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Transcript
50 min read · 9,956 words- 0:00 – 0:08
Intro
- AHAmeen Haque
[chime] [clapping]
- 0:08 – 1:42
From stammering and shyness to a life shaped by stories
- AHAmeen Haque
Good afternoon. My name's Ameen Haque, and, uh, when I was growing up, when I was young, when I was in school, I used to stammer quite a bit. I would stammer, I would stutter, and, uh, I would trail off mid-sentence. I would not finish off my sentences. I realize I'm not the only one who does that. There are quite a few who do that. Uh, but it took me some find to f- you know, took some time to find that reassurance that I'm not the only one. Uh, so when I was growing up, I used to stay a lot at home. I was a little shy. I was a little reserved. I would not go out and play with other kids as much as I'd like to. And what do you do when you stay at home and spend more time at home than most people do? I remember two things very distinctly. We used to talk a lot, real conversations, but talk a lot. We do that sometimes when we don't have electricity, but we don't have that comfort anymore.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AHAmeen Haque
Power backup kicks in. [laughs] But we used to talk a lot, about everything. The second thing I used to do a lot was that I used to read a lot, and I used to read, uh, uh, a lot of stories. Not math or science. I may have been somewhere else if I was reading [laughs] math or science. Uh, but I am, I am over-indexed on stories. Uh, the same stories that you read, but, you know, I could win a quiz on Indrajal Comics hands down. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- 1:42 – 4:42
Reading ladders, early theater, and the push into communication
- AHAmeen Haque
And I was a bigger fan of Indrajal Comics than Amar Chitra Katha, but I started off with Indrajal Comics, uh, and the usual stories that we all grew up on, Champak, Chanda Mama, Amar Chitra Katha. And, uh, there is a hierarchy that we all follow, don't we? Uh, uh, if you've grown up in India at a particular point of time, most of us follow that hierarchy. Uh, you move on from these stories to Famous Five and Secret Seven.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AHAmeen Haque
And then from Famous Five and Secret Seven, you move on to Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AHAmeen Haque
Nancy Drews?
- SPSpeaker
Yes.
- AHAmeen Haque
Let's clap for my friend. You know, there are few men who ac-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs] [clapping]
- AHAmeen Haque
There are very few men who have the courage to admit in a large gathering that they've read some Nancy Drews.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AHAmeen Haque
I read some Wilson Boone as well.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AHAmeen Haque
Let's clap for my friend here.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs] [clapping]
- AHAmeen Haque
[laughs] And I thoroughly enjoyed reading the, the few that I did, and then I moved on, uh, to Westerns, Louis L'Amour, the cowboy classics. And by grade seventh, you know, uh, I remember in grade seventh, you know, I was in Kendra Vidyalaya, and, uh, in Kendra Vidyalaya, we had recommended reading. As part of recommended reading, now the trick with recommended reading is that it's not part of curriculum. It's not part of syllabus. Nobody's gonna ask you questions in exams based on that. So as we say in Hindi, there is a phrase, "" which basically means read it if you like. Uh, but I was reading Ramayana, and this was not Amar Chitra Katha Ramayana. This was proper Ramayana. This was thick Ramayana in difficult Hindi. And in grade eighth, recommended reading was the Mahabharata, and I was reading the Mahabharata, which had my mom freaking out and terribly worried about me.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AHAmeen Haque
Normal kids don't do that. So out of deep concern and out of anxiety for me, she enrolled me into speech therapy, into elocution, into debate competitions, into poetry recitation, into the drama club, like comprehensive damage control strategy.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AHAmeen Haque
I am really grateful to her for that. I am very grateful to her for that, because all of these things together helped me a lot. And out of all of these things, I fell in love with theater, and I wanted to do nothing but theater. I wrote my first play, and it was a copy, I must admit.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AHAmeen Haque
Uh, but I wrote my first play when I was in grade ninth. I directed it, I directed my friends, and I participated [laughs] in it as well. Uh, and if some of you, I can see the expressions, wow, that seems like an early start. If there's anything that describes that play, uh, pathetic might be an understatement.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AHAmeen Haque
And there are many people who are walking this planet still scarred by that experience. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AHAmeen Haque
But you know how good teachers are. My teachers are fantastic. They said, "Ameen, what you're doing is wonderful. Do more."
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- 4:42 – 6:55
Two-track career: advertising by day, theater by night—and the story thread
- AHAmeen Haque
They had no idea that I would take up their advice seriously, and they would have to suffer a lot after that. But I, I continued doing more, and I did much more in, uh, in high school. I did much more theater in college than most kids do, and that's what I really wanted to do. But you know how it is growing up in middle class India. You don't choose extracurricular activities, at least that's how it was when I was growing up. Uh, and it still is the same. We don't choose extracurricular activities as profession choices. We choose what our percentages allow us to do, and there is a strict hierarchy there. Uh, so to cut a long story short, I did b- I did a course in Business Administration, worked in sales, and then I got lucky to get into one of the best advertising schools in India at that point of time, an institute in Ahmedabad, and we had wonderful campus placements, so one of the world's best advertising agencies at that point of time, and even now at this point of time. Ogilvy & Mather came to campus, picked me up, and I moved to Mumbai, advertising mecca, and I started earning my own salary. Now that I was making money, within a week of moving to Mumbai, I joined a theater group.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AHAmeen Haque
And these two tracks, that I had a day track and I had an evening track- Day track advertising, evening track theater kind of defined my journey over the next 18 years of my life. So I moved from advertising to marketing. I was head of marketing for Louis Philippe. Uh, and then I moved from marketing to consulting, specifically brand strategy consulting, go-to-market strategies, uh, India entry strategy, how do you increase your market share, how do you command a premium for your brand, brand strategy. Uh, now if these were my day tracks, my evening tracks were theater, poetry, as a student of cinema, and f- as a photographer. And if there was any one thread that, you know, if there was a single thread that sort of, you know, combined or sort of, you know, that was common between both of these tracks of my life, it was the fact that I was dealing with stories and narrative in both of them. And working with stories in both of these, I realized
- 6:55 – 9:29
Why business storytelling: the session’s goals and a short film setup
- AHAmeen Haque
that, you know, we don't leverage stories in our work as much as we can, and we don't leverage stories in education as much as we can. And with a desire to address that, I plunged, uh, into the world of storytelling as a story coach, as a story consultant. And what we're going to do today is we're going to look at business storytelling specifically. What are the principles of business storytelling? How can we tell better stories about our products? If there are a couple of frameworks that we could use, and how to build our bank of stories. That's what we're going to do. So let's go straight, uh, uh, into this. You know, what I'm going to do is I'm gonna share a video with you. Now, it may seem at first glance that this video has nothing to do with business. But we will look at it with a business lens, and we will see this from a business lens. Now, this guy that you see here, uh, he has a business issue. He puts out an elevator pitch, a business message, and that doesn't work. And then he gets some help and magic happens. We'll look at that and see what are the principles we can derive from that, and I'll walk you through business storytelling principles that we can derive from this film. So let's take a look at this film. [gentle music] [coins clinking] What did you do to my sign?
- SPSpeaker
I wrote the same, but in different words.
- 9:29 – 12:03
Principle 1: emotions drive decisions—and stories help sensemaking amid data
- AHAmeen Haque
Thanks, love. [gentle music] Now, I'm not an expert on morality, on ethics of begging, so we are going to look at this in a very objective sense. You know, this guy is in business. He has an elevator pitch. That pitch doesn't seem to resonate well with the audiences. They are just passing him by. And then the lady comes and changes the message, and magic happens. What are the principles that we can derive from this in terms of storytelling? The first one is that stories speak to people's emotions, and we know this, that there are two sides to the brain, the logical side of the brain, uh, the rational side of the brain, and the feelings and the emotional side of the brain. And there are decisions, decision scientists who've been studying a very important question that all business leaders want to understand. This is the question: How do people decide? When faced with choices, when faced with alternatives, how do we make a choice, and what swings the decision in favor of A versus B? If there are two candidates for, you know, there are two, two likely ca- candidates for the CEO position, how does the board decide, uh, given both the candidates look equal, you know, from Ivy School, from Ivy School, uh, 20 years in business, 20 years in business, has worked in three geographies, has worked in three geographies, has worked in three departments, has worked in three depart- departments, has a wonderful track record, like to like? Now, how does the board choose between A candidate versus B? How do we choose between Colgate and Pepsodent? And how do we choose between vendor A versus vendor B? How do people decide? And, and decision science has revealed to us that in almost all kinds of decisions, the emotional side of the brain is predominant, and stories speak to emotions. And I'll talk about facts, and I'll talk about numbers, and I'll talk about data and how storytellers leverage that because, you know, it's, i- in this world, uh, uh, where we have more and more data, it actually makes the roles of stories even more important because when we are inundated with data, where we are inundated with information from all sides, it's even more important that we focus on narrative because narrative helps us make sense of that data. So speak to people's emotions, and when you speak to people's emotions, it gathers
- 12:03 – 16:06
Principles 2–4: build common ground, use contrast, and shift sympathy to empathy
- AHAmeen Haque
and it res- results in a higher response ROI is higher when you speak to people's emotions. The second one is build common ground, and, uh, uh, it's interesting that the first word that this guy used on that poster was I. That's not a great place to start your stories. But if you look around, a lot of corporate stories, a lot of organization stories, a lot of sales stories start from I. A lot of product pitches start from I. This is my product. This is my idea. This is what I have done. But I is not a great place to start because, you know, I- I presumes that, you know, my, what I'm interested in is something that you are interested in as well. But she doesn't make that assumption, and she starts by building common ground, and, and that common ground here is it's a beautiful day. You can see that, and when you see that, you nod in agreement. Yes, it's a beautiful day. That's magical. What she is doing here is getting her audience to nod in agreement, and when your audience starts nodding in agreement, you are in a better place to sell them something. So get your audience nodding in agreement by building common ground. Next principle, [smacks lips] and all storytellers use this either intuitively or consciously, is build contrast. Contrast is one of the most powerful devices in storytelling. Uh, uh, day and night, rich and poor, good versus bad, hero versus villain. It's in the world of contrasts that stories live, and stories evoke that world of contrast. Now, when we work with new products, what we, we have fertile ground for contrast because new products operate in the realm of what is versus what can be. Now, that's a powerful contrast between what is and what can be. So don't limit yourself to the contrast of the problem and the solution, which is the typical trap that a lot of stories fall into. See beyond and see what you can do, uh, in terms of contrast, in terms of exploring what is possible today versus what can be possible, in terms of what can be done today versus what can be done. In some ways, when we are building new products, you are building a new world. When you're building new products, you're building a new kind of world. Paint a picture of that world because what you want to do is not just at a literal level get people to use that product. What you want to do is you are selling citizenship to a new world, to a new planet, and you want people to raise hands and say, "We want to be citizens of that world." So paint a picture of that world and describe that world at contrast with today's world. Use that contrast, and she uses that beautifully here. She uses it beautifully in an emotional sense. She uses it beautifully when she says, and she uses it in a positive sense. This guy was operating from a place called sympathy, but she's not operating from sympathy. She's operating from empathy. That's a powerful position to operate from. Right? That guy is saying, "Look at me. You know, I'm in a sorry state. Please help me." But what she's saying is she's, there's a powerful flip happening here. She's not saying how bad, "Look at me, how bad I am. You know, my, my condition is really bad. You need to help me." Instead, she is saying, "You have not paused in life to think about this, but take a moment to think about this. You have eyes. You can see." That's a powerful flip. You can see. She, she makes you feel better, and that's the switch that I'm talking about from sympathy to empathy. And, and then she establishes the fact that there is a big divide between what you can see but I can't, and that contrast is, you
- 16:06 – 20:38
Truth well told: authenticity plus craft, and the danger of over-explicit CTAs
- AHAmeen Haque
know, it's implied in the earlier pitch, but here it's explicit. So you need to draw and build on that contrast, and that's what she does. It's a very powerful tool of storytelling. See when you're building new products and telling the story of those new products how you can leverage contrast. And I say this, that a beautiful definition of storytelling for me, particularly business storytelling, but in, but for all kinds of storytelling really, is truth well told. Now, I'm not a big fan of definitions. I never was a big fan of definitions in school. But I like this because there are two parts to stories. First, all stories must come from truth because if they are coming from a place called falsehood, then those stories are going to have a very short shelf life. We've seen that with enough stories that try to leverage falsehood, they couldn't go far. So sh- so falsehood has a very short shelf life in life, but more particularly so in business stories. They have to come from a place called authenticity. Stories have to be authentic. Stories have to be truthful. They have to be based on fact. They have to be based on data, and that data has to be truthful. But as we saw in this example, truth alone isn't enough. That guy was stating the truth, "I am blind. Please help." But it doesn't work. It needs to be stated beautifully. That's why truth has to meet well told, and that well told is articulation. That well told is presentation. That well told is visualization. That well told is use of metaphor, is use of contrast. When well told happens to and, and meets truth, then it becomes a story, which is why we've seen this in life. It's not what you say alone that matters, but how we say it that makes all the difference. There are people who've said no to you, and your friendship with them has broken, and there are others who've said no to you, and you're still friends with them. And the difference is how they said it. There are other, I, I could give you another example. There's a, there's a boss you worked with, and at during performance appraisal he gave you honest feedback, and it was critical feedback. And he told you the areas that you were lacking in. And you came out crying, and you hated that guy, and you never want to work with that boss ever again. Another performance appraisal, another guy shares the same feedback with you and points out the inadequacies, but does it in a manner that when you come out you feel so happy that you want to work with this guy all your life. It's not what you say, but how you say it that makes all the difference. So, so look at both. Often in storytelling we look at content, but we forget how are we going to communicate that content. The way that content lands is as important as the content itself. It's not just the fact or the data alone, but how you are bringing that fact alive that makes all the difference. So explore that in your stories. And last, you know, a lot of damage has been done to business storytelling by something called CTA, call to action. And we try to close all our stories by emphasizing the call to action. But don't state the obvious. When you can see that begging bowl there, we can see that dabah there, that's the call to action. You don't need to spell it out. You don't need to tell people what needs to be done, and you don't need to say, "Put $5 here," because you could be excluding the possibility of somebody putting $20 there. So don't, don't get too excited by CTA. Use it very judiciously. You know, CTA is not call to action, is, has almost become a mandatory, and we use it like a mandatory. Put the mandatories which are there, which are required to be put in. But think about what is mandatory and what is not, and don't state the obvious. Now we work, you know, you know, there are firms like KPMG and Deloitte that are audit firms, right? You could think of us and the work that I do, the work that we do at Storywallahs, uh, is we audit stories and we audit presentations, and you'll be surprised to see how much, uh, of obvious we come across in presentations that is not required there. One of the best ways, you know, easiest ways to make presentations better is to remove the obvious from presentations.
- 20:38 – 22:51
Universal story structure for business: character, conflict, resolution
- AHAmeen Haque
It's not by adding, but by removing that sometimes we make our stories better. See what you can remove from your stories, and those stories will come out far more beautifully. Now, you know, if you look at universal story structures and say how do I leverage this for the product that I am building? I work on a product team, you know, we are, we are looking at this particular innovation and, and, and we believe that this is gonna change the world. How do I change, how do I te- go out and tell the story of this product? How do I communicate it internally to stakeholders? How do I get a buy-in? How do I get a budget on this project? How do I buy, you know, a, a deadline extension on this project? How do I tell the story of this product? All stories come from a universal story structure which is fairly simple. There's a character in a story, there's conflict, and there is resolution. Central to a story is conflict. When there is no conflict, there is no story. So let me state this again. If there is no conflict, there is no story. One of the ways to look at conflict is to say problem, right? A simpler word is problem. Boy loves girl, girl loves boy, and they live happily ever after. Nobody's seen that story.
- SPSpeaker
[laughing]
- AHAmeen Haque
Nobody's written that book. Nobody's seen that movie. But boy loves girl, girl loves boy, and father says, "Nahin! Yeh shaadi nahin ho sakti. No." And there's a story there. Without a conflict there is no story. If the Kauravas had given to Pandavas what was rightfully theirs, we wouldn't have had the Mahabharata. If, if Ravana had not kidnapped Sita, we wouldn't have had the Ramayana. If there's no conflict, there is no story. Now that's a universal story structure. How do we leverage it in business, and how do we sort of, you know, how do we take that and bring it into the world of business? For me, it's very simple. Without a conflict there is no business because an entrepreneur looks at conflict as a problem in consumers' lives and he says the flip side of that is an opportunity for an entrepreneur, for an innovator, for a pioneer. And when you resolve that, then there is a story in
- 22:51 – 33:19
Framework: “Imagine a world where…” + examples (Dove, Scrabble, Google Search)
- AHAmeen Haque
play. And if you can't resolve it, then it's not a great story. So do you see this? Innovation and story, business and story have the same structure. Now keeping this at the back of your mind, let's see how, you know, let me share with you a simple framework using which we can tell the stories of our products, any kind of product, any kind of innovation that we are building. And that structure is fairly simple. I talked about contrast earlier, and the way to paint a picture of that world is to use something like this and fill in the blanks and say imagine a world where dash dash dash. What kind of a world do you envision with the kind of product that you're building? What will happen in that world? What would people do that they don't do today? Or what can people do that they are not able to do today? What do you see in that world? Describe that world very simply. Use contrast, use metaphor, bring that world alive in a way that is inspiring so that people raise their hand and say, "I want to be a citizen of that world." Let me give an example from a non-tech perspective. Dove, uh, uh, you know, globally said that, you know, there is a big conflict. What is, you know, so brands, products, innovations, ideas have to resolve conflicts. They've said, "Hey, there's a big conflict." Every morning millions of women around the world wake up And when they look at themselves in the mirror, they are not happy with what they see. They see themselves as themselves, and they are not happy with what they see. And that's a big conflict. They are not happy because the world of beauty, the world of fashion, the world of cosmetics is telling them that you are not beautiful. You are not beautiful. The lady on Vogue, she is beautiful. The lady on Cosmopolitan, she is beautiful. The lady on Femina, she is beautiful. The lady on Red Carpet, she is beautiful. The lady in Hollywood, she is beautiful. But you aren't, and there's a big distance between where you are and where they are. And she sees that distance and she says, "That's impossible for me to achieve." And when you see that impossibility and say, "Hey, it's beyond me," you feel bad about where you are because somebody else has taken ownership of the beauty story and said, "This is what beautiful is." Now, that's a big conflict. How do they resolve it? Or how are they trying to resolve it? By taking ownership of the story of beauty and rewriting that story. So a possible articulation for them could be, imagine a world where beautiful is the body we are born with, is the way I look right now. Okay, folks. So quiet please. Camera, camera's rolling and we're recording sound. Slate it. Kind of wrap it. Rolling in the camera. Sounds great. Yeah. [gentle music] Well, that's one kind of an example, right? So you don't need a tech product, you don't need... Sometimes all you need is insight into what a big conflict is. And once you identify a conflict that is large enough for people, uh, uh, that people face, then you'll find a solution. And, and you... That solution can be a product, can be communication. That solution can be a service. Uh, uh, there are many kinds of solutions that are possible, right? But then you have to tell the story, uh, of that product for people to want to be citizens of that world. And you have to tell that story again and again, and you have to tell that story and pitch that story to various stakeholders and contextualize it to them over a period of time, and you have to refresh that story as well. Now, that story can work. You know, this framework is a beautiful framework. Imagine a world where it works for all kind of products. So to give you a, a, a, a, an example from a very different kind of a world, you are familiar with the game Scrabble, right? It's, it's, it's a game that helps you build vocabulary. Now, that's really simple, right? You know, uh, imagine a world where people had richer vocabularies. Now, that's a big conflict in life. Our vocabularies are shrinking, and, and I go back to the principles of business storytelling. There's truth and there is well told. To be able to articulate something well, remember, it's not just what you say, but how you say it. We need richer vocabularies. That's the tool that storytellers work with. Look around you. Leaders, business leaders have richer vocabularies than followers. Political leaders have richer vocabularies than followers. Spiritual leaders have richer vocabulary than followers. There's a straight correlation, a simple correlation. If you want to be a good storyteller, build your vocabulary. Build your verbal vocabulary, language vocabulary, visual vocabulary, oral vocabulary, build, but build your vocabulary, right? Now, imagine a world where people had richer vocabularies. You know, vocabularies are shrinking. Today if you ask a kid, "Hey, how was that birthday party that you went to?" "Awesome." [audience laughing] "Hey, you went and saw that film, Jungle Book. How was that?" "Awesome." "Hey, you had a sleepover. How was that?" "Awesome." "You went to McDonald's, had french fries and a burger. How was that?" "Awesome." One day you will, one day you will fall in love. One day you will hold somebody's hand, you will see the sun go down, you will see thousands of shades of orange. You will kiss someone, you will make love to someone. What will you come back and say? Awesome? [audience laughing] You used, you used that word for french fries. [audience laughing] [audience clapping] So you see, when vocabulary shrink, we have, we have lesser available, we have lesser power to communicate our ideas in a way that touch the heart, and we can't communicate. So in order to become better communicators, we need to build. You want to be a storyteller, build your vocabulary and build your visual. There are all kinds of vocabularies. Verbal is one, but, you know, explore what vocabulary you can be strong at and build that. Because if you can't, then how will you express new ideas in interesting ways or existing ideas in newer ways? Well, that's what storytellers do. Now, when that guy had put up a board, all he was saying was, "I am blind. Please help." He was using two magic words, please and help. But we've seen so much of that That it's not working. So when messaging becomes, leverages words that everybody is familiar with, that messaging becomes blind spot. And people see it, but people don't see it. It's like cows in India. You see them, but you don't see them, right? [laughing] They're beggars at the, at, at, at the traffic signals. You see them, but you don't see them, and it takes a foreigner to come into India and they say, "Oh my God, you've got cows on the road." Kach, kach, kach, kach, kach, kach, kach, kach, kach, right? So th- because they see it from a fresh perspective. And you remember when he asked the lady, "What did you do to my sign?" She didn't make the hoarding bigger. She didn't put four signs. She's not increasing the media spend on the m- on the messaging. On the same spend, on the same size of poster, she, all she did was change the messaging. It's vocabulary. It's how we say it that makes all the difference. So, you know, imagine a world where people had the power of vocabularies. So, uh, this is from the work that, you know, uh, uh, Ogilvy, the agency that I worked with earlier in advertising did for Scrabble in India. One. Why? Two. Why? Hey, you two, come here. Why you are late? Why?
- SPSpeaker
Sir, I overslept.
- AHAmeen Haque
Why? Go do 50 pushups. Why? And you, why you are late? Why? Sir, I have clinomania. Why? What? Sir, I have clinomania. Oh, o- okay, okay. You take rest. Why? [upbeat music] Play Scrabble. Learn more words [groans] Build vocabulary. [laughing] Better storyteller. That's a powerful framework. It can be used for world-changing ideas, for big conflicts like the conflict women face in the world today, smaller conflicts in a humorous tone. It can also be used for technology products. If we were to go back in time, and since we are at Google, and say im- you know, if let's, let's use this framework to say how do we tell the story of Google Search? A good metaphor could be that, you know, imagine a world where people can find their needle. You're looking for your needle, not anybody else's needle, but your needle in a haystack, because that's what the World Wide Web is, and the World Wide Web is full of search results, but our algorithm makes it easy for you to find your needle, which is based on relevance, which is based on this, which is based on that, da, da, da, da, da. Simple metaphor, right? Complex algorithm, simple story. Imagine a world where everybody can find their needle in a haystack. So
- 33:19 – 39:34
Leadership storytelling: using a sports story in a performance appraisal
- AHAmeen Haque
see how you can use a framework like that to tell the story of the product that you are building, that Google is building today, and it's building different kinds of products and solving different kinds of conflicts. Yesterday, it was solving the conflict of finding the needle in the haystack. Today, it's finding, you know, newer conflicts to solve, uh, to resolve, uh, and, and newer stories have to be told about those conflicts. Explore that. Now, uh, business storytelling is not just for products. It's not just for, uh, uh... It's, it's to be, it, and it's to be and can be used in all kinds of contexts, including leadership, and leadership is not just about vision and setting the vision. That's a large part of it, but it's also about building a team and working along with team, nurturing a team, nurturing talent. So I'm happy to share with you a story of when I realized the power of story, when I used it during a performance appraisal. No, not my performance appraisal, when I was conducting performance appraisal. [laughing] And, uh, I was sitting in my cabin, and I, I led a strategic team, uh, of about seven people. Uh, and it was that time of the year when you look back at the performance, when you set goals, uh, and you assign a number after that conversation. And one by one, each member of my team were coming, and we were having that conversation. Now it was time for the best performer in the team to come in. The best performer in the team truly deserved this, uh, a, a very good raise because, you know, he had done the equivalent of filing a patent. A lot of people don't file patents. And converting that into a business. Well, most of the patents are not converted into businesses. He'd done the equivalent of both. In, in advertising terms, think of it as award-winning advertising that critics love, but most award-winning advertising [laughs] doesn't sell products. But this, products were flying off shelves like hot cakes, right? He'd done the equivalent of both. One of the best performers, not just on my team, but in the entire office, and for that year in the industry as well. And it was time for his performance appraisal, and he swaggers into my room, collar is raised, pulls the chair, and sinks into it, hands raised behind his head, looks into my eyes. [laughing] A cocky look. And when I look at him, it reminds me of a story, so I sit him down, and sometimes bosses have to practice what is called tough love, and I tell him a story. Now, that story is from the year 1989 when two wonderful cricketers made their debut for India. One of them retired recently as the god of cricket. The other one-
- SPSpeaker
Vinod Kambli
- AHAmeen Haque
... nobody remembers when he retired. [laughing] His name is, of course, what you said, Vinod Kambli. Now, for those who love cricket and who know, and there are many in India, you would know this, that 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, for five years, who had the higher batting average? Vinod Kambli, match after match, f- in all formats of the game, and in all kinds of games, he was scoring more than Tendulkar consistently. That's how you get a higher batting average. And if you go back and listen to commentary, and experts, and what they used to say, you know, this guy Kambli had a finer batting technique. He had finer shot selection and a wider range of shots. But he had one problem. Attitude. And in life, we underestimate hard work, and we overestimate talent, but we underestimate hard work. And I could, I could see a story unfolding here. There was talent here. Batting average was high, but it came with something else, and I got reminded of that story, so I shared that story with him, and I added some more bits to it, and I said, "You know what? You know, after many years after this, you know, after 10 years later, there was a guy who grew up watching Tendulkar play, and he made his debut for India, and his name is Virender Sehwag, and he went on to do what Tendulkar always dreamt of but could never do. Not once, but twice, which is why he's called Sultan of Multan. He scored those triple centuries not in India, but in conditions which are difficult, which are tailored for bowlers, and Tendulkar always dreamt of that, but he could never. But you know, what... [smacks lips] And then, you know, Yuvraj did something that Tendulkar always wanted to do but could never achieve, right? Six sixes. But if there was one thing that sets apart Tendulkar from all the players, it was his hunger for the game. It was his passion for the game, and the fact that, that many years later, when he, he was considered the god of cricket and he had nothing to prove, even then he would go to the nets half an hour before everybody else. He would put in mu- much more hard work. And, and, and, and good stories like this happen when talent meets hard work." I told that story to my friend, to my colleague who was working with me, and seven years have passed since then. And in seven years, the people who used to report to you, uh, you have a different relationship aft- with them seven years later. They become your contemporaries. They become friends. I have moved on. I do my own thing. He does his own thing. But I, I am happy to report to you that he continues to be a Tendulkar, and there are many reasons for that. First, his, his own innate talent. Second, you got to be at the right place at the right time. But, but he still credits that conversation as a, as a, as a life-changing moment, and he says that, "You know, I have now combined a work ethic with my talent, and that makes all the difference." So where can we apply stories and where, you know... In all walks of life. When we say business, you know, business is not just about pitching. It's not just about fundraising. It's not just about telling the story of a product. You know, business is also nurturing talent. Business is also building a team. Business is also setting a vision. And we under-leverage stories and storytelling in all walks of life when we don't use stories like this, and we don't use, w- and we don't tell
- 39:34 – 42:37
Building a personal “bank of stories”: self, organization, and the world
- AHAmeen Haque
stories, uh, uh, where we can. So when you go out, uh, uh, from here and say, "How do I build a bank of my own stories?" You know, that's something that we, we should all aim for, right? How can I build a bank of my own stories that I can use for various situations, for various context? There are three sources really that you can look into, uh, using which you can build your bank of stories. The first one is your own life. Reflect on your own life, on, in, on, on your own journeys, and your life is rich with stories. So if I could give you a couple of cues when you look back at your life, because we must, and we must reflect on our lives. Leaders are reflective pra- practitioners. They reflect on their lives. They reflect on their journeys, on their strengths, on their weaknesses, and they draw lessons from there. So reflect on your lives. Ask yourself a question: What is the proudest moment of my life? Go back to that and see what made that happen, and there is something there. Look at that. But also ask yourself the question: What is the biggest failure in your life? And we've all failed at something or the other spectacularly. And what is the lesson we can derive from there? And that's a story. And you would say, "Hey, why would I share that story with anyone?" But look around, and leaders don't hesitate to share failure stories. In fact, leaders share failure stories. [phone chimes] Because if you don't share your failure story, in a business, if you don't... At Google, if we don't learn from our failure stories, those failures will repeat themselves. So I say this, that if failure stories don't go viral, failures go viral. [audience laughs] It's better that stories go viral, and we can all learn from those stories so that failures don't repeat. So you know, your own life is a rich source of story. The second is there are stories in your organization, and, and there are stories, you know, in this company that, that, that are there, but we look around and there are enough stories. You know, stories of products that have succeeded like anything. Stories of pr- of projects that were abandoned. What can we learn from those stories? They're, they're better stories sometimes to, to look, look at and learn from. Stories of projects, uh, uh, that could not see day of light. Stories of projects that didn't go as planned. N- they were not abandoned. They were launched into the market, but didn't work. What can we learn from a customer? What can we learn from a project that worked beautifully? For every pro- project, actually, we can break into milestones, and we must have those meetings after the project is complete to look at those three or four milestones and say, "What are the stories we can learn?" And then look at life all around you, because life all around you, we are swimming and breathing stories. Like I used a story from sport. It's all around us. Or a story from mythology, or we can learn from other people's stories. So these are the three sources of stories. Reflect on your journey, reflect on your stories, and see which story you can, you can tell and build into your bank of stories. W- uh, and
- 42:37 – 45:39
Listening as a storytelling superpower: the village that rejected TV
- AHAmeen Haque
I say this, that the best stories come to you When you listen. Great storytellers are not just great orators. They are not just people with great vocabularies. You become a good storyteller when you listen, because when you listen, you will get your stories. On that note, I'm happy to share a story with you, that many years ago when television was a new idea, there was this guy who used to go from place to place selling TVs, and he would go to this, you know, to a, to a place that had not heard of television and he would sell the concept called TV to them. One day he reached a village where he saw a strange sight. He saw that, you know, every evening people gather around a fire in the evening after they come back from work, and they share stories with each other. He said, "Hey, you guys love listening to stories, right? And you guys love sharing stories. You guys will love this box. It tells you a lot of stories." Everybody loved that idea, and every house in that village bought a TV. It was his best sale in months so far. He was so happy he'd met his quota for the, for the, for the next three months. He went on a holiday, and then he went on to other places. And a few months passed and he was, he was coming back and he was passing by the same village, and he said, "I must visit this village. These people were so nice. They bought so many TVs. I met my sales target for three months." So he stopped by to pay them a visit, but he was met with a strange sight. He saw all the TVs lying stacked one on top of the other, gathering dust. He said, "Let me wait here and figure out what's happening." So he's, he waited in the village. In the evening, everybody came back from work, and as usual, they gathered around a fire and started telling stories to each other, and he went at that point of time and said, "Hey, what happened? Remember me? You bought all those TVs. Why are they gathering dust?" And the village elder spoke and he said, "Beta, you know, initially these boxes, they were wonderful. They told us a lot of stories from here and there, from places near and far, and stories about, about, of places and things that we had never visited before, and it was wonderful. But there's one big problem. It doesn't listen to our stories." And a lot of communication has become like that today, where people are just full of their stories and they want to tell their stories, but we have no time to listen to other people's stories. But great leaders, great marketers and innovators are able to lead, market and innovate because they listen to people's stories. Not just business leaders, but also political leaders. That's how we solve problems, and that's how conflicts are resolved in the world. Not just by telling stories, but by listening to other people's stories. So see what stories you can listen to and how they lead you to your ideas, and then once you
- 45:39 – 58:30
Closing parable: Truth traveling in Story’s pocket—and wrap-up + Q&A highlights
- AHAmeen Haque
build that idea into a product, see how you can go and tell the story of that product. On that note, I'll end with a story and then we'll open up for q- questions if you have any. A long time ago there was an old man. This old man had a long, white flowing beard, and he had a nice, interesting jacket with wonderful designs and lots of pockets, and wherever the old man went, people would call out to him, reach out to him and say, "Hey, hey, hey. Old man, why don't you come and spend some time with us?" Everybody loved the old man. They said, "Hey, old man, come and spend some time with us. Have some tea and cake with us. Have some wine and cheese with us." Everybody loved the old guy. At the same time in the world, there was a lady. Wherever she went, people shut their doors and windows. Nobody liked the lady. The lady was very upset. She goes to the old man and says, "Why is it that wherever you go you are welcome, but I am turned away? Who are you?" The old man, he just shrugged his should- shoulders. He smiled and said, "I am Story. Who are you?" And she said, "I am Truth." [laughs] So you see, nobody likes the truth. But she said, "Oh, I'm going to make it easier for people," so she removed her clothes and she hoped that people would now welcome her. But nobody likes the naked truth. [laughs] But the old man had the wisdom to know that the world needs the truth. So he, he spoke to her and he said, "Lady, why don't you come along with me? There's much more hospitality than I need for myself. There's much more, uh, uh, wine and cheese that I need for myself. There's much more tea and cake than I need for myself. I can share with you. Why don't you come along with me?" And that's exactly what Truth did. Truth jumped into Story's pocket. And from that day, my friends, it is said that wherever story goes, you can find truth. [laughs] Data [clapping] Da- data is that truth. Data is that fact. Wrap it in a story, and wherever that story goes, you'll find that truth. On that note, I close, and I hope your story takes you to interesting places. Don't hesitate to share your story. Listen, share and craft, and may your story take you to wonderful places, because like Ira Glass said, "Wonderful stories happen to people who tell them well." [laughs] This is the point where I say I'm happy to take questions if you have, and happier if you have none. [laughs] Open house. Yes, sir.
- SPSpeaker
Uh, you spoke about share stories of failure. Can you just tell a story of one of your failures?
- AHAmeen Haque
I have lots of them. Uh, uh, but the, uh, you know, I'll... Uh, and there are many failures, uh, that we've all had. Uh, one of the failures that I had Uh, when I started the firm, and I had never been an entrepreneur before, and, you know, I'd worked in, you know, as a salaried employee, you know, and we have no entrepreneurial bone gene, uh, in the family. My parents were teachers. All my cousins are, you know, uh, either teachers or doctors or, you know, employees. And when I started off, uh, um, I really didn't know how to build that business. And I... So I s- I started Storywallahs. I decided that I'll work from office, so I hired an office space. And all I used to do was go to office and sit and operate from there. But there was no business was coming in. And I realized that this is not how business works. I was expecting business to come in just because in my mind I thought a business has... And then I had to figure out a lot of things on how to... We still don't do business development in the traditional sense. All our business comes in, uh, uh, uh, and, and knocks at our door. But how to get them to knock at our door is, is a big lesson that I learned. I had no idea how to do that. And there are really two ways of building business. If you look at all methods of building business, you can put them into two buckets. The first bucket is you go and knock at somebody's door. The second bucket is you get people to knock at your door. And I failed at this miserably, and I learned that. So first year, if I, if I go and, you know, look at the first year of business that we did at Storywallahs, for the first nine months, our billing was zero, and I learned it the hard way. But n- then I learned how to get people to knock at your door. And sometimes failure is good because, you know, if you can reflect on it, if you can dwell upon it and see what made you fail and learn from it, then it's good.
- SPSpeaker
Thank you, sir.
- AHAmeen Haque
Thanks. A wonderful question.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. So, um, in our day-to-day life, rather than general stories which, which are attractive, right, uh, uh, our stories need to be a little bit more precise to the audience, which is generally s- from someone who are trying to get an approval. Most of the time, those are the stories you want to tell.
- AHAmeen Haque
Yep.
- SPSpeaker
So is there a difference between the principles that... Or maybe there's a modification to the principles listed over here when you're trying to do targeted storytelling? So anything over there like which, which we missing.
- AHAmeen Haque
Yeah. Uh, I think the principles remain same. The, the way you apply them, you know, becomes a sharper lens. And, and one, one thing that you would add to this list of principles is what I call a WIIFY. Uh, the WIIFY is a simple principle, W-I-I-F-Y, what's in it for you? That's a very important principle because, you know, somebody's going to get, give you an extension not because there's something in it for you, because there's something at the end of that extension period that's going to come back to me, right? So the WIIFY principle is something that, you know, gets added on when we go from these macro to the micro nuances of everyday work, and you add the WIIFY principle. When you ask for an extension, I'm not asking something for myself. There's something which is coming back to you at the end of this. If you don't give it to me, it may not come back to you. You know, right now I'm not in a position. And when we walk them through that and get them to see things from m- our perspective by, through the transport, uh, that, that we s- we are supposed to do as storytellers, then they will get that picture. There's a second one, which you didn't ask, but you know, we do a lot of work with numbers and data. And, and, and when you apply these principles, how do you apply them to numbers and data? Uh, uh, that's, that's perhaps another talk, uh, for about 15 minutes, uh, or 20 minutes. There, there are three or four specific principles that help us bring numbers and data to life. There's somebody from Google who's done wonderful work, uh, uh, Google, uh, uh, in other market where, where she's written a book as well. She's no longer with Google, uh, but she's written a book on how to tell stories using numbers and data, and that's a good reference point to get started. But the principles are fairly simple.
- SPSpeaker
Who's the lady?
- AHAmeen Haque
Uh, the name will come back to me in a bit. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
So you talked about, uh, increasing vocabulary and not just the words, but also visual, visual vocabulary. Can you elaborate on it? And, uh, how do you use it in those stories?
- AHAmeen Haque
Well, pictures speak louder than thousand words. We've all heard that before. Uh, uh, but you know, we, uh, when I speak of pictures, I don't just mean pictures in the sense that we used to, we used to think of them. Of course, they're very powerful. I can tell you a story about how Ratan Tata, uh, when he briefed the team for Nano, which is one of the biggest disruptions that happened in the automotive world, uh, before Google and Tesla came along, uh, uh, that journey was triggered with a presentation that used one slide and one photo in that slide. And that photo was something that he saw. He saw a family of four on a scooter,
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AHAmeen Haque
"Hum do hamare do." And all he did was he came back, he sketched that on a piece of paper. And he's, he's, you know, he says, "I'm not great at sketching," but he sketched that. And he, a- and he drew a roof on top of that scooter, and he gave it to his secretary and he said, "Can you scan that?" And he s- they scanned that image and put that into the presentation. Nano wasn't called the Nano. Nano wasn't born. It wasn't even conceived of. He put that photograph on the slide and called the top management deck, CFO, head of manufacturing, head of marketing, uh, head of design. And with that one slide, he explained the target audience for whom they were building a product. He explained the conflict. You know, these are people who are exposed to elements, people who are exposed to rains, people who are exposed to beggars at, uh, and all kinds of things at, uh, uh, traffic lights, right? So he explained the conflict. But through that slide, he also said, what is the, what, what is the target audience? And when you say the target audience, he also explained through that slide what is the price constraint. We are not making a car for car upgraders. We are making a car for s- for upgraders who are going to buy a car for the first time, scooter upgraders to car. And that has a price target. And that price target, through that he explained the materials problem because it, you know, to, to achieve that, you know, there'll have to be some innovation in terms of materials and metallurgy and how you fuse glass with metal and all of that. Uh, so he spoke to the head of design, head of manufacturing, head of finance, head of marketing, all of that through one slide. Now, that's a powerful example. But, but I don't mean visuals only in that sense. That's one part of your visual vocabulary. The second part of visual vocabulary is data visualization. How do you bring your data alive? For any two sets of data on X and Y-axis, today there are 20 visualizations that are possible. You can bring it alive in a graph A versus graph B. Typically, we don't explore those 20 visualizations to say which one is the best to communicate the wifi. Which one is the simplest? We don't put up four slides, four, four different charts and say which one communicates this the most. We don't do that. Typically, we just go ahead with what comes to us intuitively and, and, and, and developing that vocabulary takes some time, but, you know, it's just a function of doing something again and again, and you get better at it. So that's, that's on visual vocabulary. Uh, uh, and there was another question from there. That's the last question we'll take, and then we'll stop. Uh, uh, yes.
- SPSpeaker
So I mean, I wanted to ask this question. Uh, who do you think is a storyteller who has influenced you a lot?
- AHAmeen Haque
Well, uh, my mother, uh, you know, when I was growing up, uh, we had a lot of stories, uh, about partition. Uh, we had a lot of stories, I was brought up by a single parent, uh, about loss, uh, of things and family. Uh, so I heard a lot of stories. She was a teacher, so I heard a lot of stories about, about how we should look at life. Uh, and she was a teacher in the purest sense, no tuitions. Uh, uh-
- SPSpeaker
[laughing]
- AHAmeen Haque
Uh, she believed in that, that the best education is that you can give during the class, not afterwards. And if you're not doing that, then you're not doing a good job as a teacher. So, you know, all, you know, all the good things that we, uh, learn from teachers, you know, she was my, uh, she was my first teacher. The mothers are typically your first teachers, uh, at, at home. I heard a lot of stories from her. Uh, in terms of business storytelling, uh, uh, there's this wonderful guy who I worked with for 10 years. Uh, his name is Santhosh Desai. Uh, he's written a wonderful book. He writes a column in Times of India every Monday, uh, City City Bank Bank. That's the guy. Uh, I, I think he's a fantastic storyteller. I've had a wonderful working relationship with him. The-- It's very, very rare that you work with somebody for 10 years. I've learned a lot, uh, by seeing him at work. Narayana Murthy is a wonderful storyteller, and I'll tell you why. To me, great stories are truth well told. And when I say truth well told, you have to live that truth, embody that truth in your life. When he told his people, "Fly economy," that's not messaging. You have to live that truth yourself. You have to fly economy. That story has to be evident in your life, right? So he lived his story, and he lived life by the story that he told. When you can live your life by the stories that you tell, you're a fantastic storyteller. Thank you for having me over. [clapping] Uh, eventually, you know, time runs out for everything, including life. Uh, uh, but that doesn't mean that, you know, questions have to end here. That's my email ID. I would love to hear from you. If you have more questions, uh, uh, uh, send them in, and I usually respond to mail within 48 hours.
- SPSpeaker
[laughing]
- AHAmeen Haque
Have a nice evening ahead.
- SPSpeaker
Thank you. [clapping]
Episode duration: 58:45
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Transcript of episode 77FUr6ZsWjY
