Communication Archives - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Pete Mockaitis

Monica, welcome.

Monica Parker

Hi, thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I’m excited to hear your take on wonder and how it can help us be more awesome at our jobs. But for starters, could you tell us what do you mean by wonder?

Monica Parker

Yeah, sure. So, wonder as a word is something of a shape-shifter. So, you have wonder as a noun and wonder as a verb. Of course, wonder as a noun would be perhaps a wonder. It might be something that’s a catalyst for awe. And then you have wonder as a verb, to wonder, which would be perhaps how we might describe curiosity.

And so, my definition of wonder seeks to link those two concepts. And so, the way that I describe it, it starts with openness to experience, then moves into curiosity, then into absorption and awe. And it’s actually a cycle that, as we experience it, the more we experience it, the more likely we are to experience it in the future. And so, that’s my definition of wonder.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, that sounds pleasant. But can you tell us how that helps us be more awesome at our jobs?

Monica Parker

So, it starts by making us more awesome as humans. It makes us more creative, more desirous of studying the world around us. It makes us more humble, less materialistic, more generous, better community and team members. People who are higher in the composite elements of wonder are more likely to perform better in work and school, and build healthier relationships.

And recent evidence shows that wonder makes us less stressed and feel like we have more time. It’s basically what would be described as a pro-social experience. So, it simply makes us want to be better, more tolerant humans. And that’s just the psychological benefits. Physiologically, it also decreases pro-inflammatory cytokines and lowers our blood pressure. And the research shows a direct biological pathway between wonder and better health.

Pete Mockaitis

Fantastic. So, tell us, that all sounds swell, I’m wondering, is this teachable? Are some people naturally have the wonder groove going and others don’t? Or how do you think about someone who is not as wonder-y becoming more wonder-y?

Monica Parker

Sure. So, it certainly, because it has to do with our brain, there’s going to be natural elements of it that we have a higher propensity towards. So, pretty much the way our personality works is that about half of it is based on our genetics and the other half is based on our experiences up to about age 25. So, there’s no question that some people are going to be naturally may have higher openness, may be more prone towards curiosity, but it’s absolutely something that we can train ourselves to see as a mindset, and we can engage in activities that help us become more wonder-prone.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, I would love to hear a tale perhaps of someone who was less wonder-prone and went through some work and had way more wonder going on as a result.

Monica Parker

Sure. I can tell you some of the things that I find most exciting about this research is how it helps people who are, I think it’s fair to say that we’re dealing with a mental health crisis in America, as well as many other places. Forty million Americans right now are being treated for anxiety. Globally, 280 million people have depression. And so, one of the most exciting pieces of research that I’ve seen was working with people who had PTSD and who had trauma backgrounds.

After taking a whitewater rafting trip, which would certainly be wonder-inducing, they found that those people had a significantly reduced PTSD symptoms and, in fact, benefited for as much as two weeks after that experience. And so, what we know is that when people experience wonder, they become more better able to deal with what life throws at them.

And some of the research shows that that can be as simple as looking at some beautiful trees that give you a sense of wonder. Another piece of research shows that just three minutes looking at a particularly awe-inspiring grove of trees made people exhibit more helpful behaviors for the week following.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, that’s fantastic. I’d love it if you could share with us some of these other quick yet super effective interventions. Three minutes of tree-looking for lasting benefit sounds right up my alley. What else can we do, Monica?

Monica Parker

Yeah, so the first is what I described, slow thought. Really, we are in such a rush all the time that we stop seeing what is around us. So, the more that we can engage in slow thought activities, and particular activities that help slow down our brain. So, we all have sort of that chattering monkey mind. So, these are things like meditation, chalk this up for again, another reason why we should all be meditating, things like narrative journaling, even a gratitude practice or prayer.

Any of those things that helps quiet down the brain and helps us engage in more slow thought, which, mind you, God rest his soul, Daniel Kahneman who just passed away, also talked about the power of slowing down and certainly how that can be effective in our work lives as well. Another way is to really open ourselves to novelty and new ideas. We get stuck in such the same rut of doing the same thing over and over again that we miss the wonder in the familiar.

So, the more that we can shake our noggins up a little bit and introduce new thinking and new places, new spaces help, and even just taking a wonder walk. And you might ask, “What’s a wonder walk?” Well, a wonder walk is you decide it is. It’s really a brilliant example of the power of priming. You tell yourself that you’re going to find things that will give you a sense of wonder on that walk.

And research found that two groups of walkers went walking for 20 minutes. One that was primed that they would find things to feel a sense of wonder about, the other group was not. And the group that went on a wonder walk had stress reduction benefits for the following week.

Pete Mockaitis

Fantastic. Now just how potent is stress reduction benefit are we talking here, Monica?

Monica Parker

Because it’s something that is so subjective, it’s hard to sort of give a specific definition of that. But what we do know is that it’s significant enough that it lowers people’s pro-inflammatory cytokines. And pro-inflammatory cytokines are those markers of disease that generally happen. If we’re actually sick, our body will release them as a mechanism to make us well, but frequently they will be released when we’re under stress.

And so, the stress reduction is significant enough, not just for the individual to sense that sense of stress reduction, but for the physiological changes to occur as well, where the pro-inflammatory cytokines actually reduce as well. And those are markers of conditions like heart disease, certain cancers, Alzheimer’s. And so, it’s pretty significant.

Pete Mockaitis

Fascinating. Well, while we’re talking medically, do you have a sense on the optimal dosage of this nature goodness or wonder experiences?

Monica Parker

To be fair, the more the better. The key, I think, is setting a mindset. And with practice, we can do that such that we start to see wonder in the quotidian. We really shouldn’t have to look for it. We should simply be able to find it. And that might be in a perfect autumn leaf. It might be this time of year, in the flowers as they’re starting to bloom. 

And so, really, it’s how much you’re willing to be open to it and find it in your life. But the more the better, there’s no question. But I would say like most things, a good practice would be if you can focus on doing one of the mind-setting activities for about 20 minutes in a day, then you will start to build the skills that will allow you to see wonder throughout your day-to-day life.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s just what I was thinking. When you said the word open, that really resonated for me because sometimes I am having wonder-y days and it’s a lot of fun, it’s expansive, it’s relaxing, it’s cool. And other times, everything is irritating and it’s kind of the opposite. And instead of being amazed at a leaf, I might be annoyed that the leaf is stuck to my shoe and crunching it all along the way. Do you have any sort of SOS or emergency stop-drop-roll kinds of things to shift us closer to the wonder mode?

Monica Parker

I’ll tell you, it’s probably one of the stop-drop-rolls that you’ve heard from a lot of other people because it’s what works. The first thing is to just take a big breath. We know that breathing helps quiet the amygdala. We know that it helps with our vagus nerve health, with vagal tone, which is one of the things that helps us stay calm. And so, really just taking a break to take a deep breath is probably the first SOS element. And I find that having a little mantra helps to just say there is wonder there, and then, hopefully, your eyes will be open to what you can find in your sphere that will give you that little bit of a wonder nugget.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And, Monica, you’ve got a lovely tidbit, five elements of wonder. They all start with the letter W. Could you walk us through these?

Monica Parker

Yeah. And so, these were a little bit what I started to describe at the beginning. So, I call them watch, wander, whittle, wow, and whoa. So, watch is the word for openness. Openness to experience is the personality trait that’s associated with the best, outcomes as a human, be it physical or mental.

And so, moving from openness to experience, we then, when we’re very open, what happens then, we become curious about something, and we become deeply curious. This is the watch element. And when I talk about curiosity, there’s really two types of curiosity. I’m focused more on the deep curiosity. You have surface curiosity, which would be sort of like Google searching to settle a bet, or maybe smelling the milk to see if it’s gone off. That’s not the kind of curiosity we’re looking for. We’re looking for the curiosity for the joy of the exploration. And this type of curiosity really starts to engage our brain in a different way.

We move from being deeply curious about something to becoming absorbed. That’s natural. We might find absorption in a flow state, but we might also find it from just being hyper focused. And this is where we call whittle. So, this is where we’re paring back attention. We’re really keenly focused on where we are hyper present. And then we move from whittle, if we’re lucky, into the fourth and fifth stages, which are the wow and whoa, and these are two stages of awe.

And the reason that awe has two stages is when we study the dynamic of awe as an emotion, it really does have sort of these two elements to it. The first is where we experience something that feels so vast. And that can be physically vast, like the Grand Canyon, or emotionally vast, like seeing your child take their steps for the first time. Our brain is shocked by that. And that’s sort of this wow moment. But then afterwards, our brain actually has to accommodate to understand what it is that it’s just experienced. And this is the whoa, where it’s sort of like mind blown. And those two elements together define the emotion of awe.

And after that, now our brain is in a hyperplastic state where we can embed all sorts of good stuff. And that brings us back to openness. So, now after that experience of the whoa, we are more open and, thus, more likely to be deeply curious, and then more likely to become absorbed and so on and so on. And so, I really do see it as this upwardly beneficial cycle that we can experience.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, that is lovely, indeed. Well, could you make it all the more real for us by sharing several stories of individuals who experienced some of the stressed, overwhelmed, overloaded, “Aargh” kind of a vibe to regularly incorporating more wonder and the results they saw from doing so?

Monica Parker

Sure. So, one of my favorite stories, and this may not be something that everyone can directly, I guess, connect with, but it’s about a gentleman named Steven Callahan. And Steven Callahan was a famed solo sailor, and he actually went on a solo race and ended up becoming a castaway. He spent 76 days adrift on the Atlantic Ocean and actually wrote an incredible book about that. And I had the opportunity to speak to Steve.

And what he said was that he was certain that it was his sense of wonder that gave him the alacrity to be able to survive being out adrift at sea, because he said that there were moments where he had such a sense of crisis and panic where all hope felt lost, but he was so overwhelmed by the beauty and the power, even the horror, in a sense, of the sea and of nature, and what that could do to him. That that moment of feeling like a small part in a bigger system, and being, in a way, almost helpless actually gave him the strength and the ability to see more clearly in order to take every single day and engage in the activities that would get him to be eventually saved, which he was 76 days later.

And, in fact, strangely, many people report that. I interviewed a gentleman who worked with people who were at the end of having had experiences like this, or having been in plane crashes, or even having been kidnapped and held. The day that I interviewed him, he had just been speaking to someone who had been held in a hole in the Baltics, and then was saved. And what he found is that people who are able to have a greater sense of wonder and then convert that to a sense of purpose survive these intense cataclysmic experiences.

And he said that if there was one thing that he would advise people to do, it would be to, first, find a purpose and, second, find their sense of wonder, because he said that those are the keys to being able to survive any kind of crisis, big or small.

Pete Mockaitis

And it’s interesting when you said, “We had someone who’s a castaway, stranded.” And you said, “And many people share this,” like, “Wow, a lot of castaways.” But I hear what you’re saying in terms of crisis situations, kidnappings, etc. And even in a day-to-day professional environment where there’s less life-or-death stakes.

Monica Parker

But our brain thinks it’s life or death.

Pete Mockaitis

Yes, and all those elements associated with how creatively, resourcefully you can operate really do. It makes all the difference in terms of whether you’re feeling like, “Oh, wow, cool ideas are coming to me, creative ways to use these resources,” versus, “Aargh, we’re screwed and there’s nothing I can do. Aargh.”

Monica Parker

Absolutely. And that’s where we start to get into one of the benefits of engaging in the slow thought. We know that one of the challenges that we’re confronted with in work environments is something that’s known as action bias. So, when we are, as professionals, usually, we are confronted with a situation where we really don’t have control, I think we saw a lot of this during COVID, we want to feel like we can exert control.

And one of the challenges is that society actually benefits that. Research shows that we will rate our leaders more positively if they made decisive decisions, even if those decisions later were found to be poor. And so, we have this real desire to act when sometimes we should just pause. And this is a little bit of wonder mixed with a little bit of Daniel Kahneman, which is to say that when we have the opportunity to slow down, we should.

And that is one of the things that Steven Callahan found being adrift. It’s one of the things that I heard from so many different scientists that I spoke to, that slowing down and allowing our brain to engage with what we’re really experiencing rather than catastrophizing or feeling the need to act, simply to act, really helps us make better decisions. And we see that in action bias, day in, day out in work environments. And we see that in more severe environments like being adrift at sea or, yes, being kidnapped by a terrorist organization.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, Monica, tell us, any other top wonder do’s or don’ts to share before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Monica Parker

Yeah, so one of my other wonder do’s is to make sure that we’re getting enough sleep. Add that onto one of the challenges. When we’re sleep deprived, our attentional control really goes out the window and we become more ruminative. It becomes really much, much harder for us to become present. And also daydreaming. You mentioned earlier that some days you feel like you’re really on the wonder train. And some of that, daydreaming has gotten a bit of a bad rap.

There was a piece of research that came out, and they said, “A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” But actually, there is one type of daydreaming that’s really good for that, and that’s called positive constructive daydreaming. This is when we cast our minds forward and create in these play future scenarios. And that’s really, really good for us. So, I would encourage good night’s sleep, and then when you want to, allow yourself to have a good daydream.

Pete Mockaitis

Now, let’s see, I’ve read that paper, “A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind.” Let’s see, that’s Killingsworth and Gilbert.

Monica Parker

Correct.

Pete Mockaitis

And what was interesting, as I dug into the data, what I found was it seems like, yeah, being present to what’s going on around you is a winning happiness strategy. So, go mindfulness, go presence, that’s great. However, if you were daydreaming in positive territory, the happiness results are pretty comparable to simply being present. But the problem is our wandering minds tend to go into unpleasant territory, and that’s just no fun.

Monica Parker

Correct. There are two other types of daydreaming, one which is just poor attentional control. That’s something that really plagues people who are non-neurotypical. So, those of us who have ADHD certainly struggle with that. And then the other is that this catastrophic daydreaming, where we’re imagining something that’s really terrible that’s going to happen, or something stupid we did in the past.

But we daydream almost 50% of our day. It’s something like 43% of our day we’re daydreaming, so there must be some benefit or our brains wouldn’t do it. And so, it’s really about finding a way to harness that and create it into, you know, make it one of your slow-thought activities as opposed to something that just becomes distracting and ruminative.

Pete Mockaitis

Absolutely. All right. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Monica Parker

It is by Albert Einstein, and he says, “He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe is as good as dead. His eyes are closed.”

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And could you share a favorite study or experiment a bit of research?

Monica Parker

I think one of my favorites that I haven’t mentioned really reflects on the power of mixed emotions. So, they took a group of widows and widowers, and they found that those who remembered their deceased loved one, the both positive and negative elements of their partner, were better able to manage their grief. And so, that really is just a, I guess, support to say that mixed emotions, like curiosity, like wonder, like awe, where there’s a little bit of positive and a little bit of negative mixed, are really, really good for our brains and we should try to do more of it.

Pete Mockaitis

Ooh, that’s powerful. And I’m reminded of a conversation. We had Susan Cain on the show talking about her book, Bittersweet. And, yeah, that hits hard.

Monica Parker

Existential longing, that’s another one, that’s another mixed emotion. Very positive for us, and it helps us to have better emo-diversity or emotional granularity. And the greater emotional granularity we have, the healthier we are. But really having those mixed emotions, fight it out in our noggin, is good for tolerance. It’s the anti-polarization. There are so many benefits.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite book?

Monica Parker

I love Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. It’s a great dose of wonder, a little bit of historical fiction, and, yeah, I just think it’s a fabulous book that everybody should read.

Pete Mockaitis

And a favorite tool, something you use to be more awesome at your job?

Monica Parker

Yeah, for me, one of my favorite tools, believe it or not, as terrible as they are, I still choose to see some of the positive of social networks. I’m global, my network is global, and I really do curate Instagram such that I find it to be an incredibly helpful tool for me.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite habit?

Monica Parker

Sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Always sleep.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Monica Parker

I have a line in the book that says, “Wonder shared is wonder multiplied.” And I love that because it reminds us that wonder is not just a solitary experience, that it’s something that we can share with others and help it grow. We can share it in the moment or we can express it to others after we’ve experienced it. But every time that we share it with others, either in the moment or after the fact, multiplies the benefit and bestows that benefit on those that you shared it with.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Monica Parker

They can find me at Monica-Parker.com. And I have a weekly newsletter called Wonder Bringers that they can sign up for where I share other wonder nuggets.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Monica Parker

Yeah, my challenge is to follow wonder. And the best way to do that is to slow down. So, I guess I’ll put those two things together and say slow down and follow wonder.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Monica, thank you. This is fun. And I wish you many moments of wonder.

Monica Parker

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Pete Mockaitis

Chris, welcome.

Chris Fenning

Hi, Pete. I’m really looking forward to our conversation today.

Pete Mockaitis

I’m excited as well. We’re talking about conversations today. Your book is called, The First Minute, which I love. It could really be like an action movie with a title like that, Chris. Tell us, what’s so important about the first minute of a conversation? Or is it just a catchy title?

Chris Fenning

Well, I’ve been told it’s a catchy title. The reason for the title is the whole book is literally about the first minute. So, it is quite an important thing. And you asked what it is, well, and why is it important? It’s important because, if in a work situation, if you’re at work and you’re communicating with other people, if you get the first minute wrong, you will pay for it through the rest of the conversation, your reputation can take a hit, and people may not want to communicate with you again in the future. But if you get it right, you can get people’s attention, keep their focus, and get their message across all in 20 to 60 seconds.

Pete Mockaitis

Chris, I love a very clear value proposition. There we have it. Okay. Cool. So, could you tell us a cool story about a professional who saw a transformation in terms of their first minutes were a little bit rough, but then they worked your magic, Chris, and on the other side, they saw some cool things? Do you have some tales like this?

Chris Fenning

Yes. There’s one person who really comes to mind, and she was a junior project manager at a time when I was a director in a large PMO. We were running big, big programs for a large American health insurance company, and this junior project manager had incredible potential but she was new in her role. And part of her role involved presenting to a senior leader, and this leader was a tough nut. They had very high standards, they expected everything to be in detail, to the point and complete, which is kind of a contradiction to do all of those things.

So, this junior PM did her best, and to prepare she did what many of us do which is include all the detail, help educate this person so they could really understand the message that was coming next. And, of course, that’s a crash-and-burn situation, because the more detail you put up front, the longer it takes to get to your point, the further you are from the value of your message.

And so, in working with her, we employed some of the things from The First Minute and also a technique that say only give three updates and then ask a question. And what happened is she went from delivering all of the detail up front, “Oh, let me tell you about this. This is what has happened and this is why it’s important. So that, blah…” and then she would get to her ask. She ended up coming in, and saying, “Hi, today I want to give you updates on three things. They are A, B, and C. What I want from you is a decision, some advice, and I literally don’t know what to do with the third one, so really looking for some help there. Let me start with topic number one.”

And she framed the conversation beautifully so that instead of feeling attacked and under pressure by that senior leader, the leader said, “Oh, great. Actually, I want to talk about number two. Can we go to that first?” And they had a conversation instead of this long, drawn-out introduction that led to the leader being frustrated because it wasn’t what they wanted to know.

So the impact for the junior project manager wasn’t just more effective communication in those meetings, which is an important thing. The biggest takeaway for her was her confidence went through the roof. She went from being scared going into these meetings, spending hours and hours preparing, and feeling that she would never be good enough going in – and these were her words – to after using these methods a couple of times, and seeing the impact, she felt confident.

Her preparation was cut more than in half, and she enjoyed giving the status updates, and ended up having a good relationship with that senior leader. So, it enabled her to shine in her role. And she went on to be a senior PM and do great things.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, Chris, I love that so much because what you’ve just demonstrated there doesn’t sound too hard to do, “What is your first minute?” I think it sounds like, “Oh, high stakes first minute. It’s a make or break. I could lose it. I could screw everything up. I need to dazzle them with a startling statistic, or a hilarious tale, or something in order to grip them in our TikTok-addled world of whatever.” But what you did is you just basically just set up a nice little preview, like, “Hey, this is what we’re going to do and kind of what I want.” And it’s like, “Oh, I can do that.”

Chris Fenning

Yeah, you’re exactly right. None of this is complicated but it does take deliberate effort to apply it over time. None of it is rocket science. I can say that, my background is rocket science. This isn’t it. This is definitely simpler than rocket science, but we need to remember to do it. And you gave a really good word there. You said it’s a preview of the conversation, and that’s exactly what it is. The method that I just described in the book is called framing, and it’s the first 15 seconds, maybe 20 seconds. And if you frame your message, you’re setting up your audience to pay attention and know what you’re going to tell them, and understand why it’s important to them.

And that preview addresses three questions that we will have if somebody starts badly. And the questions are, “What are you talking about? Why are you telling me this? And what is your point?” And you can avoid those three questions if you deliver a very simple preview, a simple framing in that first 15 to 20 seconds.

Pete Mockaitis

I love that because what you’re describing there is exactly what’s in their head in terms of like, “Wait, what are we doing here exactly?” And I’ve heard, and I think it’s so well said, that great copywriting, like, if you’re writing words to be persuasive like in a sales situation, is joining the conversation that is already in your prospect’s head. Like, they’re having this conversation with themselves, and you’re just joining right there where they are, meeting them in that zone, that spot, and it’s like, “Oh, perfect. This fits right here.” As opposed to, “Ugh, I’m annoyed, I’m irritated, or I want to change the channel. Get this away from me.”

Chris Fenning

Yes. Yes. One of the differences with that, so in that sales environment, you want to meet your audience with the problem that they’re having, with the goal they’re trying to achieve. When we’re at work, we’re in the other sort of advertising space of pattern interrupt. What we’re doing is interrupting someone else’s day, interrupting their thoughts so that they focus on what we want to talk about. And that’s always a tough sell anyway because people have got their own stuff to do.

And so, we have to go about it in a way that, very quickly, shows the other person the value to them or the importance to them, which is why the second thing in the framing is intent. The first part is context, “What is this topic? What are you talking about?” The second part is intent, which is, “What do I want you to do with the information?” And the third is key message, like, the point of what you’re trying to say.

And the reason that intent is so important up front is, until we know what to do with a piece of information, our brains literally don’t know how to process it. And because we’ve interrupted someone, whether we’ve bumped into them in a corridor, or even in a planned meeting, they’re thinking about something else, we say “Right. Now, Pete, I want to talk about this topic.” If I don’t tell you exactly why you need to pay attention, your brain is not going to be able to understand what’s coming next, and it’s because of something called working memory or sometimes called short term memory.

Now this isn’t, “Where did I put my keys? And what are the names of my kids?” This is the, where our brain receives information, it has to work out which part of the brain to fire up to do something with it. Because if I tell you a funny story, one area of your brain will engage. But if I asked you a question, a different area of your brain will start fire up and pay attention. And until your brain, at a subconscious level, knows which part to engage, it just gets stuck in a loop saying, “Well, what do I do with this? What do I do with this? What do I do with this?”

And if we don’t give our audience a clear instruction, “Hey, I need your help. Heads up, you need to know this. I’m about to give you an instruction,” so that’s very clear intent. If we don’t say that, your audience is just going to be wondering, “Why are you telling me this?” right up until the moment that we do.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s good. And, Chris, I appreciate that new context in terms of bumping into them in a hallway or corridor because I was thinking, “Here we are at this meeting. It’s like, this is on the calendar. It has a title. We kind of know update about this project. We have some sort of sense for what it’s about,” but there’s still questions hovering around.” In the context you’ve set out, there’s even more of a wide-open field for, “Wait, what are we…? What’s going on right now? What are we even talking about?” So, that’s good.

Chris Fenning

And we start conversations in our own heads before we actually start the conversation with the other person. If I saw you across the office, “Oh, I need to talk to Pete about this. We’ve got this team meeting next week. I’m missing this critical piece of information. Oh, Pete, great, I’ve got you. So, blah…” and then I launch into the detail because I’ve already started that conversation in my head 10 feet away.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s true. Yeah, that’s really good to remember. I think, often, we’ll just sort of say something like, “Hey, can you send me the link?” “Can you give me the info? Do you have the newest data?” It’s like, “Wait, link, what link? What info? What data? Like, I really do need much more.”

Chris Fenning

“Can I talk to you about next week?” “Sure, I’ve got 39 meetings. Like, which one?”

Pete Mockaitis

Totally. All right. Well, let’s go into some detail. We got the context, the intent, the key message. You even gave me some seconds there. So, how about you give me a rundown of what do you mean by context? How many seconds is that? What’s a great example of context setting versus a poor example of context setting? And then do likewise for intent and key message. No pressure.

Chris Fenning

Absolutely. So, in terms of seconds, we’ll go with sentences instead, one sentence for each of those three things. One sentence for context, one for intent, and one for key message. If you want to get really tight, you can do it as bullet points because sentences can really run on. So, thinking in bullet points can help.

So, we start with context, and that’s, “What is the topic or the theme of the thing I’m going to talk to you about?” Now a good example would be, “Hi, Pete, can I talk to you about next Thursday’s team meeting?” I’m very specific on time and the event. If I said, “Hey, can I talk to you about next Thursday?” I’m thinking about the team meeting, you might be thinking about the meal we’ve got planned in the evening. And I’ll say, “Well, I’m struggling to get the location locked down.” Well, now you’re thinking about the place we’re eating and I’m thinking about the place that we’re meeting.

Rhyme aside, that is a very common type of misunderstanding because we’re not specific on time and event. So, clear context, “I want to talk to you about next Thursday’s team meeting.” You now know everything else I’m going to say relates to that and you’re not guessing with one sentence. Then it’s intent, and we’ve covered that a little bit, it’s saying what you want the other person to do, “Hey, Pete, I want to talk to you about next Thursday’s team meeting. I need some advice.” And you now know I’m going to ask for your help. Or, “Heads up, something’s changed.” You’re now preparing to adapt to whatever that change is.

So, you’ve got a very clear indication of what should come next and what to brace yourself for, and it’s not always bad things. I could say, “Hey, Pete, I want to talk to you about next Thursday’s team meeting. Funny story…” You now know I’m going to engage in a, hopefully, funny story at that point. And that gives you the option to say, “Oh, well, actually, I don’t have time for a funny story now. Can this wait till later?” So that sort of gives you an out, because it’s very clear what I want to talk to you about.

And the third part is that key message, which is the headline, the most important thing you want to put across. And one of the best ways to understand the value and importance of a headline is, imagine you were reading an article, a newspaper, a blog article. If you start on paragraph seven, how long does it take you to work out what that article is really about? Do you get it straight away? Or are you still sort of working it out as you as you go through and adjusting your ideas as you go through the rest of the article?

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, I’m still figuring it out.

Chris Fenning

And as we go through, we sort of adjust what it may be about as new information comes along. But if you start with the headline and the first paragraph, assuming it’s a well-written headline and first paragraph, in most articles, newspapers, and so on, the headline and the first paragraph tell you what that article is going to be about. And that makes it easy for you to understand all the detail that comes afterwards. And that’s why you have a headline, and your key message is the most important thing you want to put across.

In the military, it’s often “Bottom Line Up Front” or BLUF is an acronym that’s quite commonly used. Put the most important thing at the front and then you can explain it, justify, expand it afterwards. But don’t put all that info first because you’ll lose the audience and they won’t know what’s important. So, you start with context, “This is the topic I want to talk to you about.” One bullet point, one sentence, then the intent, “Here’s what I intend you to do with it. Here’s why I’m talking to you about it, why you should pay attention,” another one sentence or one bullet point, and then the key message.

And we’ll be nice, you can have two sentences for that if you really want to expand it out. But very, very short, and it’s not about compressing the entire conversation into those 15 seconds. It’s about previewing, it’s about framing, which is the name of the technique, so that you can then go on and have that conversation, and your audience is not thinking those three killer questions, “What is this about? Why are you talking to me? And what is your point?”

Pete Mockaitis

Well, so we talked about the first minute, but, Chris, it seems that we’ve accomplished this within 15 seconds. Do you have pro tips on the other 45 seconds? Or what do you think about there?

Chris Fenning

Yes, otherwise, I mean, the first 15 seconds just wasn’t as catchy as the book. So, in the first minute, there are some other things that we should do, and I want to put in a caveat at this point. Like, all great models and methods and everything that we learn, there’s always a caveat, there’s always an exception. And what I want to make it clear is, for anyone listening to this and thinking, “Okay, so when I start a conversation, the very first thing I say is context, intent, and key message.” I’d say, “Hold on. First, please be a human.”

So, when you interact with people, have that human connection, have that relationship-building, like, “Oh, hey, Pete, I heard there was a storm in your area last week, and there were some fences damaged. Is your garden okay? Do you have anything, any issues there?” Have that type of conversation. And then at the moment you say, “Oh, by the way, I want to talk to you about…” when you switch to the work, that’s when these methods begin. Otherwise, it’s very robotic and we can come across as a very formulaic way of communicating. So, be a person first, but when you start talking about the work, that’s when these methods begin.

Pete Mockaitis

And I was going to say, with regard to the human versus work perspective, it’s funny because there’s, like, a whole spectrum there in terms of you might have something you need to share with a friend or your spouse, and this could actually be quite helpful in terms of getting things framed up, so they say, “Oh, okay, I understand,” to make for an effective conversation. But on the flipside, they might say, “Dude, why are you talking to me like that? We’re just pals here. There’s no need for this.” What’s your thoughts on that?

Chris Fenning

Yes. My thought on that at the moment, as I’m picturing my wife, who recently said, “If you context, intent, key message me one more time…” so, definitely, definitely some limitations on it. However, it comes down to situation, to topic, to your particular style, your friend’s style, and so on. If you’re in a friendly, friend-based situation, you’re chatting to your pal, but you’ve got an urgent situation that you want to talk about, then this can help you cut straight to the point.

On the flipside, if your style with them has always been more casual, well, then be more casual. You can adapt the style, but just know that when you start talking about the important thing that you want to communicate, the longer it takes you to deliver those three pieces, the more confused they will be and the more likely they are to make assumptions about the reason for their conversation or what the topic might be, and so on. So, the quicker you frame that up, the less assumptions there are, and the less risk there is for the rest of the conversation.

Pete Mockaitis

Understood. All right.

Chris Fenning

So, the rest of the first minute includes one major piece and two small steps that can make the difference between you being polite or not. And the major piece is a summary. Now, this is useful if you’re about to explain something that’s big, or if you’re giving a status update, for example.

So, when we talk at work, we don’t have time to put in all the details. We have to summarize a much bigger piece of work, or a much bigger topic, or something that is more complex than we can fit into a conversation. And a way to do that is to deliver a summary in the next 30 to 45 seconds that make up the second part of the first minute, and that summary uses a method called goal problem solution. So, the overall structure of the first minute is frame it in that first 15 seconds, and then you can summarize your big message, and then you can have the rest of your conversation.

Pete Mockaitis

So, goal problem solution, are we hearing some of that in that 45 seconds then?

Chris Fenning

Yes, you are. Yes, and it’s a really, really good way to summarize or set up almost any topic at work. Let’s give an example. If I was giving you a status update, you’d say, “Hey, Chris, you promised you’d deliver this edited podcast episode in the next week. Where are we with that?” And I could say, “Well, my goal is to get it to you on Friday. The problem is my laptop died yesterday, but what I’m doing about it is I’ve borrowed a laptop for a friend and I’m making up some hours over the weekend. Would you like to know any more about any of those pieces?” So, I’ve summarized an entire situation. I didn’t say, “Oh, the dog knocked over my water, and the house nearly burnt down because there was an electrical fire.” I didn’t go into all that detail.

Pete Mockaitis

Sorry to hear that, Chris.

Chris Fenning

It was a tough day for the dog.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah.

Chris Fenning

And that’s what we add in. We tend to add all of that detail, we tend to add things that are chronological, things that happen in the order in which events occurred, and that’s a very natural way of telling stories and communicating, but it’s not a very effective way of doing it. And so, using goal problem solution gives you, as a listener, some critical information.

First is the goal, and that’s, “This is the thing that we’re trying to achieve.” In this case, in the example, trying to deliver an edited podcast episode, “Hey, I want to deliver this.” Now you understand what the whole topic is. It’s sort of an expansion on the topic. “Well, the problem was my laptop died. I haven’t been able to do it.”

And then I move on to a solution, which is forward-focused, and I’m looking at what I’m doing about it. I’m telling you the solution to the problem so we can achieve the goal, and the goal is what you care about. So, by doing all of that, I’ve condensed everything into a short summary, and then I finished it with a question, “Is there anything about that you’d like to know more about?”

And that gives you the opportunity to go, “Yeah, what happened with the water and the dog?” And you can expand on the problem, you can clarify what the goal was, or you can probe what the solution is going to be. You get to make those choices and it’s gone from being a very long monologue into a short status update followed by a dialogue where we both get to talk.

Pete Mockaitis

And I’m curious, with regard to problem, I mean, sometimes there just aren’t any problems. You know, the goal was, “I would get you this podcast by Friday, or whenever, and so my team’s working on it. And we should have no problem getting that done.”

Chris Fenning

There you go, that’s your problem.

Pete Mockaitis

I mean, so if there’s no problem, we just skip it, and that’s that?

Chris Fenning

That’s that. When it comes to status updates, if everything’s on track, just say everything’s on track. And that is one of the hardest things to do. I imagine a lot of people listening to this are thinking, “Well, my status update meetings are, we’re all in a room, and we go around the table, and everybody lists the stuff they did in the last week, and that’s the status update.” And that’s so painful and not efficient and, generally, doesn’t give value to everyone else in the room.

There are lots of reasons why we do it. There’s an innate human need to demonstrate value or a belief that we have to show we’re doing work otherwise people might not see we’ve got value in our roles. But in those situations, imagine if the updates – because nothing was going wrong – if your update was just, “We’re trying to achieve this goal and everything’s on track. Is there anything you like to ask me about?” If that was the update, how short would those meetings be?

Pete Mockaitis

Yes, that would be delightful. I think you’re really nailing something here with regard to meetings and the time they take, is folks want, I don’t know, sometimes we want someone, somewhere to say, “Good job,” and to know that, “I’m doing real things even if I’m working remotely,” or, “This is ambiguous knowledge work with lots of collaborators. I promise I’m actually doing my job.”

Chris Fenning

Yes.

Pete Mockaitis

Like, to be seen and heard and acknowledged, and that’s our humanity, and it results in long meetings. So, there’s our trade-off.

Chris Fenning

It is. It does. Now there’s a way that we, as the person speaking, can help find a middle ground, and it’s what I’ve been doing through this is always ending with a question, “Now here’s my update. Is there something you’d like to go into more detail about?” Or if I gave an update and everything was okay, so, I’m working on this super important project, but everything is on time, on budget, no risks, no issues, that utopia that very rarely exists.

But let’s assume that everything’s going well, and I said, “Yeah, we’re on this project. Here’s our next milestone. Everything’s on track. But can I take a minute to tell you just a couple of the great things my team has done, or a couple of the great things that we’ve done that has helped us stay on track?” And then the rest of the room can either say, “No, we don’t have time,” or, “No, we’re not interested,” or, “Yeah, sure you’ve got a couple of minutes to do that,” and you’re asking for permission rather than just taking time out of that group environment.

Pete Mockaitis

I like that a lot because you are asking permission, and, too, if I’m hearing that, I think that you’re a swell person who wants to give credit to your team and it’s not about you, “Can I tell you how amazing I am?”

Chris Fenning

That’s a tough one.

Pete Mockaitis

So, that’s really cool. And I’m feeling, like, the tug, like, the right answer is, “Of course, I should say yes, but I could also set parameters. Like, how about 40 seconds?” And then away we go. Or, “Chris, I think we all know that your team is full of rock stars, but tell them we appreciate them, and let’s move on.” And so, there we go.

Chris Fenning

Yes, exactly that. You’re giving everyone else in the room permission to say no, which comes back to, I mentioned there were two little things we can do to be polite in the first minute. And one is a time check and the other is a validation checkpoint. Now the actual semantics on those are less important than what they are. The first is, at some point in your first minute, preferably near the beginning, ask if the other person has the amount of time that you need. And here’s an example of how to do it badly, “Hey, Pete, do you have a minute?”

Pete Mockaitis

One minute?

Chris Fenning

And the reason that’s bad, yes, is most of us can’t organize our own thoughts in a minute, let alone have a conversation about whatever it is we want to talk about. So, if you ask for a minute, you better darn well need just a minute, because otherwise you’re setting yourself up to miss your own deadline. And I laughed while I said it, but this is a tiny but important reputation hit.

Because if I asked for a minute and then take five or ten, I’ve either badly misjudged it, I can’t time manage, I lied, I didn’t care, there’s all sorts of very, very small impressions that I give through that one statement. And if I keep doing that, over time, I’m becoming…I’m demonstrating that I’m less reliable. So, don’t ask for a minute. Ask for the actual amount of time or more than you think you’re going to need.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s great. Well, Chris, lay it on us, I’d love example, example, example, in very different professional contexts, maybe even some personal contexts, just to mix it up. We’ve got some nifty tools: the context, the intent, the key message, and a goal problem solution. Lay it on us, here we are at work, we got to say some things, say it for us in the format.

Chris Fenning

All right. So, we’ll go with somebody who works in a call center talking to their team leader because they want some time off. So, a great way to do it would be to go up, and say, “Hi, I’d like to talk to you about vacation. I’m looking for permission because I want to take next Thursday off work.” That’s the context intent and key message.

And then I could say, “Look, I’m trying to keep a good work-life balance, and I need to use my vacation by the end of the year, or I’m going to lose it. The problem is we are stacked as a team. I know that the call center volumes are high and it’s tough to take time off. So, what I’ve done is I’ve asked someone else in the team if they can cover my shift so that I can get this time off. Is that okay if I have the time off for next week?”

So, there was a lot going on in there and it would involve, in that case, finding someone else to cover a shift and so on, but in that situation, you can deliver a lot of information but in a very short period of time. And then the manager would have questions, “Well, when and who is going to cover you? And do they have the right qualifications? And what do you mean there’s a problem with using your vacation time?” There are all sorts of ways a conversation could go, but it’s been set up very clearly in the first place.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. How about another?

Chris Fenning

All right. It’s a different situation. You’ve got a merger and acquisition, small company being purchased by a large company, and there’s a problem, in this case. One of the managers in the small company is nervous about their, perhaps, nervous about their job. It’s a very different situation and quite emotive. And they could say to their new line manager, “Hi, I’d like to talk to you about the reduction of roles. I’ve got some questions. I’m actually a little bit concerned about what my position will be in the new company.” That’s the framing with the context, intent, and key message.

Then on the goal problem solution, “I know that our goal is to bring these companies together, and there’s going to be some downsizing. The problem is I’m really uncertain about what’s coming and it’s affecting how I think about what we’re doing next, and I’m struggling to deal with all of the integration activities we have. What I’d like to do is take some time with you to understand what that future hierarchy is going to be, and understand what my role in it might be.”

Now that’s a hard one to do. There’s a lot of emotion in there, and there are lots of different ways to approach it, but it very clearly lays out the conversation, and hopefully takes that emotion out at the beginning of the conversation.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s beautiful, and it comes across way better than, “So, are you going to fire me or what?” It’s, like, that may be the burning question that you have, but you are covering that and other bases, so you give even more good context and information if they, in good faith, engage you fully and candidly in that dialogue so it’s good.

And I think that it may be a good meta-lesson there is if you have, I don’t know, fear, resistance, trepidation, associated with saying a thing, for whatever reason, like it’s vulnerable or it might seem unprofessional, that’s what you want to know, “Am I going to get fired? Is this going to reduce my power? Am I still going to get paid my full bonus?” Like, “Oh, I feel so selfish, like not a team player, like they have these, you know, but this really is on my mind.”

I think that, in some ways, Chris, just taking the time to think through it with these key steps or ingredients can go a long way in bringing a little bit of peace and courage so you feel like you can go there instead of just wondering and keeping silent.

Chris Fenning

Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Having a structure to help you plan a difficult conversation is so valuable. So valuable. And let’s explore the…we’ll give a slightly different example on that “Fear for my job,” and then I’m going to give a very everyday example of the start of a conversation that people have got, “Oh, yeah, I can see that in my day-to-day.”

But in this example where I’m worried about my job, “Am I going to get my bonus? Am I going to get my severance pay? Will I have a job next month?” I have a very clear goal for me. My goal is to find out whether I have a job. The problem is my boss is not telling me, so my solution is, “Go and demand from my boss.” That’s my internal version of goal problem solution.

Now I need to take a breath and think about it from their perspective and the organization’s perspective. So how can I find, how can I get what I want, get what I need, but talk about it in a way that isn’t just, “Me, me, me. I need to know my stuff. And you’re all bad and you’re the reason I can’t have it”? So, my goal is to find out, but the goal of the organization is to have a smooth transition with these two companies coming together.

My problem is I have no idea what’s going on, the company’s problem is there’s uncertainty about what’s coming next, and so the solution happens to be the same, “Can we please have a conversation and get clarity on what the time frames will be for knowing or what the announcements will be, or help me understand the process?”

So, your personal goal and problem are probably not going to be the things that come out of your mouth when you’re in a workplace situation. You need to find a way to frame them from the perspective of the organization, from the other individual, so that you can find that common ground, and it takes the conflict out, because as soon as you can find a common goal, in this example we want the organizations to merge together well, that’s a common goal. You get the other person going, “Yes, we do. I understand. We’re on the same page.”

And then you can introduce a problem that hopefully the other person will be like, “Yes, I want to help solve that problem because we’re trying to achieve that goal that benefits us all.” So, that little bit of preparation using a structure can help you find that common ground with the other person.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And you said you had one everyday example?

Chris Fenning

Yes. So, a goal problem solution for an everyday example is, “I’m trying to set up next month’s town hall meeting or our next month’s team meeting. The problem is I’m struggling to get approval from some of the individuals that are being invited. Can you help me get there, get in touch with their team leader, and get their approval?”

So, it’s a common goal, “I’m trying to get people to come up to next month’s or next week’s team meeting. The problem is I’m just not getting the feedback or interaction. So, as a solution, can I enlist your help, Mr. or Mrs. Manager, to get that interaction from the other team and get the feedback that I need?”

So, it doesn’t have to be a big topic. It’s still about finding that common ground so that the manager knows, “This is what we’re trying to achieve. Yes, I agree that’s important. This is the problem standing between us and that goal. Yes, I understand that that’s important,” and then you’re talking about the solutions. So, it can be big, it can be small, so it works in a great range of circumstances.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, now after the first minute, I’d love it, you’re big on being concise, any pro tips on keeping things succinct, concise, as you are speaking beyond the first minute?

Chris Fenning

Yes. Three points at a time and then a question. So, if you’ve made three separate points and haven’t paused for the other person to ask a question or interject or provide feedback, you’ve gone on for too much.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay.

Chris Fenning

So, that’s one. The second is plan what you’re going to say. If you get the first minute right, you’ll get to your question, you’ll deliver the most important piece of information, you’ll have summarized things so that you actually don’t need a lot of what you might expect in the conversation. You’ve already stripped out the detail, you’ve already stripped out the backstory, and if the other person doesn’t need or want it, they might just say, “Yes, okay, here’s the answer to your question,” and you’re done. So, plan for a really solid first minute, and you’ll probably find that your conversations are all a lot shorter.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, Chris, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Chris Fenning

The last piece is the validation checkpoint. If you’ve done a great first minute, and I framed it and I’ve asked if you’ve got time, “So, Pete, I want to talk to you about this thing. Do you have five minutes?” and you’ve said yes, and I’ve given a summary. Once I’ve given that summary, I just want to check, “Is this, like, are you the right person to help me with this? And can we do it now?”

Because having heard the summary, you might think, “Actually, this is a much bigger topic. I really want to give this attention. Can we schedule time later?” Or, you might say, “Actually, no, I’ve realized I don’t have the info you need,” or, “I’m not the right person,” and you can redirect me. So, validate that the person you’re talking to has the ability and the availability to talk to you at that moment.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Chris Fenning

My favorite quote comes from my dad, actually, which is, “If you want to do something, don’t talk about doing it, go and do it.”

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Any favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Chris Fenning

Yes, there’s a piece of research that blows my mind every time I hear about it. There’s an experiment about our inability to read emotions from text, and it was called “Can we communicate as well as we think?” and it’s by Kruger, Epley, Parker and Zhi, and they published in the Journal of Psychology. And they did an experiment where they sent people text messages that was sarcastic, and tried to get people to understand whether they were sarcastic, and it was 50/50.

And then they did it with their spouses, and it was still 50/50 as to whether people got the sarcasm. We just can’t interpret emotion from text. And it’s a brilliant piece of research, and it comes up so many times in things that I read and teach as well.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, Chris, thank you for that, and props for having a specific citation. Extra credit for you. Extra credit. And a favorite book?

Chris Fenning

At the moment, my favorite book is, Thinking 101 by Woo-kyung Ahn. And it’s blowing my mind about my own biases and the way that I interpret and think about things. It’s really challenging the way that I approach problems and think. It’s a very eye-opening book.

Pete Mockaitis

And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Chris Fenning

Calendly. I couldn’t do this job efficiently without Calendly. It’s product placement, but playing calendar tennis with people, “Do you have time here? What about 10 o’clock there?” and juggling time zones. Calendly makes it so easy.

Pete Mockaitis

And a favorite habit, something you do that helps you be awesome at your job?

Chris Fenning

I don’t do it as often as I like, but my favorite habit is going to bed on time. It sets up the next day, the next few days. And if I don’t do it, I really pay the price.

Pete Mockaitis

And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; you hear it quoted back to you often?

Chris Fenning

The thing that comes back most often, and this is the most highlighted phrase in the book from Kindle, so Kindle’s very nice, it shows you what people are highlighting, and 900 people have highlighted that framing should take no more than three sentences and be delivered in less than 15 seconds. Now for some reason, that is the piece that resonates with people, and I completely agree. Three sentences, 15 seconds. That’s all it takes to set up a great conversation.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Chris Fenning

My social hangout is LinkedIn. Come find me there. And my website is ChrisFenning.com.

Pete Mockaitis

And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Chris Fenning

I do. If you want to be awesome at your job and stand out, take 30 seconds to prepare for an important conversation. In fact, take 30 seconds to prepare for any work conversation. It’ll help you get clear on your message, you’ll have shorter conversations, and you’ll get the results that you want.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Chris, this has been a treat. Thank you. I wish you many fabulous conversations.

Chris Fenning

Thank you, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis

Mark, welcome.

Mark Carpenter

Thank you, Pete. Glad to be here with you.

Pete Mockaitis

I’m excited to hear your wisdom on storytelling, and I’d love it if you could start us off with one of your most surprising, fascinating discoveries you’ve made about storytelling over your whole career of working on this stuff with people.

Mark Carpenter

You know, I think one of the most surprising things that I found is all the research that’s there to support it. I got into this just because I practiced it. It was my wife who nudged me to write this book because she was saying, “You have this way of taking everyday experiences and turning them into stories that can teach lessons.”

And my first thought was, “Well, that’s just what people do.” And she said, “No, no, you do that. Not everybody does that. And you could help other people to be able to do that more intentionally.” So, as I got into the research on the book, I was a little surprised to find out the depth of research behind why storytelling works and why it’s so effective in our business settings.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, Mark, you’re already giving us lessons from a story in that when you said, “That’s just what people do,” and you had a dear, loving, trusted companion, your wife, who said, “No, that’s what you do.” I think that’s often the nature of strengths, is that they seem, “Oh, of course, it’s natural to us,” but, no, really there’s something. special there. So, look at you, already teaching a lesson with a story, Mark, right off the beginning.

Mark Carpenter

That’s what I do, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s just what everyone does, right? Well, lay it on us, what’s a particularly striking research tidbit or insight that is really strong?

Mark Carpenter

Ooh, if I can share a couple, I’d love to be able to do that. Well, one of them was some research that was done at a university, and off the top of my head now I’m losing which one it was, so I’m not going to try to cite it because I’ll probably get it wrong. But they took graduate students and they put them into three groups. And they shared with one group a bunch of data, some important information, told them it’s really important for them to remember.

They took another group, they shared that information with them, but they gave it to them with charts and graphs, too. This is what we do in business to help people remember, right? We put it in charts and graphs. And the third group, they gave them the information in the form of a story. Then they got them back together a couple of weeks later and asked how much they remembered, how accurately they remembered, and what the impact of that information was on them.

They found that the first two groups really had no statistical difference in how well they remembered or how accurately they remembered, how much they remembered, or how accurately they remembered. The third group remembered more of the information, remembered it more accurately, and the surprising thing to me was they found it more credible.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, that is surprising.

Mark Carpenter

We think when we’re putting our charts and graphs out there, and we’re giving a bunch of data to people, that’s going to build our credibility. They actually found the information more credible coming into the form of a story because they could relate to it more, it meant something to them individually. It wasn’t just a bunch of numbers or a bunch of information. They could see the relation to themselves, and that’s why they found it more credible. So, that was one of the surprising findings that I discovered in the research that we did for the book. The other one is the work of Dr. Paul Zak, who has investigated what’s going on inside people’s brains.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, oxytocin.

Mark Carpenter

Yeah, the oxytocin guy.

Pete Mockaitis

A former guest on How to be Awesome at Your Job, so he must be a good guy.

Mark Carpenter

Oh, he’s a fabulous guy. I love listening to him. I’ll take me a dose of Dr. Zak just about any time. I love listening to that man. But he discovered that there were three changes that happen inside of our brains when we hear a well-told story. The first one is an increase in oxytocin, and we get that by hearing a relatable story, a relatable situation with relatable characters.

So, you hear somebody tell a story and you think, “Oh, yeah, boy, I’ve been there. I’ve been in that kind of situation before.” We get an increase of oxytocin in our brains. The cool thing is that increases your trust. So, as people are listening to your well-told story, they trust you more because of that increase of oxytocin. Isn’t that awesome?

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I’m chuckling because I’m thinking, I don’t want to poke the bear here, but someone I know was listening to a podcaster who’s been semi-canceled, and I think potentially justifiably in terms of, “Okay, that was kind of beyond the pale.” But he told a story I totally related to, and I was like, “Well, maybe this guy is not so bad.” I was like, “Is that all it took? Is that all it took?” I was like, “Wow.” I was struck by my own reaction. And here you are saying, “Well, no, Pete, there’s biochemical stuff at work here that this is quite normal.”

Mark Carpenter

So, you’ve just given a great example of how that happens. You’ve seen it in reality. You also see it when you see somebody on the street and they’re wearing logo apparel of your alma mater, or your favorite sports team, and all of a sudden, you like that person because you can relate to them. There’s just that literal relatability that comes in. So, that’s one of the powers of storytelling.

Two other things that Dr. Zak identified. When you introduce a little bit of conflict, a little bit of risk in that story, which is what makes the story interesting, the listener has an increase of cortisol in the brain, just a little bit. And the effect of the cortisol is it makes people pay attention more. In small doses. Too much cortisol, it stresses them out. But a little bit of cortisol will make people pay more attention to what you’re saying. So, it’s no wonder people remember better when they hear things in a story, it’s because they’re paying more attention.

And then finally, when you get to a good resolution to your story, people get an increase in dopamine. That neurotransmitter that gives you that kind of, “Ahh,” feeling of satisfaction, when there’s a satisfying ending that comes to that story, that there’s a lesson learned, there’s a good resolution to that story. It’s like leveling up on the video game or checking off something on your to-do list, you get a little sense of dopamine. And that’s what connects people into stories. We all know we like stories, but Dr. Zak’s research shows why, what’s going on with us chemically that really makes stories attractive to us.

Pete Mockaitis

That is so good. That is so good, and intriguing in terms of the credibility piece, specifically. Well, tell us then, when it comes to professionals, I think they’d say, “Well, yes, stories are fun, Mark. I’d like to hear more. I’d like to be able to tell more. But really, how much of an impact is that going to make for my career? And how do I pull it off?”

Mark Carpenter

Well, our book’s subtitle is “How to Turn Your Experiences into Stories that Teach, Lead, and Inspire.” So, if you’re in a position where you need to teach, lead, and inspire – and if I had to do it all over again, I would add “sell” in there as well – teach, lead, sell, and inspire, then storytelling can be effective for you, and we’re not talking about creating fables. There’s great business books out there that are business fables, but that’s not the kind of storytelling we’re talking about.

We’re talking about taking your real-life experience and being able to turn them into stories that people can relate to, that they can learn something from, that will inspire some action, that will lead to some change. So, those are the kind of stories that we’re talking about, specifically, in our book Master Storytelling.

So, if you have a position where you need to do those things – and, by the way who doesn’t? – then storytelling can be of great impact to you. Think of it this way, I’m going to go kind of a baseline for everybody that’s in business that’s had to go through this: the job interview. You prep for that job interview, and you get in your mind what questions they’re going to ask, and you get your straight answers, and how you’re going to deliver those answers. But I pretty much guarantee your answers are going to be almost exactly the same as the person who was interviewed right before you.

Unless you answer the question in the form of, “Let me share a story about an experience that I had that illustrates that.” When they ask you about, “So, what do you feel like is your greatest strength?” Oh, we all want to say things like, “Well, I’m a really hard worker.'” But what if you said, “Well, one of the things that I’ve been praised for by other people is the level of attention to detail that I get. For example…” and then share an experience where you gave a high level of detail to something and were praised for. Your interviewer will remember that better than the person who says, “Oh, I’m really detail-oriented. I’m really good at getting to the details and solving problems.”

Pete Mockaitis

Mark, I love that. And, in some ways, storytelling sounds so lofty. We think of Stephen King just banging away at a typewriter. I’m sure he uses a word processor now. But, like the heroic novelist going through draft after draft, and throwing them into the wastebasket; or Hollywood; or I’m thinking about like “The Moth,” or epic keynoters on the TED stage. But what you did there was so easy. You made a statement, and you said, “For example…” and boom, and you go right into story. In some ways, the word example feels a little bit less lofty and intimidating than story. Like, yeah, but that’s the same thing.

Mark Carpenter

Yeah, absolutely. And we’re pretty practiced at telling stories. We come home from a busy day, and family or friends say, “Hey, how was your day?” And we tell them kind of the story of the day. But in that situation, we’re really just relating the experience. But if I need to teach a lesson from that, I’m going to be more intentional about the parts that I leave out, the parts that I leave in, and make sure I get to the point at the end of that situation or that story.

And so, we’re not looking at those epic novels or epic tales. We’re looking at those day-to-day things that people can relate to that will help them remember a point that you’re trying to make, and really lead to some action.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, now this is maybe the most meta question ever, Mark. We’re talking about storytelling. Can you tell us a story of someone who improved their storytelling skills and saw really cool benefits to their career as a result?

Mark Carpenter

Yeah, I’ll give you an example of an organization I worked with just last year. They had an annual event where they would bring people in from each of the different divisions to present to the leadership team about what their part of the organization was doing to drive forward the mission of the organization. And what they found was a lot of people were standing up and saying, “Our organization is doing these wonderful things,” and they try to give some numbers behind it, and give some kind of lofty words to it.

And the person who was organizing that said, “I really want people to start telling a story, to give an illustration.” And so. they selected people who had an example of something that happened, a specific event that happened within their organization. And I took them through my workshop and coached them on telling that story. And she said, “That event was totally different this year than all the other years.”

Most of the time, the leadership team is sitting there, kind of leaning back in their chairs, a little bit of a bored expression on their face. This time they were leaning in. And what they found was they were taking these words on the wall that were the mission statement, and actually turning them into behaviors in the hall that people could see, and relate to, and understand, and it really drove a lot of energy in the company around their mission, vision, and values.

Pete Mockaitis

I think that is a fine instance because mission, vision, values can really get fluffy, like, “What do we even mean by that?” It’s like, “No, here’s what we mean by exceptional customer service. Get a load of this. Someone bought some shoes, but their dog died, and so we looked them up on Instagram, and drew a picture.”

I think this was a real Zappos story, “And we drew a picture of their dog and them wearing their shoes, and we said, ‘Hey, hope you have fond memories of Fido,’” or whatever. And it was like, “Oh! That’s what you mean by exceptional customer service, and not just listening, and saying, ‘Oh, I understand you’re frustrated, sir. Gotcha.’ Now, it’s more clear and memorable.” I’m remembering this from years ago, see?

Mark Carpenter

There you go. See how sticky stories are? And I love what you said, because it does. It takes the mission, vision, and values from words on the wall to behaviors in the hall, “This is what it sounds like, but this is what it looks like.”

Pete Mockaitis

That’s good. Well, so tell us, fundamentally, what makes a story good versus disappointing?

Mark Carpenter

And so, I’ll start with the research that Dr. Zak and what he’s talked about. Because if you think of those three chemical reactions that we have in our brains, we need to tap into those. So, how do you tap into the oxytocin? You create an experience that people can relate to, with people they can relate to, and a situation or a problem they can relate to.

So, what’s their worthwhile goal? What are they trying to accomplish? And you set this up in the beginning of sharing your experience, “Here’s where we were. Here’s where we were trying to get,” and people can make the connection to, “Oh yeah, I’ve been in that similar situation.” Then you need to introduce some conflict, something has to get in the way of that goal or the story is pretty boring. It doesn’t have much energy to it.

So, what is it that gets in the way of accomplishing that goal? We call this the conflict. And so, that conflict comes in, and that’s what makes people pay attention because they’re going, “What’s going to happen? How are we going to get to the end of this?” And then the third part is what we call the change, “What happens to bring resolution to that?”

Or, “What happened that it didn’t resolve right, but we learned something from that that we can change going forward? Where was the mistake that we made that we can learn from in the future?” because that’s going to bring in the dopamine as well and help people walk away with, “Yeah, I want to make sure that I do the right thing so that I don’t have that same problem that Mark ended up with in the experience that he shared.”

Pete Mockaitis

Mark, I love this so much. I love just making it simple, simple, simple. So, when it comes to good stories I’ve heard about, “Oh, Joseph Campbell, ‘The Hero’s Journey,’” like that’s a lot of steps. And then we got, “Well, Dan Harmon’s got an eight-part story circle model.” And I’ve done that with my five- and six-year-olds. It’s kind of fun. But eight is still a lot of steps. But, Mark, you said we got three. All right, set the scene.

Mark Carpenter

That’s what we’ve narrowed it for that very reason. You’re telling a story the last two to three minutes. It’s hard to fit eight steps into two to three minutes.

Pete Mockaitis

Totally.

Mark Carpenter

Nothing wrong with that eight-step process, but for the purposes of the types of stories that I’m talking about, we needed something really simple.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. So, step one, we set the scene with relatable people, relatable situation, relatable problem. Step two, we’ve got a conflict, something that gets in the way of what we’re after. And step three, we have a change, either because of like an insight and victory, or, “Oh, Oopsie Daisy,” a disappointing failure, and then learning that comes from that.

So, Mark, I’d love it if you could just give us maybe several examples of, we’ve got a business situation, and I might tell the tale with slides and charts and data, but you instead give us our three-step stories that get the job done better. No pressure. Go!

Mark Carpenter

No pressure. Just come up with it right out of the blue here.

Mark Carpenter

Which story do I want to go with? Yeah, I’ll go with one that I’ve been telling recently, and it’s actually not one of my stories. It’s actually a friend of mine. So, here’s another tip that I can throw to your listeners. The stories don’t always have to be yours. You can borrow from other people, and just think of how you’re crafting that story. And then acknowledge it, that it comes from another person.

So, I’ve been talking a lot about the importance of leading with greater humanity. I call it leading like a person, not like a position. And a friend of mine was telling me about a leader that he had. He actually left the company because the leadership was very much in the command-and-control mode, and would fire people on the spot very publicly. He left that company, went over to another company that was actually a competitor. And he had an opportunity three months into this position to introduce the CEO at a big partners conference.

So, they had hundreds of their best partners in the room. He was giving the introduction to the CEO. He’d prepped it, he’d memorized it, he’d worked with the CEO and the details for it. He was feeling really good about it, feeling like this is an opportunity to be seen and to show his value to this new company. He gets through the introduction, and just as he’s introducing the CEO, he says, “Please welcome the CEO of…” and he says the name of his last company.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, yay.

Mark Carpenter

All right. You’re feeling the pain right there?

Pete Mockaitis

It’s so relatable, Mark.

Mark Carpenter

You just came into the story, right? And hundreds of partners go, “Boo!” And he realized what he’d done, and he’s humiliated. Now, he recovered from it quickly by saying, “Of course, we know he wouldn’t work for that company. He’s the CEO of…” and he said the name of the right company, introduced the CEO, the CEO walks on stage, he shakes his hand, and then he walks off.

But as he was walking off, everyone is kind of avoiding him, and he’s thinking, because of the experience that he had at his previous company, “This is it. This is the end for me. I’m going to get fired as soon as the CEO is done speaking.” He found a quiet place away from other people, and started thinking about his next career moves as the CEO is giving this hour-long speech.

The CEO comes off the stage and, very intentionally, starts looking around until he finds my friend Nick. And he walks right to him, and he’s thinking, “Here it comes. Here it comes.” And the CEO puts his arms around him, whispers in his ear, “Don’t worry about it. We’ve all done it. We’ve all made these kinds of mistakes. You’re fine. It’s okay.”

That’s what I call leading like a person. And we all love to have leaders like that, because we will go to bat for leaders like that. So, if you want people to really give their best, that’s the kind of leader you want to be.

Pete Mockaitis

Beautifully done, Mark. So, here we have the situation, I can relate, “Hey, I want to make a great impression. I have an opportunity, that’s really cool. And then, oopsies, made a mistake, feel really bad about it. Uh-oh, what’s going to happen?” And then humanity on full display, and we feel good, and it’s like, “Oh, yeah, I like that.” And it’s like, “I, too, would like to be that kind of a leader, Mark.” Go on. There we are.

Mark Carpenter

Yep. And good job picking up those three phases that are right in there. Once you know them, they’re actually fairly obvious within the story structure. But it just makes it, as we’re talking about, an easy way to organize your thoughts so that you can make it concise. I’ll add to that that the important thing to keep in mind is “What is the lesson I’m trying to teach here? Well, what is my end goal?” because that will help you edit out extraneous information that happened within the experience.

You sometimes hear people make that mistake where they’re telling a story. They want to give every single detail in it, and you’re thinking, “Why is that relevant?” or, “Where’s that going?” And I refer to it as “They don’t land the plane there. They’re just flying around their story and they’re not getting to the point.” So, you have to know what runway you’re landing on, and that will help you get to the point more efficiently.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Thank you. Well, maybe let’s do just that, and say we’re trying to make a point to an executive, a leader, or an organization that something’s got to change. And I’ll try to get more specific, Mark, so that you can really work with this, “Something needs to change and we need to invest significantly in an innovation, a new product, service, offering, or we’re going to be in trouble. And we can’t just keep being all comfy cozy and expect that recurring revenue we’ve thought was great to continue forever if we just continue living in isolation and not creating new cool stuff.”

So, that’s the impact I’m trying to get, is folks can be, like, “Wake up. Take action. We got to do something and stop just living the status quo. There seems to be some foot-dragging and some comfort and risk aversion.” So, that’s a transformation I want. How could I make a story to help me do this, Mark?

Mark Carpenter

Well, there’s a couple of different ways that you can approach that. Number one, look at another organization that didn’t take those steps and has now failed. I could easily tell the story of Blockbuster Video. That’s a very well-known story that shows that they were a, “Nope, we are kingpins. We are cruising. We are just fine. You Netflix people are never going to make it.”

And I would get into some of the details of that. And where’s Blockbuster now? Because they weren’t willing to innovate and they looked at streaming as a “Eh, that’s a fad. That’s never going to going to fly. People want to come to a store and get their DVDs to go home and watch them.” Yeah, I think it’s a classic example of people not innovating.

If you can find one within your organization, if you can find a situation where “We lost this customer because we didn’t have this level of innovation, we didn’t have this direction of going forward.” As you were talking about that, I was even thinking of a very specific example years ago that I faced where there was a company that had just laid off a third of their workplace. And we talked to them about why, and they said, “Because no one’s willing to tell the CEO that he doesn’t have good innovative ideas.”

I was like, “What do you mean? What happens?” He’s “Well, the CEO comes in and says, ‘Hey, I’ve got this great idea. Here’s what I think we should do.’” He presents the idea, and everybody’s thinking, “That’s never going to work, but we really like this guy, so we can’t tell him no, and so we’re going to just try to make it work.”

And it keeps them from innovating on new products, and so their revenue keeps going down, and they ended up just laying off a third of their workplace because they weren’t able to have the tough conversations, basically tell the emperor that he has no clothes, and that the idea is not going to work. They need to expand into new areas. And it ended up putting that company at risk, and they eventually did go out of business. I wasn’t as invested with them when they went out of business so I’m not sure exactly what happened there, but I know that created struggles for them to just keep up with the market.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, so this is really good. And it’s true, you know, as opposed to a fable. So, Mark, help us out in terms of when we think, “Okay, there’s a transformation that we’re going for. We think a story would be cool. We understand the three steps. But, huh, I need some source material.” How do you recommend we do the research, the scouting, the finding of the potential story, subject matter, to start working on?

Mark Carpenter

That’s a great question that I get all the time. And the question that I usually get is, “Well, nothing ever happens in my life. I don’t have any stories that I can tell.” And I usually say, “Well, you’re just not looking for them.” Pay attention. The stories are there. Do some research. Look at other companies. The internet is such a great resource for some of those things. Ask other people.

As we were writing the book, in fact, I included this in the book, a friend of mine shared an experience where he was looking for an illustration of a specific point. And the point that he was trying to make was, “Where has a well-intentioned action backfired on somebody?” And he was looking for examples, looking for examples, couldn’t find anything. Over dinner he mentioned it to his wife and she said, “Oh, I’ve got an example,” and she just had a perfect example for him to share. Ask other people. Open yourself up to those things.

I had an interesting situation where I was in a trainer certification. I was leading this trainer certification, and one of the activities that each participant had to do was to deliver a portion of the content, and include a story to illustrate the point that they were trying to make. This one participant said, “Well, can I just make them up?” And I said, “No, I want this to be a real experience,” and it scared her to death. She was like, “I don’t know where I’m going to come up with a real experience. Usually when I tell stories, I just make them up.” And somebody else in the room said, “I’m not sure how credible that would be.”

So, we talked about looking for your examples. Look for those moments where you have an emotional reaction to something. There’s a lesson embedded in there, and capture those, hold on to them. You may not need it now, but you will in the future. The funny thing is about this one participant in this trainer certification, she came back the next day, told a great story of something that had happened to her the night before on the elevator in the hotel where we were holding this conference.

And because she was looking for it, after that experience happened, she realized, “That’s my story. That illustrates the point that I’m trying to make,” but if she hadn’t been looking for it, she wouldn’t have noticed it. If you’re looking for it, it’s almost like the universe sends you the examples that you need, because these lessons just exist in our day-to-day lives.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s really cool. Think about the strong emotional reactions. And I’m thinking the same way you get ideas for anything is you just sort of like strike it with a stimulus and see what you got. So, I’ve been doing a little bit of journaling and thinking about the timelines and different phases of life, and, “What was I really into when I was 10 versus 16?”

And I think that could maybe spark some things in terms of shaking off the myopia associated with the here and now and the day-to-day of what’s up. And then when you go external, stories about businesses or whatever outside, I was impressed. You know, boy, there’s a lot of talk of AI and ChatGPT and whatever, and I’ve had really mixed results with this stuff in terms of, like, what it’s good at, what it’s not.

But one thing that it’s been very good, I think, is, first I asked for quantity, because I was like, “Give me 10 examples of people who had a transformation in their speaking ability, what they did, and the impact it made.” And it was really cool, it told me stuff like, “Oh, Warren Buffett took a Dale Carnegie course, and he thought it was so transformational that he says it’s the only degree, diploma, certificate, he has hanging in his office was from his Dale Carnegie course.” It’s like, “Okay, this is a little on the nose, ChatGPT. Is this even real?”

And so, I looked it up, and, sure enough, it was. And I was like, “Huh, I had no idea,” and that’s a great one. And even if when AI fails me, which it does more often than not, it just trying, helps spark fresh ideas for me. It’s like, “No, that’s no good, but you reminded me of something. Thank you,” and then it served its purpose.

Mark Carpenter

Exactly. And I’m glad you said that you validated that story before you used it.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, yeah.

Mark Carpenter

Yeah, you use AI as a way to generate ideas, to generate possibilities. The problem is sometimes that’s what AI is doing. They’re generating possibilities. So, they may come back with a story that is a, “Well, this could be true.” So, make sure you, before you use anything that AI generates for you, that you validate that it actually is true, that it actually did happen. I have heard that story about Warren Buffett, so I was thinking that it was true. But sometimes it’ll generate things, examples for you, that could be true.

Pete Mockaitis

Yes, exactly.

Mark Carpenter

Not necessarily true.

Pete Mockaitis

It reminds me when people tell me a story about myself in the past that I don’t actually remember, and I say, “I don’t remember that happening, but it does kind of sound like me, and I don’t think you’re lying, so I’ll just assume that that, in fact, is what happened.” But with AI, it could sometimes just totally fabricate things. So, certainly, do your research and confirm it.

Next, I want to get your take on, in the process of preparing our stories, to what extent do we want to write out, record, transcribe, rehearse? Like, what does prep look like? And can you do too much such that it’s unnatural and less effective? How do you think about story prep?

Mark Carpenter

It’s different for different people. Some people love to just write out their story word for word, and then practice it until it’s natural, and it comes in a flow to them. Other people, bullet points are fine. However, for everyone, practice is essential. It is essential to practice it, to get those words out of your mouth, to formulate them in a way that sounds natural, that sounds normal, and that makes the connections that you want to make.

We have great tools to help us with that. You have friends. Practice it in front of friends. Tell the story to somebody else and see how it lands with them. Take out your phone. Turn on that selfie mode and record yourself and listen back to it. You will pick up a lot that way in terms of, “Ooh, that phrase didn’t work like I thought it was going to. That sounded a lot better in my head than it did coming out of my mouth.” So, practice it so that it does become natural.

To your point, yes, you can over-rehearse it to where it sounds like I’m just dictating to you from a piece of paper instead of actually having the emotion that comes with the story. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine was asking me to coach him a little bit on a presentation that he was going to give, and the advice that he was given was, “You need to memorize this word-for-word.”

And it was really interesting listening to him because I know this person well, that I found it unnatural, and there were times where he’d get to a sentence and he’d go “Uh, uh, uh” and you could tell he was searching for the exact word. But if it’s your experience and it’s your story, and you’re comfortable sharing it with that structure, that three-part structure that I talked about, it will come out much more natural than if you’re memorizing the words, and it’s much more relatable that way as well.

Pete Mockaitis

And when it comes to word choice, any pro tips? I don’t know if there’s any favorite words or phrases or things to avoid. I guess I find, I guess, reading words or copy, in general, I find buzzwords really challenging and unpleasant and a turn-off, like, “You’re looking for a way to leverage omni channel support to increase the ROI of dah, dah, dah.” It’s like, “This is not working for me. Maybe it’s written for somebody else who’s like, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m looking for!’” But how do you think about words to use and words to lose?

Mark Carpenter

Use the words that are natural for you. That’s the biggest advice that I can give you there. If you’re putting in buzzwords, you’re likely using words that you would not normally use, and that will come across. You’ll lose your authenticity when you do that, so use the words that are natural for you. Now, also be careful about inclusive language. Don’t use words that are going to turn people off.

A friend of mine was giving a presentation to a group of Microsoft employees, and made some comment in the middle of a story about, “So, I Googled it.” That’s not what you want to say to people who work at Microsoft. If instead she had said, “I did an internet search,” and not used the G-word to the Microsoft employees, it wouldn’t have been as bad, but she just got a really negative reaction. People went, “Oh,” just right out loud, and she didn’t realize what she’d done initially until she replayed it and went, “Oh, yeah, that’s not the word I should have used here.”

So that’s the caution that I give around word choice is know who your audience is and what’s going to relate to them, but as much as possible, use your own natural language. That will increase the authenticity. It will increase the connection you get from the people you’re talking to.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, Mark, tell me any final do’s and don’ts you want to share about storytelling?

Mark Carpenter

I think the biggest do, be intentional. Just be intentional about why you’re telling the story. Don’t tell stories just to tell stories. We know they’re fun, and there is a time and a place to just tell stories to tell stories. But when you’re using a story to teach, lead, sell, and inspire, be intentional about what you’re trying to get to. What is the point that you’re trying to make? And the more intentional you can be, the better your stories are going to land, and the more it’s going to create a positive impact for you and the goals that you’re trying to achieve.

Pete Mockaitis

Lovely. All right. Well, Mark, now can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Mark Carpenter

There is one that I’ve leaned on a lot when times get tough. We always get into rush times. One of my college professors, a great person named Ray Beckham, he gave us this advice as we were graduating. He said, “When you get into rush situations, when you get in emergency situations, remember these words, ‘Hurry, but don’t panic.'” That’s one of my favorite quotes, “Hurry, but don’t panic.”

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Mark Carpenter

This is one that changes over time, too, because I read a lot. And so, it’s usually my favorite most recent book. I love the book that I’ve just read. It’s called How to Listen by Oscar Trimboli.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, Oscar, yeah, on the show.

Mark Carpenter

You had Oscar on your podcast?

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah.

Mark Carpenter

Love Oscar Trimboli, too. I think he’s a great thought leader, and he wrote a marvelous book about how to be more intentional about listening to other people.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Mark Carpenter

This is going to sound almost too light, but I love the Notes app on my phone. I use that to capture those moments when I have an emotional reaction to an experience. I say, “There’s a story there.” I just have a little folder in there that says Stories for Someday, and I just love to just capture that in there with a quick note that someday I’ll come back to when I’m looking for a story, and I’ll find an experience there that I can use.

Pete Mockaitis

And a favorite habit?

Mark Carpenter

I think it’s just intentionally being grateful for something every day, and just acknowledging what I’m grateful for, it really helps me to have a better day.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Mark Carpenter

It’s one that I shared a little bit earlier, that storytelling helps move your mission, vision, and values from words on the wall to behaviors in the hall, so that people can see what you mean by those mission, vision, and value statements.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And, Mark, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Mark Carpenter

Start with our website Master-Storytelling.com. So, you have to have a little dash between master and storytelling. That’s a great place. We’ve got some free resources there. We’ve got a little document called the Story Catcher that helps you to be more intentional about capturing those events in your life and turning them into stories that will teach, lead, sell, and inspire. So, I’d love to have people come out and get that free resource and connect with me. You can also find me on LinkedIn. Look for Mark Carpenter in Sandy, Utah, and you’ll find me. You’ll see a copy of the Master Storytelling book cover behind me.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Mark Carpenter

Tell your stories. We’ve all got them. And so, be intentional about looking for those experiences that you can turn into stories that teach, lead, sell, and inspire. And look for opportunities to use those to accomplish your goals.

Pete Mockaitis

All right, Mark, this has been tons of fun. I wish you many lovely stories.

Mark Carpenter

Thanks so much. Appreciate the time, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis

Nick, welcome.

Nick Desbarats

Thanks. I’m really delighted to be here. To be honest, I’ve been listening to the show, and it’s kind of an honor to be here. It’s a fantastic show. I’ve really been enjoying it.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, thank you. Well, I’m honored to be chatting with you. I’ve been loving your book, Practical Charts. First, I just want to ask, you’re a very sharp guy, and I want to know. Of all the places you could be investing your energies to enrich the world, why have you decided to go deep on charts?

Nick Desbarats

That’s a good question. My career path, can be summarized as circuitous, as in very indirect. I started out in software, and as a software developer, I got kind of bored of that, and then kind of moved around software organizations for a bit, doing some sales, marketing, that kind of thing, product management, product design.

And in my 30s, I kind of stumbled on to a lot of research around from the field of psychology, Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, cognitive biases, psychology perception. I was just smitten. I just inhaled that information, which I figured was kind of a sideline interest to my kind of real job. But then I went to a workshop, a data visualization workshop from Stephen Few, who’s one of the big gurus in this field in 2013, and it’s just mind-blowing. It really just opened up a whole new kind of field for me that I really wasn’t aware of, and that combined my two major interests, which were basically psychology and data.

Because, as I think it will come out probably in our discussion, there’s a lot of psychology when it comes to designing charts. And so, I just went whole hog into that and I, actually, started teaching these workshops in 2014, and it was a huge privilege, and I did that for a number of years. Steve then retired in 2019, and then I used that as kind of an excuse to start developing my own courses and workshops. And I’m still extremely interested. I have not gotten bored yet, that’s for sure.

Pete Mockaitis

All right, Nick. So, I get the memo that you absolutely love this stuff deeply and dork out over it, as do I. Tell us, what’s really at stake for the professional in terms of whether they become Master Jedi-level with their charts versus can fumble their way through PowerPoint just fine like the rest of us?

Nick Desbarats

Well, I’m not sure I would agree with that last part of your sentence, fumble through PowerPoint and sort of be okay just like the rest of us. I think, to be honest, if you haven’t had some formal training, basically, in this kind of thing, then you’re probably hitting a lot of problems and a lot of which you might not even be aware of. You might be leaving your audience, for example, with an incorrect understanding of the data, or they’re confused but they won’t say anything because they don’t want to look stupid.

Or the problems could be more obvious. They might actually be complaining about your charts, and saying, “This is just unnecessarily complicated,” or, “I don’t get it,” or, “What’s the point of this chart?” I like to compare it to sex and sales because these are two other things that people think you are kind of born knowing how to do, it’s like, “Well, what’s the big deal? Creating charts, how hard can it be? Select the data in Excel, and hit Make a chart, and Bob’s your uncle. There’s your chart.”

But like both of those other things, if you haven’t actually kind of learned the basics of how to do it, you’re probably not doing it very well. We’ve all had bad experiences with bad salespeople, for example, and it’s just because they just didn’t know how to sell very well. And it’s kind of the same thing with charts. There’s more to it than I think most people realize.

In fact, I kind of think of data visualization, i.e., kind of the process, or the expertise of making charts, as kind of almost like its own language, and until you’ve learned the basic kind of spelling and vocabulary of that language, you’re probably not communicating very well, whether you realize it or not. And so, many of the charts that I see are full of these kinds of basic, what I call, kind of spelling and vocabulary problems with charts, which are things like poor chart type choices, scales that are too wide or too narrow, poor color choices, and just a whole host of other problems.

And so, reading a chart like that from the audiences’ perspective is kind of like reading a poorly written document, a document that’s full of spelling errors, and grammatical mistakes, and weird word choices. And so, it’s going to be really hard for them to read it, which means they, oftentimes, are just going to skip it, they’re not going to read it. Or, if they do, they could be very confused by it, or, worse of all, come away with an incorrect understanding of the data.

And this is something that happens a lot more often than people tend to realize. And we’ve all seen charts that deliberately misrepresent data, but what a lot of people don’t realize is that this also happens accidentally way more often than people realize. And so, if you had some training in the sort of spelling and vocabulary of data visualization, you’re going to avoid all these problems, and then you’re going to create charts that are just way easier and quicker to read and understand, and, ultimately, way more likely to sort of accomplish whatever purpose prompted you to create a chart in the first place.

We don’t create charts for no reason. There’s always a reason. We’re trying to explain something to somebody, we’re trying to persuade them to do something, or make them aware of something, and all of those things are much more likely when the basic kind of spelling and vocabulary of your chart is competent, is done well, just like a document that’s written well.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, well said, Nick. Okay. So, if you don’t have some formal training in charts, and you think you’re doing fine, you may very well be accidentally misleading people, and they could be murmuring behind your back about how bad your charts suck. Or, even then, maybe if the people you’re presenting…

Nick Desbarats

Or, to your face.

Pete Mockaitis

Or, to your face. I guess, even if the people you’re presenting your charts to are not as sophisticated and able to discern what’s jacked up about your charts, I think I like that analogy to writing is it’s sort of like they might just meet your data with a shrug, like, “Yeah, okay.” Sort of like a piece of writing can be riveting like a page-turning novel, like, “Oh, my gosh, what’s going to happen next?”

Or, just like, “Okay, I guess,” and you’re just sort of tuned out, so it’s like folks aren’t even able to receive what can really be, and I guess I’m a bit of a dork here, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say, if you understand the story some chart sequences are telling you, they can be heart-thumpingly thrilling. I mean that in all sincerity.

Nick Desbarats

Hey, man, yeah. You’re in my tribe.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And so, if you’re thinking, “Yeah, Pete, I’ve never seen one like that,” I’m thinking about some of the folks who I think do it amazingly well that are available for view might be Andreessen Horowitz at A16Z. They’ve got a number of slide presentations that were on SlideShare and still, I believe, publicly available, which really do, they take you through a story, and you’re like, “Oh, wow, so that’s what’s going on with whatever tech sector, or investment, or whatever. And I really feel like I’ve read a novel, except in the artform that is a sequence of charts.”

Nick Desbarats

Yeah. Well, I mean, data storytelling is a big buzz term right now. Like, over the last few years, it’s just really taken off. And I think it deservedly so. I think, though, what has gotten maybe less attention but is still really important is, like I said, that sort of basic spelling and vocabulary, because a lot of what I see is sort of data stories are kind of torpedoed because of really basic chart design problems.

Because, oftentimes, a data story essentially consists of a series of charts, just like you were describing, but the chart types are wrong, the scales are too wide, the colors are weird, the labeling isn’t precise enough, and so users don’t actually even understand what the numbers in the chart represent correctly. They’re just having to think too hard, having to read a 45-degree or a vertical text, and so the way I sort of look at it is, yeah, storytelling is great, and it is a skill that I think a lot of people should be developing but before you do that, learn the basic language first.

You can’t tell great stories, you can’t write great essays or great novels if you can’t spell. And I think that there’s a lot more awareness of that now than there was, like there is a spelling and vocabulary to this. And if you haven’t really mastered that, then your stories are going to flop. You’ve got to kind of walk before you can run, essentially.

And, unfortunately, a lot of people, well, a lot of people do realize that, but lots of people don’t. And so, they’ll jump straight into courses or books about storytelling and data storytelling without having really mastered the basics first, and then they wonder why their data stories aren’t working.

Pete Mockaitis

Beautiful. I want to hear, and so we talked about these basic fundamentals, and I think you did such a fine job of coming up with the nuanced distinctions in your book, Practical Charts. And starting from the very beginning, I think you say we even start with the wrong question, which is, “Okay, I got a bunch of data,” and you think, “Okay, what’s the best chart type.” And you say, “Hold up. That is not the ideal first question.” Set us straight, Nick, what should we be asking ourselves?

Nick Desbarats

Well, you’re right, of course. Typically, when we sit down to create a new chart, we ask ourselves, “What is the best way to visualize this data?” And I think when you’re sort of maybe starting out, that is the question that people often have, but I think once you start to develop more experience, more expertise, you start to realize that, “Actually, the question I should be asking is, ‘Do I know why I’m creating this chart? Is there a problem that I’m trying to make the audience aware of? Am I trying to persuade them to do something? And if so, what is that thing? Am I just trying to explain something to them? And if so, what is that?’”

Because, until you’ve figured that out, you can’t really make any design choices. You can’t really choose chart types. It’s even hard to know even what data you should even be showing? Should you be showing the last six months of data or the last 12 months of data? All of these things depend on what I call the job – the job of the chart.

And so, really, I think that’s one of the things that I try to accomplish in the book, and also in the Practical Charts Course that I teach, is by the end of the book, you should be thinking of charts as graphics for doing a job, and not visual representations of data. Because if you think of charts just as visual representations of data, well, then even really bad charts would be fine because they are visual representations of data, but only good charts do their job. And so, you want to aim for a chart that does its job.

And so, at the end of the day, ultimately, that’s all that matters. People tend to get hung up on this sort of secondary characteristics, like how precisely people can estimate the values in a chart, or how fast they can read it, or how much information they can recall when the chart is hidden from view. I mean, they’re important but they’re not the thing that, ultimately, matters. What, ultimately, matters is, “Did the chart actually do whatever thing you wanted it to do? Did it do the job that prompted you to create that chart in the first place?”

And it might sound a little obvious but it requires a huge mental shift, and I can see it happening during my course just by the way that I’m teaching it in person. It lasts two full days, and it takes about that long to really fully make that leap to that sort of new way of thinking.

Pete Mockaitis

So, charts are graphics for doing a job and not mere visualizations of data. And so, I think when it comes to jobs, maybe you could lay out the menu for us. Because I think, sometimes, I find that the job is, “Okay, we’re being persuasive. We are trying to make a sales pitch, and the goal is that, whatever graphics we’re including will make the point that we are really awesome,” or, “This market opportunity is a big deal, so okay.”

But I think other times, in the course of day in, day out working with colleagues, they might say something like, “Hey, Nick, how about you put together a presentation to give us an update on where we stand?” So, it feels kind of vague or generic or broad or general, just like, “Show us what’s the state of things right now, or over the last month.” And so then, how do you think about choosing charts for that kind of a job?

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, you’re right. There tends to be a lot of focus when you look at different books and courses on data visualization, articles. They tend to kind of assume that we’re always trying to persuade people or something. But you’re right, you’re absolutely right. That’s not always the case. In fact, very often. We’re just trying to explain something to somebody, make them aware of some interesting trend, for example.

And so, yeah, and I try and sort of address that in the book and in the course as well to say it’s important to understand that these charts can have a very wide variety of different kinds of jobs. And, in fact, sometimes we’re creating charts just for ourselves, like charts that no one is ever going to see. We’re just using the chart for analysis. We’re using it to discover new insights and patterns in the data. And that is just a completely different use case than something where you’re abusing storytelling, for example.

And so, one of the things that I find is a little bit sort of, maybe even a little frustrating, is that people think that, “Oh, every chart has to tell a story. Everything is a data story.” It’s like, “No, some things are data stories but not everything.” We’re not always trying to persuade people to do something. Sometimes we are but sometimes we’re not.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay.

Nick Desbarats

And, by the way, sometimes when we get those kinds of requests that you were talking about in terms of, like, oftentimes, we’re just not even asked for an update; we’re just asked for data, where, “I need to see a breakdown of expenses by department for the last 12 months.” And those are actually very tough situations because the obvious next question that I think you should be asking is, “Well, why? Like, are you worried that there are certain departments that are spending too much? Or, do you want to see how they compare to their budgets?” There could be all sorts of ways to respond to that request.

And, unfortunately, a fair amount of the time, if we try and get that information, we can’t, it’s like, “Well, it was the CEO who asked, and they’re really busy, and so just give me a chart.” And it’s like, “Oh, crap, now I’m in a position where I have to try and create a chart, and I don’t know why I’m creating it.” And so, I have a whole section in the book about how to deal with this, and I have a technique that I call  spray and pray, where you, essentially, create multiple views of the data, and you make some guesses about what question they might have in mind, or what they might be wanting to know, and you build different visuals for those three, sometimes even four, different potentials reasons why they’ve might asked you for that information. And you hope that one of them is going to hit.

Pete Mockaitis

Nick, I think that’s so great, is that often it’s just a clarifying question away in terms of, “I want a status update of how things went over last month.” And if you ask a couple follow-up questions for clarification, it can be quite illuminating, it’s like, “Yes, I’m looking for cost savings opportunities within our operation.” “Oh, okay. Well, then I’m going to think about things differently,” versus “I want to see what looks weird, or different, or off, or broken so that I can allocate my energies to preventing a problem before it gets worse.”

Or, “I want to see what might be some of the most compelling opportunities that we need to go after in the subsequent months.” Any of those very different directions could spring forth from a, “Hey, just give me an update.”

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, exactly. And so, we’re lucky in those situations where we can actually ask those follow-up questions and get that follow-up information. And the first step, of course, realizing that you need that information in order to design your charts in the first place. But there are times when we ask and we don’t get answers, it’s like, “No, just give me an update,” or, “Give me expenses for the departments, and don’t ask me any more questions.”

And so, I think it’s important to know how to address both of those, but, really, the key thing that I think is, the step that people miss, is that step of figuring out, “Okay, why am I creating this chart in first place?” And that’s a crucial step. Because if you don’t know, if you don’t have some kind of insight that you’re trying to communicate, or some kind of question that you’re trying to answer, most of your chart design choices will be random, and your chart will end up communicating random insights, which is not helpful.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, I’m going to get into some very particulars, but before I do that, I’d love to get some general principles in terms of what are perhaps your top tips, or principles, or mistakes you observed as folks are trying to do this kind of thing?

Nick Desbarats

One misconception that I see a lot, especially amongst people who have more experience, who have more expertise, is that they believe that creating a chart or getting good at data visualization is just something that sort of requires experience, and trial and error, and intuition that’s developed over a long kind of period of time. And that’s what I believed for a long time as well.

But what I realized through teaching Steve’s courses, and now my own courses, is that it’s actually possible to distill a lot of these guidelines into surprisingly precise guidelines that don’t necessarily rely on having years of experience. And so, that was sort of the impetus, really, for me creating my course, and then the book that went along with it, is I was a little bit frustrated by the fact that people said, “Well, if you’re showing the breakdown of a total, sometimes it makes sense to use a pie chart, and other times a bar chart, and other times a stacked bar chart. Use your judgment. Do what feels right.”

And I was like, “Hold on a second. No, actually, these chart types are not interchangeable. There are specific circumstances under which it makes sense to use one or the other.” And so, really, that’s kind of, I think, a bit of a different approach that I brought to the field, and it is kind of, in some cases, it’s a bit controversial to say, “I think that we can actually sort of codify or formulate a lot of these guidelines in ways that can be applied by people who have even very little chart design experience.”

And they can follow steps and have a number of decision trees, in the course, and in the book as well, and you can just follow through the decision tree, and it will point you to the right chart for the right situation, the right design choice, or an expert-level design choice, anyways.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, Nick, I love that so much, and that really conveys that same analogy I’m reminded of, of like writing, in that some folks are just like, “Well, it takes a lifetime to really refine your writing style and to make it excellent.” And then you got Strunk & White, The Elements of Style who just dropped, “Remove unnecessary words.” And, like, that’s really a pretty good rule almost all the time. And it’s like, “Oh, okay, just by doing that, my writing is better.

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, exactly. And that’s actually, coming back to that language analogy, sometimes the way I describe sort of at least a lot of the books and courses that I’ve seen about data visualization is that imagine English as a second language, or you don’t speak English, and you’re trying to learn the difference between “they’re,” “their” and “there” the three ways to spell “there.” And your textbook says something like, “Well, this is actually kind of a nuance. It’s sort of ca omplex question. And over time, you’ll develop intuition which will sort of help you figure out what is the best spelling.”

And so, it makes it really hard and slow to learn the language, but as native English speakers, we know, it’s like, “No, actually, I can give you very simple guidelines which you can learn in, like, 60 seconds, which will point you to the correct choice every time.” But I think the difference with data visualization is that formulating those sorts of simple-looking guidelines and decision trees was actually really hard. It’s like the hardest thing I have ever done. And so, it’s not surprising, I think, that it’s taken a long time for those kinds of simple-looking guidelines to emerge about data visualization.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, Nick, could you maybe give us top three guidelines in terms of this makes a huge difference, and mistakes happen all the time?

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, probably number one is chart type choice. The most common problem I see in charts is something that was a line chart when it should’ve been a bar chart, or it was a stacked bar chart when it should’ve been a pie chart, for example. And I forgive people for making these kinds of, what I consider to be, mistakes, anyways, because there are a number of considerations that go into those kinds of choices.

But because it is so tricky, and there are so many factors to take into consideration, like, for example, if you’re just trying to figure out how to show the breakdown of a total, there are at least eight things you need to take into account in order to decide between sort of the five major chart types for doing that: your pie charts, bar charts, stacked bar charts, etc. And so, yeah, that’s probably the most common mistake that I see, and the solution is, well, you’ve just got to get a bit of training to know how to do this.

Probably the second most common type of problem that I see are problems with quantitative scales. So, these are the scales of numbers that you see in charts, like the number of employees, or dollars, or whatever. And I have a whole section in my book about that, and it kind of surprises people, because they’re like, “Isn’t that pretty straightforward? Like, why not just go with the default scales that come out of Excel, or Tableau, or whatever?”

And I’d say probably, maybe a third of the problems that I see with charts are related to quantitative scales, scales that are too wide, too narrow, start at zero when they shouldn’t, don’t start at zero when they should, have too many stops on them, for example, or not enough. And so, there’s a lot to learn about quantitative scales. And so, again, if you haven’t had that training, then this is a very common way that charts, essentially, misrepresent the underlying data.

So I guess the third most common would be labeling problems, usually insufficient labeling, or insufficiently precise labeling. And so, these are situations where you see a chart, it’s maybe a line chart, that says the quantitative scale is just labeled with transactions, and maybe it’s for over 12 months or something like that. Okay, is that like successful transactions, or successful and failed transactions? Is it accumulative total of transactions running throughout the year? There could be all sorts of ways of interpreting that.

And so, with inadequate labeling then, once again, the audience might assume that they’re looking at numbers that aren’t the actual numbers in the chart. And I would also kind of put in that labeling of key insights. This is sometimes controversial when I say I’m a big proponent of actually putting messages right in the chart, “We have a problem because transactions have been declining since July,” and actually putting that, like write it as a collar, or maybe even as the title of the chart. People tend to shy away from that but I think that there are good reasons to actually be really explicit about, “If I had a reason for showing you this chart, I might as well tell you what it’s for.”

Pete Mockaitis

Nick, I totally resonate with that. And it’s intriguing when I trained on this sort of thing, I’ve been accused of having sensational slide titles or headlines, I was like, “Wow, if these are sensational then you are accustomed to very, very boring…” I’m not swearing, I’m not using extreme language. I’m just saying things like, “Sales of this segment have dropped radically since this quarter.” It’s like, “Huh?”

And I guess that is sensational but I guess what’s really driving it, and my observation, is fear. And so, like, “You’re basically saying that the guy in charge of that thing over there is a screwup and a failure.” I was like, “No, I didn’t say. I’m just commenting on the most noteworthy thing that is to be gleaned from these data.” But it seems that folks are often, in many cultures, quite shy about calling a spade a spade because it has all sorts of emotional implications under the surface.

Nick Desbarats
Yeah, I think that there’s really kind of two ways that that problem surfaces. The one is what you just described, where you’re basically saying something that’s kind of maybe politically sensitive. And that happens, unfortunately, a lot. As the people who handle the data, we’re often the first to see the bad news. We’re the canary in the coal mine. We’re the deliverer of bad news.

But I think that there’s another kind of knee jerk or inherent objection that people have to putting any kind of interpretation in the chart at all. 

A lot of people think that that’s actually kind of unethical, that we’re biasing people’s interpretations of the data, and that charts should be these kinds of neutral interpretation-free, just the numbers kinds of representations of the data. And this all sounds great. It sounds perfectly noble. I don’t think it’s even theoretically possible though because this kind of relates to what we’re talking about before. When you create a chart, you have to have a reason for creating it in mind, a question you’re trying to answer, an insight you’re trying to communicate, an action that you want somebody to take. It’s baked into the chart.

Because if you don’t have that in your mind, you don’t have some specific job or thing that you’re trying to accomplish with the chart in mind, then you don’t get a neutral or unbiased chart. You get a chart that produces random insights, essentially. And so, because our interpretation of the data, and why the audience needs to see that data is baked into the chart, anyway, it’s in all of our decisions, it’s what we based the chart type choice on, it’s what we based our color choices on, it’s what we based our scale ranges on, and a whole slew of other choices, we might as well just tell them, “This is why I think you needed to see this data.”

They may disagree with it. They may have a different interpretation of the data, and that’s fine. Then you sit down and talk about it, and say, “Okay, we seem to have different views of reality in this situation. Let’s figure it out together then.” But the solution is not to try and produce these sorts of very generic “interpretation-free” charts because, like I said, that’s not even theoretically possible.

Your charts will always have your interpretation of the data built into them anyways, so you might as well kind of save the audience a bit of brain cells and just tell them, “This is why I think you needed to see this data.” And, like I said, if they disagree with it, that’s fine. Then you talk about it and try and get on the same page.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, Nick, I want to challenge you if we could have the rapid version of thinking about chart type and axis scale matters. Could I have the two-minute version of when is the absolute best and absolute worst conditions for using a pie chart?

Nick Desbarats

Yes. So, if you’re not very familiar with the data visualization field, you might be surprised to learn that pie charts, they are very controversial. The community is split. You have people who are violently opposed to pie charts, and those who think that they are just fine. And I’ve been in both camps. I used to be an anti-pie charter but then I sat down a couple of years, I had a long hard look at my reasons, and realized, “You know, there are valid use cases for pie charts.”

Pie charts have a couple of unique properties. The first is that they allow us to perceive fractions of the total much more quickly and precisely than any other chart type. Compared to a regular bar chart or stacked bar chart, I can immediately see, “This is about a quarter of the total,” “This is about two-thirds of the quarter,” “These two parts together represent about three-quarters of the total.” This discussion can get a lot more nuanced though, and, in fact, I just wrote a 3500-word article in the journal of the Data Visualization Society last month about this, and it went pretty viral because it is a big question.

But ultimately, that’s what I think is a major point that people miss around pie charts, and people who don’t like pie charts, is that they allow people to perceive fractions of the total much more quickly and precisely than any other chart type. Plus, the fact that it’s a pie chart immediately tells the audience that they’re looking at the breakdown of a total before they would’ve read anything. They don’t have to read the chart title or the labels or anything. They immediately know they’re looking at the breakdown of a total.

Whereas, with a regular bar chart, for example, they actually have to read the chart title, and the labels, and figure out, “Oh, these parts of a total. They’re not, for example, values over time” Whereas, the pie chart, it’s like, “Bang!” It’s instantaneous. So, they do have some unique properties that make them, I think, the best choice in specific situations. But knowing what those specific situations are requires a bit of training.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. All right. So, that’s the thing. It’s like if what we are all about is quickly and intuitively conveying the proportion of one segment relative to the whole, the pie chart can do that pretty intuitively. But if we’re venturing into other territories, like, “Let’s see how these proportions have shifted over time,” then maybe the pie chart is not going to be our friend.

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, or if, for example, you want to compare the parts very precisely, say, “Okay, here’s a breakdown of our sales by region.” But the main point of the chart is to show that we sold more in the West than we did in the South. Well, especially if those values are very close to one another, you should use a bar chart because one of the weaknesses of pie charts is that they don’t allow the parts to be compared very precisely to one another. But if your main insight is that, for example, the West plus the East accounted for more than a third of our sales, well, that’s going to be a lot more obvious in a pie chart than it will in a bar chart.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And what’s the top thing we should never do with our axis scale?

Nick Desbarats

That’s a tricky question because, as I mentioned earlier on, there are a lot of mistakes that people make all the time with quantitative scales. If I had to pick just one, I’d probably say that it’s starting the scale at zero when it shouldn’t be started at zero, or vice versa, not starting at zero when it should’ve been started at zero.

And this, again, is one of those questions that people tend to think has a really simple answer but it doesn’t. Like, I have a whole section in the book on how to make that decision. It’s not as straightforward as a lot of people think. And, by the way, that’s kind of the case with a lot of these design choices. People tend to think that they can be made very simply. Like, for example, when it comes to choosing chart types, a lot of people think, “Oh, well, if you’re showing data over time, always use a line chart. Or, if you’re showing the breakdown of a total, always use a pie chart.” But unfortunately, those are simple, yeah, but you’ll often make bad design choices.

And so, whenever I see very simplistic rules, like, “Always start the scale at zero,” or, “Never start the scale at zero,” unfortunately, they’re just too simple. You’re going to end up making bad design choices all the time if you rely on those very, very simple rules of thumb. It doesn’t have to be really complicated but it can’t be that simple. It needs to be a little bit more complicated.

Pete Mockaitis

All right, tell us, what would be a horrible context situation for us to start an axis at zero?

Nick Desbarats

So, I guess the classic example here would be body temperature. Let’s say we’re in a hospital and we’re tracking the temperature of a patient over time, and whether you’re working in Celsius or Fahrenheit, if you start the scale at zero, well, first of all, it’s going to be hard to see small shifts that could be very meaningful. If you’re going from, I don’t know…

Pete Mockaitis

Ninety-eight point six Fahrenheit to 102.

Nick Desbarats

Okay, yes. Or, 37° Celsius, choose your methods there. But if it just goes up two or three degrees, of course, that’s often very meaningful from a medical perspective, but you’re not going to see it very well if the chart starts at zero. And there’s another wrinkle in that situation as well, which is when you’re talking about something like temperature, at least on the Fahrenheit or Celsius scale, zero is kind of a meaningless number.

Zero degrees, Fahrenheit, for example, is not the absence of heat energy. That would be zero degrees Kelvin, which is something that’s totally different. And so, I would say that, yeah, in a situation like that, starting the scales at zero would be a huge mistake.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Thank you. Well, now you mentioned earlier, before we’re recording, that you have a bit of a reputation as a chart type killer, which feels like that needs to be a lyric in a rap song or something.

Nick Desbarats

The nerdiest rap song ever. I would listen to it.

Pete Mockaitis

And so, I noticed in your book that there was nothing, there was no mention of the Marimekko, or Mekko, and when I was in consulting, we were utterly infatuated with the Marimekko or Mekko. And we’ll link to this in the show notes if you all never heard of it. Sometimes it’s used as, for example, a market map. So, we might have on the X-axis, maybe we’re talking about different kinds of computing processors.

And so, on the X-axis, we might have phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, servers, and so we see, “Okay, so that’s the relative proportion of different segments of different devices that use processors.” On the Y-axis, we might see how much penetration percentage a given player in that field has, like, Apple versus AMD versus Nvidia.

So, we like to use that in consulting to show, “Hey, Nvidia, look how you’re doing nothing in tablets,” for example, “But all your competitors are. Maybe you should, too.” That’s often how that goes on but you’ve got a different point of view. Let’s hear it.

Nick Desbarats

Well, yeah, so I don’t discuss Marimekko Charts in the book because I tend to find that…well, maybe sort of coming back to one of the basic principles that I have. I’m a big advocate, of course, of showing the data in the simplest way possible that still communicates whatever it is that the chart needs to communicate.

And in my experience, it’s very, very rare that the simplest way to say what you need to say about the data is with a Marimekko Chart, which is kind of a complicated chart type. There’s a good chance you’re going to be needing to explain it to people, and there’s a lot of kind of moving parts to it. You have the heights of the bar segments, as well as the widths of the bar segments, and so it tends to be kind of hard on our working memory, the part of our minds where we do all of our thinking, which is actually very small. We can only think of a very small number of things simultaneously.

And so, if I’m thinking of using a chart like that, I always look for “Are there simpler chart types?” It might even be a combination of charts. I might have two or three charts but that are going to be sort of simpler to consume, and yet that say the same thing about the data. And so, I’m not saying never. It is possible where the simplest way to say what you need to say is a Marimekko Chart. It’s just in my experience it’s usually not. Usually, there are simpler alternatives.

I do mention chart types, though, like box plots, for example, and connected scatterplots, which I think are virtually never the simplest way to say what you need to say about the data. And this has generated a certain amount of sort of response when I’ve published articles about why I don’t use box plots anymore, for example.

But I’ve just found that things like strip plots, jittered strip plots, stacked histograms are virtually always much easier for audiences to understand because box plots are pretty abstract, if you even know what it is. A lot of your audience probably won’t even know what a box plot is, and they require lots of time to explain, and there are virtually always simpler ways of saying what you need to say about the data.

And so, I wouldn’t necessarily put Marimekko Charts in that category in terms of, like, they’re never the simplest way, but there often are simpler ways of communicating the information. 

So, yeah, there are a couple of chart types that I think fall into that category of never the simplest way. Like I said, box plots, connected scatterplots, and bullet graphs, for those who know what those chart types are. There are virtually always simpler alternatives. And I have articles about all of these. Maybe we can link to those in the show notes as well.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, that’s really resonating on a couple dimensions when it comes to box plots. I think the first time I encountered the concept of a box plot, I had to think about it for, like, 20 minutes and look at the box plot and then the percentiles. But then once I did, I was like, “Oh, okay. Cool.” It’s sort of like I had to do that hard work of understanding the concept of a box plot. And then when I saw them later, I appreciated them. But if you haven’t done that, then it’s going to not resonate. It’s, like, you’re in a different language.

And, likewise, with the Marimekko’s, I remember I was on a consulting project, and we were sort of showing a number of employees by country on the X-axis, and by function on the Y-axis, so we were using these Marimekko’s. And we had a client who hated the charts so much, he forbade us to make another one. And then I had a colleague who made one, nonetheless, and shared it with the manager, who said, “Didn’t you hear the guy? He said no more Marimekko’s.” And the consultant passionately pleaded, “It’s the best way to show it.” And so, he was shot down because the client tends to win these sorts of debates.

So, yeah, point taken. We can fall in love with a thing, and in so doing, lose connection to the audience and where they’re at.

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, that’s a great point, too. I wrote a blogpost with a very clickbait-y title called “My favorite chart type.” It was I guess about two years ago, where I basically argued that “This is actually something we should try to move away from, like having favorite chart types,” because, really, that can only make our chart type choices worse. We’re going to be biased towards using certain charts, even when they’re not necessarily the best choice.

It’s kind of like people who have their favorite words, and they tend to use those words all the time even in situations where it’s really not the right word. And so, I think one of the marks of somebody who’s gotten really good at this is that they don’t have favorites. They just use whatever chart type is most appropriate for the situation.

The catch is that it just takes some time to learn when to choose from these various chart types. In my course, I cover 50 chart types because I think that all of those are needed in kind of everyday, when you’re making everyday charts for reports and presentations. And it takes a while to learn when to use them all.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, tell me, Nick, anything else you want to make sure before we hear about your favorite things?

Nick Desbarats

I think, really, the point that I was hoping that was going to come out in the discussion, and I think it really did, is to encourage people to really start thinking about charts as graphics for doing a job rather than visual representations of data.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Nick Desbarats

There’s one that I really like from an American journalist called HL Mencken, who’s active in the 1920s. And he said that, “For every complex problem, there’s an answer that’s clear, simple, and wrong.”

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Nick Desbarats

I think pretty much anything by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, the sort of godfathers of the study of cognitive biases. That has just informed my thinking in innumerable ways since I first came across it. It’s well-summarized in Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And maybe that is a favorite book. Any other favorite books you want to highlight?

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, actually, but I’m going to cheat. I’m going to give you two. One work-related, which is How to Measure Anything by Doug Hubbard. It’s an absolutely brilliant book.

And then in terms of kind of general kind of books about living a good life, there’s The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Nick Desbarats

My website is PracticalReporting.com, all one word. And if you go on the top nav to the Contact/Follow page, then there’s my email form and where to follow me on LinkedIn. And I invite people to do that.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Nick Desbarats

I think it’s really important to develop this basic skill, like the spelling and vocabulary of data visualization. There’s a very rapidly growing awareness that this is something that a lot of people probably need to learn because, of course, so many of us are now handling data as part of our job. And, really, to me, that’s kind of the starting point. Before you start learning about data storytelling, or anything like that, learn the basics of the language first.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Nick, thank you. This is fun. I wish you many fun charts.

Nick Desbarats

Thank you. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Fantastic discussion.