[bastian]

The most interesting part to me was this: "He’d been telling a version of that same story every single day for months and months during development—to us, to his friends, his family. He was constantly working on it, refining it. Every time he’d get a puzzled look or a request for clarification from his unwitting early audience, he’d sand it down, tweak it slightly, until it was perfectly polished."

I did the same thing for 12 years as CEO of Postmates and I still do it when I work on new ideas. I thought it was something I just did. But reading this I have to assume it is more common.

[thom]

For me the internal part of this is far more important than any external pitch. Storytelling is a key skill for keeping an organisation aligned. Every company I've worked for that felt disjointed wasn't because of a lack of structure or process, it was the lack of a unifying narrative that people can follow and weave their work into. Once you have that, the sales and marketing part is pretty natural because you're already living the message like you mean it.

[billfruit]

But is that the only way? Can organizations be driven on pure process instead to having to find, and refine 'some narrative' to keep it all together.

[qazxcvbnmlp]

People need a “why” to what they do. Generally “I do what I’m told because that is what the process says” doesn’t scale as well as “we are here to get airplanes where they need to go”. The narrative doesn’t have to be outlandish, in fact unrealistic stories give narratives a bad reputation.

What you do need is a simple why you are coming to work that is beyond “to get a paycheck”.

[settsu]

It can also serve as a helpful reference point for "what am I (still) doing here?" so that you can judge when you perhaps should not be.

[Frederation]

True enough. If I am sitting in the backseat or front and the driver is meandering, I might think of bailing, yeah.

[thom]

I don't see those things as opposed - you want teams aligned, you want people to be able to plan and collaborate both the short and long term. A good process left shifts as much as possible so teams start out fairly well aligned and don't necessarily drift apart. A bad process requires constant interventions to pull teams back together. I think a clear, compelling narrative of where an organisation is going and why helps here, but it's certainly not the only prescription.

[darkerside]

Process without narrative means nobody knows why they are doing what they are doing, which means nobody can question, change, or iteratively improve on it. This works fine for a while.

[dijit]

Yes, and many are.

From what I hear Disney is very much a “process” company these days.

You can draw your own conclusions about whether Disney is doing very well or not, though.

[Frederation]

The Narrative, a cohesive one, drives my purpose and gives me direction.

[BOOSTERHIDROGEN]

The question is how do you find such unique narratives? Who decide it is unique.

[neom]

Tail Winds + Vision into-> Mission into-> Purpose. A world class leader understands deeply the coalescing ripples of shift across multiple sectors that result in the change their business is addressing, using this knowledge and extending it out into the future is called vision. If you can paint a good vision, you can then explain some missions people could go on over the period of time that matches your vision that results in positive things for the group, this is how an individual finds their purpose and is a prerequisite for a high functioning team (see tuckman's). The reason this is hard from a leadership perspective is that humans do not hear messages the same way, so you have to do what we call message modulation, where you tell the story many different ways depending on the constituent you're addressing until or such that, they understand what you are saying. You also have to be careful your modulation doesn't introduce confusion, 1 2 | 3 4 - if pipe is your baseline message, to be good at this, you have to think about what happens when 1 and 4 converse.

[no_wizard]

>A world class leader understands deeply the coalescing ripples of shift across multiple sectors that result in the change their business is addressing, using this knowledge and extending it out into the future is called vision.

So few leaders understand this. Its not common, not even among 'successful' leaders. More than anyone likes to admit, lots of businesses big and small built their backs on exploiting some luck and then achieving a relatively dominate position and holding it by the virtue of traditional business tactics. There's alot of copying, and very little actual innovative thinking.

This is even true of 'visionaries' but I think there is a difference between outright copying w/ refinement vs taking technology (or technologies) and using them in genuinely unforeseen ways, or otherwise marrying them together in ways nobody else really has.

Most success is entirely circumstantial. Right place, right time, things out of the control of anything. Certainly thats not visionary. Its refining someone else's idea (which is different than taking existing technology, refining it, and using it in entirely different ways than it was intended)

Steve Jobs was unique in that he forged success despite circumstances. In multiple aspects of Apple's history there was no good reason for them to succeed the way they did but he actually had genuine vision. Few others have had that kind of vision. Bill Gates demonstrated this earlier in his career (by the late 90s, Microsoft was exploiting monopoly not visionary innovation). Perhaps a few others I can't think of off the top of my head right now.

I can't say the same for 90+% of business people. It should be more humbling than it is. Unfortunately every CEO seems to think they have the 'magic' and they don't.

[neom]

It's part of what separates "founder" from "executive" in my mind. Most good execs I know understand market fundamentals due to either eduction or solid experience, it's what is taught in HBS, Columbia, etc. Most founders know it from gut, they can just see change and they run at it, but it's part of the shift from founder to executive, you have to operationalize it for a business to be sustainable. Because you are competing against luck (Clay Christensen), you are inevitability foundational relying on solid vision, but because business is extremely complicated and hard to nail most businesses bleed out to find death by a 1000 paper cuts. Friend of mine has a linkedin profile you might find interesting: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agnazem/details/experience/

I'll also add, there are a lot of managers out there fancying themself in leadership, and lots of leaders who fancy themselves managers, this thinking that there is an ability to co-mingle, is generally incorrect.

(I teach business for a living, this stuff is a lot of what I teach new founders how to understand.)

[no_wizard]

There (used to be?) an old saying about you need a leader to start a business and getting it thriving but an operator to keep it so.

I imagine this is where that came from.

[BOOSTERHIDROGEN]

I've never come across a leader with a strong corporate vision. Can you think of any relatively unknown companies that have become successful, and would you be willing to share their story?

[neom]

Most of the founders and business I know you would probably also know, name a big devtool company from the 2011's era and I probably know the story well, the example I often use is my friend: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agnazem/details/experience/ - it's very easy from his linkedin to see how he thought about things. Jeff Lawson is another great example, Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn also fantastic.

I'm sad you've never come across a leader with a strong corporate vision, when you work with them it truly is a joy.

[smugglerFlynn]

Uniqueness is not the end goal, first and foremost it should be competitive. Just highlight where exactly you do things differently (and better) than others.

If that's not possible to formulate even internally, the company is in trouble.

[formerphotoj]

100% - I used to sell/evangelize/promote/pitch the vision of the educational non-profit I used to work for every. single. day. to. every. single. person. Loved it, still do, and still storytelling at my current gig.

[neom]

It's one of the first lessons I teach the founders in my classes, I learned it building DigitalOcean, I think it was Michael Dell who told me "yeah your job just becomes saying the same thing different ways all the time". Best I've seen at it is Flo the founder of mesosphere.

Don't think you can build a startup into a business if you can't learn how to do this.

[matwood]

And it’s a good lesson. The first hurdle for many (me included) was getting over the fact I’m going to repeat myself - a lot. And that’s ok. There’s a reason Coca-Cola still advertises. Repetition works. When telling someone the story, you never know what’s in their head at that moment. They might be thinking about some other important thing they have to do that day and not hear anything you said.

[nicbou]

I do the same thing when I have a new idea. If people don’t seem as excited, I either refine the story or reconsider it entirely. It tests the idea, but also my understanding of why I want to build it. Is my hype justified or will it falter once the caffeine wears off?

[neilv]

I don't know how common it is for the different people who do an elevator pitch, but IIUC most successful standup comedians do this incremental testing and refining of bits very heavily.

One difference I'd call out is that the delivery is different in what's understood as a formal rehearsed performance, than when speaking in informal one-on-one contexts.

IMHO, for informal, it's OK if you use pretty much the same canned explanation each time (especially for an elevator pitch, which is understood as a thing), just don't pretend you're speaking off-the-cuff.

For example, don't pause like you're thinking of the right term or analogy to use. (I've seen Steve Jobs videos where he seems to do this. And I had a colleague who would do it for one key metaphor term, even though they said the same bit about their research to different visitors almost every day.)

If you go to a standup performance or TED talk, you're expecting a heavily-rehearsed performance, with artificial flourishes. But if you're having a one-on-one conversation with someone, you want a bespoke, genuine, engaged, adaptive interaction. Canned bits in that are OK, but don't pretend those bits are fresh.

[darkerside]

You can still do that, just know it's disingenuous, inauthentic, and disrespectful to your audience. May be worth it to you, for example if you don't care about that particular audience.

[itronitron]

How do you avoid annoying everyone around you, or does being CEO mean you don't have to worry about it?

[philodeon]

Just as movie stars get paid a lot to compensate for dealing with the unpleasant life-ruining consequences of fame, CEOs get paid a lot to compensate for the monotony.

[tiffanyh]

Just curious, what was the same story you said every single day for 12-years?

[bastian]

Probably a bad choice of words on my part. I was referring to the stories of the products we worked on, not the same story for 12 years.

[matwood]

I also do this as I refine any pitch. I tell it to everyone over and over, tweaking it slightly, refining, etc… One difference is I don’t think the polishing ever ends until it’s time to move on to something else.

[veunes]

It makes me wonder how many great products were shaped not just in boardrooms or dev sprints, but in casual conversations with friends and family.

[contingencies]

Hey Bastian, would love to have a chat about the impact of total automation in the food space (prep, package, deliver). We have 10 years R&D down, about to raise US GTM round, didn't find you on LinkedIn, email in profile. Cheers.

[bastian]

I deleted my LinkedIn. Email or text me. 415 629 9329 or [e-mail] - I do not like to invest in anything related to food though.

[contingencies]

Cheers much appreciated. Will reach out.

[e40]

It’s exactly what standup comedians do, over months and years, before filming a special.

[rottc0dd]

Even just saying the whole thing out loud again and again, makes the talk better. Because, you would understand what you whizzing past, what you are spending time on and reduces the time you would buffer while talking.

[rjsw]

I see "mansplaining" as a variant of this.