Transcribing...

Welcome to upSkill Talks brought to you by McGraw Hill. I'm your host, Michel Shah lead UpSkiller at UpSkill Community. UpSkill Talks is a podcast for leaders, leaders who are actively seeking innovative and creative ways to interact lead themselves and others. In every episode, through real life stories and enlightening conversations, we will explore the challenge.

And opportunities real leaders face in today's everchanging workplace. We will present you with real strategies for you to leverage your soft skills and produce transformative results. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Let us begin. 

Transcribing...

Now, stories don't always have to be, an anecdote.  

Years ago I was working with a geologist. Who was in one of my courses, and he worked for a data mapping software company in Calgary. And these are the companies that produced the maps that would tell the oil and gas companies where the oil and gas was.

And at the time, this about eight, nine years ago now, um, at the time, big companies like Suncor and Shell were trying to produce these maps themselves. So, you know, they, KDDI already had a full-time job at Suncor, but they would say, Hey, KDDI, can you put together a map of, you know, Northern BC and ? You know, and, and he would have to go and do that.

So my client, when he would go in and talk to companies like Suncor, his job was twofold. Number one, he had to convince Suncor to stop trying to do the maps themselves, but hire an expert. Well, that part of his presentation was great. It was kind of simple. But he had three or four competitors who produced maps themselves.

And so the second part of his presentation had to communicate how and why his maps were better. And that part was confusing. He was basically  like way too much detail and nobody could follow it. I had another geologist in the room who couldn't follow it. So it was, again, it wasn't just a Colleen problem.

So he came up with this. We kept saying to him, look, you gotta nail this part. This is a really important part of your presentation. So he told this story, um, and all of you are gonna imagine with me, all right? Imagine I'm holding an orange. I have an orange in my hand. I peel that orange, and I do such a good job that I can just pop the orange out, set it over here.

Now what do I have in my hand? I have this curved, star shaped orange peel. You can see that right now if I turn my hand over onto a table flat and I push really hard, do you think that peel is going to stay flat when I lift my hand? What do you think's going to happen?  You're not sure? Maybe, maybe not.

What's, what do you think would happen?  It's gonna pop back up. Yeah. It's not gonna, I mean, it wants to end its life the way it began, right? As a sphere,  and it, it'll pop back up a little bit. Well, if that peel is the Earth's crust, we cant have it popping back up a little bit.

So what we do to get it to sit flat like a map, is we make all these little stretch. Well, Suncor, one of those stretches could mean that you're spending millions of dollars drilling a well, that's 20,000 feet away from the sweet spot. My company has solved the orange peel problem.

So what do you think of that? Why does it work?

 Any ideas? I instantly see where the issue is.  And that it's gonna save them tons of money. Save them tons of time, save them tons of resources. Great analogy. Yeah. And it's simple, right? It it, that all happened in about 90 seconds. Visually compelling.  And it's visual.

I just, I just have my hand up here. Very vivid. Right. So what we all need to remember is we have this powerful tool and it's a way for us to literally share our imagination because what happens? So  my client, , and actually the next day he brought in an orange and he had it precut and all, but it was too much.

You know, it was like . It was like, okay, you know what, just go back to your hands, . Cause it's a lot less complicated. , all of a sudden it was distracting. There was juice everywhere. Yeah, no, because our brains are so powerful, right? We can see the orange. And what does he do? So he goes to Suncor and he,  tells a group of engineers the orange peel story, and they get so excited.

They go up the elevator to the senior VP and they say, oh my God, you gotta talk to this company. They solve the orange peel problem. Well, what does the senior VP say? What heck is the orange peel? What? What are you talking about? What's the orange peel problem? But what is the wonderful thing they can do?

They can tell that story. And I guarantee if I bumped into any of you next week on the street and I said, Hey, remember the orange peel story? You'd probably be able to tell it. So anytime that you structure your information, and that wasn't a once upon a time, right? He just structured it this way. He set us up, he demonstrated the challenge.

Now, what's interesting is that he did with that story was he said, my company has solved the orange peel problem. But he left us with a cliff hanger. Right. So then the company wants to know, okay, well hang on. You know, like, what does that mean for us? And they're making all these leaps 

we're gonna save money, he decided, you know what, I'm gonna let you imagine what the impact of that is going to be, what the outcome is going to be. And it works cuz we know instinctively what that outcome could be. So anytime you structure your information like this and you keep it really simple and you use vivid concrete language, you are actually giving your audience and your listener a little gift that they, they can take away and tell to somebody else.

And then that person takes away and tells to somebody else. And maybe the little details change, but you know what, it's kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. So not gonna change all that much because we all have the gist of the story. So that simple structure,  is a go-to for planning presentations, for figuring out, okay, how am I going to present this idea?

You know, that's really important. I need it to land. This is what you can work on and practice out loud, practice with, you know, any family, friends, strangers, running past your house. Hey, come in. Can you understand this?  Because that's a good test, , that you've nailed the language in the stories. 

 

Thank you for listening to this episode of UpSkill Talks brought to you by McGraw Hill. We bring you new episodes every Monday. Please take a moment to subscribe, leave a five star rating and a written review at apple podcast. Or follow us on. By Google podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, don't forget to share UpSkill talks with other leaders like yourself.

So they too may gain the skills and insights to produce amazing results. Please go to UpSkillCommunity.com to review show notes and learn how you can join a community of leaders from across the globe. Collaborating to lead in a more meaningful and impactful way. I'm your host, Michel Shah. And again, thank you for joining me on this episode of UpSkill Talks.