There is arguably no greater communication skill for executives than the art of compelling storytelling. Let’s skip over the fact that executives rise through the ranks of organizations across industry precisely because of their ability to tell stories. It’s just an inherent truth of success in the business world: storytelling has the persuasive power to make or break your leadership and how you are perceived.
So, knowing that to be true, how should any reasonable, success-oriented executive approach storytelling and what boxes must they ensure to tick along the way?
The Harvard Business Review case I linked above gives a straightforward answer;
1) Audience Specificity is Paramount – Know who you are talking to and filter your message through the lens of their fears and motivations.
2) Provide Context for Your Audience – The context of any message makes it relatable. As an executive you are leading the direction of hundreds and perhaps thousands of employees who wield immense collective power. Give them the context of the business decision behind the initiative you are communicating about. Expand upon that context through storytelling. The less you can speak in corporate tones that come across as platitudinous, the better. That brings me to the next point.
3) Humanize Your Message – Tell a personal anecdote that relates to the issue, initiative, or point of your message. In fact, if you can frame the entire communication itself through an anecdote, do.
4) Action and Specificity of Action – Executives communicate with purpose, or at least the good ones do. The point of the case from which I poached this idea is that you don’t get much done with vague platitudes. Instead, executives achieve more with a few actionable points. That’s true even whether the goal itself is relatively vague, like improving workplace morale, or more quantifiable like improving profit in the upcoming quarter.
5) Humility is Helpful – Bob Uecker is a name not too often discussed outside of Major League Baseball and the Milwaukee Brewers organization. He passed away days before this was published, which is why he came to mind. If you’re familiar with him, you know that he was not a good MLB player. He batted .200 in 731 career at bats with a WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of -1. That means it cost his team a win by simply keeping him on the roster rather than switching him for a replacement-level player at his position. He wasn’t good and he knew it. He was, however, a great speaker with a comedic wit skilled in the art of humility through self-deprecation. And that’s the point: Bob Uecker’s humility made him loved by millions despite never having success in the MLB.
I’m not implying that executives go quite as far as he does: Bob Uecker made his name on comedic humility precisely because he didn’t have exceptional MLB talent. I am saying that a little humility goes a long way in humanizing executive communications. It has a place and the art of humility is dose dependent. Executives are where they are because of their talent so you don’t want to jeopardize that by going overboard. That said, communicating your own fallibility in your storytelling now and again helps more than it hurts.
When you have some time and inclination do read the case study from which these points were derived. And if you are interested in Bob Eucker’s approach to humility, check out this video.
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