IT and storytelling

It was on a Sunday afternoon that I was meeting Sam Swaminathan, Storyteller, Center for Creative Thinking, US ( >http://bit.ly/F4TSamS ). And, as you would have guessed, the topics we discussed were all about stories. Swaminathan had so many tales to offer that we had overshot by an hour. And his cabbie was visibly happy when we agreed to take the interaction forward over email…

Excerpts from the interview.

You have worked with the Indian IT industry. Do you see an unexploited potential in the industry to leverage the power of storytelling?

IT (information technology) is often viewed by outsiders either as a silver bullet or some incomprehensible black box doing things no one really understands. Storytelling can help change these views.

As far as insiders are concerned, the majority of employees hired by IT firms come from predominantly technical backgrounds. It is all about coding, process mapping, and system design. The emotional oomph of IT firms can be greatly enhanced by the power of storytelling. I often come across executives from IT and other industries who wonder what storytelling could possibly do to help them. Once they experience the power of this form of communication and figure out when it can be used effectively, they rapidly embrace it.

What has been your experience with IT enterprises in the US, as a storyteller?

It is hard to generalise. Some IT firms in the US employ storytelling extensively, while others don't. Accenture in the US spends a great deal of time and money teaching its executives the art of storytelling. IBM's CEOs have published the IBM story a few times. McKinsey embraces storytelling in a big way. Outside of IT, look at Nordstrom, Southwest Airlines, and Starbucks, to name just a few. These companies have told their stories more eloquently than one can imagine. It is in their DNA. These firms encourage their employees to tell stories about their firms.

During our interaction, you brought up the example of Apple. What are the takeaways for Indian corporates, in general, and the Indian IT industry, in particular, from the Apple example?

Apple is a class in and of itself. I am smitten by it. So you will forgive my unabashed admiration. One thing that Apple possibly does better than any other corporation is make people accountable. They have this thing called ‘DRI' – directly responsible individual – for every action in the firm. The minutes of their meetings every Monday always carry a DRI for every action item. So, if something is not happening, it can be rapidly traced to one person. When you have a DRI culture, there aren't many places to hide. Things simply happen.

Another Apple special — 90 per cent of the people at Apple are comfortable that they know what Steve wants, even though no more than 10 per cent have any interaction with Steve. That kind of leadership is quite effective. The power of the simple slogan ‘Think Different' and the number of stories Jobs has woven around that slogan to inspire (and berate) his co-workers is too numerous to document here.

Storytelling is also about what you say and what you don't say. In the months between announcing and selling the first iPhone in 2007, Apple received $400 million in free advertising by not making any public statements, thereby whipping the media into a frenzy. Jobs is a master storyteller.

One takeaway for all companies from my Apple experience is the strong ethos of keeping to commitments. When an Apple executive says he will come back to you by a certain date, you can bet that you will hear from him. You are rarely kept guessing what is going to happen.

It would appear that company executives here don't take their communication commitments so seriously. Whether it is to set up a date and time for a meeting, an approval for an engagement, or a document turnaround, the wait can be inexplicably long. I hear people often say they will get back by the end of the day or by next Tuesday, or that they will return your call later in the day. And then it simply doesn't happen. That is exhausting and often blunts the emotional component of the relationship. I don't know if I am among the few who experience this in India, but my US clients also often say this of my Indian client executives.

Can you give a few examples of how stories from an Indian company can have an impact on hiring the right people and making a difference to the customer?

Let us consider the house of Tatas. It is the most venerated business house in India, by a mile. Granted, RM Lala has written some books on the Tatas. Even so, I think the Tata story has simply not been told the way it ought to be. I once met a lateral hire at one Tata company [he was wooed from a competitor]. I was having breakfast with him and his wife at the company guesthouse. Since he was being inducted at the time we met, I casually asked if he had been offered a good glimpse of the history of the group during his induction. His response was so tepid that I was taken aback.

Being the son of a lifelong Tata executive, I took it upon myself to give him the full nine yards. Believe me, this young man and his wife were struck by the efforts of JN Tata, what he sacrificed to industrialise the nation, and how the first Indian steel company was born. As I was leaving, his wife told me that she would make sure her husband served the firm well, since it gave her pride to be a Tata spouse.

Not just that, this executive's behaviour will ensure that customer interactions are much richer and more fulfilling, since he loves his employer from his heart. That is the power of storytelling.

Are Indian firms leveraging it? Not a lot, as far as I know. Now, imagine if Infosys were to leverage its history, and give its new hires a full-blown account of what Murthy, his co-founders, and employees have done to take it from Rs 1 lakh to $6 billion, what the emotional tie would be between employer and employee. I don't know if enough is being done.

To IT companies that would like to start on the story journey, your advice on how to go about the same.

A start-up, whether from the IT industry or any other, has one asset in abundance – passion. The founders have a passion for addressing a business problem, improving an existing business, or creating a non-existent business. Start-ups also usually possess childlike curiosity, and a willingness to rough it out.

Story telling can help start-ups in two ways. Firstly, new hires can build their emotional connection with the firm rapidly by listening to the passion and purpose of the founders. Secondly, every start-up member can be inspired by learning about other start-ups, and their trials, tribulations, and triumphs. It is hard to guess how many entrepreneurs and start-up company employees were inspired by Intel's Andy Grove who wrote, Only The Paranoid Survive.

Any other points of interest....

Harvard's Howard Gardner reminds us that leaders are storytellers. He also exhorts leaders to be credible storytellers. In other words, if you want to tell stories, make sure your stories, and you, are credible. Choose your stories with care, and deliver them with grace.

Storytelling is not a nice-to-have skill. If you deal with people, if you have to influence thinking, if you have to cut to the chase to make things happen, storytelling is a great ally. Ignore it at your peril.

>dmurali@thehindu.co.in

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