Illuminate - talks at google
Source: Illuminate - Talks at Google (YouTube)
Storytelling is a leadership tool. It helps customers fall in love with your business and inspires others to do great things.
Businesses need leaders to bring them into the realm of “could be”
The lifecycle of innovation is an S-curve. It ends in the decline or death of the business or the idea.
In order to thrive, businesses must constantly reinvent themselves. Even as the current innovation is growing, it is time to begin dreaming up the next one. Innovation involves venturing into new and unknown territory. All of these unknowns can be frightening, and creates resistance to change.
The role of leaders is to bring people along with them. The must show people the end goal and how to get there.
Strategies for change
Great leaders guide people through change in three ways:
- Tell stories
- Deliver speeches
- Hold ceremonies
Telling stories
Stories create emotional connection between people and motivate change.
The parts of a story
Stories have three parts:
- Beginning, where a likeable hero is introduced
- Middle, where he struggles, but perseveres through grit
- End, where he emerges transformed
The reason that stories help people cope with change is because they describe the process of change itself.
The shape of a story
A story is shaped by the rising and falling action. The peak of the action is in the middle.
The rising action increases tension, and the falling action releases tension. The creating and releasing of tension keeps people engaged in the story and creates contrast.
Delivering speeches
Speeches aren't always formal
Speeches are not just announcements delivered to large audiences. A speech can also be a status update, an email, or a blog post.
A persuasive speech starts by showing what is, what could be, and the gap between them. That gap adds a feeling of tension and movement from the status quo. Resolving the gap becomes the focus of the story.
The intro
First, establish what is. This is our shared truth: the current financial situation, the state of the address, etc.
Then insert what could be. This is the “call to adventure” of the story. The world is out of balance. The audience wants to get to that better place. Crossing that gap is the focus of the rest of your talk.
The conclusion
The final (vertical) line is the speech’s call to action. After the call to action, emphasize the benefits of this change. The new bliss describes the future state, with all its amazing benefits, once everyone adopts the new idea.
Example
This is a simple example. It’s a little girl’s plea for a pet mouse.
Holding ceremonies
Ceremonies have the same three act structure as stories, with slightly different names.
A quinceanera is an example of a ceremony. From Latin American culture, it marks the end of a girl’s childhood and the beginning of her womanhood. Ceremonies are also a powerful marker of endings and beginnings for businesses.
Creating movements
A movement is a massive group of people going somewhere together over long period of time; from weeks to decades. Examples of recent movements are open source and civil rights.
The shape of movements
Movements follow the innovation S-curve. The life of a movement is full of individual moments that lead to its success.
Movements also follow the three stages of a story. Within the three stage structure, there are five acts:
- Dream
- Leap
- Fight
- Climb
- Arrive
Each of those acts needs different kinds of moments.
Challenges of movements
Moving people is hard. There is a lot of sacrifice and risk that comes with change.
- Empathy must be shown for the people you are asking to make changes
- Build connection through story
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
~ Antoine De Saint-Exupéry