The So What Strategy · Davina Stanley · 2017
Effective storylines clarify complex ideas and save time. They increase clarity in thinking and communication, enable faster and better decision-making, focus collaboration around ideas, and build credibility and trust with your audience. Remember that your impact equals your output multiplied by your persuasive ability.
The Design-Develop-Deliver framework provides structure to your communication process. First, design your strategy by defining what you want your audience to know, think, or do. Understand who they are, what they care about, and what style engages them. Choose the appropriate format (presentation, report, memo, face-to-face) and establish approval procedures, deadlines, and key stakeholders.
When developing your storyline, follow a three-part structure. Every effective storyline begins with an introduction combining:
- Context: The commonly agreed starting point
- Trigger: The reason for the discussion
- Question: The single most important question your audience should be asking
This C+T+Q approach focuses your message and leads naturally to your "So What" statement.
Your "So What" statement must:
- Answer the question in one powerful sentence (25 words maximum)
- Unify your entire story
- Present one specific idea
- Synthesize all supporting ideas
- Be powerful and supportable
For supporting ideas, choose either a Grouping Structure or a Deductive Structure—never both. Use Grouping to explain why, how, or what through separate, mutually exclusive ideas that each address one question and synthesise 2-5 sub-points. The Deductive Structure builds a case for a specific course of action through a three-part journey:
- Statement: Something new that lays foundation (often a problem)
- Comment: Tightly connected to the statement (often starts with "however" or "but")
- Therefore: The only logical action if statement and comment are true
Test your storyline against ten criteria, aiming to score at least 7/10. Check if the introduction has the right context, trigger, and question. Ensure your "So What" statement is clear, concise, and powerful. Verify that all levels of support are logically sound and the storyline is Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive (MECE). Finally, confirm that your storyline meets your audience's needs and suits their preferred style.
Seven classic business storyline patterns provide templates for common situations:
Grouping patterns:
- Action Jackson: For action plans when the audience already agrees action is necessary
- The Pitch: For proposals using Understanding → Solution → Delivery → Risk Management
- Traffic Light: For simple status updates using "completed," "in progress," and "planned" sections
Deductive patterns:
- Close the Gap: For improvement recommendations using Success criteria → Current gaps → Actions
- Houston, We Have a Problem: For problem-solving using Problem → Cause → Solution
- To B or Not to B: For option selection using Options explored → Best option → Implementation
- Watch Out: For managing emerging risks using Current success → Emerging risks → Mitigation plan
Choose your pattern early based on audience needs. Use grouping for simple explanations and deductive for complex reasoning that requires both the "why" and the "how." Practice delivery, prepare for questions, and consider using visuals to reduce wordiness. Sometimes a one-page storyline is sufficient for your purpose.
When packaging and delivering your storyline:
- Choose a medium that makes it easy for the audience to follow
- Use visuals strategically to cut down on excessive words
- Speak with key stakeholders beforehand to understand their perspective
- Practice your delivery and Q&A by rehearsing with colleagues
- Communicate your storyline sequentially
- Gather feedback afterward to gauge how well your key messages were retained
By following these principles and structures, you can create clear, compelling storylines that drive understanding and action.
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Continuing the communication theme, this paper proposes the Behavioural Change Stairway Model. To influence someone's behaviour, you must progress through the following steps:
- Active listening → Empathy → Rapport → Influence → Behavioural Change
It also includes actionable things you can do (mirroring, paraphrasing, summarising, effective pauses, minimal encouragers, open ended questions).
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Book Highlights
Guessing the right strategy at the outset isn’t nearly as important to success as conserving enough resources (or having the relationships with trusting backers or investors) so that new business initiatives get a second or third stab at getting it right. Clayton Christensen · The Innovator’s Dilemma
Knowing what you want is not enough. You also have to be able to actually set direction. Stephen Bungay · The Art of Action
The good news is that we can improve decision making in these and other domains, and in so doing, make the market for goods and services much more transparent, competitive, and fair. We can do all that by improving one aspect of the choice architecture: how information is collected and made available to consumers. We call this Smart Disclosure. Cass R Sunstein and Richard H Thaler · Nudge
Though the premise was flawed even then: the seven-year trek across France to measure the Earth’s meridian was useful in part because it was so difficult to repeat. It created a one-time result that could not be challenged by other parties, with the resulting authority of the metre resting, in part, on the time and labour taken to produce it. James Vincent · Beyond Measure
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Quotes & Tweets
If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else. Yoggi Berra
With running products, the story is different. You should balance keeping the lights on and working on new items. David Pereira · Untrapping Product Teams