The climax and moving forward

1. The climax and moving forward

Congratulations, you know how to set the scene and build suspense. You can put your audience on the edge of their seats. Your data supported your story so that you could get to this point. Now it's time to learn how to round out a climax, falling action, and a resolution that will lead to positive organizational change.

2. Definitions

First, a few definitions. A resolution will give a way to solve the conflict represented in your story. There have to be actionable insights in the resolution. Actionable insights are previously unrecognized patterns discovered in your data analysis that require a behavior change. A call to action, or CTA, is a well-known marketing tool. It is a prompt to encourage an immediate audience response. It promotes emotional engagement and trust in your data while providing the next small step. “Kaizen,” is the Japanese word for small, incremental process improvements that everyone accepts.These kinds of series of small commitments are very powerful when done consistently over time.

3. A Practical Example

So what does a resolution with a CTA look like? Alex, the business consultant states, "We used to dominate our industry, but now our methodologies are antiquated and weak. The competition is innovative."

4. A Practical Example

"We can engage the competition with more and better products. Our software engineers self-report higher productivity with higher caffeine intake.”

5. A Practical Example

"Make the soda machines free immediately. This is the first step to return to industry dominance." Alex makes an exposition, builds tension, and presents a conflict. Her climax is memorable, the falling action brief, and the conflict resolution is clear and precise. Her actionable insight of free soda is an obvious next step. The CTA has a clear command verb and provokes emotion. Notice that the next step is not drastic. Soda is not expensive, and it starts momentum towards more productivity changes with engineers as the solution focus for future small refinements. Kaizen practiced every day promotes positive change.

6. Summing up

First Alex stated a challenge and promoting rising tension by her talk about the climax. The tension included a foreshadowing as an actionable insight was revealed. A climax was reached as the declaration to make the soda machines free was shared. The return to industry dominance served as a falling tension and resolution. We tell stories to get things done. Actionable insights don’t just shift our thinking; they inspire us to do things differently.

7. Changing Behaviors

As you release the tension of your data story, there are various predictable reactions. You are presenting a resolution but a data story calls for change. Change induces stress and you must account for this fact. The data story charts a new direction. This new direction is easier to communicate if you keep a few things in mind. Your job as a data storyteller is always to empathize with your audience. Acknowledge that change is difficult. Outline the first small step forward. Remind your audience that data can provide the clarity and specificity to assess if this first small step is successful and to provide the next small steps.

8. Let's practice!

Here is your call to action. Solve these exercises now and you will solidify your newfound knowledge of resolutions, actionable insights, CTAs and Kaizen.

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