Patti Sanchez

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People. Our guest today is Patti Sanchez. She is the Chief Strategy Officer at Duarte, Inc., the Silicon Valley consultancy that makes good speakers great, and great speakers better. She helps leaders craft engaging narratives and storytelling to craft powerful and persuasive presentations. How do you like that for alliteration?
Patti has her bachelor's degree in Public Relations from San Jose State University. She is the co-author of the award-winning book, Illuminate: Ignite Change Through Speeches, Stories, Ceremonies and Symbols. Her latest book is so relevant to the times, it's called Presenting Virtually. It's the basis of most of this interview, and I highly recommend it.
Patti has worked with corporations such as Apple, Cisco and Nike, as well as higher education institutions such as Stanford and Rice University. Her work has been honored by the International Association of Business Communication, BMA, Vital Speeches of the Day and Axiom. Additionally, the Harvard Business Review has featured her writing.
There are a few episodes of remarkable people that are more practical and tactical than this one. If you want to learn how to become a better communicator, keep listening.

I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. And now, here's the remarkable Patti Sanchez.

Guy Kawasaki:
So you're ready?
Patti Sanchez:
Yeah, let's go.
Guy Kawasaki:
How can people stop saying, “um,” “uh,” “you know,” “well,” etc.? The filler words? How do you train them to stop saying those words?
Patti Sanchez:
Slow down. Think before you speak, let your mouth catch up with your brain. That's the number one reason people use those filler words. But it takes practice, we have a speaker coaching business at Duarte and our coaches will work with the person to give them the feedback, help them see where they're actually using those filler words and then work with them to strip them out.
Guy Kawasaki:
I have interviewed more than 100 people for this podcast, and absolutely, stellar, remarkable, famous award-winning, professorial, leading edge, blah, blah, blah. I will tell you that, in many episodes, I use a product called Descript. And you can search for a word like “um” and replace it with silence.
For a typical interview, it's 250 times of the “um,” “uh’s,” you know, as in, well, it's 250 times in a... Oops.
Patti Sanchez:
That was my phone. Sorry about that.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's okay. It shows it's live. So 250 times in one hour. I am just amazed. And I do it too, don't get me wrong, but it's amazing.
Patti Sanchez:
I do, AI is pretty great at identifying that now. Pretty soon it will speak for us.
Guy Kawasaki:
I listened to a show on NPR where a stutterer can talk into this software and it comes out without stuttering, which is truly amazing. What are the characteristics of top communicators?
Patti Sanchez:
We've identified that the best speakers are comfortable. So they know what they're talking about, they feel confident in their abilities. They're also dynamic. They use their voice and their body to bring ideas to life for people and they're empathetic. That is a quality that I particularly value, and think is critical if you want to persuade people, think that you have to understand them before you can move them.
Guy Kawasaki:
So man, how do you coach empathy? So you've got this, let's not be too stereotypical, but you have a male, probably white, highly educated, arrogant, without reason to be arrogant, and now you're going to tell him, “In order to improve your speaking you need to have a greater sense of empathy.”
Patti Sanchez:
I'm going to speak hypothetically because I've never worked with anyone like that. Wait a minute…white males, older…I'm going to – I’ve spent my whole life here – arrogant, yes, absolutely, you described them all really well.
The feedback from audiences from someone they trust is an entry point. Sometimes that's not me, that's not the consultant, even though I was paid by someone who believes that executive needs to get better at this exact thing. Feedback from audiences, feedback from their teams about whether they actually are communicating in an empathetic way, that data makes an impact.
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't want you to think that I'm going to let this go, but my experience with the previously mentioned typical CEO, is he or she, typically has an entourage, where there is the PR person, there's the personal assistant, and if you're important enough, the personal assistant has a personal assistant, and you add to that security, and you're telling me that they're going to hear feedback and change their speaking style?
Patti Sanchez:
Well, not immediately, just like we were talking about getting rid of “um’s” and the “uh’s.” I'm most likely not going to transform you in one conversation. I don't think it often happens that way.
Duarte, and in my work as well, I've put a lot of effort into creating tools, creating frameworks that help people plan their communication, and they always start with empathy. I make it part of the workflow, part of the process to ask some questions like, who are you speaking to? How do they feel about that idea that you're trying to persuade them to accept?
Nine times out of ten, that powerful executive will admit that, "Yeah, actually, people aren't fully bought into my idea, but it's simply because they're stupid. Their brains are too small." It's a very unsympathetic view of the audience. Yet, when I probe further on the kinds of pushback they're getting about that idea, it starts to reveal that they're absolutely reasonable concerns, questions, objections, sources of resistance and the more I follow that train of logic, more often than not, the leader will realize, "They might have a point. I might need to approach this differently if I want them to actually accept my idea."
Guy Kawasaki:
Does empathy naturally lead to storytelling?
Patti Sanchez:
They're linked inextricably because stories are a way that we understand ourselves and they're a way that we can understand other people. But that is also a practice that I have to lead executives to like a horse to water or a dog food, or whatever analogy you want to use. I have to many times convince them that storytelling is actually effective and important.
Guy Kawasaki:
I use a top-ten format for my speeches, and every one of those top-ten has a story that goes with it. But just to push back, really on myself, I also know that a story is not necessarily statistically, scientifically valid, right?
In fact, David Aaker, who has been on this, tells people don't argue about facts, tell stories, because no one can say, "No, you're lying, that didn't happen, that person, that situation didn't exist." Whereas a fact as we've learned in the past five years, there is no such thing as a fact. The fact is what you want to believe. So I'm telling you all this, so is there some kind of ethical challenge here that, yeah, you can tell one story about this customer who loved your product or this great development you've done, but that's not statistically valid, and most of the times, it's not true.
So if Elizabeth Holmes says, "Yeah, we pricked your blood and we discovered this disease with one drop of blood for that one time,” that’s a story, that doesn't mean Taranis is for real. So how do you handle the ethics of good storytelling?
Patti Sanchez:
In storytelling in the cinematic sense, the literary sense, there is the concept of an unreliable narrator, and that means that you actually have to establish the credibility of that narrator first, and very often, humans are flawed, and there are good reasons not to believe them, but that doesn't mean that stories themselves are inherently lies. I'm not talking about storytelling as fiction, as just something dramatic you do to make a point but stories rooted in actual experience, and the stories and facts are friends like rice and beans, they can go together, present the facts, then use a story to illustrate the point.
Yes, this story is about one of those 200,000 customers, and I can prove the source but you do have to believe that I'm a trustworthy person, and that certainly is also a challenge for some leaders.
Guy Kawasaki:
I have to tell you that as a storyteller in my speaking, I am cognizant that I am not statistically valid and a random sample with control I often say, listen, I tell Steve Jobs stories, and I often preface this with, "I want to tell you Steve Jobs story and this is how it worked for him. This doesn't mean that it will work for you, and probably you are no Steve Jobs, but here's the story." I don't lay awake at night about it, Patti, honestly, but I do think about it.
Do you think that great communicators are born or made?
Patti Sanchez:
I believe they can be made. Now, I grew up in a family of charismatic people. My father was a salesman, and he could sell anything to anybody and he was also a great storyteller.
I was not that person. I'm an introvert. I'm uncomfortable being in the spotlight. Storytelling in particular was not something that came naturally to me, or that I felt comfortable doing.
I had some skills, but I needed to build more skills. Using my own self as an unreliable narrator, you don't know who I am, or whether you can trust me, but my own story is evidence that you can build communication skills. I've seen it in other communicators and other leaders that I've worked with over the years.
I've worked with some executives who were really bad at communicating for various reasons. I'm sure you have no experience with that, not everybody is Steve Jobs, everybody wants to be.
Guy Kawasaki:
Nobody is Steve Jobs, yeah.
Patti Sanchez:
Never will be another one.
There are a lot of leaders who are terrible at it. I've seen them, though with commitment, with humility, actually get better at communication.
Now, charisma is a hard thing to manufacture and it's been there. So some people are naturally charismatic but that doesn't mean you have to be that to get an idea across clearly.
Guy Kawasaki:
When you encounter someone that says, "I'm a natural, I don't need to practice, I'll rise to the occasion." After you throw up, what do you say?
Patti Sanchez:
Everyone can get better. Nobody is the perfect communicator. There's always something that you can work on. Maybe you're naturally comfortable, maybe you've given enough presentations that you don't sweat when you get on stage or fire up the camera but that doesn't mean that you're automatically naturally empathetic, meaning able to relate to the audience, willing to hear their questions and feedback and engage in a real two-way dialogue.
Maybe very dynamic, engaging, large personality but that doesn't mean that you can get to the point quickly. There are a lot of qualities that are necessary for effective communication, techniques - everybody can work on something.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, let's suppose people are listening to this and say, "Yeah, I want to be better communicator. So I have to make a speech, what's my workflow for delivering a great speech?"
Patti Sanchez:
Where I always start is planning. It's one of the chapters in the book that I just wrote for a reason because I'm a writer and a strategist and I always begin with, “What is my goal? And “What do I need to say or do in this talk to achieve that goal?”
To me, that leads to a little work I have to do to understand my audience. I've talked about it before. How do they feel about this idea or this objective that you're trying to achieve? And what do you need to say or do differently in this talk to convince him of that, which can surface specific messages you have to communicate, or ways that you should communicate.
You need to do all of that before you open PowerPoint or Google Slides or Canva or whatever tool you're making your visual aids in, start first by having a clear goal, knowing how you're going to achieve it through analysis of your audience and the messages that will land with them, then you can start writing.
Guy Kawasaki:
Are you suggesting that one should write out, word for word, what you're going to say?
Patti Sanchez:
Now you can start generating ideas about things you want to say. So I'm a girl that started out working in long form as a writer, so I do open words and that's a “No-no,” I guess, if you want to be a visual thinker from the start. Thinking in terms of chunks, main ideas, not writing paragraphs, and certainly not writing word for word if you're writing for the spoken medium, because those will trip you up.
Write an outline, or what Duarte teaches in our workshops is put ideas on sticky notes, work in analog, essentially. “This is an idea I want to communicate. Here's another idea I want to communicate. Here's another idea,” and then organize them into clusters, group them into topics and now you have a skeleton that you can start to build on.
Guy Kawasaki:
There are two parts to your book that I truly enjoyed. It's not like that's the only two but I'm just highlighting two.
Patti Sanchez:
Well, that's very kind of you.
Guy Kawasaki:
So the first is, I thought you had a very good analysis of the negatives associated with virtual appearances. So let's first talk about the negatives. What goes wrong or is harder with a virtual talk?
Patti Sanchez:
There are a lot of challenges with the technology, and some people even eighteen months into this pandemic are still struggling, and that kind of thing frustrates audiences really quickly, that you just struggle to figure out how to share the slides, or unmute yourself. Those are small barriers, but technology itself does intermediates, our communication and that's one of the first things we have to realize about virtual presentations and how they're different than in-persons, that there's this wall between us the screen that is a challenge, but it's not an insurmountable one.
Just learn how to love the technology, how to use it to your advantage. Another is distraction. The fact that people would be watching your presentation on a desktop laptop or on a mobile device, where there were other things open, there are other apps open and so their attention can easily wander. They're just highly distractible, and it's harder to get caught, not paying attention in a virtual presentation than it is when you're in a big room together and the speaker can tell you're all looking down at your phones, and it hurts their feelings. Don't do that.
Guy Kawasaki:
When I'm looking down, I'm taking notes, okay, so I'm not checking my email.
Patti Sanchez:
I wasn't trying to call you out, I trust you.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm just telling you. So any other negatives?
Patti Sanchez:
Those are two of the big challenges, and just the difficulty in creating what I would call intimacy between people as a result of just the way that this medium works, is another challenge, in my opinion. One that I really tried to lean into in the book, and provide strategies to overcome that, to essentially create the sense of presence even when you're not physically together, which makes it harder for you, to connect with your audience for them to feel like they can relate to you and to your message, but I also think it's a hard world to live in, when we're all staring at our devices all the time, we need more human connection. It's on us to try and build that.
Guy Kawasaki:
I love the negatives, but I really adored the positives, because most people don't write about the positives. So what are the advantages of a virtual presentation?
Patti Sanchez:
You already touched on one of them which is the reach and the access that this platform gives us. So I can be speaking to people in several different regions during the course of a day. I can reach a much bigger audience than I could before. So that's more convenient for me. It's faster and easier to get my idea out there.
The other advantage of that that was really mind-blowing to me that I learned in talking to other companies that moved their events to virtual which is inclusion, it's another benefit of reach and access. People who would not maybe normally have been able to afford going to your conference, or traveling to hear you speak could actually log online if they had a reliable internet connection, which certainly doesn't exist for everybody in the world still but it's better than the access that they might normally have gotten. It's really powerful and especially important these days to make sure that more people get access to useful information and capabilities.
Guy Kawasaki:
Any more?
Patti Sanchez:
Another one I've touched on a little bit, which is the actual technology, the media that itself and the way that we use it, it's more like television, or radio that it is a typical standard deliver presentation. If I learn how to really fix my eyes on the camera, I'm trying so hard to stare deeply into your pupils. If I really learn how to make the camera, my friends, I can actually feel closer to people, I can build a sense of intimacy.
You probably saw this if you watch late-night shows and if any of your favorite television hosts had to host from home like Jimmy Fallon or Stephen Colbert, the camera was just a couple feet away from them and it felt really different. It felt more personal and more immediate and more real, which I love, personally big fan of that.
Finally, the technology lets you do things, lets you show things that you couldn't show before, lets you put yourself in virtual environments that you couldn't easily be projected into before.
Guy Kawasaki:
I have a thought, and I've told this to event planners, especially when they say we really want you in-person because I won't do in-person yet. Let's say you're speaking at a fairly large venue, 5000 people, ballroom in Las Vegas. It seems to me that the first twenty or thirty rows, they look at on the podium, the rest of the audience is looking at your iMac and the graphic your Canva, or PowerPoint or Keynote slide. So for most people, there isn't a lot of difference between looking at an iMac and slides, whether it's virtual or in person.
Patti Sanchez:
That's true as an audience member is I've experienced too. I love going to concerts too and usually I'm in the cheap seats…back in the day when you could actually go. I might as well be at home watching television. What's the point of being there physically?
I have been really excited about the second screen experience and what it can do, how you can actually use it to be more present with your audience on a way that you can't, when they're just looking at you on a big screen.
Guy Kawasaki:
You ever think we'll go back to a basic, non-hybrid or non-virtual world for speeches?
Patti Sanchez:
All the data tells me we won't. Everything that I've seen from the industry, what I hear from our customers is hybrid will continue. There will be still some echelon of events, where people will expect the intimacy, the exclusivity of it being just purely you all together now, but companies have learned the ROI is a lot better when you can also stream to an online audience, back to the reach benefit.
It makes me sad a little bit, because it's certainly challenging. I don't know anybody's figured out how to put on a really great hybrid event. People are trying and experimenting with lots of things but that's also what's exciting. We're probably doing it terribly right now, but we're going to do it magically at some point and it's going to be better than we thought. The future is always better than past anyway.
Guy Kawasaki:
Someone listening to this is a speaker and is saying, “I'm having the hardest time making a transition from in-person to virtual. Patti, what can I do? How can I make this transition?”
Patti Sanchez:
I really think that practicing camera work, practicing how to use this medium so that you can actually enjoy it, so that you can actually embrace what's unique about it. You have to let go of some things though, especially if you're a speaker who's very comfortable on a stage or in a large room full of people, you hate this format because you don't hear a lot of people laughing, you don't see all the heads nodding, especially if it's a very large session, you don't even see your audience video but you don't get the feedback that you need.
So if you're that extroverted performer, people pleaser, it's going to suck, it's going to be really different for you but it also can be really amazing if you embrace what's unique about it, that camera, the intimacy and closeness that you can get and the opportunity to play, to experiment. I didn't talk much in the book about the actual technology tool because they're changing all the time, it would have been out of date in a week, but the things that you can do with Prezi video, with OBS with teens now has reporter mode, it really is turning us into broadcasters, and that gives you new ways to express your ideas, to add a level of polish, but also just fun to your presentations that slides alone often don't do unless you have a really big budget.
Guy Kawasaki:
As a speaker, again, I feel like there's been a giant reset, and just the top tier of speakers, the quarter million-dollar speaker, maybe there's only fifty of them in the world, but basically everything was burned down and everybody starts again. So whether you're Michelle Obama, or you're Guy Kawasaki, or you're Joe Shit the Rag Man, everybody has to figure out virtual speeches at the same time, starting with nothing. It's a great equalizer. I have truly enjoyed this.
Patti Sanchez:
Absolutely. That's why I talk about in the conclusion that the idea that anybody now can have a bigger platform than they ever had before, that you could record an amazing virtual presentation, post it and reach more people than you ever could, and that's exciting. I've been working in Silicon Valley for over thirty years, working with lots of tech companies, and we've often used the word democratizing, overused it. It was part of somebody's pitch, all the time, and it felt like BS most of the time but it's true.
It's true with this, I can get a good microphone, I can get a good camera, I can get a good laptop and I can make some really good content that people can watch and be moved by. That's exciting. That's why I say the future is better than the past. I do believe in progress and technology is more helpful than not.
Guy Kawasaki:
Amen.
So If you look at my setup - and I hope you think my setup is good - if you look at my setup, what I have going on here, costs roughly $1,500 for everything, and I am constantly amazed whether I'm watching CNN or whether I'm watching a company event, like how crappy people's audio and video are, and that same executive would not hesitate to buy a $10,000 first-class ticket to fly across the world to make a one-hour speech, but he or she, or the company won't spend $1,500 bucks to get a camera and a microphone and a light and a soundproof acoustic tile. I don't understand that at all.
Patti Sanchez:
No, not at all, but the good news is, it's affordable enough that you can buy it for yourself anyway. Expensive as some kind of boondoggle, bury it in your budget and get it. It's a productivity tool, just like the subscription to the software that you use and the printer that you had to get at your home office so you can get your work done like you used to. So it's worth the investment and at minimum to do that is to be kind to your audience so they don't have to strain to understand you. Plus, your voice, the dulcet tones coming through that microphone. It's worth it!
Guy Kawasaki:
So now I'm going to ask you questions that are really short.
Patti Sanchez:
All right, lightning-round! Bring it.
Guy Kawasaki:
No, no, this is not a lightning-round, we're coming to that. This is more like because lightning at the speed of light. So this is a thunder round. It's at the speed of sound, not light, this is the thunder round, and basically, I'm going to ask you what do you think of these ideas or your recommendations about each one of these topics.
Patti Sanchez:
Sounds good.
Guy Kawasaki:
Digital backgrounds in virtual goals.
Patti Sanchez:
I got to say, I'm not a fan of fake backgrounds, they're very hard to pull off well, and our research says that audiences don't really appreciate them either. If you got to hide the dirty laundry before the team meeting that you're joining, yeah, it's for a very casual, everyday meeting, yes. I'm not going to tell you that you have to be ashamed in front of your co-workers, but for a formal presentation, you're really trying to persuade somebody, no, don't do it. Find a better location.
Guy Kawasaki:
How about literally buying a physical analog green screen, so that at least you don't get all the digital vestiges as you move, especially if you have white hair.
Patti Sanchez:
For sure, right? Which I do too, and the only reason I didn't go straight there is because it was a struggle for me. The way that I'm made just isn't friendly to green screens, unfortunately, my light and I become one, because I'm so pale, but yeah, if you invest in better quality green screen technology, you have somebody help you light it properly, then yeah, it could look a little better.
Guy Kawasaki:
Next question. Maximum optimal/whatever good-length of a virtual talk.
Patti Sanchez:
It depends. Sorry to say it but it depends. It depends on what type of talk it is.
So in the book I talk about there being different kinds. There's the linear monologue, which is appropriate sometimes, there's an interactive session that's appropriate sometimes, and there's a collaborative session that is appropriate sometimes. Those can be different lengths.
In general, people don't like to listen to anything pre-recorded longer than thirty minutes and that's asking a lot. There's a reason why TED talks were shorter than that. Sixteen to thirty seems to be something that people prefer based on our research.
Guy Kawasaki:
So let's say the scenario is, it's a keynote speaker. So it's not a staff meeting, it's not an update. It's not an internal communications meeting where everybody has to be heard. You brought in an outside speaker to talk about innovation or communication or the threat of social media and you have the event planners thinking, “How long should I give this guy or girl?” What do you tell them?
Patti Sanchez:
On average, I would say thirty minutes. That doesn't include a lot of interactions. So Q&A can be extra. If you're going to do a lot of polls and interactions with the audience add more time for that.
Guy Kawasaki:
Which is roughly fifty percent of what we gave in real life.
Patti Sanchez:
Exactly. Everything needs to be sixty minute slots - people don't have the same attention span. I know there's a lot of debate about that, but my experience is that we're getting more impatient, especially online.
Guy Kawasaki:
Obviously, I'm sitting but I have also given virtual keynote standing. Do you feel strongly that whether you're standing or sitting can affect the quality of your speech?
Patti Sanchez:
Very much so. When you're standing, you're more likely to have an upright posture, which means that your airway is more open so your breath can flow more freely, which means that your voice can be stronger. I do sometimes sit. I'm sitting right now maybe because I'm lazy but it's a casual conversation, so I felt it was appropriate.
For a keynote, I stand for those reasons. One, that my breath can be stronger, so my voice can be stronger, which is necessary for me with the softer voice, but also so that I can have more energy in general. I project myself more fully through that little camera and microphone when I'm standing, and I've seen that to be true with other people as well.
Guy Kawasaki:
So in a perfect world, as people are setting up their home broadcast studio, they should try to make a situation where at least you could have both? You could sit for some like Zoom calls, but you can stand and give a speech?
Patti Sanchez:
Yeah, that's right. Either have to set up so you can have a standing desk like I do so you can go up or down as the situation requires.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's very useful, I will implement that. Next question is, picture-in-picture where the slide is big, your face is small, side by side, or alternate? What style?
Patti Sanchez:
I'm going to say it depends again, but I would favor…it would depend on the situation, really, what you're trying to get across. I sure hope you don't really dense slides, if you do, the slide should be bigger and your face can be a little smaller, but if the audience is going to lose something in that situation.
The standard slide sharing format in Zoom and other apps does make the slide bigger and the video smaller unless you make some changes to your settings to change that proportion and that's not best in my opinion. When you're trying to create that virtual presence, you want the audience to be able to see your facial expressions, so your slides shouldn't be dominant.
Picture-in-picture that whole idea what I call “fused” in the book. It's like the television style of broadcast graphics overlaid next to the speaker is ideal and it's becoming easier to do with the changes that are coming with virtual communication platforms but it's ideal because it lets your audience both see your slides and you at the same time and they can feel more connected to you as a result of that, but you can also interact with your graphics in a way that makes it easier for them to relate to the information you're sharing, make sense of it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Let's suppose that you want to communicate an idea. So you're evangelizing an idea, and not that this will ever happen in real life, but you have been asked to suggest the format of the speech. So you could do a keynote, you could be a fireside chat with a host, or you could do open Q&A. I know you're going to say, “it depends,” but what do you think is the most effective way to explain innovation as a keynote speaker with those choices?
Patti Sanchez:
Am I talking to a room of people who believe in innovation who think they can do it?
Guy Kawasaki:
Let's say it is an all-hands meeting of a tech company.
Patti Sanchez:
I'm gathering that in that situation, I'm trying to convince people in the company that we need to be more innovative. So it's not just anybody who knows a concept, but we need to innovate more.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Patti Sanchez:
I think that the monologue won't be as effective in achieving what you're trying to achieve, that total embracing of an innovators mindset, if you don't have more audience interaction. So could be a fireside chat, could be more of an interactive presentation because I want to know how people are responding to the ideas I'm putting out around innovation, whether that's that we are innovating or not as a company, that there were certain ways to innovate, and we need to embrace. I want to bring people along with me with those ideas, and I can't gauge whether they're really buying in if I don't have some way to interact with them.
Guy Kawasaki:
How are you interacting anyway if you're talking 3,000 miles away?
Patti Sanchez:
It depends. Again, you say keynote, but in my mind there's still many kinds of keynotes. I can pose a question, I can pose a poll to the audience, and I can get their reaction to an idea that I just shared and so in that way, I'm having some kind of interaction with them and I'm learning, “Are they for or against my idea? Are they starting to move with me or not?
One of my favorite examples of this was not even a virtual presentation but it's one I wrote about in my last book of Steve Jobs addressing developers who were pissed off and I'm sure you know that might have happened more than once.
Guy Kawasaki:
That is the understatement of the world!
Patti Sanchez:
But he knew that developers were going to be very frustrated about moving to the next version of Mac OS and decided to address their concerns in more of a fireside chat kind of panel conversation format. It was a really smart decision because it allowed him to tackle the resistance head on.
So if you think, “That's why I was asking you. Are people on board with innovation or not? Who am I talking to about this?” I'm always going to go back to the audience and say, "How do they feel about this topic that you're discussing with them?" And if they're likely to be far away from you, if you're really disagreeing with each other, then you should involve the audience more in your presentation and not give purely that monologue, "I'm going to tell you ten things and then I'm done,” because I don't think you can expect you've actually changed the way they think by the end of that.
Guy Kawasaki:
But it would take a particularly enlightened and bold speaker to go into the valley of death there, knowing that it's going to be hostile and open up for audience interaction. Besides Steve Jobs, who would do it that way?
Patti Sanchez:
I've seen other leaders do it, and if they're motivated to actually cause the change, then they're willing to do it, because you can't get anybody to embrace an idea they totally disagree with without facing some attack and resistance. The attack and resistance won't go away on its own. Just because you don't talk about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Guy Kawasaki:
In this scenario, where it's a hostile or semi hostile audience, and you're now going to do a fireside chat, how do you select and what is the role of the host? So with Steve's example, who was the shill? Walt Mossberg, Katie Hafner, Kara Swisher. Who was the other person?
Patti Sanchez:
I don't remember, it's a really good question. You probably know better than I do. But yes, you definitely need a buddy, you need a moderator, who's going to feel those questions for you, who's going to filter them that this kind of goes back to trust, though. That needs to be somebody that the audience trust, that is going to give you the real questions and not hold back the tough ones.
We do this a lot. Even in just our tiny little company of 100, 115 employees, we do AMAs that take off on “ask me anything,” and it takes guts to let your employees ask you anything about anything. But it is the quickest way to defuse rumors, to address resistance to build trust. More often than not, it's better to involve your audience in some way. Don't be afraid of those hard questions, you should have answers to them anyway. Aren’t you in charge?
Guy Kawasaki:
I probably know the answer to this already too, which is, I have delivered several keynotes pre-recorded and that's because the host did not want to take any chance in a live speech. So now let's make the assumption that I can be charming and enthusiastic and appear to be live even if I'm recorded.
Patti Sanchez:
Okay.
Guy Kawasaki:
Let’s just make that assumption. Not a good assumption, but let's just make that assumption. So what are the pluses and minuses of live versus pre-recorded? Because the difference between live and pre-recorded virtually is not as great as the difference between live and pre-recorded in-person. Are you adamantly against pre-recording?
Patti Sanchez:
No, not at all. As a speaker, I like it a lot, because it's more convenient for me. Probably half of my virtual keynotes in the past year have been pre-recorded, the other half have been live.
What I like about pre-recorded as a speaker is it's convenient for me. I can give the talk whenever I'm free and ready to give the talk. Also, I can do it over as many times as I want, just like you can edit this podcast episode netted out the alerts from my updates. So I like that. That's good.
It's very speaker-friendly. The challenge is that audiences don't love it as much. According to our research survey that we did this year, just a few months back, people far more prefer the live session because they really want to interact with the speaker. They want to have a connection.
Pre-recorded, it's easier for them to tune out. Certainly, you can do something else while the pre-recorded thing is running, but why do they want to hear an expert talk in the first place? Because they want to learn from that expert and they don't get a chance to ask questions, to shape the conversation in some way to influence the direction it takes then they're not as likely to learn as they would have if you've fed them pre-canned messages.
So it's not that I'm against live, it can be a little more technically challenging too, but people are missing connection, especially right now. I feel more connected to an audience when I'm presenting live to them and they do too.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wait, but how do you feel more connected to an audience if you're presenting live to them, but virtually you're not seeing them, you're not hearing them, and let's say you're not taking Q&A. So this is you got a twenty-minute slot to talk about innovation, you're on at 8:40, you're off at 9:00 – slam, bang, gone. What's the difference?
Patti Sanchez:
Well, I know that there were actually people watching me through that camera lens and my heart responds differently because of that. I perform better in that higher-stakes situation. Even if I'm not taking Q&A, or I'm not doing polls, sometimes the organizer could choose to have chat off, but a lot of times chat panel is still open and I'm absolutely watching that and just seeing how people respond, even if I don't have the time to answer their questions or work it into my talk. I do crave that feedback.
It's like I said earlier, speakers struggle to stay alive in this virtual medium, because they're not getting that feedback. So we're going to suck it up however we can.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'll tell you what I have done and it's worked very well. At an extreme, I have done things like so I'm always in this room and I always wear the same thing because of I don't want to have to think about is this shirt having more row or not or is this clashing with whatever's behind me. I always wear a gray mock turtleneck every time. So what I've done is, I have come on live, no matter what time of day is necessary for the greeting, and then at some point, the emcee says, "All right, Guy, take it away. Do The Art of Innovation,” and then they play something that's been pre-recorded, usually weeks before in the same room wearing the same shirt. That ends, and I come back live, wearing the same shirt in the same room, and that has worked very well.
Now, the reason why it works well is, obviously, the same shirt, same room, and all that not dependent on daylight and all that, but also because the host has the peace of mind that in the worst case, if the internet is down, the host just says, “and now, we have Guy Kawasaki.” They don't go into the live introduction in the live Q&A. No one is expecting that.
So is that a viable technique? Is it dishonest?
Patti Sanchez:
No. Oh, maybe wearing the same shirt, that is a little bit of a trick, but I get it. I've seen other speakers do it and it's absolutely viable if it's a platform and the organizer lets you have that kind of interaction and access to the audience before and after, then by all means. I'd lurked in the chat room while people are watching my pre-recorded talk and had interactions with them and I enjoy it too. I know they're going to be distracted so why not be their source of distraction?
Guy Kawasaki:
Next question. So do you believe in dark or light backgrounds for slides.
Patti Sanchez:
I personally don't have a strong opinion either way. That depends on the content that you're sharing and the environment that you're in, and I know in a ballroom setting, when you're physically in a room with people and you alternate between dark and light, it's jarring, it hurts the eyes. Dark slides are more friendly in that low-light environment and so that matters in that setting. In virtual, in my opinion, it doesn't matter as much as how you look relative to your background, making sure that there's enough contrast between you and what's standing behind you.
Guy Kawasaki:
I got all my tactical questions asked. Now, we're going to go slightly higher for this subject, which is, I read a couple articles from you about the necessity of recording corporate folklore, and until I read those two articles, I had never thought of that. So let's talk about corporate folklore…
Patti Sanchez:
Fun.
Guy Kawasaki:
... why it's good and why you should do it.
Patti Sanchez:
Stories, that's what folklore is. In a cultural sense, a sociological sense, it is the way that cultures pass down knowledge and experience - about identity and values, what people have in common with each other. That's what folklore is.
It's the tales that we tell around the campfire or with the kids when they go to bed, at our family gatherings. We have the same kind of stories in a company. We might not label them that way. We might not recognize them but companies do have folklore, stories about how the company came to be, how the values were formed. Who makes it here and who doesn't. There are all kinds of stories that companies can tell about its culture and its values and its history and its future. That's folklore.
It's important to identify those stories, to write them down or record them in virtual presentations so that people can learn from them. The people who are in your company today and the people who will come after them. It's a way to align everyone around a shared understanding of who you are, where you came from, why you do what you do and where you're going.
Guy Kawasaki:
And just to be clear, you are literally advocating that there is a position of the folklorist, whatever the word is, this is a job, right? There is someone who records the stories.
Patti Sanchez:
Yeah, why not? Does that sound so crazy?
Guy Kawasaki:
Not at all. Not at all. In fact, when I read those two articles, Patti, you'll be so proud of me, I sent it to the CMO of Canva and I said, "I don't know if we're doing this, but we should, this is a really good idea."
Patti Sanchez:
Mission accomplished.
Guy Kawasaki:
Mission accomplished. Absolutely.
Patti Sanchez:
When I was writing about that, I was researching companies that do that well, and often it's consumer brands, they recognize the value of folklore. I'm thinking Coca Cola. I'm thinking Levi Strauss. Companies that have a long history that they realize is worthy of archiving, and story is part of history.
The word is in it, and they actually invest in that position and might have a different title, company historian or archivist, or librarian that they actually make it their job. Nike has one too, to capture the history in story form so that people can relive it. It's really powerful.
Guy Kawasaki:
Since we're on the topic of stories, and recording stories, please explain the structure of a good story.
Patti Sanchez:
It's old, but it's also simple, and essentially, it is organized into three acts - act one, act two, act three. You'll find this in novels, in films, even television shows are written this way.
The first act, we meet a hero. The hero is the protagonist, the focus of the story, and they're just doing their thing. They're living their life and then something happens and that is called an inciting incident. The inciting incident is often something external, something that happens to them, that throws their world out of balance, forces them to, essentially, go on an adventure, which is three extra – what I’m describing is taken from the hero's journey, which is much longer.
In the middle, the second act of the story, the hero encounters obstacles, which is, essentially, they're trying to do something, they're trying to go somewhere and achieve something, but it's hard. In fantastical stories, they battle monsters. In real life stories, they meet bad people or they try to do things and fail at them and usually through the help of a mentor, they actually overcome those obstacles.
In the third act of the story, they emerge transformed. Often they go back home, but they're different than they were before. They have some new skills and new insight that because the experience changed them.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's it. That's all I have to do to have a good story?
Patti Sanchez:
That's the structure. I think you asked me what the structure of a good story was.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. That's good to know.
My last big question, and then we'll do a speed round. The last big question is - become a futurist for me - in this segment of communication, storytelling, speaking, all this, what's going to happen in the next five years?
Patti Sanchez:
Well, that is the hardest question you've ever asked me.
Guy Kawasaki:
It depends…
Patti Sanchez:
It depends. There you go. No, no, no, the future is inconclusive. That's true.
If we're talking about communication, we're talking about virtual communication, the technology will only become more prevalent in our experience of interacting with each other. So I've played with VR, we are experimenting with VR, and it will be a bigger part of our everyday interactions. Love it or hate it, we might look like avatars when we communicate with each other, and what's cool about that, just as a sidebar, thinking about inclusiveness, anybody can be anything when they have an avatar that they've created.
Now it doesn't matter what we actually look like in real life, we can project our ideal selves into a space and interact as ideal selves. That could be cool. It could take us to different places as human beings as a species that could really make us better, could also make gets worse. That's my worry too technology has a dark side too. We'll see technology being used to change the way that we actually communicate with each other and even manufactured ways.
In terms of storytelling, I don't think it's going anywhere. I don't think new technology again will emerge and now we love clubhouse. And what's the next thing? Who knows, but it will still be a vehicle for us to relate our experiences to each other and connect on an emotional level.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I'm looking at my lightning round, and I have ten of them. Looking at it, and Patti, honestly, I'm looking at it, and I'll tell you, it doesn't do you justice. The list I created doesn't do you justice. I'm not going to ask you this lightning round. So we're going to end here, unless you insist on doing it, but I...
Patti Sanchez:
This has been a workout for my brain. I'm going to say. It would be fine with me if we ended here. It’s been incredible, Guy.
Guy Kawasaki:
I mean, I just, I don't do lightning rounds often, but when I do them, I really want it to show, like, absolutely penetrating, force-hard decisions, kind of, insight into the soul of the guest, and I'm looking at my list and it just doesn't cut it, this list.
Patti Sanchez:
Well, what's the most penetrating question on that list? I'm going to hate this…
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. You're sure you want to do this? Okay. if I only had one, right?
Patti Sanchez:
Yeah, sure.
Guy Kawasaki:
Jobs or Musk.
Patti Sanchez:
Oh, wow. This one might get me fired. What do you think?
Guy Kawasaki:
You can punt. Well, if you punt, Patti, I know what the answer is.
Patti Sanchez:
Say the answer, Guy. It depends, right?
Guy Kawasaki:
I think we should leave it there. That way people will be more curious and they'll buy your book, which is the whole point, right?
Patti Sanchez:
Love it.
Guy Kawasaki:
All right. Patti has declined to answer my only lightning round question to her credit, and that's why she's a remarkable person.

Guy Kawasaki:
There you have it, how to be a better communicator, especially virtually. Our thanks to Patti Sanchez for spreading that wisdom to us.
I'm Guy Kawasaki, this is Remarkable People. My thanks to Jeff Sieh and Peg Fitzpatrick for their remarkable assistance in producing this podcast. My thanks to Luis Magaña, Alexis Nishimura, and Madisun Nuismer for their transcription, research, and writing skills. Also to Shannon Hernandez for this amazing sound design.
Now, I don't want you to feel any pressure, but I want to read a review of this podcast by Bob Williams. "This is by far the best podcast in the world. Go subscribe and learn from the most remarkable people. Thank you, Guy Kawasaki. You have brightened my weeks since the early days of the pandemic. Keep on surfing and podcasting." Thank you, Bob Williams.
Until next time, mahalo and aloha.