48. How to present and not suck

In this episode we discuss presentation skills and storytelling. We are joined by Jonathan Zatland, Operating Partner at Forme Partners. 

We chat about the following with Jonathan Zatland: 

• Secrets to crafting narratives that captivate.
• How authenticity can transform your leadership narratives
• Why your presentations are falling flat

References 

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-zatland-992a1b12/

Biography 

A creative and commercial leader with an extensive career in high growth technology companies, e-commerce and marketplaces across UK and Europe. I started out my career as a screenwriter, living and working in Los Angeles. This was the foundation of my learning to connect stories with an audience. After a decade, I took that experience and returned to the UK to start a retail brand, Mungo & Maud. The first of its kind high end dog and cat accessory store with a physical shop in London and other major outlets around the world. Opened the online store in 2006 in the very early days of e-commerce. Following my exit, I continued my narrative thread into my role as International Multichannel Director at Etsy, helping to build and scale all International markets outside of North America. Following the IPO, I went back into startup as Chief Commercial Officer  for eve Sleep, a disruptor in the sleep wellness space which I helped build and scale through to IPO. I now work as an Operating Partner for Forme Partners working with founders and CEO's across the European tech landscape, aiding them with their commercial hires at all stages of growth.

To learn more about Beth and Brandon or to find out about sponsorship opportunities click here. 

Summary

• Career goals, creativity, and personal growth. 0:05
• Brandon and Bethany discuss their career goals and personal growth.
• Bethany realizes she needs to take advantage of not working and prioritize personal development.
• Bethany expresses frustration with lack of passion and purpose in her life, feeling unfulfilled despite various projects and hobbies.
• She longs for a major project that consumes her and stirs her imagination, but nothing has yet emerged.
• Effective storytelling and pacing in business presentations. 6:09
• Brandon and Bethany discuss narrative structure in business context, focusing on conflict and pacing.
• They emphasize the importance of actively listening to the audience and adjusting the narrative in real-time based on their reactions.
• Bethany scripts an opening for high-stakes meetings to set the tone and manage nerves.
• She tailors her approach based on the meeting's purpose and audience energy levels.
• Public speaking, authenticity, and vulnerability. 11:21
• Bethany uses narrative techniques to engage and motivate her team, including owning her energy and projecting enthusiasm.
• She also practices or rehearses her delivery beforehand to ensure authenticity and effectiveness.
• Bethany shares her approach to authenticity, vulnerability, and relatability in presentations, emphasizing the importance of self-discovery and confidence-building through therapy.
• Brandon seeks advice on how to be more authentic in his presentations, with Bethany suggesting starting with self-work and building confidence before attempting to connect with audiences.
• Brandon's son lied to fit in, but realized it didn't make him feel better or gain acceptance.
• By sharing small truths, Brandon's son learned that his friends accept him for who he is, lies or not.
• Storytelling and its importance in business leadership. 19:34
• Brandon M. learns to connect with audiences by sharing personal stories living company values.
• Jonathan: Conflict is necessary for business success, but resolution is key.
• Bethany: Storytelling vs. narrative: both are important for communication and leadership.
• Authentic storytelling and connecting with audiences. 23:49
• Bethany and Jonathan discuss the importance of making a memorable takeaway in a presentation, such as a "lemon in the eye" that makes the audience feel something.
• Jonathan suggests making something human and vulnerable to connect with the audience, using personal stories or moments that are relatable.
• Bethany observes that people can write about mundane things but make it compelling when writing from their authentic voice.
• Brandon M agrees, noting that authenticity is difficult to achieve, especially in corporate settings where people are often uncomfortable sharing their true feelings.
• Storytelling, narrative, and growth. 29:31
• Jonathan: Take people on a journey, reveal information gradually, show empathy.
• Bethany: Genuine care and empathy in feedback lead to acceptance, insincerity leads to rejection.
• Jonathan shares their approach to storytelling, emphasizing the importance of listening and feedback to improve.
• Consistency in storytelling comes from being comfortable with both planning and improvisation, according to Jonathan.
• Storytelling techniques for presentations, including pacing, energy, and engagement. 34:53
• Bethany: uses pacing, self-deprecation, and listening to engage audience.
• Jonathan: storytelling involves setting up, revealing, and landing, with repetition and reacting to energy.
• Brandon M uses pre-engagement techniques to alleviate tension and start conversations with a live audience.
• Jonathan emphasizes the importance of taking people on a journey through a story or problem-solving process.

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Brandon M 0:05

Music, Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the operations room, a podcast for coos. I am Brandon minsinga, joined by my lovely co host Bethany Ayers. How are things going? Bethany

Bethany 0:15

the other going well this week, I'm now a year and a quarter into not doing full time employment, and I've been getting a bit antsy over the last month or so, maybe where I'm enjoying life, but maybe I'm a little bit bored, but maybe I'm not. Do I want a job? Do I not want a job? What am I really wanting to do with my life yet again, the same question that I have over and over again. And so on Tuesday, I had some meetings in the diary, and I didn't have a lot on. It's like, this is going to be my time to work on being an influencer who gets a lot of content out. I'll post a bunch of stuff. And then I just thought, yeah, I don't wanna. And so instead, I decided I'll take a walk, and I didn't listen to any podcasts. I listened to music, and I just let my mind wander on purpose, and tried to come up with, why am I antsy? What do I want? What's my next step in my life? And I had a couple realisations. One was, although I'm not working, I'm not taking advantage of not working, because I still have the period in work ethic in me. So I very dutifully sit at my desk from eight till six, 630 most days, irrespective. Yeah, so I'm either in meetings, they're interesting, and I love talking to people, but they're not necessarily always productive meetings, or I'm doing things, but like, why? So I've now decided I'm going to take advantage of not working more, and I am currently in a CEO process, and I'm actually keen on this job. Oh, you are. Congratulations. But now I have decided that if I don't get the job, I'm going to take a gap year and travel all around Europe. And the thing is, already did one gap year, so it's not like, Oh, I've never done a gap year. I'm going to do it now. I'm just doing the second gap year, and I'll fly back when I have to do in person board meetings. But pretty much most of my life is in zoom in my house, anyhow, so when I just do it from Europe, and I think I've mentioned this before, that I want to be an influencer, or I thought I wanted to be an influencer, and it's something that I've been thinking about, and now I've realised it always goes to the bottom of my pile. So clearly, there's something about that doesn't actually interest me, right,

Brandon M 2:48

right? Fair enough. There's almost the difference between the the thinking mind of what logically you think makes the most sense for you, and then the actual gut telling you something different

Bethany 2:59

and just where my energy is. My first revelation Insight was I should do less work if I'm not working. My second one was I miss being really in the flow and consumed by something, and I haven't had that experience for quite a while, and so maybe while I'm going around, wandering through Europe, experimenting, I might stumble upon the something that makes me excited again, where I want to pour my energy into something I really miss that experience just Out

Brandon M 3:40

of curiosity, is the CO just like an ongoing background train. So this one doesn't pan out, you'll just kind of continue down that pathway of interesting things come your way, just to take a look at,

Bethany 3:49

yeah, unless, after my gap year, I realise actually that's what I want to do, in which case I can become more dedicated to trying to find a role, or found something I spoke to a friend yesterday who has accomplished an unbelievable amount in seven weeks of founding his business. And I was so jealous not about his business, his business is not something that I'm interested in in any way, but to see that aliveness and just how much you can do when you want to and pouring your brain into something. And I do miss that. I have tried so many different things to find where I want to pour my brain in and just nothing has really struck my imagination. So my husband always says that I need a project. I've had many projects in the course of the last 15 months. Is that right? But I haven't had a major project, and I'm looking for that major project. I do miss honing a craft, putting effort in. When I leave my desk, my brain is empty. I. I happily read my book, I happily watch TV, I hang out. But there's nothing that consumes me. I guess consumption is the best word I can use. It consumes like I'm not reading extra books, I'm not watching videos, I'm not researching, I'm not practising, I'm not honing a skill, because there's no skill that's really exciting me, like when I did photography, I don't know if you can tell by like, loads of photography books, and I just was deeply in it for a couple of years, and then I came out. And now I don't even touch my camera, but I'm doing pottery, but I haven't looked at a single video. I haven't read a book. I enjoy playing with mud, but I'm don't like I'm not deeply in it. Writing is the closest thing, but I find it so intensely difficult that I can only do it in seven week blocks, and then I need loads of months off. I'm not writing in between, and I'm not spending time thinking about it. Otherwise I'm mostly going, Don't think, don't think, relax, wait until the next time poor. Am I so loud again, and I thought at this point something would have landed that I would pour myself into. But nothing has yet.

Brandon M 6:09

So we've got a great topic for today, which is how to present and not suck. We have an amazing guest for this with Jonathan zatlin. He is the current general manager for foreign partners and former Chief Commercial Officer for Eve sleep, and also worked on the international front for Etsy as well. And I guess what I wanted to start with. How do you tell a good narrative? Start

Bethany 6:32

by framing it so that's either the punchline or where are we getting to at the end, or start with, why, whatever that is, but the big picture, the title in effect that everybody can understand and then work your way through, why it matters. So I guess the Simon Sinek, what start with, why? Then, what, then how is a very easy structure to follow for a business narrative, not a super interesting structure for maybe a fairy tale, but if we're talking a business context, that would be an easy go to so

Brandon M 7:11

I'll run through a couple aspects here of narrative and just see what we think together in terms of a business context. One element is storytelling wise, is conflict, and the conflict is the challenge that you're setting up. Set the context, set up the challenge, set up how you responded to that challenge and what the result or outcome was. And if you just follow a basic pathway, that's just a baseline way to talk about a narrative that will be effective. And the question in that challenge is how you can kind of talk about it in a way where it's fascinating to people. I've

Bethany 7:44

seen marketing leaders on the whole be quite good at this, where they come up with an allegory, or they have battling brands, or they all of their frustrated screenwriter comes pouring out, and they can give you this really interesting epic story that hooks everybody, and there's emotion.

Brandon M 8:05

How do you set yourself up for success in terms of the pacing, or the other bit of it, which is listening to the audience actively in the moment to ensure that you can react and actually change direction if you need to, looking

Bethany 8:17

at faces, looking at faces, looking at phones, seeing the amount of nodding heads, often without realising it, if I see a lot of nodding heads, I will immediately repeat that line. And I don't know if it's just like it's more instinct, and maybe it's something that we do generally for communication, or it's just, oh, look, people are nodding, yay. I want more nodding. I'm going to say that sentence again and look, I get a nod again, yes. But I do think it inadvertently, it actually helps land the message. But it's very spontaneous. It's only in retrospect I realise that I've done it.

Brandon M 8:51

I think that's the lived reality of a CEO, isn't it? You have the, I don't know, the Monday morning meeting. I mean, it depends if it's live or it's on a zoom call, I guess, but the classic stony faced coffee, no reaction whatsoever. Are they really there? Do they actually care? So

Bethany 9:07

I think I have three different ways that I handle the situation, and it's very much dependent on what I feel like on the day. So option one is, I don't have any energy, and it's Monday morning as well, so I just deliver to a flat audience, and we're all flat together, and I just try and make it as short as possible for all of our sakes. The second is, I am feeling a little bit more energy, but not a huge amount, so I might just call out and acknowledge the fact that it's Monday, and we're all a bit flat. So I'm going to keep it short. These are the three things you need to remember, and just go through the three really quickly. Or the final option is, if I'm feeling good, I've had a great weekend, I'm full of energy. Is land? Call out the fact that other people are pretty low energy. But come on, let's get. Moving. Let's get started and then do whatever it is that needs to be landed. And I'll probably only do that if it's something that actually matters, or we're starting a big week where it could do with a bit of unification and some energy. And

I guess this brings us on to the second type of session, which is the stakes are high. It's for a board meeting. Maybe it's a bit of a kickoff session, or something that you feel matters in some sense. And how do you put yourself in a state to ensure that that's going to be successful? And in particular, what I'm thinking about is you have a goal in mind, or some kind of objective in mind to get out of this session that you're going to have, and you want to get people in a state where they've received that message, they're excited by that message, and they're off to the races in terms of whatever it is that you're trying to get to. How do you make that happen? How do you as a CEO, put yourself in a position where you can kind of get that kind of bigger bang?

I think about the opening. I will script an opening, if it's the first sentence or two, and focus on that. It helps with my nerves as well and have something to start with, and that might be so a board meeting is very different to a company stand up or a company meeting, because rarely am I going to get the board genuinely excited, but for a board meeting, I would do. Let's just say I was CRO still so I'm going to talk about the past quarter. Spoiler alert, we've done really well. We've exceeded expectations. I think we need to hire more sales people, so at the end, I'm going to ask you for more money. Now, let's get started. And so again, they know all of my narrative, they know where I'm going. It's one sentence, and we can loop onto that, and it makes it also very clear what the expectations are at the end. And I might do something similar for a team meeting, in terms of, it's basically the one sentence summary, so if nobody remembers anything else, I know that what matters most has landed and again, as CRO we've had a great quarter. Now let me tell you why we've had a bad quarter. We're gonna have to do something about it. Let me tell you why it was a bad quarter and what we're gonna do about it. But it's just being really clear so everybody understands where I'm going, and it tends to hook people in.

In the interview, Jonathan talked about the squeeze of lemon in the eye, as he described it, which is to really affect people. Any tricks of the trade to get to that level of the squeezing of the lemon in the eye.

I think there's an element of owning my energy, and what type of energy will I project, and therefore the audience receive. We're talking mostly about enthusiasm, because we're always trying to G up the team, but there are also been times where I have let my anger shine through, because it was serious that we dropped the ball and it was unacceptable behaviour and a series of bad decisions that I am not pleased with, and I think sometimes it needs to be sobering. So maybe it purposely letting anger through purposely being serious and sombre. Let's make a restructure or really missing numbers and needing it to start people off with, oh shit, I need to listen. And then how do you finish with so now we're we've all gone through the valley of despair together. How do we pick up to some level of hope and action at the end? But the narrative isn't always just positive the whole way through. Sometimes there does need to be, and that's maybe a bit more of that struggle. We're going to start out on a low, we're going to go deep into that low, and then we're going to come out of it with something hopeful and energising or not. It may be that you have to follow that up. I think that's the most important part. Is where do you want to get to at the end, and how you're going to get there? And then, actually, though, I think I've had times where I've had a plan of where to get there, and then just realised it would feel weird, it wouldn't sound genuine, it wasn't where we were at and needing to not end on a high and needing to regroup afterwards. Sometimes people need space to process. You can't do everything in a single meeting at times.

And then the other one I wanted to ask you about was practising or rehearsing beforehand. What do you make of that? When do you actually a, do you do it? B, if you do do it, when do you do it? And how do you do it?

So I have practised, but mostly when I'm on stage for TED Talk esque presentations, where there's a very short time and it's. Expected to be very slick, and I hate it, and I am not good at it, and I cannot memorise a script to save my life. So for me, what's much better is to have all the bullet points work through the bullet points and then practice, mostly in my head, saying it, and through that, seeing where it lands, well, where it doesn't land, well, iterate the flow. And then on the day, don't have note cards, know it enough to deliver it. But there is practice ahead of time. It's not off the cuff.

The last bit, we should have started with this, which is we talked a lot with Jonathan around authenticity, vulnerability, relatability. Can you just give a bit of a sense of the Bethany approach to this? It's

not techniques and tactics. It's just the result of a massively long journey, and I do think there's a certain level of bravery to it is just from learning who I am and having confidence in myself and ridding myself of a tremendous amount of shame, and that took five years of therapy. I felt like the biggest outsider for most of my life, until about 3334 didn't know why anybody would ever want to be my friend and a massive fraud. And through therapy, have discovered who I am and that I'm not a perfect human, and none of us are perfect, and that's okay, and being able to accept my own flaws most of the time means that I'm able to accept other people's and I think from not being massively judgmental, it produces an environment in which others can be forgiving of themselves as well. So not an easy answer. Do your work, build your confidence, and then let it shine.

So if I'm listening to this and I recognise I need to be more authentic when I do my presentations, to really connect with people. What would be a first step on the pathway? Do you think one

of my sons, when he was little, used to lie all the time, that really stupid stuff, like whether or not he'd seen a film, or what he'd done on the weekend, or what toys he owned. And I had a conversation with him one day, and she's like, my guess is that you're lying because you think that if you told the truth, you wouldn't fit in, and nobody would want to be your friend, or they would think less of you. And he said, Yes. I said, Okay, does it work to lie and then fit in? Does it make you feel like you belong? And he's like, No, because my lie is fitting in. I'm not fitting in well. So you end up with two things, you don't feel any better about yourself, and then people sometimes will know you're lying, or you have to remember all of these lies. So why don't you try not lying and see what happens. And it took him a while, and he was little to start to do this, but I'd have questions. So on our walk home from school, I'd say, so today, did you have an opportunity to lie and not lie? And sometimes the answer was yes and sometimes the answer was no, but when the answer was yes, it's like, amazing what happened. And he would say, everybody has seen the new, I don't know, Spider Man movie, and we haven't seen it yet. And I said, we I hadn't seen it. And everybody's like, Oh, that's too bad, but you should really see it. This is amazing. And they all really supported me, and they encouraged me to go and see it. And I said, and how did that make you feel it's like that made me feel really good my friends like me for who I am and what I've done, not for the lies that I've told. And as adults, I think we still do the same thing in different ways. And so where are the ways that you can present yourself that you maybe naturally wouldn't but aren't so scary that if you were rejected, it would cut you to the core and see how people react. And it's bit by bit of opening up those things that you're ashamed of and seeing that you're accepted that makes it easier to share more. The one

basic recommendation that I have, and this was given to me by somebody else that gave it to me some time back and I had been talking about the values of the organisation, and it was a slide, and I talked through the values as to what the values were, and I finished the presentation, he's like Brandon. Nobody was listening. You need to like show, not tell. Take one of the values and tell a story to the company around, how you've lived, one of the values within the company, and pick. One of them and talk about that, and that sat with me for quite some time in terms of something that really shifted me in terms of how to connect with audiences, which is the connection really is, it has to come from myself. It has to come from a story that I've lived and trying to wrap that into business context in terms of a value do that it's simple, it's easy, it's straightforward, and it's an experience that you've you've had, which is, you've lived the value in some circumstance, and all you're doing is just packaging that story and telling it to the company. Do that. Look at

this. We've gone full circle around how to tell stories and the power of stories.

Exactly. All right, so let's wrap things here, and let's move on to our conversation with Jonathan Zetland. So for us that are not fabulous storytellers like yourself, Jonathan, how do you craft a good story? You've

got to set up your story. You've got to grab people's attention pretty quickly. And that ultimately can come down to really understanding what it is that's going to resonate with whoever you're telling that story to. So the setup could be, you're telling it about a person, and let me tell you about this particular person. It could be, let me tell you about the idea behind this business, the vision for this business, whatever it may be, you've got to set that up very, very cleanly, and then that setup is normally around leading quite carefully and quickly into what problem you're trying to solve. I mean, it's a classic business. The reason why a lot of businesses get founded right is because you're effectively coming out with an idea that's trying to solve a problem, there needs to be some element of conflict that exists in the world that sets you on that journey. And then you go on that journey with a hell of a lot of obstacles in your way, which is every sort of business owner can relate to. And then it's finding what kind of resolution, What's are you going to resolve that conflict? And where does the resolution, where's it leading you to? And is there an end point that you're very clear about? It's certainly important to break it down into Acts. In screenplay writing, we break it down into Acts. We know where we're going to end that one, or we know what, where we want to end act two, or we know how we kind of want to resolve this story for better or for worse. But those are the elements that I always try and think about when I'm thinking about business as well.

Brandon and I were actually talking about storytelling versus a good narrative. And is there a difference? Are we just using two different words because one evokes emotion and one evokes logic, but fundamentally, it's a story that people can understand. My argument or belief is that in order to be a successful senior leader, and in order to even become a successful senior leader, you need to be able to communicate well, and you're just not going to get the job otherwise. But everybody talks about storytelling, and storytelling is an art, and storytelling is something special, and it's very intimidating, but yet we all tell stories all the time, because that's why humans communicate. So if I'm a COO listening and I'm thinking, do I tell stories? Well, don't I tell stories? Well, I think I'm good at narrative, but maybe I'm not good at feeling. What should I know? Do you have anything that you can tell that would be helpful and in the context, most likely of aligning people internally in a business,

there was a moment that I carried through with me, and I don't know why, but I remember it. And it relates to trying to get people to walk away remembering one thing. But

we want everybody to remember everything, don't we? We're like, we'll just tell them seven things, seven times, they'll remember them. But I think that's really great. So one thing,

yeah, just one thing. Because if that one thing becomes a word of mouth thing. That's great if you think about back to movies, because I love films. But if you think about movies, you kind of always remember that scene. You don't generally remember the whole hour and a half, two hours, whatever it may be of a story. And I think that's important. The reason I remember that is because I was in some classic Hollywood studio, meeting once with a guy. He taught me that it's he said, Jonathan, it's about, it's about the lemon in the eye. I said, What does that mean? And he said, basically, if you're in a room with someone, you squirt a lemon in someone's eye. It hurts. You remember it hurts. And you want to walk away from having telling something to your audience that gives them that lemon in the eye, that something, that they felt something, and they they remembered what they felt, and they remembered the pain of it. And I think that's why it always comes down to sort of just have something in. There that's a lemon in the eye. Have something in there that makes people remember something and feel something. So if you can give someone one takeaway, if you can get them to add a few more takeaways, you've done really, really well. But I think one thing is key, how

do you achieve that lemon in the eye? How do you get those folks in a position where they've had that revelation or that thought or that takeaway that's meaningful. The

way I do it is, I always think it's about making something human. I think people try and well, obviously the data is very important. The numbers are very important. We're doing this, we're down there, we're up here. Here's what's happening over the next quarter, all of those things. But I think someone will remember the human story that you might have started off your presentation weird. It's about something that you're able to reveal, or something that you're comfortable just either being vulnerable sometimes, or something about those moments. I've always found that they make something human, and they bring the element of making something that feels murky to everyone suddenly crystallised because they're seeing you, and it's you that's coming across, and then once you've got you coming across, they will listen to you if you're reading out the phone book. I'm

taking a writing class, and one of the things it's about discovering your voice, but also writing from the moment and writing from yourself. And what I find amazing is other people in the class can write about the most mundane things, but because they are writing from where they are and what they're thinking and their view of the world. It's suddenly amazing and compelling. And it's like a really amazing piece of art or a photograph where you're seeing through somebody else's eyes, and I have seen it work really well, where you're genuine and people connect with you, but I have also seen it clang horribly and be tone deaf and disconnected, and everybody has spun out of afterwards, but when somebody's still being authentic, but somehow that trust has been lost prior to that. I don't know if I have a question, it's just more of an observation. And have you seen that?

You know, honestly, that's just as important to sort of fall flat on your face. It helps define you. I'm sure that person probably won't deliver that particular anecdote again if they try, because it was a clangour. But they learned something about themselves. They learn where they're comfortable, and that's finding that's you're finding your own personal genre at the same time. Bring it back to the storytelling analysis, we all have an individual genre to it. I mean, I'm engaging with candidates every day. A lot of them have incredible experience, and absolutely, would be a great fit for that. You're casting the play, and that's again, you're you're encouraging them to tell their story and figure out why this person would would be a good fit. You don't have to be a good storyteller either. It's not about, Oh, am I? I'm not a good storyteller. So I'm not, but it's about feeling comfortable with the uncomfortable, you know? And I think the more comfortable you can get with the uncomfortable, then it unearths the human in you, and that's what connects

Absolutely. This was an interesting turn that this has taken, rather than the formula for a story to actually it's not the formula of the story at all. It's finding your authenticity, owning it, sharing your voice, so that others can connect with you. And in some ways, that's way harder than just like, start with a and then go to B and then call on to C, which is, I think, what a lot of people are hoping for, rather than figure out who you are and share it with the world.

I think this is where people are very uncomfortable, to hold back, I think in particular. So I think the ability for somebody to connect to how they actually feel, that level of authenticness being there, and then to tell a story from that place, I think it's very difficult because of what Bethany just said, which is either it can go one way, where you're super connected with the audience, and you have something compelling to say to them, and they can actually hear a digest it, feel something from it, or it goes in a different direction, and it clangs hard, and I think people are very nervous about that, especially in corporate settings.

You got to take people on a journey. You know, it's nice to reveal something up front. So if you're a founder looking for investment, you've got to have that information, but you've got to connect somewhat that people sort of have an element of emotional connection to what you're trying to do as well. If you're a senior candidate who is going through those various process steps of wanting to get a role, you've got to take people on a journey with. You. So you have to know what to save, what elements you're revealing, what you feel comfortable revealing early on. It's got to feel comfortable to you. You're winning people over, and you're gaining their trust, and that that's ultimately what about why should they listen to you? Why should they work with you? Why should they be with you? Why should they follow you? All of those elements you've got to take people on that journey with you. It's all great coming out of the gate with it's going to be amazing. It's going to be great. To be great. But people will give you that chance, but they won't give you many chances. And

they also have to feel that you care about them. I think when I see some of the clangers, is that one on LinkedIn where the CEO made a bunch of people redundant, and then showed himself crying, and nobody cared, because it's not about him, but he was, look at how much I care about making people redundant, but it's not about the people. And that was a clanger, because it was still very much showing, look, I have emotions. Look at me. I'm important, rather than being able to convey the truth of somebody else, and people pick that up really quickly. We've talked about this in giving feedback. I know this isn't stories. This is just communicating in general, if somebody feels that you're giving feedback from a genuine place of care and wanting the best for them, you can say almost anything, and somebody will accept it. If they feel like you're doing that because you want them to be better for you, or you want to tell them something so you feel better, you can say almost nothing, and somebody will be insulted.

Well, it's growth. If you feel like you're growing and you're learning, then it might be painful, it might hurt, but it will be valuable

and you're feeling supported by that other person and cared for, rather than being used as a pawn. Yeah, totally. If we get back to storytelling and narrative, I guess I feel like I'm not a very good storyteller, but I'm very good at crafting a narrative, and I wonder if I'm doing myself a disservice, or there is actually a difference between a narrative and a story?

No, there's not really a difference, but it's your approach. Generally, as you know from writing, there are generally sort of two camps. There's sort of plotters and Pantsers, right? So you're probably more of a planner and a plotter. I'm a little bit of a panther. I have certain things. I have certain elements, certain ingredients. I don't quite know exactly how they're going to come into the mix, whereas some people really need to lay it out very carefully. But then the art comes around, sort of being comfortable throwing all that out so you have a very clear narrative, but how do you sort of make that feel natural and authentic as much as you know that you've hit your marks? That's the challenge there, in terms of, that's the practice, and that takes a lot of practice. Stand up comedians tell the same jokes five nights a week to different audiences up and down the country, but they make it as if they're telling it for the very first time. I'm trying to really feel like I can be reactive as much as I know where I'm going. I'm okay if something takes me off piste, that can always bring it back, because you've got a clear roadmap of of the story you're telling and and there's no difference. It's just feeling comfortable, I guess, with planning and unplanned,

how do you get to that place of comfort? So I'm just wondering if there's some level of, like consistent formula, or steps you can take to kind of put yourself in a more consistent position to deliver more reliable results. If that makes sense,

listening is key. As much as you're doing it. You're not in this sort of cloud of nerves or whatever else it may be, but you're able to listen to the reaction that you're getting, be it an energy you're getting back from the room, if you were doing a talk, or listening to the laughter at that moment that you expected, or laughter at that moment where you didn't expect it, or whatever else it may be, but it's being able to be aware enough to listen so that next time, hopefully that's going to land again, because that was a moment I didn't expect. Now I'm going to bring that up a little, turn that up a little bit, because I know that that moment when I was telling that presentation or doing whatever that really seemed to resonate. So I'm going to milk that a little bit more, whereas all of this stuff just I felt it, the energy just fell on dead ear. So it's about being aware, and it's about listening, and then it's about feedback. Because ultimately, if you don't get people's opinion, good or bad, or take it or leave it, it's really helpful to sort of be aware when you're in the moment and get feedback after the moment and then you go again. That's what develops your your ability to fine tune your storytelling. I would

add in just from my own experiences, because interesting. Can you talk about it? Jonathan, I'm like, Oh yeah, I think I've done this over the years without. Realising it is pacing, and that's where the listening comes in. You can feel when you're losing the audience and you've stayed too long. I'm very much thinking about internal slides monthly update or something, so pacing both going too fast and too slow. And you can tell when you've switched slides and you've not taken the audience with you and they're still confused. On the previous slide, I'll take a second say, looks like there's a lot of confusion. Is there a question that needs to be answered or what isn't making sense? And then the other thing that tends to work for me that I've not ever thought about until having you talk, is the wry comment or the little bit of self deprecation, a one liner that just comes to me, that tends to get a laugh, and then that'll lift the audience, re engage, to carry on. And so it's not storytelling so much. It's just ways of changing the energy of the audience.

I mean, that is storytelling. You're taking people on a journey. It's setting up something, coming back to it, revealing it again, and it's just, you're structuring it in terms of planting something, even with data, even with anything it can be the most mundane presentation you have to give. Some of them are really mundane, but you still need to figure out how to take people on the journey and figure out how to make it land. And I think there are certain things that you've got to set them up really well. Repeating things helps, as well as, as you say, listening, reacting to the energy of the space, and maybe throwing in something just that lightens it up a little bit, or gets people back to the room, so to speak. And

also for me, is preparing ahead of time. I always find it really difficult, because I'm always I'm nervous before going on stage or in front of a group, and if I get too nervous, I can't react, I can't calm down, and I fail. But then if I work myself really hard into being calm, then I show up flat, and that doesn't work. So it's somehow finding this balance of enough nervous energy and energy to be interesting and dynamic, but not so much that I collapsed.

One example is if I'm in front of a live audience and I'm the host, I'm going to drive that session, I'll usually start off the session with pre engaging the audience in some form. So if I know people in the audience, I'll chat with them. You know what I mean? I'll call out Bob. How's the wife and kids? Bob is having a bit of a chat about that. I'll point somebody else out and do a little side riff with them. And it just for me personally, it alleviates the tension in the room. It makes it more of an organic, natural entry point for me to have a conversation with them, as opposed to, like, I'm starting a presentation, therefore I'm going to say x, you know what I mean. So it just allows me to, like, decompress a little bit, start my chit chat and just get me rolling the get the ball rolling without walking into this immense pressure of having to perform.

And that's you using even though you've got that trick up your sleeve, it's coming across to the audience who don't know you and don't know you've got that trick up your sleeve as you being in the moment. That's really, really helpful. It's how can I stay in the moment and not just race through what I know I've got to say or appear, how I'm meant to be appearing right now, just being in that moment, it relaxes everyone else. That's what you need.

If our listeners can only take one thing away from today's conversation, what's the most important thing you've

got to take people on a journey? The how you take people on the journey are all the elements that we've talked about, and the tricks and everything else. But you have to take people on a journey, whatever you're trying to do, if it's a story, if it's just an internal meeting, take someone on a journey, how you set it up, what problems you're trying to solve, how you're going to resolve it. But take someone on a journey through that, and I think that's the art of stories.

Thank you, Jonathan for joining us on the operations room. If you like what you hear, please subscribe or leave us a message, and we will see you next week.