Let The Story Do The Work

Let The Story Do The Work, The Art of Storytelling for Business Success, by Esther K. Choy, Amacom 2017

Let The Story Do The Work is one of those special business books that isn't just a business book.  It's gift.  How many speakers have we heard who immediately dial into their PowerPoint stack and skip the intrigue, the reasons behind their methods, the vision of what could happen if we do work a different way?  One in five speakers, one in ten maybe?

Well, what Choy brings to this story-telling body of knowledge that I've never seen before is her blueprint for five basic business story plots:

    Origin, Rags to Riches, Rebirth, Overcoming the Monster, and The Quest.

With each of the five basic blueprints the author offers a guideline encompassing the Origin Story Outline - fill-in the blanks, along with a short story draft that illuminates for the listener the now, the previous condition, and the dream, a powerful and persuasive combination of emotional elements.   In Rags to Riches, Choy tells the story of John Paul Dejoria, a man who made Forbes magazine's list of the world's billionaires, a man who had been homeless twice, collecting bottles and cans, sleeping in his car.   "After a couple of years of real struggle," and nowhere to go but up persistence, Dejoria's hair care products started to sell.

Sally Krawcheck's Rebirth (Turnaround) was an equally rough ride from one career to another, until an Aha moment struck her with the idea "I should be a research analyst."  Sally's story is told in her own book in more detail, however  we could have used more detail here as well.

Overcoming The Monster takes us briefly into the life of a thirty-one year old media star who returned from a West Coast film festival celebration to NYC, and went from being tired and sore, to learning that a very rare stealthy cancer had crept into her body and was slowly destroying her organs.  At this point in her story we are terrified and eager to hear what comes next.  The story-teller has captured us, but what she does next with this epic is what business storytellers can learn great lessons from - she films the journey, taking us inside the medical system that is now her life and future, 24/7.  The details become overwhelming, and she learns that perhaps her best survival choice is the lesser choice, learning to live with the disease's "disabilities."  Hmmm.  Hard to do, but sure beats a triple-organ transplant.  

The Quest - think of James Dyson's multiple failed attempts at building a new vacuum cleaner.  Unlike the previous 4 story s tructure starting oints, the Quest begins with a reasonably happy but not contented protagonist who may want to explore space, build a better, best vacuum, or change motorized travel for the good.  Here we need to see more of the subject's vision and results.  Gordon Lankton, for example, the founder of Massachusetts plastics manufacturer and ESOP company Nypro, exemplifies someone who dreamed a bigger dream, and made it happen.

Let the Story Do the Work will provide readers with a framework, illustrations, and fill-in-the blanks tools to construct a better approach to business story-telling, whether written in print or on stage.  The book will take some work, however, because each of the exercises requires thought and some word-crafting.  

Patricia E. Moody

FORTUNE magazine  "Pioneering Woman in Mfg" 

IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert

A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers, https://sites.google.com/site/blueheronjournal/, tricia@patriciaemoody.com, patriciaemoody@gmail.com, pemoody@aol.com