Architect Your Learning

The Art of Storytelling: The Basics of How to Talk to People

Stories drive us. Humans used stories for hundreds of thousands of years to communicate, to teach, to inspire. Way before we had textbooks, we had stories.

The Art of Storytelling gives you a systematic way of talking to people such that they believe you are technically capable, generally likeable, and that there’s something special about you. And then we practice the stuffing out of it.

Why do we do this? Quite simply, practice makes perfect. In order to ace the interview you’ve got to satisfy three conditions:

1. You’ve got to really know your stuff. Really. No, REALLY.
2. You’ve got to have something about you that’s special, or at least interesting!
3. You’ve got to be likeable — the sort of person that everyone in the room would love to have as a student.

And that’s it. Satisfy these criteria and it’s all over.

How do we do it? We teach you a series of techniques that make it as simple as possible to get really good at explaining the specifics of your subject and revealing your uniqueness, without coming across as arrogant or annoying.

TechnoBabble: How to Talk About Technical Topics

TechnoBabble is an approach to learning that focuses on talking your way through problems, concepts and approaches — to deepen your learning for yourself and to communicate your understanding to others. It is designed specifically for technical topics, and it forms the basis of all good teaching.

Why is talking so important? Everybody knows that you only make real progress when learning a foreign language when you try to speak it. Reading and listening are skills that use far less brain function than talking. This is because when you are talking, you are ‘creating’ as you go along, from the repository of semantic chunks that you have stored in your memory. Thus, when you talk about what you know — especially when you are explaining it to someone else — you arrive at a far deeper understanding of your topic in as short a time as possible.

It’s the minimum-will approach to learning. We call this general approach Talk For Learning™. Einstein encapsulated it with his statement:

If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it properly yourself.

TechnoBabble is a way to talk specifically about technical topics and is part of the general suite of techniques in our Talk For Learning™ suite. It’s a bit like ‘Show & Tell’ meets the university ‘viva’. With big pictures.

TechnoBabble 1: Teach to SIX™

What is it? This is the key framework for communicating understanding. Building on the concept of Talk For Learning™, Teach to Six is a structure that makes it really easy to see how well you understand a topic, concept or idea.

Why is it useful? Teach to SIX™ is a simple structure that is easy to remember, yet flexible and robust enough to be suitable for most topics.

How does it work? SIX acts as a useful mnemonic for the process.

S — Simple Language. You cannot use any words in your explanations that would be outside the vocabulary of a typical six-year-old. This reinforces Einstein’s approach and avoids students masking their lack of deep understanding of a topic by hiding behind technical language. A key question to ask when considering technical words is this: Does the introduction of this word add any understanding? Or is it just a definition?

I — It’s a bit like… This is the concept of analogy. It’s far better to say what things are like than to introduce them ‘in vacuo’. This is what all learners do anyway whenever you introduce them to a new concept — the mind is constantly trying to make sense of the new information in relation to all the information it currently has. A deliberate use of analogy can ease this transition, especially if many different analogies are used.

X — eXamples. It’s a bit of a fudge, but examples are so important. Newton famously said, ‘Examples are of more use than precepts when learning the sciences.’ It’s critical to remind the explainer that examples are key to embed this learning into the learner’s set of well-understood concepts.

In summary, the Teach to Six framework provides a systematic way of making sure all students become expert explainers.

Example

So, here’s an example of the SIX in practice.

The topic is quantitative measurement, or the importance of using numbers to describe properties of things rather than just words. Technically it’s the difference between qualitative (qualities) and quantitative (amounts) descriptions.

Use SIMPLE words (and check these words are easy to understand). Let’s go…

Numbers can give us a way to compare things more usefully, rather than just using words.

It’s a bit like if I wanted to know if I could lift a chair. I can lift a box but I can’t lift a table. The chair is heavier than the box.

How much heavier? It’s quite a bit heavier.

Is the chair as heavy as the table? No, the chair is not close to being as heavy as the table.

Can I lift the chair? …

Right. As you can see, it’s hard to tell. Scientists have learnt that if they make up some numbers for how heavy things are, it gets easier to work out if you can lift things.

The chair is 20. The box is 15. The table is 80. If I know I can lift the box but I cannot lift the table, I might guess that I CAN lift the chair, because the number for the chair is closer to the number for the box. (Of course, you could introduce the idea of units here if you wanted, but if we are using comparisons, we don’t really need units.) The point is that numbers can be more helpful than just words.

Here’s another eXample:

Okay, let’s pretend you’re going to London on a train. You notice that the trees move past you faster in the train than they normally do when you ride a bike. This doesn’t help you work out how much less time it will take to get to London on the train. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with noticing that the train is faster than the bike, but the word ‘faster’ doesn’t help, other than to let you know ‘the train will get to London faster than the bike would.’

Now, if we say that the bike usually goes at about 20 miles per hour and the train goes at about 80 miles per hour, you can guess that the bike will take four times longer than the train to get to London.

And that’s the difference between quantitative and qualitative measurements.

Try it yourself

Create your own SIX to explain the concept of the radius of a circle.

TechnoBabble 2: The Dinner Party Conversation

What is it? The Dinner Party Conversation is a way of talking about technical things that then relates to some action that you are going to take. What do you say when you talk to people at a dinner party about your plans? Or in a coffee shop? Or just hanging out?

This is a format for making sure you are telling the story about your future plans in a way that makes it easy for people to get behind you and support you. Crucially, they will believe the logic behind what you’re telling them because it’s based on science. It’s also a format that they can remember — and if they can remember it, there’s a good chance they will remember you.

The conversation has a four-point format and goes like this:

• Well, you know how…
• It turns out…
• The theory / science / thinking is…
• So that’s why…

And the way of doing it is important:

• Step 1 — Connection. Getting people interested because it’s something they know a bit about: Well, you know how…
• Step 2 — Results. The evidence, observations, what actually happens, what our studies have shown. This is what the research indicates about this technical topic: It turns out that…
• Step 3 — Explanation. The theory, the science, the thinking, the reasoning behind the results. This is currently the best reason that science has for explaining WHY we get those results: The thinking is that…
• Step 4 — Action. What we are going to do about it, which must be a reasonable plan of action — the how: So that’s why…

Why is it useful? People want to get behind you, but they don’t always trust what you’re going to do. People close to us have seen our previous failures and they worry that we are going to make fools of ourselves. The DPC format enables people to instantly extrapolate your reasonable plan of action into the future results you will get. They have to be able to see for themselves how likely it is to work.

How does it work?

1. The Connection: Well, you know how ___________.
2. The Results: Well, it turns out that ______________.
3. The Explanation: Well, the thinking / research / theory behind it is that ______________.
4. The Reasonable Action Plan: So what I’m going to do is ________.

Sir Isaac Newton famously said examples are more important than precepts when getting ideas across, so we’re going to give you a few examples that are both indicative and contra-indicative. (That is, we sometimes use the ‘opposite’ of what we’re suggesting to illustrate a point more clearly.)

Example 1: Your friend asks you about your plan to exercise more

Friend: So, what’s this all about then?

You: Well, you know how high blood pressure is the leading cause of early death in the West?

Friend: Um, well I can imagine it’s certainly a leading contributor.

You: Well, it turns out that exercising aerobically for just 30 minutes extra per week can reduce your blood pressure by 50%!

Friend: What, for everyone? Really?

You: Yes, it looks that way! According to a recent study in Germany, researchers found that as little as 30 minutes of low-level aerobic exercise per week reduced blood pressure by 50% for over 90% of subjects studied, in a period of just three months.

Friend: Well, that does sound interesting. I’ll have to check it out. So is that what those new running shoes are all about then?

You: Running shoes? Oh no. These are walking shoes. All I’m going to do is walk the dog at the weekends. My wife usually does it on her own, but I’m going to do Saturdays and Sundays from now on with her.

Friend: Nice one. That’ll work.

Example 2: Your friend is intrigued about your new bass guitar

Friend: So, whose bass is that then?

You: Well, you know how I’ve always wanted to learn the bass?

Friend: Yeah… I remember you bought one at college and had it kicking around the dorm for a few months. Whatever happened to that?

You: No idea, that was a while ago. Probably lost it in a card game… Yep, so I’ve wanted to learn the bass for years and never really got around to it. You know, every time I got close to it, I sort of did it for a few weeks and then it just fizzled out.

Friend: Yeah… well, there’s tons of things I’ve started and not really finished too.

You: Tell me about it… Anyway, it turns out that the reason a lot of people don’t achieve their goals is that they don’t have systems in place to force them to do the work for long enough to get good enough to really start to enjoy it, to play with other musicians and so on.

Friend: Yeah, well, OK. Maybe. So what?

You: Well, something interesting just happened. The kid who plays bass in the church band is off to college at the end of the year, and so I said I’d stick my hand up and have a crack!

Friend: Er, OK. That sounds interesting. You getting lessons and everything?

You: Well, this is the thing. Because he’s not going for another six months, I’ve got time to get good enough. He’s offered to let me sit in on one track each week, and teach me how to play it as we go. This way, it won’t stress me out too much and I’ll have learnt the whole song book by the time he goes to college.

Friend: That sounds awesome. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Can I start calling you Sting yet?

Example 3: Your friend wants to know all about your decision to quit your job and go travelling

Friend: So, what the hell, man? You’ve quit your job?

You: Well, you know how I’ve always wanted to go travelling? And kept just putting it off?

Friend: Um, yeah, kind of. We all want to do that, don’t we?

You: Well, yeah, I guess. Although I’ve always wanted to do it seriously, like before the kids get too old and everything. You know, travelling with teenagers is not my idea of fun.

Friend: Yeah, I reckon. So, what’s the plan?

You: Well, you know how a lot of people these days make money writing travel blogs and so on?

Friend: Well, I don’t know they make any money, but I guess they must make enough to actually travel. And eat, I suppose.

You: Well, some of them make a good quid. And I can write pretty well. And I think there’s probably a market for travelling with a family. I don’t think many bloggers have covered that area in any depth.

Friend: Yeah, OK. Well, maybe not. So, what’s the plan?

You: Well, I’ve bought a domain name and I’ve written to a bunch of newspapers to see if they want me to write any guest articles, and I’ve got some money saved up. So I’m going to rent out the house, sell the car and a bunch of stuff I don’t need, and then get cracking. We’ll probably go at the end of March.

Friend: So, where are you going to go?

You: Haven’t quite decided yet. I fancy South America to start with.

Friend: And what about the kids?

You: Well, they’re not that keen and the wife’s a bit apprehensive, but I reckon it’ll work out great. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?

Friend: Well, I applaud your bravery, but it’s a little bit nuts if you don’t mind me saying so. How much are you going to need to live on until you get some income from the writing? Have you thought about possibly getting a TEFL certificate and teaching English as you go, just to give you some more options?

You: Hmmm, that’s not a bad idea, but I was really hoping to be able to just travel and enjoy the experience.

Friend: Um, OK then. Good luck with that.

Of course, I’m exaggerating somewhat with this one. But clearly the difference is obvious between Example Three, which is pretty flaky, and the other two. The connection is still good, and the reason is still strong, but the plan of action just doesn’t look reasonable. Combining a shaky plan with the uncertainty in delivery makes it easy for other people to doubt whether you are going to go through with it — and also whether or not it’s going to be a disaster.

So one of the key features of this technique is that you’re going to be able to give people a very clear reason for doing what you’re doing, and to back it up with a very reasonable plan. You’re not going to get anyone doubting you. You’ll be amazed.

Try it yourself

Create your own Dinner Party Conversation. You’re going to try to explain to people how you’re going to get into Cambridge to study Computer Science, based on a plan of attack that is unique.