Before taking a break to do my master's, from University of Pennsylvania, and then return to work, in payments at PayPal.It's Thursday, throwback Thursday, and I wanna share a memory from my past. Some of you who have seen my, LinkedIn post about this event, you may have seen this already for those who haven't. But I first joined PayPal twelve years ago. I sat in on a meeting, which was a root cause analysis meeting about a tricky production issue. And a senior engineer was telling a story about how they thought two different, solutions to that problem and trying to find what was the root cause of the problem. And, I don't remember the technical details. It's been a while. Right? But I would never forget. I haven't yet forgotten. I don't think I ever will.

How they framed that challenge, how they connected it to our mission, and how they brought the audience along. And that day, I realized that, you know, something powerful that in tech, in the corporate world, data can win arguments, but it is stories which win hearts and attention. And in my role as a product leader, I see this every day. I see how powerful it can be, and it can be just as impactful at every level, at every role, from presenting to executives to even mentoring your peers and even something like the RCA for coding issue. Storytelling shapes how we influence decisions, how we inspire action, and how we bring people along. It's what sets great leaders apart. That's why I'm really excited to be here with all of you today speaking about this particular topic.

I'll be sharing lessons that I've learned, practical tools that you can apply, and ways to blend your narrative with data to make your voice truly heard. Okay. So let's get in. I will move to the next slide. There we go. Okay. Quick, show of hands or if people can drop a googly eye or something in the chat. How many of you are familiar with the movie Erin Brockovich? I'm gonna give you ten seconds. Alright. I'm not seeing many responses. So doesn't matter. Whether you know the film or not, by the end of this talk okay. I see some responses coming in. I know it takes some time to go find your screen and unmute and all of that. Right? Okay. Perfect. A A lot of you are familiar. Great. That gives me context. But even for those who aren't, let me give some context.

And why I chose this example today is by the end of this talk, you will see how Aaron's approach in to storytelling is exactly what we need in tech leadership today. So for those not as familiar, the movie Erin Brockovich is based on a true story about this person called Erin who was a single mom with no legal training whatsoever, and she uncovered that a major utility company, PG and E, which many of us are using right now, it was poisoning, small town's water supply with chromium six, which is a toxic chemical.

On paper, there were endless reports and lab results and data, but nobody was paying attention. Erin changed that by turning all of those cold files into human stories of families getting sick, kids missing school, and lives being destroyed. And that's how she won one of the largest settlements in US history till date, a whopping over $300,000,000, not with more data, but with a story that people couldn't ignore. And that's the power that we're gonna unlock today. So a quick look into what we are gonna walk through today. Right? So think of this as our own little, you know, story art for the session. We'll start by how to turn facts, raw facts, into a clear and memorable story line. Then we'll get into the secret ingredient that most people skip, which is empathy.

Numbers matter, but emotions are what make ideas stick. Then we'll talk about the secret. No. We talked about that already. Then we will get into data and drama, which is how to balance your data with human stories. That's how Erin Brockovich turned lab reports into living room conversations. Then we'll dig into tailoring your message for different leadership personas because what matters to an engineer is not the same as what matters to a project manager or to the product manager and so on. And finally, we'll close with you. How to show up with authenticity and presence so that your voice carries weight no matter who's in the room. So by the end of this of the next thirty minutes, you will have practical tools to make your own stories impossible to ignore. And if time permits, I have some bonus tips for you. But let's see if we can get through them quickly. Okay. So the first one.

Let's start with the first step. How to frame your narrative? And okay. There we go. So in the movie, Aaron has boxes of legal and medical data that no one else is noticing or understanding, and she reframed those dry cases into, you know, empathetic stories of how it's affecting the people of Hinkley. Right? And that's where our work in tech is no different. We all have all these dashboards, reports. I'm sure you have, like, hundreds of Excel files sitting in your, computers. Right? But unless we turn them into clear, memorable stories, we risk being ignored. So raw data or just technical facts aren't enough. Let's take a few examples. These are all great examples of facts or data, which I'm sure many of us have used facts like these.

We often need to escalate these or to present to our leaders in our job to ask them for something, to get something done. And even though leaders would understand, more often than not, they are left thinking this. So what? Right? How does it matter? What do I do with this? What are they asking of me? Right? That's what's going on in their head as we are presenting this data to them. So I want to introduce a three step framework that I like to use this framework to frame my data when I'm doing storytelling. So the first one is the fact or the actual problem statement. Right? The second one is the impact, and the third one is the actual ask. Or sometimes I like to as I like to phrase it, what happened, why it matters, and what we need. Okay. So let's take at this example on the screen.

Right? So a potential problem, that's something that I face in my in my work are, you know, transactions got declined or system failed because of something, and system the system downtime increased by x percent in the last month or so. Right? The impact, that left thousands of customers unable to complete payments, some during peak holiday season, costing us millions in sales and breaking trust. So we're actually telling why would it matter to them. Right? And then they ask, what do we need our leaders or the audience in the room to do? We need to accelerate infrastructure development or, you know, work on improving our stack this quarter so that we can prevent further loss like that. And this is a really easy framework to use, and I know all of us love the number three. So just something for you guys to remember.

Any any problem, any simple fact that you want to, like, state or bring up, right, try to adopt this three three step framework to do that, and it'll make a world of difference. I also wanna share some storytelling techniques with you guys. There we go. Okay. So in the not so recent past, I had this opportunity of participating in, in a workshop. It was called Leading with Authenticity, conducted by the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute. I learned a lot of wonderful things from there, and there's two interesting concepts that I wanna share today. The first one is something called a vertical takeoff. My interpretation of vertical takeoff is this. It's a way to make your opening interesting enough to that it hooks the audience. And let me give a few examples of how I have implemented this.

So recently, I had to present the results of an important customer analysis to my skip level leader. Instead of directly getting into the results, I chose a famous movie reference. Not unlike today. I started with life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. Can someone in the audience tell me what code that movie is from? Another famous movie. I'm looking at the chat, and I'll give people a few seconds. I'll repeat the quote. Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. Anyone know what quote that movie is from? Okay. That movie that quote is actually from the movie Forrest Gump and was set by the character Forrest Gump, which was played by Tom Hanks, one of my favorite movies.

So I started by asking her if she had seen that movie. And then she was immediately hooked because, incidentally, she and her daughter had rewatched that same movie the the the the very same week when we were having the presentation. And that immediately got her hooked. And later that day, my boss reached out to me about a feedback that she had given to my boss right after a meeting. So it was me, her, and my boss in that meeting, and she gave really good feedback about about me and and my work. Would I have gotten that same feedback without the opening that I used? Maybe. But did it make a difference? Probably. Right? My opening pulled her in, and it made sure that I had had her attention from the get go.

And this is you know, there was there's another example that I can give. So I was I was, at MRC San Diego talking about payment optimization recently. And, there, I was talking about another example of vertical takeoff that I had used recently. So I had to talk about payment optimization, and I was partnering with a with one of our clients, a merchant that we use on how to optimize how different parties in the fintech system can work together to optimize their payments. And, there, the way I see in my presentation was like a journey. Like, we were bringing the audience along on a journey which started with, like, roadblocks and their payments, and then, like, how do we get them to take the scenic route. And, in that because, you know, I I I look for something which had, like, a a journey hooked to it, and then I ended up using another classic movie example, which was back to the future.

Right? And I started my talk by doing a similar poll as this one, asking some, you know, trivia questions about the movie. And later, at the end of the, at the end of my talk, I got the feedback from the audience that my talk was very engaging. Right? So it's about using something, you know, instead of just starting with, like, blatant content, using something to draw the audience in, so that they are actually then paying attention to you. Right? And And it doesn't have to be a movie reference. I love to use movie references. It can be anything that people can relate with, or it can even be very relevant to the work that you are doing. For example, in the next twenty minutes, I'm gonna show you how we can make an incremental $10,000,000 in this next financial year. Right?

And that's a bold start that'll catch your leader's attention. So that's that's how you can use the power of vertical takeoff. The second scheduling technique is, again, having, like, a three part structure to your story. So have a beginning that is present the scenario. For example, I'm, you know, whatever your topic is. Right? Just, like, have a very clear beginning and then having a middle. So, you know, referencing back to, like, the three party three part framework that I used, your beginning can be the actual fact. Your middle can be, like, the the how and the why, and your ending can be, something that you want the audience to take away. Right? If it's a call to action or something else. Right? So, I want to do a little exercise, but I know we are short on time.

So maybe I'll just share that, and you guys can do it offline. I'm gonna talk about a couple of, you know, scenarios, and, you can note this or you can just use something of your own. And then later, I want you guys to do this exercise. So, for example, the scenario one scenario one is, a project deadline was missed. Right? Or another scenario can be and can be anything. It doesn't have to be work related. It can be your friend shows up late to our dinner that you guys were supposed to meet on, or your spouse hasn't yet planned that date. They they promised to plan a month ago. Right? So, you know, when you get a chance, practice it. Practice this exercise. Right?

First, start with, like, a beginning of what you're gonna say, a middle, and then an end. Right? And, the beginning can be like, what happened? Setting the scene. Your middle can be so what was the impact of that? Right? Did it affect you in a certain way? The was there some issue or challenge that happened because of that? And then the ending, which is like a resolution or a call to action. How did it end? What needs to happen next? So when you get a chance, try this, even for something very simple. You will realize that even the simplest things have a natural story arc. Now imagine if you can do this for little things and they make a difference in how people listen to you and, register what you are saying.

Imagine when you're doing it at work for an important product launch, a customer issue, anything like that. And, that's how you make your message impossible to ignore. Okay. Let's move on. The second bit is emotional resonance. Eric didn't just present statistics. She knew the names, faces, and struggles of the families that she was fighting for, and that human connection gave her credibility and urgency. And in tech and the corporate world, empathy means translating metrics into the lived experiences of customers, employees, partners, or even your colleagues. Right? So for this, there's something I would I like to use, and this is, again, something that I learned at the, Berkeley workshop that I was talking about. They're a really nice framework, which I think can be beautifully adapted here, This concept of asking three questions. Right?

So my goal to three is three questions are, first, who is my audience? And take it a step further. What I'm about to share? What is their familiarity level with that? What's their comfort level? You can even think of, like, a a matrix structure, like, with, you know, the awareness level or familiarity level being on one index and comfort level being on another index, and use that to figure out what you're about to present, how is your audience going to take it. For example, if you're doing a very technical talk to a technical audience who may not be aware of what you're about to present, but you know that they can understand it because they are technical versus if you're doing it to an audience which is completely not technical and, you know, not not all aware of what you're about to talk about, then your approach might be a little different.

Right? So use this to figure out, you know, who your audience is. And then second, what is my call to action? So what are you expecting them to take away, right, from this, from whatever you're about to share? And the third one is how do I connect with them? So try to figure out what matters to them. Like, you could be presenting to colleagues in a different role. You could be presenting to a different team, to a different organization entirely. Just taking a moment to think about why would they be interested in this, how is this going to impact them, how does it even interest them. That can give you, you know, some key insights that you can then use to shape your presentation. When people see themselves in the story, they care enough to act.

So that's the power of using empathy. Now why don't we bring a little drama to this? Right? The next one is, leveraging drama for your data. Okay. So data on its own is like a lab report. Right? Accurate but cold. What Erin did beautifully in this movie was she translated those sterile numbers into human stories. And in tech, it's the same. Our dashboards matter when we're connecting them to show the real impact of those. Right? How it's impacting real people, how it's it's impacting, you know, maybe colleagues around us. Right? Basically, what what's the real life impact that's happening because of that data? It gives us credibility for sure. But drama, the human story, is what makes people listen and care and act. Let's take an example here. I'm taking an example of, something that affects my line of work, and I work on payment optimization. And, I work with transactions getting declined, day in and day out.

So let's say I wanna present a fact last quarter, $10,000,000 worth of transactions were declined on our platform. 10,000,000. That's a big number. I could stop right there, and some people in the room would probably nod and say, okay. Yeah. Big number. That sounds bad. But it here's the truth. That number wouldn't move people as as much. Like, numbers unless it's a really huge number, they are less likely to change behavior. Stories are more likely to do that. So now if I tell you what those $10,000,000 really meant excuse me. It meant a small business owner in Ohio who couldn't process transactions on a Mother's Day weekend, which was their single biggest sales weekend of the year. It means a parent who was trying to pay tuition online and got blocked and had to scramble at the last minute to find another way.

It meant thousands of everyday moments of trust broken, not being able to pay some pay for something when I wanted to. And that's why we push to fix it, not just because of a metric, but because behind every decline is a customer, a family, a business depending on us. When you frame the number as this human impact, suddenly, it's not just a data point. It's a call to action. So try to pair every fact with a face. Translate metrics into moments. Show how it affects daily lives or business outcomes. Data builds credibility, but story sparks action. Okay. Moving on to the, next one. And I'm sorry. I'm you know, guys, feel free to, like, ping questions in the chat. I can take a look at them as I'm going and, also happy to take questions at the end. Okay. So the next one.

How do you take this the story that you are telling and adapt that story for the room? The same personality, but different deliveries. Erin adapted her message depending on who she was talking to, whether it was lawyers or, you know, peep her boss, executives in her company, local people. The facts didn't change. What changed was how she presented those facts. So, the same is true true for us in technology in in in the corporate world. Different people care about different things. A CTO would care about scalability. A CEO would care about growth, and the world might care about risk. Delivering the story doesn't dilute our message. It makes it land where it matters the most. So let's take the same example that I had taken earlier. And let's say I have to present, you know, that finding to my leaders, and I need their help in getting prioritization and resources to address that solution.

Let's see how we can map that same story to the different types of audiences here. So for the CTO, who cares about scale and technical feasibility, last quarter, $10,000,000 of transactions were declined. That's not just lost revenue. That's an indication that our system did not scale the way it should have under peak loads. If 50,000 transactions failed in one quarter, imagine what would happen when our volume doubles during the holiday season. It's not just a financial problem anymore. It's a resilience problem, and we need to invest to make sure that our infrastructure, our architecture can handle those loads before things start breaking at scale. For the CEO, how would we how would we present this to the CEO who's who cares about growth and business outcome? $10,000,000 of transactions were declined last quarter.

That's $10,000,000 our customers tried to give us and couldn't. That's not just lost revenue. It's churn risk because every frustrated customer is one click away from our competition. And if we cut even half of those declines, $5,000,000, we unlock those 5,000,000 in growth immediately without adding a single new customer. That's growth hiding in plain sight. How will we present this to the board? A board board would typically care about reputation, brand, image, risk, all of that. In one quarter, 10,000,000 transact 10,000,000 in transactions failed on our platform. On paper, that looks like revenue, but the real risk is reputational. Behind that those $10,000,000 are parents who couldn't pay tuition, businesses who missed payroll, and nonprofits who lost donations. Every one of those stories spreads fast in reviews, on social media, in trust. And once customers lose trust, they rarely come back. Fixing declines isn't just about revenue recovery.

It's about protecting the brand's credibility in the market. So do you see? It was the same data, different angles. That's the power of tailoring your story to the audience. The next topic is authentic presence. So it's all about you showing up as yourself. Your power is your own authenticity. Erin never tried to be someone she wasn't. No suits. No polished jargon. If you've seen the movie, you've you've you're aware of that. And this is not to say don't show up with suits. Right? Don't be shabby. I mean, you might have heard the, you know, the age old dress for the role that you want to be in, but you don't have to fundamentally change who you are. Erin showed up unapologetically with her own voice and style, and that authenticity gave her presence. In leadership, presence isn't about being the loudest person in the room.

It's about being the most grounded and the most clear. Your unique voice is your superpower, and your confidence will grow when you claim your own voice. Okay. So since we've been talking about this movie, right, what happened? What happened with Aaron? Some of you might be familiar. After months of digging through these files, the data, interviewing families, and pushing through, you know, all past resistance, Erin and her legal team succeeded in building a massive case against PG and E. PG and E is forced into a a record breaking settlement of $333,000,000, and that was the largest direct action lawsuit settlement in US till date, till, till that time. And that settlement meant hundreds of affected residents in Hinkley, California, where the movie was based on, they received justice and compensation for the harm that was caused by the toxic chromium in the water. And Erin herself, who had been underestimated throughout the movie for her lack of formal legal training, was recognized for her pivotal role.

And she received a check of $2,000,000 as a bonus from her boss, which was a powerful acknowledgment of her value and tenacity. The company had that data for years, but, really, it took Erin's storytelling to make people act, and that's the difference. So in our world, in tech, product, leadership, your data is important, but it's your story that moves the room. Okay. Now I wanna, share one more thing. Laurie, how are we doing on time? Can we continue for five minutes? I can end now or I can share this, the bonus tips that I wanna share. Sana, go ahead. Everyone's enjoying your presentation, so continue, please. Alright. Thank you. Okay. So, I came across this article that was published by Howard Business Review on how to stop saying mhmm and other fitter words.

And, you know, when we find ourselves speaking nervously, when we find ourselves rattled, distracted, or at a loss of what's coming next, it's easy to lean on filler words because they may give us a moment to collect our thoughts before we press on. And in some cases, using a pause is actually a helpful indicator of what's coming. It's an indicator to the audience that they should be paying special attention to what's coming next. But when you start to overuse them, they become crutches. Actually, academics call them something, called as disfluencies, which diminish our credibility. So this is the opposite of opposite of influence, and they distract from our message. It has been determined that the optimum frequency of using filler words is about one filler per minute, but the average speaker actually uses five. So it's, like, one every twelve seconds or so. So how do we eliminate or reduce these fillers?

And the good news is that you can turn this weakness into a strength by replacing fillers with pauses. That's just what that's what what I did just now. But that's hard. You know? For many speakers, even the briefest pause can feel like a long silence. That's because we tend to think faster than we speak. According to research that I was reading, the average professional speaks at a rate of about one fifty words per minute, but we think at the rate of 400 words per minute or more in in case of people whose mind works faster. And because of this discrepancy, when you're giving a speech, your perception of time is often distorted. And what feels like an eternity in your mind is actually a few short seconds for the audience. So embrace the pause. It helps your nerves calm down. It gives you more control. It helps you go through your presentations more calmly and, effectively. And then my second, third, and fourth tips are prepare, prepare, prepare.

I cannot stress the importance of preparation enough. Nerves are one of the biggest reasons where we lean on fillers. You know, the more nervous we are the less prepared we are, the more nervous we will be, and that likely cause us to speak too quickly. This is something I've actually struggled with a lot. Like, I for for a while, I've received this feedback that I've I talk too fast, and that's something I've been consciously working on to slow myself down. Right? Which which helps. Right? It also helps people understand your message. So, you know, when we speak too fast, we tend to, like, trip over our words and forget what we're gonna say next. And practice is a key to that.

That's, again, something that I I've been using a lot. When you're going into an important meeting or presentation, it's actually recommended to have three dry runs before you step in front of your audience. I know that's a lot, but let's start with one, right, or two. And now there's so many tools out there. I I actually use, ChargeGPT for helping me prepare for presentations. Make a it can be as simple as making a video of yourself, and just watching yourself. And take a note of the words that you are leaning on more and more and try to avoid those. Replace them with pauses, and use that pause to recollect your thoughts. Okay. So that brings us to the end.

The next time you're bringing data to your leadership, don't just hand over the case file like Erin. Tell the story behind it. That's how because that's how Erin won, and that's how you can too. So if if you take nothing else away from today, I want you to take these few things. Pair data with empathy. Always, you know, bring the human element towards your customers, even towards your audience. Always end with a clear ask and show up with authenticity. So that's what really makes your leaders listen. Thank you so much for your time and energy interaction today. I know each of you has stories that deserve to be heard, and I hope you leave with some tools to make your voice impossible to ignore.