metaphor take the qualities of one item, and applies them to another. It’s a sensory transfusion.

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Analogy

If math is more your taste than metaphor, you might prefer a formula: 

‘A is to B, as C is to D’ =  ‘Flavor is to food as description is to meaning’

Analogy adds scientific rigor and a sense of logic to the flavor of metaphor.

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WordHack

All this talk about food might be making you hungry. Maybe you skipped lunch. You might be little irritable and angry. You might even say you're therefore ‘hangry’.

Blending the front of one word with the back-end of another creates vivid description, with the added appetizer of novelty.

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Make ideas habitable

Bringing words to life by using description is known as ‘ornamentation’. The same discipline is used by architects. Having designed a new building, architects take time to design pleasing visual elements. These ornaments take the building from cement and steel and glass block, and turn it into a place people want to inhabit.

Architects are also careful that none of those ornaments detract from the function.

The same applies to ornamentation in speaking. Good description builds form , without cluttering function. As French writer Luc de Clapiers put it: “Clearness ornaments profound thoughts.” In choosing descriptions lean initially towards the toned-down. You can then test the effect on your audience and gradually build-up.

Experiment with flavor. Find the descriptive blend that works for you.

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How do I begin?

That isn't a philosophical or a psychological dilemma. It’s a practical question. How do I begin my conversation? How do I respond to an argument? How do I open my presentation or start my pitch? 

We build first impressions blisteringly quickly, and our minds wander.

Turns out, we pay attention like misers in a recession — sparingly. Our brain doesn’t brighten a light on things of interest; it lowers the lights on everything else. Researchers have found a filter circuit that controls our attention. The Thalamus. This filter automatically resets about four times a second.

In trying to get any message through, we’re competing against blinking neural circuits designed to wander. 

We’re competing against noise.

Let me begin again.

Sooner or later, we face a challenge. The big presentation. A pitch to investors or prospects. A moment on the main stage. A report to colleagues or a speech in front of friends.

Whatever the reason, how do you start? is a tricky question.

Done well; you have people leaning forward and interested. Done badly, you have people leaning back, bored.

There’s a secret structure to any good communication.

When we build presentations on behalf of clients or create learning programs or help product and commercial managers tell their story, we think of a structure that contains three elements. A Hook. The Meat. And a Payoff.

The Hook.

This is how you start. It’s a way to give the audience a sense of what’s coming, to capture their attention and interest.

The Meat.

This is how you organize the bulk of your presentation. It’s the narrative structure that holds it together. For the audience, it’s an easily digestible set of chunks that present a logical sequence of information.

The Payoff.

This is how you end. Here you're summarizing the key points of your argument. It’s the call that invites your audience to participate. The close that moves people to take action. It’s the payoff for your hook.

A boring Hook.

Ask yourself if you have done this before. In preparation for the big presentation, you’ve opened up PowerPoint and started writing. A title. The title slide contains not just the title but, helpfully, your name, the date, and the company you work for.

An outline with an agenda. The topics you want to cover. Your title and agenda slide then become, inadvertently, your Hook. 

This is possibly the worst way to start a presentation.

A billion-dollar Hook.

Writers and creative types spend a lot of time thinking about beginnings.  They know it's important to get their audience hooked. They will spend hours writing and re-writing the opening line or scene, to make sure they have it right.  You can learn a lot from the first line of a book or the opening of a movie.

Fifty years ago, movies all began the same way. Big title, stirring music, then the opening credits. The long list of people starring in, directing, and making that movie. That’s the movie equivalent of the title slide and agenda. They don’t open that way anymore. They open with a bang.

My favorite example is Star Wars. I was eleven years old, and I remember the excitement of queuing up to see the movie everyone was talking about. At the time, I didn’t know much about it.

As I settled in, the opening line appeared on the screen, “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Wait. Hold on. That doesn't make sense. If it's a science fiction movie, then shouldn't it be in the future?

Now I'm leaning forward.  Just then, a huge spaceship rumbles overhead.  I've never seen anything like it. Then the sounds of gunfire as an even bigger spaceship rumbles into view.

With that opening, George Lucas set a hook worth billions of dollars.

How to set your Hook.

It’s fair to say that while your big presentation might be important, it’s not a major feature film. You don’t have the time or resources of George Lucas. So how do you start?

We analyzed the top-rated presentations. Presentations that were rated “Inspiring,” “Funny,” “Fascinating,” and “Jaw-Dropping.” We didn’t find any that started with an Agenda. We didn’t find any that started with that old standby — a quote. Instead, we found seven hooks, used over and over again.

‍Anecdote.

The most popular type of hook is a quick story. A relevant, often amusing, retelling of an incident or experience. This humanizes you as a speaker. Even a story of failure can often lend credibility to you on the subject. It’s a bit of framing that can go a long way. You become more relatable to the audience, which allows your message to get through.

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight | TED Talk

Video or Graphic.

Some pictures say a thousand words. They can grab your audience at the same time. If you have powerful visuals that capture the theme of your presentation, use them. Instead of telling the audience how a new product works, show them. Humans have excellent imaginations, but sometimes it’s easier to do the work for your audience.

Blaise Agüera y Arcas: How PhotoSynth can connect the world's images | TED Talk

Belief statement.

This is a pithy statement that captures your views on the topic. Done well, it entices the audience to come on a journey with you. We all have our opinions, and hearing someone who agrees or disagrees with them will always grab our attention. Use it as your hook!

Richard Dawkins: Militant atheism | TED Talk

Intriguing structure.

Layout the highs and lows of your story. Talk about the path you will follow. Done well, it can add a sense of drama. With everyone on the same page, all focus will be on the task at hand.

Benjamin Zander: The transformative power of classical music | TED Talk

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Humor.

Not an easy task, but if you’ve got a good — relevant — funny story or joke in your arsenal, use it. Warning: it’s difficult to pull off. In the right hands, it’s a mixture of provocation and surprise wrapped together and delivered well.

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? | TED Talk

Rhetorical Question.

If you want your audience to participate, why wouldn’t you ask them a question?  Rhetorical questions work as people ask the question of themselves. It’s a way to get people engaged from the outset.

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action | TED Talk

Provocative Statement

Use this one with caution.  The edgier, kissing cousin of the belief statement, it’s a stimulating point of view that sets the tone for your presentation.

Jane McGonigal: The game that can give you 10 extra years of life | TED Talk

‍What’s your hook?

Next time you prepare for the big presentation, don’t just open up PowerPoint and start typing. Think about your audience. Spend time on the opening. Think about how you set the context and get people “hooked.”

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Getting communication right is a no-brainer. 

In an async, distributed, work-from-anywhere era, it’s especially true. Everyone agrees. According to Grammarly/ Harris Poll’s State of Business Communication Report, nine out of ten executives agree “communication is the backbone of business,” and “effective communication is essential for delivering business results.”

What was the tenth executive thinking? No one knows.

The noise problem.

Communication: you can’t have too much.

Leaders have taken this to heart. Their mantra is to communicate, communicate, communicate. And yes, some communication is better than no communication. But too much becomes a sea of noise. Awash in competing communication, it’s critical to cut through the clutter. 

Meet overwhelmed Bob. 

Overwhelmed Bob is a proxy for your audience. He’s a character that may be on the front line, in the call center, at a retail location or in the field. Bob’s day job is a supervisor. He manages a team of ten. And he gets a lot of messages; from HR, from his boss, from operations, from finance. He gets texts and phone calls. His email box fills. He’s on Slack, but that isn’t helping. 

He’s overwhelmed.

Bob’s condition — Overwhelmia Communicata —is one of modern work.

It’s a paradox: when there is so much messaging, how do you cut through the noise?

You need Bob’s attention.

The answer to the attention problem is story.

Story, according to writer Jonathan Gotschall, is a trick for sneaking information into the fortified citadel of the human mind.

This isn’t just metaphorically true; it’s neuroscientifically true.

According to neuroscientist Paul Zak, the narratives that cause us to pay attention, and involve us emotionally, move us to action. They release oxytocin in the brain. And oxytocin helps us learn. Oxytocin is the key to the fortified citadel. In her book, The Leading Brain, neuroscientist Friederike Fabritius points out how the key works. “Rather than simply encouraging new learned behavior, oxytocin aids us in forgetting old learned behavior.”

Tell a story, and you have Bob’s attention.

Your story frames how people see the world and moves them to action.

A story is simple.

It’s memorable. It’s relevant: your audience sees themselves in the picture. Your story has an emotional hook. It has meat. And the payoff will move people to action.

Are you saying my 100-page PowerPoint deck isn’t a ‘narrative’?

Yes.

“Just put it on one slide.”

I hear that a lot. 

People take the request literally. A seven-slide presentation magically shrinks. Fonts get smaller. Eyes strain. White space disappears. A thousand words, previously spread across seven slides, shrinks to nine-hundred and fifty. They’re in eight-point font, and I can’t read them. I don’t want to.

The point is missed.

The point of “just put it on one slide” was not a paper-saving request. It was a request to clarify your message. To cut. To prioritize. To make it simple.

To get to the point.

“I need more detail.”

Another misunderstood request.

The request is not, “I need every detail.” But seven slides bloom to fifty. An appendix of spare thoughts appears. The “more detail” request is one of two things. The obvious one is that you have left out what your audience considers relevant. The less apparent reason is that your audience is not tracking to your thinking. Either way, you don’t have a “detail” problem. 

You just haven’t figured out your audience.

Good communication is in reading the tea leaves.

The T-leaf is a tool we use over and over again.

The T-leaf is a starting point. A way to get at what your audience needs. A way to put in the right amount of detail and still tell a simple story. It’s a way to grab Bob’s attention without overwhelming him. It’s the platform on which to build your story.

The T-leaf is a line, splitting a piece of paper in two.

On the one side is “what I want.” It’s what you want your audience to feel, know, and do. On the other side is “what they want.” What the audience wants to feel (or how they are feeling), what they want to know, and what they might be prepared to do. 

The “feel, know, do” are critical.

So much communication is an information dump — what I want you to know. But that can’t be a story. You want to sneak that information into the fortified citadel of the human mind. How do you want them to feel? What might they be feeling? Emotion is key to the story. 

When it comes to “know,” a rule of thumb is to make it three things. What do you want them to know? That’s how you simplify. This pays off the “put it all on one slide” request because you can now prioritize and edit.

But what if what they want to know differs? More editing, and avoiding the “need more detail” trap. You have to tell them what they want to know. In doing so, you might drop some of what you want them to know. It just isn’t as important.

And last, do.

Remember, we’re trying to frame the way people see the world. But just crafting a narrative, giving people information, is half the story. You want them to do something. So make the request clear. Ask the ask.

That’s how you break the simplify/ more detail paradox. That’s how you grab Bob’s attention. That’s how you break through.

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Every golf pro has a magic trick. 

This is not Tiger Woods-level sorcery. This is the wizardry of Jo Pro. Jo Pro is a journeyman or woman who couldn’t putt well enough for the tour. A good college player, they couldn’t break out of the satellite circuit. But they have something going for them. A magic trick. The right blend of charm and skill to make a reliable living on the range, coaching adults. 

What’s the trick? Feedback.

In the story that follows, the pastime doesn’t matter. It’s the trick that counts. Jo Pro could be a golf pro, a tennis pro, or a piano teacher. Replace golf swing with ground stroke, grip with finger exercises, Tiger with Serena, range with courts or class. Here’s the story of the trick. 

First, the pledge. 

You show up to the range and show Jo Pro something very ordinary — your swing. It has a thousand moving parts, at least half of them moving in the wrong direction. It looks like Tiger’s swing in a waking nightmare.

Jo Pro sees that, but he doesn’t say that.

Instead, the turn. Jo Pro finds something in your swing. It’s an honest compliment — something to build on. “I like the way you turn through the ball.” Or, “that’s a good position at impact.” Almost immediately, the strike is crisper; you feel more confident.

Now, the prestige. Jo Pro is going to break a habit. 

“I just want to move your hands.” He demonstrates. He moves your palm and fingers, rewrapping them around the grip. It feels weird. You swing. Clunk. It feels like you’ve gotten worse. “I don’t care where the ball goes,” Jo Pro soothes. You swing again. Better. And again. Better still. 

By the end of the lesson, Jo Pro has breathed new life into your game. He encourages you to practice and to see him next week.

And you do.

That’s the trick. You came back, and you paid to come back. One adult gave feedback to another adult; they took it onboard, practiced, and then came back for more.

You don’t often see that at work.

There’s less magic trick and more snake oil.

In the world of work — between 9 and 5, with hierarchies, zoom calls, and paychecks — feedback is tough to take. It feels negative and personal. Coaching isn’t glamorous; it’s penal. In some work cultures, coaching is a scarlet letter. The words ‘needs coaching’ are synonymous with ‘is flawed.’ Coaching is delivered through the feedback sandwich.

Aka, the s*** sandwich. 

It begins with a compliment. 

“You’re great” or some other positive comment is the first layer. 

By the time “great” has landed on the recipient's ears, they know a “but” is coming.

 “But...” and the feedback is delivered. This is the s*** layer of the sandwich.

This is then completed by a final, “But don’t forget you’re great.”

Surprise, surprise,  it doesn’t work.

Now — obviously — the feedback recipient needs more coaching. They clearly don't know how to take feedback. They have an issue.

If Jo Pro did this, he’d be out of business.

The paradox of feedback is that we need it to improve, but we don’t like it.

Or at least, we tend not to when it feels negative and personal.

It’s easy to shoot the messenger when feedback points to a flaw. If that negative feedback does creep through, it adds to a vicious cycle. 

Let’s say you’re OK, but not great, at public speaking. You’ve worked hard at it because you know presentation skills are vital to your career. Still, there’s a nagging uncertainty at the back of your brain.

You get feedback in the form of a s*** sandwich. 

The filling is “that you’re a bit boring.” Not the content is boring, or this section runs too long, but you. That feeds a doom loop. Where you get frustrating feedback, which reinforces the feeling you’re not good at this. You don’t like to get up and speak. So you don’t practice, and you don’t get better.

Reversing the loop starts with feedback.

Great leaders are great teachers.

If you lead a team or project, you know work isn’t just a technical journey of goals and KPIs. It’s a journey of improvement. Any leader you admire or respect has been a great teacher. That leader is able to provide feedback in a way you could receive it. 

They know Jo Pro’s magic trick.

They tap into what Rose Fass, author of the Leadership Conversation, calls “the Pygmalion theory of management.” The Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon where high expectations lead to improved performance.

It’s part of building a positive feedback loop.

Peter Watts calls this “catch people doing something good.” David Frost, head of coaching at fassforward, borrows from a children’s book. For him, it’s “filling someone’s bucket.” Building a positive outlook has benefits. The Mayo Clinic cites a link between “positivity” and health. Other studies show the link between positivity, engagement, and promotion at work. 

Let’s say you think you are a good public speaker.

You will volunteer to get up and present. You like to do it. You, therefore, practice it. You seek out feedback to improve. The feedback you get is positive. You get better. 

Positive feedback is part of a virtuous cycle.

Filling buckets improves work relationships.

In her book, The Brain-Friendly Workplace, Neuroscientist Friederike Fabritius points to the power of bucket filling. 

“If you want good work relationships, strive to make sure positive interactions outweigh negative interactions”  Her rule, based on the work of researcher John Gottman, is a magic ratio of positive to negative interactions of 20:1. “Yes, sometimes you must deliver negative feedback or turn down a deal. Be sure to follow up with positive interactions, though, to restore that magic ratio.”

The question, then, is how?

How do we avoid the s*** sandwich, reverse the vicious cycle to a virtuous one, and build on a basis of bucket-filling? We have to navigate four cautions on the way to the answer.

First, do you give non-feedback feedback?

Jorg, the CEO, was hiring a new CMO.

Cassie, the CSO, had put her hat in the ring. On paper, she was perfect for the job, but Jorg was hesitant.

“Why?” I asked.

Jorg: “Well, I think CMO is a 24/7 job. She (Cassie) is a bit of a nine-to-fiver.”

Me: “Have you ever told her that?”

Jorg: “not exactly.”

Me: “How long has she worked for you?”

Jorg: “Seven years.”

I give you: Non-feedback feedback. 

Perhaps radical candor is for you?

The opposite of non-feedback feedback is the tough love approach.

You were sick on the day of the Radical Candor™ course. But you get the idea. You need to be direct with people. Straight talk. There’s no room in business for wishy-washy. As long as it’s well-intentioned.

People pride themselves on their no-nonsense feedback. But their radical candor, or “let’s be honest...” is someone else’s gross insult. It’s cruelty, not kindness.

The “out of respect...” feedback is the s*** sandwich with no bread.

Beware equal opportunity praising.

Here is the popularity trap. 

The over-embracing of bucket filling goes like this. Bob, on your team, has done a great job on a recent call with a customer. You would like to point that out on your staff call. You do.

“Nice job with that client call.” You want to reinforce positive behavior. “I like the way you pivoted from that objection. It shows you listened deeply to their itch.” Bob smiles, pleased. The message about deep listening is received. 

Then you look out at a sea of other faces. The equal opportunity praise begins. “Julie, you did a nice job with...” “Jen, we couldn’t do it without your...” You go around everyone on the team, picking out something — however small — to praise. 

Imagine how Bob feels.

All feedback is projection.

Feedback is filtered through a human lens. 

That doesn’t make it wrong, and it can still be useful.  It’s in the eye — and worldview — of the beholder. This is what psychologists call the idiosyncratic rater effect. Raters rate an employee differently, even when they are rating the same employee, over the same time period, for the same work. 

The idiosyncratic rater effect is a bundle of biases with cute names like recency, spillover, leniency, and identity. Add the word effect to each, and you have the human condition that what we think about other people is more rooted in ourselves than it is in them.

So, how do we give effective feedback?

The magic feedback trick.

I can’t take credit for this. It’s Jordan Birnbaum’s trick.

I have seen it repeated by many a Jo Pro and some very smart leaders. Understanding that feedback is in the eye of the beholder, according to Birnbaum, “makes it far more valuable. Feedback provides you with a much better understanding of the people around you and, more specifically, what they need from you. The framing of the feedback is the secret ingredient.”

Say that you have someone working for you that is a micromanager. 

The s*** sandwich, “You’re great...but you micromanage your people...and don’t forget you are great.” will be alibied, dismissed, and ineffective. Non-feedback feedback isn’t an option. Straight talk will be rejected.

The trick is this.

Depersonalize that feedback. Make it about what the team needs from them, not what you need to change. This could translate to, “the team needs to be able to make mistakes. That’s how you develop your next in line. Find a project where you can give them room to experiment and see what happens.”

No personalization, no fault, no recrimination. But the same effect.

The new habit begins to form. The trick has happened. Jo Pro would be proud.

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When you hear the word "chocolate," what comes to mind? 

We ask our clients this all the time. Some say "candy," some say "cake," and some say "labs" (as in the dog). Now think about words like "strategy," "pivot," or "hybrid work," and think about how many different directions you can go. Discuss these words with your colleagues, and the possibilities become endless. 

In 2013, fassforward co-founder and CEO Rose Fass released her first book, "The Chocolate Conversation: Lead Bittersweet Change, Transform your  Business.” ¹

It was based on a concept that Rose and co-founder Gavin McMahon developed since they opened the doors to fassforward in 2001, that: "everything regarding leadership, the market leadership of your company, followership, and change happens in the conversation.” ²

Chocolate conversations occur when colleagues talk past each other, but think they are on the same page.

Rose has just released her 2nd book, The Leadership Conversation: Make Bold Change One Conversation at a Time. And the timing is perfect. With the increased complexity of this new hybrid world and the significant changes in the way we communicate, chocolate conversations are more rampant than ever. 

Digital Communications hit Warp Speed

In the 90s, we communicated in person or on the phone; pagers were cutting edge, while email was still in its infancy. Phone booths blanketed every city block. 

In 2013, when “The Chocolate Conversation” was published, Apple introduced the iPhone 5, and for the first time, more than half of American adults owned a smartphone³.  Our in-person conversations declined as communications via smartphone, email and text increased. Phone booths started to disappear. 

Businesses adapted to customers' preferences for digital communications. A 2013 survey showed that live chat registered the highest satisfaction levels for any customer service channel at 73%, compared with 61% for email and 44% for phone.⁴ 

By January 2020, digital dominated our communication. Out of a global population of 7.7 billion people, 5.19 billion people were using mobile phones, 4.5 billion people were using the internet, and 3.8 billion people were using social media. ⁵

Then COVID happened. 

The trend toward digital communications accelerated to warp speed. Work meetings, family get-togethers, birthday parties, and even funerals took place digitally. As our digital communications exploded, so too did the number of chocolate conversations.

Chocolate Conversations go Digital

The three main ingredients of chocolate conversations are worldviews, standards, and concerns: 

• A worldview is a series of images, assumptions, and beliefs we hold about ourselves, others, and the world, based on our experiences. These perceptions shape our picture of reality. 
• Standards are rules, codes, and guidelines that direct our actions in different situations. Like our worldview, our standards develop through our interactions. 
• Concerns are our unmet needs that arise from information filtered through our worldviews and our standards. 

Chocolate conversations usually occur when we are unaware of these three ingredients.

Back-to-back meetings are now the norm with little, if any, break in between. As a result, we usually jump right into the subject at hand, which we refer to as "managing the work." Rarely do we allow time to share our worldview or talk about standards. Concerns rarely surface in these meetings; when they do, people seldom step back and ask what's behind the concern.  

Two-way conversations, whether in-person, on video, or the phone, provide the best opportunities to unwrap a chocolate conversation.

We can ask real-time questions about a point of view and better understand worldviews. Standards can be defined and concerns can be raised. We are more likely to provide context and background when having a two-way conversation. The best discussions always leave time for questions. Back-and-forth interactions that offer the opportunity to dig deeper are the best ways to avoid chocolate conversations.  

These opportunities disappear when we communicate via email, text, or IM. 

Emails: the Pathway to Passive-Aggressiveness

Like meetings, the messages in our inboxes seem to multiply daily. 

The time required to read and respond to emails feels like an additional full-time job. In a recent survey of 1500 professionals, 16% claimed they consistently fail to keep on top of their emails. 30% meanwhile, claim they lose sleep because of the number of emails they receive each day, with an average of 651 unread messages waiting in their inbox. ⁶

Emails quickly lead to passive-aggressive, judgmental, and dismissive behaviors. It's easier to express anger or frustration when hiding behind our keyboards. If you can't have a conversation and need to resort to email, ask yourself: would I say this if I was looking someone in the eyes and getting a real-time response? Or my favorite from my wall street days: would I be comfortable if the Wall Street Journal published this email?

A client recently sent me an email chain between her head of engineering and head of sales that consisted of 26 back and forths over three days. The exchange escalated to unprintable words. It was a classic chocolate conversation, and it permanently scarred their relationship. A phone call or video chat on day 1 would have saved them time, anguish, and their relationship.   

Texting/IMing: Speed and Brevity over Clarity

How often do we call someone, get their voicemail, hang up, and then send a text?

Ever stop to think how inefficient that is? But the reality is that people check their text messages much more frequently than voicemails. For Millennials and Gen Z’ers, it has been their primary form of communication since they received their first cell phone (which, on average, is age 10). A recent survey revealed that 74% of Millennials prefer communicating digitally.⁷

This hit home for me when I hired a young analyst in my last job on wall street. 

We had an open trading desk, and in the interest of mentoring him, I positioned him at a desk across from mine. The only thing separating us was our four large computer screens. His first day on the job, I welcomed him and said if he had any questions, just ask. About 20 minutes later, he had a question, but rather than asking, he IM’ed me. 

Texting, like emails, exacerbates passive-aggressive behavior, limits emotion, and emphasizes speed and brevity over clarity.  

All of these factors create digital chocolate conversations. 

Touch: Human Connection is our Lifeblood

The great news is that we only need to connect on a human level. 

Pick up the phone, set up a video chat, or ideally, have an in-person conversation. 

We all need human interaction or what we call “touch.” We just need it to different degrees, as my colleague Frank Mazza explains. Touch is at the core of who we are as human beings; it creates bonds and connectivity that digital interactions cannot. It allows us to understand each other in more profound ways. 

A few years ago, HotBlack Coffee in Toronto defied the growing trend of coffee shops and celebrated NOT offering Wi-Fi service. Jimson Bienenstock, CEO of HotBlack, explained, "It's about creating a social vibe. We're a vehicle for human interaction, otherwise, it's just a commodity." 

Mr. Bienenstock understood what a 1965 study of 7,000 men and women in California showed. "People who were disconnected from others were roughly three times more likely to die during the nine-year study than people with strong social ties," John Robbins explained in his book on health and longevity, “Healthy at 100.”⁸

The notable takeaway from the book is that social connectedness was the primary factor in survival. Connection exceeded other factors like people's age, gender, health practices, or physical health status. The study found that "those with close social ties and unhealthful lifestyles (such as smoking, obesity and lack of exercise) lived longer than those with poor social ties but more healthful living habits." However, not surprisingly, "people with both healthful lifestyles and close social ties lived the longest of all."

How to Avoid Digital Chocolate Conversations

The social connection that helps us live longer also helps us to avoid digital chocolate conversations. When we have one-on-one conversations and connect personally, we are more likely to share our worldviews, standards, and concerns. 

Here are six ways to avoid digital chocolate conversations:

#1 Have one-on-one conversations

In this new world of hybrid work, human connection has never been more important. We need to make extra effort to replace the old water cooler/hallway conversations. Schedule regular one-on-one conversations with team members weekly, bi-weekly or at the least monthly, and schedule quarterly one-on-ones with different colleagues in other areas.

#2  Take it Offline

When an email you are writing, or an email chain you are on, is getting too long, pick up the phone. If an in-person conversation or video call is possible, even better. Two-way communication enables context for worldviews and standards to be understood, and concerns to be raised. Questions can be asked and confusion addressed real time. 

#3 Connect Personally

When you start a meeting, take time to connect personally, rather than diving right into the work. Start conversations by asking your colleague, "how are you/your family doing?", "Did you have a good weekend?", "I know your dog had surgery. Is she doing all right?"  When we connect personally, we better understand how people see the world, their standards, and what causes them concern. 

#4 Provide Context 

After taking time to connect personally, provide context for the subject that you want to discuss. Take time to explain how your worldview shaped your perspective on the subject. Give some background about other meetings/conversations you have had that pertain to this work. 

#5 Encourage Questions and Concerns

At the start of the meeting, encourage colleagues to offer questions, concerns, and what needs clarification. Too often, we only leave time to explain whatever we need to explain (the solution we are trying to solve, the task we need accomplished, the problem we are trying to address). Before the meeting ends, make sure everyone feels heard. 

#6 Devices Down

Finally, there is no better way to ruin a conversation than by being on a device while talking to someone. This has become much more prevalent on video calls. When you think you are subtly checking email or texts on a video call, it is obvious to everyone. Give the person your undivided attention, and give yourself a break from your emails and texts. 

Connecting in this new hybrid world

The advent of the internet, email, texting, and social media introduced a new opportunity for misinterpretation and misunderstanding. COVID-19 accelerated the trend towards these digital forms of communication, which in turn, increased the number of chocolate conversations. 

Chocolate conversations are detrimental to our relationships, personal well-being, productivity, and success. The great thing is that returning to our roots of human connection is the key to  addressing this challenge.

In this new hybrid world, we will all benefit by taking the time to connect and understand each other's worldviews, standards, and concerns.

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Hungry for more? Order your copy of The Leadership Conversation on Amazon or read more about Rose and her new book on the leadershipconversationbook.com.

You can also snag a copy of her first book, The Chocolate Conversation.

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Some chocolates come in a box. Chocolate Conversations simply keep you from thinking out of the box. Other chocolates come in a wrapper. But when executives, managers and support staff don’t know how to unwrap Chocolate Conversations, the taste is more bitter than sweet.

The Making of a Chocolate Conversation

There’s a candy dish in our office coffee room filled with dark chocolate squares and peanut butter cups. 

I love the dark squares. The peanut butter cups are usually the staff’s chocolate of choice. They can have them; I’ll pass on those. But one day, my dark squares were gone! I was choco-crazed and let everyone know it. They looked baffled.

Apparently, it wasn’t ever clearly expressed by me or Shannon, responsible for chocolate inventory control that, “Okay everyone, here’s a candy dish and it’s going to be filled with different kinds of chocolate. Let it be known that the dark chocolate squares are only for the boss and she expects them to be there when she hits the dish. You can eat whatever other kind of chocolate you want, but keep your paws off those dark chocolate squares.”

Are You Having Chocolate Conversations?

Everyone has them—in business and in personal relationships. Chocolate Conversation is the code name for important exchanges that get misinterpreted and result in unintended consequences. Consuming too many Chocolate Conversations, like eating too much chocolate, leaves you feeling queasy.

Failing to challenge assumptions. Failing to take the time to have complete conversations. Failing to make sure your message is heard as you intended it. These factors all contribute to the Chocolate Conversations that leave communications in meltdown mode.

Recipe for a Chocolate Conversation

Chocolate conversations contain three ingredients: Worldviews, Standards and Concerns.

A Worldview is a set of beliefs we hold about ourselves—and even the world—based on our experiences. These perceptions shape the picture we carry around in our minds.

Standards are rules and guidelines that inform how we act in different situations. These are developed through our experiences and interactions with others over a lifetime. Our standards become our expectations. “Where are my chocolate squares?” When expectations are not met, we’re disappointed. 

Concerns arise from information filtered through our worldviews and standards. When we’re disappointed we complain. A complaint is an expressed concern, and underneath every complaint is an unmet need.

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What’s Baked into Chocolate Conversations isn’t Healthy for People or Businesses

In my office, at the worldview level, we all like chocolate. Yet our standards are different. Dark Chocolate Squares for me. Peanut Butter Cups for others. By not clarifying how I felt about my stash in the candy dish, I set up a standard no one was aware of and expressed an unmet need that caught everyone off guard.

Misunderstandings and different points of view that result from Chocolate Conversations lead to misdirection, poor execution and loss of opportunity. Not clarifying a Chocolate Conversation can lead to failed mergers and relationships—in both business and life.

We need to change the conversation.

Conversations are Easier Said than Done

You’re probably thinking, “What are you talking about? I’m a savvy business executive. I know how to say what I want.” 

You’re a seasoned communicator. You’re capable of conveying corporate missions, marketing plans and marching orders to any size audience—in person or in PowerPoint… via email or conference call… at a meeting or an event.

So, how come what you intend to happen as a result of your conversations, too often, doesn’t happen? Why wasn’t your vision transformed into reality? Where did things fall short in reaching—or even getting closer to—your goal? 

Chances are, you’re conducting Chocolate Conversations, which are the wrong conversations to have if you want to get anywhere, or get anything done.

Use Leadership as a Chocolate Substitute for Conversations

If you crave a solution for Chocolate Conversations, substitute the word ‘Leadership’ for ‘Chocolate.’ 

Now you’re ready for a Leadership Conversation. How many different interpretations would people in your company have about what makes or defines a good leader? 

Don’t stop there! How many different standards surface when leaders of your company put new strategies or change initiatives into motion?

Change Starts with Changing the Conversation

Leaders can’t afford to ignore Chocolate Conversations. For example, at the worldview level, a healthcare plan that’s affordable, inclusive and available to everyone sounds pretty good. Who wouldn’t want that? But when you get down to how that plan impacts certain age groups, benefits, and individuals obligated to participate, people’s standards kick in and ‘pretty good’ suddenly doesn’t seem so good anymore.

When people’s standards aren’t met, concerns bubble up. Before you know it, concerns are being expressed from all directions. All these concerns are declaring an unmet need.

Learn How to Unwrap Your Chocolate Conversations

Think beyond a particular worldview to how things will play out. Verbalize standards and address any concerns right from the start, or as soon as they surface. Take the time to have complete conversations. Make sure your message is heard as you intended it. Then, watch how things actually start moving along faster and pushing you closer to your intended outcome.

Like any kind of chocolate, it’s impossible to completely avoid Chocolate Conversations. But being aware of what causes them will help you cut down on them. 

Your leadership—and the change you are driving—depends on it.

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Hungry for more? Order your copy of The Leadership Conversation on Amazon or read more about Rose and her new book on the leadershipconversationbook.com.

You can also snag a copy of her first book, The Chocolate Conversation.

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How many times in 2022, have you started a thought with the phrase “How do I do this…?” or “How do I do that…?”

If the ‘this’ or ‘that’ in question was about either leadership or storytelling, then we hope that during 2022, fassforward’s weekly ‘How to…’ articles have helped. To round-off the year, we’ve asked our team of leadership coaches to review which articles they’ve found themselves recommending the most during 2022. 

Fassforward is the ‘How’ company, with content and courses addressing practical questions about leadership and communications. Our website is there to help answer the type of ‘How to…’ questions business leaders and communicators of all levels occasionally find themselves asking.

Each of our coaches has chosen the articles they feel have most met a challenge or a need business leaders have seen during 2022. Their choices range from how to manage performance through to how perfectionists can get themselves out of the weeds — declaring victory and moving on.

From all of us, we wish you a happy holiday season, and look forward to continuing to help you answer those how-to’s throughout 2023.

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“I send this to clients because it tackles an issue I’ve discussed with so many of them: executing effectively on their strategy. It defines terms that are often used interchangeably: vision, mission and goals, and ties them to successfully executing a strategy.  Finally it provides a simple 4-part test to see if your strategy is on the right track.”

Executing Strategy — How to get your strategy understood and actioned.

Read about David

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“This is an excellent breakdown of why change can sometimes make us feel like we’re spiralling out of control — especially when those changes are rapid. Being able to focus on positive outcomes means you maintain forward momentum and at the same time build alignment and autonomy on your team. This article gives you the blueprint for moving through change, and hitting your outcome.”

‍All Change — How to rethink how we lead through change.

Read about Jill

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“This one is repeatedly mentioned as a favorite of my clients — “Do something. Declare victory. Move on.” It’s an approach that is great for perfectionists that get stuck in the weeds. It's also good for those who struggle to feel they have accomplished anything, and as a boost for team morale.”

Move on — How to develop a rhythm for agile work.

‍Read about Sheri

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“These three create a series around the difference between leading and managing. Leadership is about relationships and having the right conversations with your people. Managing is all about the work. In other words we don't manage people, we lead people. In Touch Task it speaks to leading people the way they want to be led. In Judgement Day 1 and 2 it talks about having the right process for managing performance. When you find the right balance between the two you are well on your way to leading a high performance team.”

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Touch Task — How do I lead people?

Judgement Day — How to manage performance

Judgement Day II — How to manage performance

Read about Frank

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“I use this piece with clients as an introduction to our thinking patterns. It breaks out how the patterns show up, and how clients can begin to notice these responses in themselves and others. When we understand how we think, we can understand how we show up, respond, and initiate action, as well as expanding our thinking and leading.”

Thinking Patterns — How you think, act, and lead.

‍Read about Christian

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Children instinctively know all the tricks. They know there has to be pace. They know that somewhere in the woods there must be a big bad wolf. And above all they know size matters. 

Whether ogre-huge or Thumbelina-tiny, children pay attention to scale. 

Children understand that manipulating size in storytelling is essential to hitting a story’s objective. Seeking praise for achievements at school, the achievement will be stretched. Avoiding a telling-off for something naughty, the crime will be reduced. This shrink and grow effect lingers into adult storytelling, but only when the storyteller is in the pub. Consider the classic fisherman’s tale of the one “that got away”. The mythic fish described in terms so florid they’d make an advertising executive blush.

In business storytelling however, we forget this shrink and grow ability. This is ironic. Arguably, the business presentation is where we need it most.

Business storytelling boring.

Schools and  apprenticeships hammer into us the idea that truth must be served unvarnished and facts straight-up. This strips words of color and flavor and texture. It stops us bringing scale to a subject. 

Opportunities or threats, when presented purely with  facts, become  2D cutouts.

Why is scale important?

There’s three vital questions to ask. What do I want the audience to feel? What do I want the audience to know? And what do I want the audience to do?

In each question, there’s a role for scale. 

How powerfully do you want them to feel something? If action is needed, and needed now, then you want them to feel that opportunity or threat in its fullest force. If however, your goal is for the audience to leave with a quiet sense of reassurance (in other words, leave you alone to get on with the job), then the knob marked ‘scale’ needs adjusting to its lowest setting.

How big or small do you want to paint the subject for the audience? Depending on how you frame scale, small appears big and vice versa.

How big or small do you want the audience to perceive your requested actions to be. Whether as a walk in the park or a space shot to Mars, it all depends on your use of scale.

The good news is that  it’s easier than you might think. You just need to know which cake to eat, and which bottle to drink.

Shrink and Stretch¹

Shrink and stretch are two wonderfully invisible techniques for bringing scale. This invisibility comes from the fact that they are simple word substitutions. 

For example, let’s request a time extension on a project. Is it a ‘modest’ request, or an ‘exceptional’ one? 

This triggers something called the Anchoring Effect. Even if people in the audience hear the request and think “Wow, that’s big!”, they remain anchored to the adjective ‘modest’. A certain amount of cognitive dissonance ensues.² This gives you the chance to make your case even in front of opponents who want the deadline sooner rather than later.

We don’t pay enough attention to our adjectives. We get taught to “...keep it factual”. Chosen adjectives however make the difference between success and failure.

We also fail to pay enough attention to anchoring. In our quest to keep things ‘factual’ we leave the field wide open for others to frame things before we do. This is a mistake. Much better to set your own anchor on how topics are viewed, than to let others do it for you.

AutoCorrect³

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AutoCorrect follows a similar idea, but overtly. It’s the flashy stage-magic cousin to the more subtle Shrink and Stretch. It works most effectively when trying to make something seem larger.

With Shrink and Stretch you take one adjective and quietly replace it with another — either bigger or smaller, depending on your goal. With Autocorrect, you allow both adjectives to be seen at once. 

First use the lesser adjective. Then pause, look thoughtful for a beat, before verbally backing-up to stomp all over the weaker adjective and replacing it with a stronger one. 

For example: “I’m really pleased with these results. No. Scratch that! I’m absolutely thrilled with these results.”

This verbal backing-up is why Autocorrect only really works when spoken out loud. In written form it looks a little odd.

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Small to Big and Big to Small

These two techniques remind me of the film-makers’ craft. Scale is all about how you arrange the lenses!

It’s easiest to explain with an analogy. Imagine a telescope. Pick up that telescope, place the small end to your eye and point the fat end at a distant object. What happens? The distant object looks bigger. (Duhhhh!)

Now flip the telescope over and place the fat end to your eye and look at the distant object out of the small end. What happens now? The distant object looks even more distant and tiny that it did to the naked eye.

We achieve that same telescopic effect with words. I have a real-life example from a presentation I once heard given about the benefits of mobile working. This was at the dawn of mobile computing and some 20 years before Covid work-from-home. The speaker was describing the financial savings a company could make by closing its office space and moving to work-from-home.

“You’ll save on all this office-space. You’ll save on paying for the parking garages. You can save on the equipment, and renewing office furniture. Hell, you can even save on buying toilet paper!”

The sales-person did not get the deal. He’d taken the client down a series of lenses from “Office-space” (Super big), to “Furniture” (Medium-Small) and finally arrived at “Toilet paper” (Super super small). And that’s where the clients mind stayed. Had the sales person reversed that sequence though (and maybe swapped ‘toilet paper’ with ‘office consumables’), then the client would instead have seen an ever-widening plethora of savings!

When offering a list of reasons, payoffs, costs, or even adjectives, pay attention to the sequence they’re offered in. Sequence small to big, and the end point seems huge. Sequence in the other direction, and its “Honey, I shrunk the kids”.

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Humanize⁴

Humanize brings scale by putting words into objects that can’t (or generally don’t) speak.

There’s one form of this that I can guarantee you’ve heard in a presentation, and that’s “The data says…” 

Close your eyes for a second. Give form to what this spokesperson called ‘the data’ actually looks like. When I do this exercise I see an especially boring person, all in gray, and quite possibly with a pocket protector. They also have an irritatingly nasal voice. 

Is that the voice you want your presentation to have? 

Of course, in reality, ‘the data’ cannot speak. It’s 1’s and 0’s. We have, however, decided to anthropomorphise ‘the data’ by giving it the human attribute of voice. What alternatives could we substitute for ‘the data’? Depending on your message, the possibilities range from ‘the customers’, to ‘the market’, to ‘the environment’, and all the way up to ‘the planet’. ⁵

Decide what sort of voice your inanimate object is using. The tone could range all the way from ‘hinting’ through to ‘crying out’. It all depends on what you want the audience to feel, and how urgently you want them to feel it.

Scale is distance. Scale is size. Scale is weight. In other words — scale is perspective. It’s the element that takes flat 2D cut-out facts, and brings them to life. 

Wouldn’t that be a great thing to be able to add to your next presentation? 

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Ready, set, go.

How quickly can you build social capital? With it, you have the fuel to drive success in your new job. Without it, there could be a failure to launch.

…but how often, on joining a new company, have we heard this instead?

" I came in on the first day. The company had a two-day onboarding program. HR came in. They did a  team-building activity and gave a history of the organization. Several company leaders came in to welcome us and give advice on how to be successful. 

A key theme in all of this was learning how things get done and building a network quickly. The comedy (and tragedy) though is that once in  your real job, there’s no help in understanding who to connect with or what matters. 

In fact, day-to-day work conspires against building a network. You’re stuck in your silo, have to produce results quickly, have a hard time getting people’s attention to know who to network with, how to build trust, and on and on.…”¹

In a recent article Social Capital, I spoke about this; how to help new employees build their networks. 

I feel like I’m on the outside looking in.

Leveraging networks is the most impactful way new employees can perform and be fully accepted by their organization. 

But it takes years to establish those relationships. Job one on day one is to build a set of relationships with managers, subject matter experts, peers, and other newcomers throughout the company. 

Research shows that replicating the network of an established employee in a strong culture typically takes three to five years.²

In the era of hybrid work this has become more difficult. We have learned from the pandemic that most employees can be more productive away from their work address. But can we say that about a new employee?

As a new employee it’s easy to feel you’re on the outside looking in; not only disconnected from co-workers, but missing the social life that creates meaning and connections with the organization. 

In her article “What to do when you have to onboard yourself,” Amy Drader believes, regardless of whether face to face or virtual, that it’s a daunting task to understand what tools and information you need to be effective. More challenging is how to integrate into a company culture. To cultivate these relationships, you need to meet the right people, who will not only inform you about the work but shed light on unwritten rules, social norms, and office politics. 

The faster you understand this, the faster you add value to your team and feel confident in your job.³

Understanding the formal vs. the informal network.

Employees need to understand the existing patterns of interactions amongst each other, rather than merely the formal org chart. 

This idea was introduced in 2017, under the umbrella of “organizational network analysis”.⁴

Typical onboarding processes focus on integrating new employees into your company. 

This involves helping them become  familiar with their workspace, job responsibilities, company employment policies, and the company’s  history.  While these practices are important they do little to build networks. For instance, the typical hierarchical org-chart, used to help new employees navigate the company, offers little help in promoting individual performance or effectiveness. 

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On the other hand, making visible the relationships between individuals and how information flows, or how decisions are made, jumpstarts productivity. An example of this would be knowing who are the people skilled at making introductions, and getting things done; something that here at fassforward, we call ‘bridging and brokering’. Chances are these individuals may not stand out in a traditional org-chart. However, if they were visible to the new employee - think how it would change the focus on who they would want in their network. 

Rather than focusing on the traditional hierarchy within the organization, the focus would shift to connecting with the people who could help them quickly build productivity and influence.

A network is only as helpful as the people within it.

Think of yourself as Hans in the illustration above. You want to meet  Carol and Ben because both provide value to the business and ultimately to you. The diagrams below suggest a different strategy for developing your network. Each illustration begins with an inner circle, people closest to you, and reaches to the outer circle, people you want to know. 

Here are five views of starting and cultivating your network.

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One Final Thought

Adam Grant describes in his book “Givers versus Takers”; takers are people who are trying to get as much as possible from others, while contributing as little as they can in return. On the other hand givers actually prefer to be on the contributing end of an interaction. 

Grant’s research supports the fact that the way to success is by giving – not taking! Therefore, whenever you meet interesting people at networking events, to follow-up and start giving to the relationship, do what Grant calls the 5-minute favor, which is asking yourself, “What value can I add for this person by spending five minutes or less?” 

When you have your answer, do exactly that.⁵

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A true story of the big job,  with Tate, Pat, and fake names.

Tate and Pat were both vice presidents, reporting to the Chief Information Officer. Tate ran application development. Pat ran infrastructure. Tate had started his career as a programmer, Pat as a consultant.

The CIO retired. Both were up for the big job. Pat got it.

Tate didn’t understand. He had more experience. He led a larger group. He had phenomenal performance reviews and was well-liked by other business leaders. He was more technically expert on the more critical systems that ran the company. Pat, in his view, had much less expertise. 

Tate didn’t understand why he was passed over.

What Tate didn’t realize is that the world doesn’t operate on technical merit. Being the expert, having a Ph.D. in your specialist subject, matters less and less the further you progress in your career. 

At the top level of an organization, it’s just as much about who you know and who knows you as it is about what you know.

At any one time, there are three conversations going on around you. 

The first is the technical conversation. This is about the work. It’s about what you know. It’s where you have credibility and expertise. This is what you are hired for. It’s where you earn respect.

Think of the technical conversation as “I know how to...”

The second conversation is the social conversation. It’s who you know. This is about people. It’s how you develop a network. That network gives you the ability to marshal resources and get things done, both in your team and across the organization. 

The social conversation is “I know who to...”

The last conversation, the one that Tate was deaf to, was the political conversation. This is how you gain influence. How you get a seat at the table. This is about who knows you. This is the ‘polish’ that Tate saw in Pat. That polish goes by many names: gravitas, executive presence, charismatic leadership. 

It’s mastery of the political conversation.

Pat had this in spades. They wielded outsize influence in the organization. While everyone in the IT organization knew—and respected—Tate, everyone in the business knew Pat. Tate would stand his ground. If he believed something was right, he would argue for it, sometimes leaving bruised egos and chips on shoulders.

Pat would never do that.

Pat built and nurtured relationships carefully. Pat would argue for certain things but ultimately balanced a technical perspective with other agendas in the business.

This ability to balance the technical, social, and political conversation is what we call the leadership conversation. It’s the topic of Rose Fass’s second book, The Leadership Conversation. Make Bold Change, One Conversation At a Time.

If Tate had read that book, he would have been on an even playing field with Pat— instead of passed over. The leadership conversation shows you how to reframe a conversation, how to lead change in your business, and how to have deep, honest conversations with yourself and others.

If you think your work speaks for itself, you’re wrong.

That’s the moral of the story. Your work doesn’t speak for itself. The world is not a meritocracy. As you read the story of the big job, you may be wondering—am I more like Tate or Pat?

Have you ever felt like your ideas were not listened to? You weren’t part of a decision? You sometimes get more drill-down than you need, or people resist your ideas? You don’t get the help and support you feel you need?

You need to change the type of conversation you are having.

Where do you stand?

If you want to find out where your conversations land today, and some ideas on where to focus your conversation, take a quick survey.

It takes five minutes and will show you how you frame your conversations.

Click here to take the survey.