EMBA Story As Foundational: Part II - Tell & Align Your Story Welcome! - MIT

EMBA
Story As Foundational:
Part II - Tell & Align Your Story
              PICTURE PRESENTATION SLIDE group
                       Welcome!
          Any new stories you want to share?!

What we’ll cover today
▸ How do you tell your story?

▸ How do you align your story?

Power of story

Source: Berkeley HAAS CDO

Science of story

                            Cortisol → Oxcytocin → Dopamine
Source: Berkeley HAAS CDO

What’s your story?
    ▸ Stories define us

    ▸ Stories should be deeply true and engaging

    ▸ Stories need coherence

    ▸ Good stories are essential for making a successful transition

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Tell your story
    ▸ What makes a story
      ▸ structure, objective, timeline, agent, place

    ▸ What makes a compelling story
      ▸ character, conflict, climax, conclusion, interpretation, reflection

    ▸ What makes a true story
      ▸ completeness, accuracy, context, balance

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Breakout session
    ▸ Practice telling your story- Answer the question:
         ▸ What is one story that represents a core theme of your career?

    ▸ You will have 2 minutes to answer the question

    ▸ Then, you will switch roles

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Alignment is a strategic process

         Analyze          Analyze your
         yourself           audience

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Analyze yourself
    ▸ Who are you?

    ▸ How will you add value?

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Analyze your audience
     ▸ What skills/background are needed for your target role?
       ▸ Use job descriptions
       ▸ Benchmark to people in target roles

     ▸ What are the company values and culture?
       ▸ Use strategic resources to learn more

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Analyze your target role
     Example role: Director of Product, Amazon Twitch
     We are building a new paradigm of advertising experiences to help brands engage millennial and Gen-Z audience in Twitch's live,
     shared, and interactive consumption experience. You'll lead an accomplished team of product managers and be responsible for a
     portfolio of ad products. Your team will build zero-to-one advertising products that appeal to viewers, deliver value to
     advertisers, and help creators earn a living by streaming on Twitch. Each of your products will be three-sided marketplaces that
     deliver value to these three customers. You and your team build delightful consumer experiences that scale and drive decisions
     that maximize the long-term value. Your portfolio will span advertising and influencer marketing.

     You Will
     • Establish a vision for advertising experiences on Twitch and lead and inspire your direct and cross functional teams to execute
        on Identify opportunities, overcome ambiguities, drive clarity on the problems that need to be solved, and determine the strategy
        for your product area
     • Evaluate marketplace trade-offs (e.g. between viewer experience, creator earnings, advertiser value) and drive decisions that
        maximize long-term value for all customers.
     • Collaborate closely with Product and Engineering leaders across Twitch and Amazon to prioritize and deliver results
     • Partner with Marketing and Sales to develop go-to-market strategy and manage launches of new products
     • Hire, mentor, and lead a team of PMs

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Analyze your target role
     Example role: Director of Product Management, Conversations
     Products
     Our product organization is built of many small, autonomous squads who each own a product or critical capability. The squads are
     organized within product groups within our two core products (Lead Management & Sales Engagement). As a Director Conversations
     Products, you will lead several product groups within the core Lead Management product built for Marketing and SDR teams, including
     our desktop and mobile live chat products, the website chat widget, Email Bots, and several new product initiatives. You will get in the weeds
     with the teams to make sure we’re building the right thing, while also stepping back and working with peers in product design and
     engineering leadership to ensure we have the systems, processes, and frameworks to execute consistently at scale. You understand
     the challenges and opportunities of developing Enterprise-grade business products and can help our entire team embrace the learnings and
     principles you have developed in your career.

     What you’ll be doing on the Product team at Drift:
     ▸   You’ll spend a lot of time talking to customers, understanding their problems, and validating your teams’ solutions
     ▸   You’ll join pre and post sales calls with enterprise customers, understand their needs, and translate that into missions for your teams
     ▸   You’ll know the market cold. You’ll be an expert on Live Chat and Lead Management platforms
     ▸   You’ll work with the founders and Product VPs to define the strategy and roadmap to deliver on the company’s vision

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Analyze your target organization
     Example organization: Amazon
     • Customer Obsession: Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust.
       Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
     • Ownership: Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf
       of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job."
     • Invent and Simplify Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are
       externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here." As we do new things, we accept
       that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.
     • Are Right, A Lot. Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to
       disconfirm their beliefs.
     • Learn and Be Curious: Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new
       possibilities and act to explore them.
     • Hire and Develop the Best: Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent,
       and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We
       work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.
     • Etc….

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Analyze your target organization

     Analyze your target organization

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Analyze your target co: Resources
         ▸   EMBA Classmates
         ▸   EMBA Alums
         ▸   MIT Alumni Advisor Hub
         ▸   Research Databases – access via cdo.mit.edu
         ▸   Company Websites
         ▸   LinkedIn
         ▸   Google Search- Glassdoor and similar

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Align your story

     ▸ How are you aligned?
       ▸ Skills, knowledge, attributes
       ▸ Values, priorities, purpose

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Tell & align your story
     ▸ Take 2 minutes and structure your story again with a target co/role in mind

     ▸ Working with the same partner, answer tell me about yourself

     ▸ You each have 2 minutes to practice your story

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Story - next steps
      Create a story bank
         Strategic to tactical

      Practice your storytelling

      Consider doing a mock interview

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