Tell the Story

I was somewhat of an enigma to my fellow students, both in high school and college.  I unfailingly did my pre-reading assignment, but took very few notes during the lecture, instead either listening intently to what the professor had to say, or appearing distant and disconnected as I let my mind wander where it needed to in order to process and understand the material.  This was no time for the notation and memorization of  formulas – I figured those were all available in the reference material somewhere (even more so in today’s internet environment) – the lecture itself was too valuable to waste on such detail.

What I needed to get out of the lecture were the concepts, the context, the structure, the bigger picture, and how everything connected, especially how it connected with what I’d already read and already knew.  My learning style is to fit new material into the pre-existing framework in my head, modify that framework when necessary, and to construct a “story” out of what I am learning.  It was always so much easier to address the details and apply the learning later if I understood the larger context first as a story.

What’s the story of your organization, your business?  There’s a story there, there always is.  Numbers on a spreadsheet don’t do it justice.  Yes, there is the annual report, but first, who reads it, and second, that’s just the point – it’s “annual”.  The story of your business is dynamic, it runs all year long, 24/7.  Numbers and metrics are only part of if.  The real core of your organization are your values, mission, vision, initiatives, goals and strategy. Put together properly they could be telling your story each and every day, either to an internal or to an external audience. How would you best go about this rather multifaceted communication task?

What if you had the equivalent of desktop or mobile digital signage?  Not just in your stores or in the lobby for your customers, but accessible to all your employees.  An eBook reader for your corporate story to play itself out dynamically 24/7 as your story changes and evolves.  This is what business intelligence via Visual Analyticsgives you – a platform on which to integrate and communicate the disparate data points and siloed plot-lines of your story; a place and a way for you to add context to your corporate data so that the meaning comes through loud and clear.

Those are the two big organizational communication issues – context and integration.  Numbers and events need context to make them meaningful and actionable.  40 out of 50 might be exceptional if the industry standard is 50%, but abysmal if six sigma is your objective.  But if instead it’s 40 out of 100, you are under the industry standard, unless this is baseball, in which case .400 is leading the league. Context.

How you’re doing in production needs to be integrated with quality, sales, customer satisfaction, logistics, the supply chain, marketing, services and costs.  It’s seldom that there is just a functional or departmental story that needs to be told, it’s the integrated upstream and downstream enterprise story that really matters.  Beyond the departmental functions there are all the other elements of a good story – the characters, the plots and subplots, the locations, settings and timing.  And where would we be without conflict (the market) and a climax (results)?  Add in your mission, vision and risk profile and you’ve now got the key component of “theme”.  Integration completes the story.

It will take some work, skill and even craftsmanship to make this effective – a dynamic, real-time, internal, living and breathing reporting and analysis system delivered on-demand to employee desktops and mobile devices, but in the end, well worth the effort.  I have written before (“The Core”) about how important it is to successful employee empowerment that you effectively communicate those key elements of organizational culture - mission, values, strategy and vision - so as to maximally expand their operational “white space”.  What I neglected to sufficiently develop in that post is the dynamic, story-telling nature of The Core; it’s not just a static set of maxims carved in stone at corporate HQ.

Everyone loves a good story, and I’m most certain that your organization has a good one to share – you just need a medium with which to effectively communicate.  Visualization is that medium.  With it you can attract attention with the dramatic cover, provide an index and table of context for ease of use, subdivide it into chapters, pages and portals, relate one to the other through workflow, even customize it (with proper security) for each user/reader.  That there is an analytical engine under the hood simply adds to the richness of the story, allowing each reader to explore certain themes/ issues/ settings/ characters in greater detail through data discovery, ad-hoc query and analysis. Two-way communications can be built in to make sure the receiver and the sender are in synch. The graphics, the data and the text, all present and accessible, but organized to effectively communicate the intended message and story.

That novel you’ve always wanted to write?  If you’re a business executive, you are writing it as we speak, through the organization you lead.  Make sure your story gets heard, and make certain that your readers understand your message.

By Leo Sadovy, EPM Contributor, from: http://blogs.sas.com/content/valuealley/2012/12/18/tell-your-story/?goback=%2Egde_3702992_member_197312503

Leo Sadovy handles marketing for Performance Management at SAS, which includes the areas of budgeting, planning and forecasting, activity-based management, strategy management, and workforce analytics, and advocates for SAS’ best-in-class analytics capability into the office of finance across all industry sectors. Before joining SAS, he spent seven years as Vice-President of Finance for Business Operations for a North American division of Fujitsu, managing a team focused on commercial operations, customer and alliance partnerships, strategic planning, process management, and continuous improvement. During his 13-year tenure at Fujitsu, Leo developed and implemented the ROI model and processes used in all internal investment decisions—and also held senior management positions in finance and marketing.Prior to Fujitsu, Sadovy was with Digital Equipment Corporation for eight years in sales and financial management. He started his management career in laser optics fabrication for Spectra-Physics and later moved into a finance position at the General Dynamics F-16 fighter plant in Fort Worth, Texas.He has an MBA in Finance and a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing. He and his wife Ellen live in North Carolina with their three college-age children, and among his unique life experiences he can count a run for U.S. Congress and two singing performances at Carnegie Hall.