Andy Raskin: evaluation

Transcript context

…Yeah. Okay, so let's get into it. So you help CEOs at this point come up with what you call a strategic narrative and you help them not only come up with this strategic narrative, but you help their teams align around this strategic narrative. So let's just start with what is a strategic narrative? Yeah, you'd think, I've been doing this for 10 years, I'd have a very snappy definition of it there, and I don't know if I'm really happy with ... like I've ever found one that totally gets at it yet. The one thing I say is it's this one story that the CEO uses to drive success in marketing, sales, but also product. That it becomes like a north star, strategic north star for product roadmap, for fundraising, for recruiting, really everything. What I think is really interesting as a kind of qualifier is that this story has a certain structure. Like I said, when I found those screenwriting books, I sort of shifted the structure. And the traditional structure, the way I learned how to pitch in business school, I think the way most people did is what I call the arrogant doctor. So you have a problem, a pain, I have a solution, a treatment, and I'm going to tell you why it's better than all the other treatment. Not to say it's not better, but just this is the structure of it, and it kind of sets you up for bragging. Let me tell you why it's so great. And the structure that I read about in these movies was different. In the movies, every movie starts with some kind of shift in the world, in the character's world. And I call this shift the shift from the old game to the new game. And the archetypal example of this, I think in the business world is what Benioff did with Salesforce. So he comes in and he says, "Hey, software is over," meaning software in the sense that we're going to own it and maintain it, "And there's this new world called the cloud, a new game, like the new rules, everything has changed and that's the new way to win. And we're going to help you if you're in there." This structure really is about defining a movement and that's very different from, "Hey, I'm going to solve your problem." I think the Salesforce example is an awesome example of your approach. If they were thinking about it in the old way, what would Salesforce have done? How would they have pitched it if not for, "Everyone's moving to the cloud, your dumb for using desktop software,"?…

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