TWHS#088: Who Cares!?! How To Make People Sit Up And Listen

Clare had to make people care about something they found pretty boring.  And it was important she made them care.

Clare is a Director of Quality Assurance and had massively improved the quality a major company product. And now senior leadership wanted her to present to leaders of other products on how they could do the same.

The Problem

She had a pretty dry topic.  And her first draft wouldn't make people care enough to do anything.

Often in tech the topics can be pretty dry.  If we want to have an impact, we need to bring them to life.

What We Did

I ran some coaching sessions with her.  I asked her …

"Before you fixed the product quality issue, what was it like for your team". 

"Oh we had to work out of hours fixing bugs, we were very reactive" she replied.

So I said, "Be specific not generic".   

She said "Well some of our team are in Ukraine, and whilst this was happening they had to go to bunkers.  They were fixing bugs whilst the sirens were going off"

I was flabbergasted.  The poor quality of the product meant that people had to fix bugs out of hours whilst they should have been protecting there family.  That anecdote was honest, terrible and compelling to listen to.

So we came up with a presentation narrative that went.

• This is how bad things were
• This is how good it is now
• This is what we did about it

And she included the story about the folks in Ukraine at the start.

Things are of course still terrible in Ukraine, but she had made things better for them at work, and made the product a lot better.  

The Result

Her first draft for the conference had some great content on HOW to improve things.  But she needed to make people care.  The true anecdote helped make that happen.

After the conference I asked her CTO  "How did it go?". 

He said "Stand out session of the event.  Amazing feedback from the other teams.  She did a great job".

Conclusion

Clare made people care and gave them substance on how to make a change.

If people care, they will take action.  Giving facts and rationale doesn't make people care.  Think about how you can bring dull topics to life by talking about the impact they have on people.

Hope this helps.

BenP

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Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

• Leaders In Tech: Raise the impact of your team.  Make them more influential, memorable and successful.  The Technical Storytelling Professional Program enables them to create clarity, generate energy and drive the results you need.
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