Patti Sanchez is chief strategy officer for Duarte and co-author of Illuminate: Ignite Change Through Speeches, Stories, Ceremonies, and Symbols. Nancy Duarte is CEO of Duarte, co-author of Illuminate, and author of five other best-selling books. Prior to their keynote session, Sanchez and Duarte spoke with Connection Point about their background and experience and what they’ll share with ATD Virtual Conference attendees.
How did your collaboration begin?
Patti: I’ve spent my career in Silicon Valley, California, a place where some of the world’s best communicators co-exist in a tight-knit community. At the time, a female CEO was a rare bird there (well, it still kinda is), so my friends in the biz always buzzed about Nancy Duarte because her company worked with the biggest tech brands on their high-profile launches. We finally met when I got invited to a marketing awards dinner and happened to be seated at her table … and all night I was totally charmed by her ripping stories and sparkling eyes. Years later, when Nancy pursued me to run her strategy and content team, I jumped at the chance. We met after work over lychee martinis, so I had a little help in selling her on the merits of my resume! Our stories won each other over, and soon after that I joined Duarte, Inc.
Nancy: Patti joined just as my book Resonate was released. I’d spent over three years studying story to write that book. In one of my first one-on-ones with Patti, she asked, “Do you think organizational transformation follows a story plot?” I couldn’t believe it. That was the original thesis I started my entire journey through story to solve. She could see what I saw in the patterns of change in the Valley! Immediately I blurted, “I’m not writing that book without you!” That set us on a journey to research and write a book about strategic storytelling, which resulted in Illuminate. Along the way, we discovered a new model for managing change that we ended up having to test out on our own company, which is a story for another day.
Now, probably more than ever, communication and the connection it brings are critical. Can you share a few tips on how to make that connection, whether through speech, storytelling, or facilitation?
Patti: Communication is the fuel that propels companies forward because it’s the mechanism that moves the hearts and minds of the people in those companies to act on ideas and make them a reality. The spoken word is an especially potent form of communication because it’s how our most important ideas get shaped, shared, debated, and decided. Whether those ideas are being discussed at big events, in small-group discussions, or during one-on-ones, that dialogue is happening between human beings who are naturally wired for connection. Because we’re social creatures, we all long to feel a sense of trust, rapport, and even closeness when we’re interacting with other people (not just our teammates but our bosses too).
So, when planning your communication, it’s important to think of your audience first and imagine what they might be thinking and feeling and what questions or worries they might have. Then map your messages to what you think they will need to hear and feel in that moment. Look for opportunities to establish common ground between you—for instance, by telling stories about shared experiences you’ve had, revealing that you have similar thoughts or fears as theirs, or recapping ideas that you already agree on or goals you both want to achieve. The more you openly acknowledge the things that matter to the other person, the more they’ll feel heard, understood, and cared for, which will build a stronger bridge between you.
Nancy: What she said! The only thing I’d add is that once you empathetically understand your audience, using story frameworks helps you influence, lead, and transform them. The inherent and beautiful attribute of a story is how the hero has transformed and the lessons they learned along the way. Using insights from story helps others see what needs to happen so they emerge in the future ready for its challenges.
What is one thing you hope attendees will begin doing as a result of hearing your keynote?
Patti: In our talk, Nancy and I will reveal the underlying structure of stories and how it can be used to make any form of communication more persuasive and effective. My hope is that everyone who watches it will walk away with story-colored glasses that help them see the important stories hidden in their own organizations and feel emboldened to dig those stories out and share them. Because great stories are everywhere—they’re just waiting to be discovered!
Nancy: Every organization, and frankly the world, is in a season where strong communicators will be the force that pulls us through to the other side. Even before COVID-19, most research about skill gaps pointed to communication as one of the most important skills needed in the workplace. My hope is attendees will consider becoming a student of story. It will change you, and it will change your organization. Once I understood it, I was never the same.
ATD’s Virtual Conference was designed to provide a safe space for TD pros to come together to learn. What one thing have you learned that has made the greatest impact in your life?
Patti: I’ve spent decades working as a consultant who was hired to not only solve problems for my clients but to drop knowledge along the way that impressed them. In other words, I was trained to be “the smartest person in the room,” which can be a heady experience, but it’s also very high pressure (which my ground-down molars can prove). Yet, when I joined Duarte, one concept we teach in our workshops totally reframed the way I think about my role: As a communicator, your job is to be a mentor to your audience … not to the steal the show from them. Hearing that led to an aha moment, when years of stress and worry melted away and were replaced by a feeling of peace that “I can do this!” Now, I teach that concept to practically everyone I meet because I want them to feel that same rush of empowerment, and I want their audiences to feel that, too.
Specific to the current COVID-19 situation, during four decades of living in Silicon Valley, I’ve experienced a few downturns that disrupted my work. Each time I had to reinvent myself by learning new skills. When the dot-com bubble burst, all the big-budget ad campaigns I’d been doing at the time totally disappeared, so I had to read up on the next marketing trend and figure out how to master it. But the COVID-19 crisis tested me on a whole other level as a leader because the disruption happened so much faster, like a massive bang instead of a balloon that’s slowly leaking. This time, my team and I had to pivot practically overnight, relying even more on gut instincts and less on the careful, methodical research that usually fuels my innovation process. I have come to love the rapid-fire check-ins we hold almost every day and the constant pings in between on Teams. But my favorite moment happened at the end of one sprint, where we held a Zoom party to toast each other. I’d given everyone a VW car toy to commemorate our newest virtual workshops, and one teammate’s little girl popped in to show us how fast she could make the car go. Yep, she’s going to be fine in the new normal, and so are we!
Nancy: I might be the only person to get a C minus in speech communications in college and then start a communications firm. As a wee child, I was raised in a difficult home that didn’t have empathy modeled for me. By the time I got to college, I didn’t know how to connect to an audience with content that was relevant to them. So, in that course, I got an A+ for my visuals but failed in empathy. Now, all the books I write have models in them that have helped me empathetically understand others. That void of empathy became the foundation for my life’s work.
Specific to the current COVID-19 situation, having led a business since 1988 means that this pandemic isn’t my first financial crisis. No matter how well you run a business, external forces will test you, your culture, and your resolve. I’m constantly assessing the future, and my employees are watching to see how confident I am, how clearly I see the situation, and how clearly I paint a picture of the way out (which is foggy, but I see it). Even the strongest-performing employees are scared, and some are even fragile under their crazy new work conditions. A crisis pressure-tests a leader’s culture and resolve. Some tests I’ve passed, and some not so much. Company values are tested, and new ones are being formed under the strain. Communicating more often and more transparently has shored up employees in a season of enormous distraction.
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