The story of Pepsi and Coca-Cola fought the Cola wars continue to inspire many a case study at Indian business schools for everything around market capture, customer research, genius of ad campaigns, and what not.
Prakash Iyer in his book ‘The Habit of Winning’ highlights a former Pepsi CEO’s smart use of storytelling to inspire others to action. It’s a modern retake of the old “I’m not breaking stones, I’m helping to build the world’s tallest cathedral”.
So this former CEO recognised that to win the cola war, they needed an infantry at the front lines: sales. Feet on the street. You tell a salesperson to work on commissions, performance-linked incentives, etc. you get only so much (itne paise mein itna hi milega). You flip the org chart upside-down and tell her she’s the one on top while you, the CEO, are at the very bottom. Suddenly, your infantry believes they have superpowers.
Iyer writes this CEO literally did just that. Flip the org chart – making that his favourite slide ‘in any presentation’. The brand went an extra mile by making an ad featuring a Pepsi salesman scolding Sachin Tendulkar for smashing a ball into the windshield of his Pepsi truck, later asking him to chill and have a Pepsi.
Feels great. The power of good storytelling is supreme.
Iyer explains that it isn’t surprising that Suman succeeded in creating a first-rate sales team, where every salesman and every route agent who drove a Pepsi truck saw himself as a hero, out on a battle.
No, it isn’t surprising at all.
This is exactly why we should stop telling stories in school and teach storytelling instead. There’s a big difference to it. Storytelling is a different skillset.
When a mind is conditioned to listen to stories, we’ll believe any story that appeals to our emotions. Think Santa. Think ‘Slow and Steady wins the race’ and ‘Friend in need is a friend indeed’. From there on, you’re a hop, skip, and jump away to ‘you’re helping Pepsi to win the cola war. Not just ‘selling Pepsi’‘, by the time you’re in a business school.
When you learn about storytelling, you learn how to hook your listener, how to create emotional blips designed to make them feel for the characters. You know that when this happens, thinking stops. They buy into your version. You. Your product or proposition.
Something else happens when you learn how to tell stories: you learn to spot the storyteller. The one who tells you what to hear, where to focus, and what to do. It could be your boss, your political leader, your spiritual guide, even you. Your own self.
When you learn how to tell stories, you learn how to mix facts with fiction, action with emotion. You learn to discern.
We should make way for the rhetorical triangle (ethos-pathos-logos, the very same) to be seen and taught by schoolkids so that when a CEO flips the org chart downwards on that new trainee, the latter can ask if the pay ratio CEO-to-worker also reflects a similar nuance.
Teacher Takes Notes 