The Story Rules Podcast

“And then something amazing happened – what I heard from the audience was, “Ohh!” and then right after that, all of my conclusions started coming out of their mouths. And after that, all my recommendations started coming out of their mouths. I never drew my conclusions, or made any recommendations, but every one of my recommendations got implemented. It was the most effective presentation (that) I (had) made in the whole 20 years at Procter and Gamble”Paul Smith is the bestselling author of books such as ‘Lead with a Story’, ‘Sell with a Story’ and ‘The 10 Stories Great Leaders Tell’.Paul specialises in what I call as ‘human stories’ – which is narrating specific incidents from work and life that contain valuable lessons or insights. Through his books, Paul teaches us how to use such incident stories to lead better and to sell better.Now, you might think that the ability to narrate incident stories is a God-given one – you either have it or you don’t. But reading Paul’s books gives you the clarity and confidence that this is very much a learnable skill. Look, I get it. As a skill, storytelling may seem esoteric, mysterious and difficult to break down into component parts. But it is possible to do that… and of the many books I’ve read on the topic, Paul’s books are perhaps the best at achieving a neat, structured breakdown of this craft.In this short but insight-filled podcast episode:Paul talks about his life journey and how he used a mix of thinking clarity, determination and sheer hard-work to pivot his career from the corporate world to the world of storytellingHe also shares some great story examples that you can use immediately at your work. For instance:He narrates a story of when he made a presentation to P&G’s senior leadership, where instead of telling his findings upfront, he took the audience on a discovery journey and tapped into their curiosityHe offers ideas on how to elicit stories from your clients and other counterpartsPaul also mentions when should you use elaborate storytelling techniques vs just share the information requestedFinally he surprised me with what is he currently upto (you will find it hard to believe) and how he plans to 'go for the stars' in his latest innings.It has been a privilege for me to have such an accomplished author and storyteller on the podcast. I hope you find the conversation as insightful as I did.Show notes:Paul's website, YouTube channel, LinkedIn, TwitterPaul's books on storytelling:- ‘Lead with a Story’, - ‘Sell with a Story’  - ‘The 10 Stories Great Leaders Tell’

Sajith Pai, VC at Blume Ventures and razor-sharp observer of India’s startup scene, shares how storytelling and content became core to business. He talks about building a public brand through writing, reading and note routines, spotting patterns like India 1/2, and shaping narratives to win decisions. Short practical habits and a love for engineered solitude come up often.

“The only thing I would say is ask fundamental questions; ask stupid questions; insight lies in interrogating the obvious. It lies in asking the obvious. It’s not new knowledge, it’s in the old knowledge. It’s in asking 'why' to the most basic questions. The most basic questions are the ones that I think will give the most interesting answers.” That is Santosh Desai - a leader who wears many hats. Santosh headed an ad-agency, currently heads a brand consulting firm, is a published author and a long-time columnist for the Times of India. His weekly column City-city Bang-Bang - which he has been writing for 17 long years - paints a vivid, relatable yet surprising portrait of India’s fascinating culture. Some of these columns have been compiled in a book called 'Mother Pious Lady: Making Sense of Everyday India'. I’ve always been a fan of Santosh’s work. Specifically, his stellar observational skills (which to my surprise, he says are not that great!), his ability to see the unusual in the usual and his almost poetic writing abilities. In this conversation, we dive into the secrets of how Santosh Desai does his magic. How does he view the world with his unique fundamental questions. How he finds patterns and mental models that help him interpret and understand this world… and how he finally brings it all on paper with his lucid and lyrical prose. It is an eye-opening conversation, especially for left-brain-heavy folks like me who tend to over-rely on data, logic and structure!*****Episode Links:Santosh's website and Twitter handleSantosh's essay series 'City City Bang Bang' in the Times of IndiaHis book:  'Mother Pious Lady: Making Sense of Everyday India'. The Bharat Darshan reports on the Future Brands Consulting website

“No data exists on its own; there has to be a story, or a theory, or a hypothesis which connects that and everything else that we know about the world or the subject matter of your story. When you say that these two states in northern India have developed, is it reflected in the GDP per capita numbers? Is it reflected in the unemployment numbers, that government data itself is collecting? Is it reflected in the other development indicators?”That is Pramit Bhattacharya - the ex-Data Editor at Mint and currently a freelance data columnist based in Chennai. He writes the 'Truth, Lies, and Statistics' column for Mint, and 'Simply Economics' column for the Hindustan Times.Data is the core raw material with which we build a story. If the quality of your sand or clay is rubbish, then the bricks, and the house that you build with it, will also be rubbish.Pramit has spent several years tracking macro data in India - from various government and institutional sources. He deeply understands the storied history of India’s statistical infrastructure as well as some of the recent troubling developments in that space. Over the years, he has written several detailed pieces arguing for what needs to be done to improve our data foundation.He has also written data-driven investigative pieces which have shed more light on key sectors of the economy.In this conversation, Pramit shares some of the techniques that we can all use when working with data:1. The importance of validating your data.  - How do you know what data sources (especially from the government) to trust?  - How the use of transparency - especially concerning the raw-data and collection methodology - can engender trust in data?  - And how you can check the credibility of one metric by triangulating data from other related sources?2. Hypotheses vs bias: Pramit also shares the technique he uses to avoid getting swayed by his own hypotheses and biases when he's investigating a data story.3. Counter-factuals: Finally, he talks about the importance of the counterfactual - a key technique to ensure that we don’t get too influenced by alarmist headlines. By asking ourselves - 'Ok, X looks bad, but what is the counterfactual? What is the norm for a similar context?' - we can be better placed to come to an informed judgement about X.It’s a conversation filled with practical nuggets of wisdom that you can use to improve your own data stories.Unfortunately, we had to cut this conversation a bit short because of an unforeseen commitment that he had. I definitely hope to continue my conversation with Pramit sometime in the future!With that, let’s dive in.***Show notes:Pramit's columns in MintPramit's columns for Hindustan TimesPramit on Twitter and LinkedInPramit's article on reading budget dataPramit's article on the pitfalls of night lights data

"I think the message that I wanted to leave people with was “Can you swap anxiety with curiosity?” This is something I’ve been trying to do for myself: when you’re in an anxious situation, can you take a curious approach and say “What is going on? What can I learn from this?”, whether you can postpone the anxiety to when it is more useful to be anxious, is something that I was keen to get out in this piece"That is J Ramanand, the Co-Founder and Upleveler at Choose to Thinq, which enables organisations and individuals become future relevant.Ramanand is a master quizzer, quizmaster and an expert at using the power of curiosity to help others uplevel themselves in a 'shape-shifting' world.So here’s a confession. I’ve always been in awe of quizzes.For one, the sheer thrill of quizzing.Even though I’ve participated in just a handful of quizzes throughout my life, I still remember the memory of the dopamine hits when I would get an answer right. It must be amazing to get these hits much more often in life!The second reason relates to the skill of quizzing. Now, many of you may know this, but for those who don’t: Good quizzes are not reliant on memory. As Ramanand says, they have 50% of the answer hidden in the question itself… and the participant can use the powers of deduction to arrive at the answer.Now, while the ability to deduce an answer with the given clues is one key quizzing skill, the real skill for me is the craft of creating good quiz questions. And it is this craft which has several parallels with storytelling. Both skills use the power of surprise, familiarity and curiosity to deliver an engaging experience to the audience.Ramanand is uniquely placed to shed light on these two related skills: - He is a die-hard quizzer - incidentally he was the youngest winner at BBC's Mastermind India and has appeared as an expert on the show Kaun Banega Crorepati (India’s version of Who wants to be a Millionaire) - He’s a sought-after quizmaster: for the last couple of decades he’s been setting questions on an average of at least one a day. That’s thousands of questions! - He’s an engaging and thought-provoking writer - He works closely with the leadership at different organisations in helping them navigate the ‘shape-shifting world’ as he calls it and stay future relevantI had a ton of fun geeking out on quizzing and storytelling techniques with Ramanand. Finally, make sure you listen to the fabulous, fascinating story about the Indian flute maestro, Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia. Let’s dive in. ****Show notes:J Ramanand on LinkedIn and Twitter Choose to Thinq websitePosts by Ramanand on the CTQ blog: - Three lessons on Managing a remote team - How Fouls Changed FootballQuora posts by Ramanand: - A favourite question he created - Favourite personal moments from quizzingA piece Ramanand wrote  for Mint: The Computer History Museum 

Often at work, when I would get bored, I would press CMD-Tab on my Mac and head off to drown myself in the joys of the internet. Movie reviews on Rediff.com, Sports writing on Cricinfo, and funny videos and trailers on Youtube. (Of course I was doing all this to learn the art of storytelling).And on Youtube, while I would watch videos by a variety of creators, perhaps the group that I enjoyed the most was All India Bakchod (or AIB). For the uninitiated, AIB was a comedy collective which created funny sketches and videos on a variety of topics. Some of their well-known series included: - The Honest series - a seriously funny take on all experiences from restaurants to flights to engineering campus placements to the Big Fat Indian Wedding- The Bollywood spoofs: Check out the viral one with Alia Bhatt, or their work with Irrfan- Political satire: the biting one on the news media or the one on electionsIt’s really good stuff. I found the quality of their storytelling so good that I don’t think I’ve missed ANY of their sketches (yep, I even liked the Pista one).I also liked the fact that AIB would always respect its writers and prominently credit them in their videos (often getting these reticent creators to appear at the end to ask for the mandatory subscribes and likes).One such writer I noticed in some of those videos was a shy, nerdy looking guy called Devaiah Bopanna. I realised later that he was the Head Writer there.Cut to - a few years later - I came across some funny posts by Devaiah on an unlikely platform - LinkedIn! And I also learnt that he - along with some AIB stalwarts like Tanmay, Nupur, Vishal, Puneet - have been responsible for the crazy viral CRED ads - including the one featuring Rahul Dravid as Indiranagar ka gunda and Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad as members of a boy band.And then I decided that I need to get Devaiah on my podcast to get his take on the craft of storytelling. It took some time, but I’m glad that I persisted.Devaiah is a multifaceted and thoughtful creator. During the conversation he talks about:- His curiosity being his biggest learning driver- Why he would think extra hard about the opening in a story- How AIB made its stories surprising yet familiar- The parts of storytelling where he personally struggles withIt’s a fun, insightful conversation. Enjoy!A small note before we begin: There are parts where Devaiah uses some fairly colourful language. Since this is a show for adults, I’ve chosen to keep them in. But please be mindful in case you are listening with young folks around.Further links:Devaiah Bopanna on LinkedIn and Twitter

“And their stories would suddenly be much more powerful than the story I triggered their thought with. So that's how I started speaking to women and collecting these stories. And the whole idea behind it, which seems to be working so far, is that you can deny opinions, you can question studies, but you cannot deny real experiences of real people.”That is Mahima Vashisht, the incredibly talented writer of the 'Womaning in India' newsletter. (You haven't subscribed yet? Off you go and sign yourself up pronto!).In my podcast, all my guests have taught me a lot about the craft of storytelling. But it’s rare to come across a guest who - apart from storytelling - has also taught me how to be a better person. Mahima Vashisht is one such guest. I was introduced to Mahima’s writing through Anustup Nayak on Twitter. And I was quite blown away by her work. In the 'Womaning in India' newsletter, Mahima shares stories about everyday issues faced by women. Issues like discrimination at the workplace, mental load at home, unequal sharing of domestic chores, under-representation at leadership levels across fields…and so on. And while these stories are backed by research and stats, Mahima’s main tool is her collection of stories. Real stories shared by real people. Stories that are told with honesty, engagement, empathy, relatability… and generous amounts of humour. (One of Mahima’s superpowers is her ability to take crappy 1990s Bollywood movie references and extract comedy gold from them!) So, two things that make Mahima a special storyteller for me: 1. Her choice of topic: Mahima writes about gender issues - a topic that impacts all of us, but has limited options in terms of engaging storytelling for those who want to know more. For the world to become a better place, a more equitable place, it is critical that these stories are shared widely, especially with men.2. Her approach in sharing them: There’s a lot to learn from Mahima’s storytelling process. She takes incidents shared by her network of friends and adds her narrative abilities and her own brand of humour to convert these into highly readable stories.In addition to her take on the craft of storytelling, Mahima also offers some perspective on the gender rights movement and why, despite all the gloom, there’s reason to be optimistic for the future.It’s a must-listen conversation - especially for men! Contact links:The Womaning in India Substack newsletterWomaning in India on- Twitter- Instagram- LinkedIn- Mahima's LinkedIn profileEmail: womaningindia@gmail.com This podcast was hosted by me, Ravishankar Iyer. Audio editing by Kartik Rajan. Transcript editing by Amisha Jha and all-round support by Sanket Aalegaonkar.

“I'm in the boardroom, he's in the middle; (There are) Managers around, listening to my presentation; I get to the slide with this insight or observation that I had found, and he tilts his head, looks at it, and then blurts out “Bullshit!” At that moment I was like, 'Oh crap, I have just stepped in it. I am not going to be one of the MBA students hired now. I am in trouble here,' and I was a little bit flustered. I wasn't expecting that reaction; I was expecting 'Oh, that's interesting, Brent! Tell us more.' or maybe, 'We should look into that.' But nope, it was basically flatly denied, and luckily, I had a mentor who jumped in and gave me some cover fire. I escaped the room that day relatively unscathed, maybe my ego (got) bruised a little…but what did die that day was that observation; that potential insight went nowhere. Nobody picked it up and said “Hey, let's look at this trend!” or anything. Basically, when the Senior VP says 'bullshit!' about something, I don't think there's another Manager who would pick it up. So, that taught me a very good lesson that I have to find a better way to approach communicating data.”That is Brent Dykes, author of “Effective Data Storytelling: How to Drive Change with Data, Narrative and Visuals” a seminal book on the topic.In 2016, Brent (who started his career in Marketing Analytics) wrote an article on Data Storytelling in Forbes magazine. That article went viral with 3-400K views. In subsequent conferences and talks, Brent was asked for book recommendations. He realised that there wasn’t anything which covered the stuff that he was talking about.. and decided to write one himself.I’m so glad he did, because I learnt a lot from his book. In a newsletter post a few months back, I’d written an effusive review of the book - no wonder, I was excited to have Brent in my podcast.In this conversation, Brent shares some of his best insights from the book:- Why do you need to tell a data story: to ensure that your hard-won insights are not ignored- When do you need to tell a data story: The simple but effective concept of the Story Zone- How do you tell a data story: the different types of narratives and the one that Brent prefers- The idea of a Data Trailer as a way of enticing the audience to listen to the entire Data StoryIn addition, Brent also narrates some fabulous contrasting examples - of people who struggled to make an impact because of poor storytelling, as well as of folks who changed the world through the power of story. Links to resources:Brent's LinkedIn profileBrent's Twitter accountWebsite for Brent's bookBrent's book on Amazon: Effective Data Storytelling: How to Drive Change with Data, Narrative and VisualsMy blog post on Brent's book with the Story Zone visual.This podcast was hosted by me, Ravishankar Iyer. Audio editing by Kartik Rajan. Transcript editing by Amisha Jha and all-round support by Sanket Aalegaonkar.

“So, I have this concept which I call ‘Listening to Ignite’, which is, you're listening for things that can really light up the other person. So, it's about what your curiosity clicks into. And can you ask a question that allows them a launchpad to show the best of their skill, their experience, their expertise, their background? And I think in that occasion, when you're thinking of those questions, when you're thinking of something you remember, not being present with that person is almost the more generous act.”That is Max Dickins, an improv artist who helps leaders and their teams get extraordinary outcomes through the use of improvisation techniques.Many months back, I had reviewed Max's superb book, 'Improvise: Use the Secrets of Improv to achieve Extraordinary Results at Work' and was delighted to have him on my podcast.For the uninitiated, improv, short for ‘Improvisational theatre’ is the art of unscripted theatre. But it goes so much beyond that. It’s a whole different way of thinking. A way of thinking that has applications in almost all aspects of life - whether at work or at home.In the book, Max shares several lessons from improv that can help you to: • Be more creative • Listen better • Become more mentally agile • Improve spontaneity • Enhance collaboration • Embrace failure and learn from it We touch upon all of these topics in the conversation. I specifically was curious to know how Improv principles can help us listen and present better at the workplace. Max has some great ideas for us. Links to resources:Max Dickins' websiteMax' Twitter handleHis LinkedIn pageHis Amazon author pageMy review of his bookThis podcast was hosted by me, Ravishankar Iyer. Audio editing by Kartik Rajan. Transcript editing by Amisha Jha and all-round support by Sanket Aalegaonkar.

“You have to woo the reader. You have to persuade the person, first of all, to read what you have written that's the very first thing. If you have failed there then you've already failed. It doesn't matter what are the gems of wisdom. So the notion that you have to woo your reader was important.”That is Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar, aka Swami, the legendary and long-serving columnist for the Times of India and one of the foremost chroniclers of the India economic story.Growing up in Mumbai, the Times of India was a daily habit at our household. Here’s what I would unfailingly do, when I got my hands on the newspaper:- I’d look for ‘interesting pictures’ in Bombay Times (I mean, let’s be honest, I was in my mid-teens)- In the main paper I would chuckle at RK Laxman’s cartoon of the day- I’d then ignore the rest of the front page and head straight to the sports pages.- And when it would be the Sunday Times of India, I would head to the edit page and first read the ‘Swaminomics’ columnToday, I’m not exactly a big fan of the Times group. But I still like the Sunday Times of India, especially that edit page and especially Swaminomics.Since my early teens, I have marvelled at Swami’s ability to demystify complex economic and political news and distil the key essence for the lay reader. He would take contrarian perspectives and back them with solid data and clear analysis. You might disagree with his opinion, but you couldn’t ignore it.Swami is a legend, a doyen of economic journalism in India. And so, it seemed like a moonshot - what if I could interview THE Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar for this podcast?Well, dreams do come true.After a few emails and some help from his daughter Pallavi (who I knew from earlier) I was thrilled when he agreed to come on this podcast!In this conversation, Swami narrates key milestones from his 56-year writing journey … (That’s right, 56 years - he’s been professionally writing for 14 more years than I’ve been on this planet).He shares his research sources, how he records his ideas, his contrarian approach, and the focus on lucid writing. It’s a memorable conversation. Let’s dive in.Links to resources:- Swami's columns in the Times of India- Author page for the Economic Times- CATO Institute Profile- Books by SA Aiyar