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Intergenerational Intimacy - Is China's 80s generation discovering their real companion (依靠)?

You can spot them everywhere, from subway stations, to public parks; from shopping arcades to busy restaurants and even in far-off holiday destinations. There is a distinctly visible trend in big cities, where a young woman in her late 20s or early 30s is often seen in the company of her mother, doing things with her. Isn’t this a little surprising given that we are made to believe that China’s 80s generation (which is now in its 20s and early 30s) is a pampered lot and more self-centered than any generation before them; And also that this generation does not understand their parents and considers them totally out of sync with today’s world!

If this how the 80s generation is, then how do we explain this intergenerational intimacy and companionship that they are discovering with their parents, and especially girls with their mothers?

All that has been said about the 80s generation and its self-obsession is true, just the way it is also true that 80s generation is not a teenager any longer. Those among them, who were born in early 80s, are young adults now and entering a new phase of their life, both personally and professionally. Personally, they are getting into or feling the need for a long-term relationship and professionally they are looking at building a career, which is different from just doing a job.

In China, 三十而立 (san shi er li or the 30s) is considered to be one of the toughest points of transition in a person’s life. This transitory phase forces them to think both personal and professional choices from a long-term perspective. But the need for transition from a job to a career and from a romantic relationship into long-term commitment is not coming out to be the smoothest. What makes this transition especially tough for this generation? After all many before them have passed through this stage.

The 80s generation is a high-expectation generation. They have high expectations from almost everything that they engage in. At work, they have high expectations about monetary compensation, growth and attention from superiors and peer group; in everyday life they have high expectations from the life partner and friends. These high expectations are a result of the life that their parents made them used to as they pampered them extensively during their formative years.

In most cases parents of this 80s generation belong to the 50s and early 60s generation. These parents have come from poorer backgrounds with families characterized by many kids. (More than 30% of parents of 60s generation on an average had 5 to 6 siblings in their childhood¹). As a result the spotlight was not on a single child. Everyone had to find his or her own way and struggle as they became independent. When these children became parents, they took extra care to ensure that their only child does not have to struggle like they did.

This extra care, pampering and protection has lead to 80s generations developing a fragile and inward-looking personality. They find it difficult to forge new relationships and are always looking out to get rather than give.

As this generation moves into their late 20s and early 30s they exit the comfort zone that their parents created for them. The transition exposes them to a world that challenges their high expectations. At work, a highly competitive environment requires them to work hard before they can earn the right to expect, and in personal relationships, the significant other, who is usually from the same generation is also expecting to get rather than give. Both ways the realization begins to dawn upon them, that they are not the center of the world. Given all this, it is not surprising that a large proportion of those who are from the 80s generation, have turbulent marriages, disenchantment with work and change jobs frequently.

Turbulent Marriages: The extra pampering and protection that this generation has received from their parents, has lead to slower and delayed maturing of their personalities. This becomes more pronounced in their married life. Marriage requires forgiveness, understanding, tolerance and compromise – but these are not the traits that this generation is best known for.  Poxi guanxi (婆媳关系)viz relationship with in-laws and forging new bonds after marriage, becomes increasingly challenging when both partners are expecting from each other but unable to give as much. Many experts working in marital counseling, blame the lack of responsibility shown by the spoiled one-child generation as the reason for the many broken marriages. As a result today, one out of every five marriages in China ends in a divorce. This rate is double of what it was a decade ago and Beijing tops the charts with the highest divorce rate nationwide with 39% of all marriages in the city ending in a split! More importantly divorce rate among those under-30s has doubled annually over the past five years, and 97 percent of these couples are from single child families!  

Disenchantment at Work: Disillusionment at work among younger employees is a rising concern for the human resource teams in many organizations. Companies are facing challenges in employee retention and overall morale. A recent survey shows that, as much as 80% of employees with 3-5 years of experience have switched jobs aggressively. Most of these are from the 80s generation. In some cases such switching of jobs has tripled organizational employee turnover rates to as high as 45.7%. ²

Shattered hopes and the resulting emotional crisis due to unmet expectations both at work and from the life-partner make this generation realize the ‘cruelty’ of real world outside the fort of parental protection. This personal emotional crisis prompts them to look for a support system, as they look for someone who can reassure them about themselves and provide emotional refuge from the stark realities of the adult world.

For all such emotional crises, there usually are three pressure valves in almost all the societies. 1. Friends, who reassure 2. Hobbies, those provide a new way to invest and engage the mind and emotions and, 3. A Religion or Belief that soothes and gives inner peace.

Friends, who are the most obvious support system, while is strong but is not the most preferred escape route. This is mainly because some friends move on, others might have successful marriages and work situations and could thus make one feel more miserable instead of giving reassurance.

Hobbies that help a person to engage in something beyond work are a definite route to greater happiness and confidence. Yet most of the young adults in China, while they are trying many new things are still not sure about their real hobbies and interests. It is worth mentioning that while most of the societies in the world have something that they are known to be passionate about, it is difficult to answer the same question for most of the Chinese.

Belief, be it religious or philosophical, is another way of soothing the anxiety within. In many societies this role is played by religion. In China, a mix of Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist philosophies together play this role. Yet the reality remains that most of the 80s generation is way too disconnected from their philosophical roots. Most of the time it is competition through consumption that dominates confidence through contemplation and reflection. Consumption as a way of making oneself aware of one’s existence wields additional pressure on the individual, as one tends to measure success by visible symbols of prosperity. It is noteworthy that according to a recent news report, a Chinese professor in Beijing was quoted as telling his students “if you cannot make RMB 40 million by the time your are 40, I would not be happy to acknowledge you as my students!”

The rise in the popularity of religion and Yoga among others is also a testimony to the fact that people are looking for a way to sooth their inner self. A visit to the Sunday mass in any city Church will reveal the large numbers of 80s generation attending it regularly.

In this wider context, 80s generation, especially women in their late 20s and early 30s, are rediscovering their parents as a source of unconditional love, affection and emotional reassurance. While they discover a new friend in their mother, their mother too has much to share as she is seeking a companion in her child. This is more so if the girl is single or separated from her husband.

But one may ask that the Chinese society and culture has always observed a sense of duty towards parents and elders in the family. What is so new about all this?  What separates this newfound intergenerational intimacy from the classic filial piety?

Unlike the traditional sense of duty that drove the relationships in the past, the contemporary intimacy has a sense of mutual companionship as the driving motivation behind it. 

It is also interesting to note that the intergenerational intimacy is not just a middle class phenomenon. There are many female celebrities like Fan Bin Bin and Liu Yi Fei among others, are also much closer to their parents than anyone else.  

So what does all this mean for marketers and advertisers? What can we learn from this social trend in making? For starters, the decision-making especially in the purchase of consumables and apparel would be increasingly influenced by the interplay between the mother and daughter. This would be a new dimension to the hitherto unigenerational exchange between a girl and her friends or her spouse. Perhaps mothers might be able to bring in a sense of frugality to the everyday purchases but more importantly the daughter could help her mother adopt the newer and more premium lines of products. Mothers could not just use her daughter’s grooming tips but also make herself feel younger and give her an edge in her own circle of other senior women.

Needless to mention there could be new gifting opportunities to both nourish and leverage this intergenerational intimacy, especially around existing occasions like Women’s Day and Mother’s Day.

As observers of society and culture and as futurists, we are always eager to predict the next big thing that is coming our way. Data about China’s demographics often tells us interesting things about the aging population, urbanization, and income gap, among others. While these realities are imminent, it remains that what is even more important than knowing what will happen is to reflect upon what would happen then. Although this essay is largely speculative for it does not yet offer extensive numerical evidence for many of the observations made here, yet it does provide a mental map to navigate the social changes of our times.

Boys and girls from single child families of yesteryears are men and women today. They are forming families and making a living as they join organizations in droves. As marketers, we need to understand their emotional experiences and resulting needs. Only then will we be able to solve their problems and serve them better. Are we listening?

Special Thanks to:

Ivy Liang Strategic Planner, Ogilvy & Mather, Guangzhou, China

Dr. Ting Wang, Lecturer - Communication Studies, School of Communication, East China Normal University, Shanghai, PRC

 

42 minutes, 20 million hits, story of one generation

Over 20 million hits for a 42-minute long film in just over two weeks – what does this tell us? Sure it tells us that people love it - but why? What is special about the film that attracts so much of passion from the online viewer, who is known to be ruthlessly critical of most of the content?

老男孩 (lao nan hai or Old Boys) is a the story of two young boys who grew up to be teenagers during the years of rapid transition from China’s closed socialist past to quick economic opening up and reforms. Set in the 1980s the film traces the journey of classmates in school - their youth, their love, their dreams, their adulthood, their reality, their sorrows and yet their unwavering hope and the desire to keep moving on. The movie is a must watch for anyone wanting to see Chinese talent in filmmaking that reflects present day reality (beyond just the big budget period films). In the garb of a short film, it is actually is a rare piece of Chinese social commentary on pains and pleasures of the Chinese society in flux. 

The fact that a brand has supported this project goes on to say a lot about their understanding of the market, their desire to reflect the contemporary society while allowing creative freedom to bring all of this to life.

The movie effortlessly captures the sentiment of the 80s generation and has valuable lessons and reminders for marketers, market researchers, sociologists and advertisers.

1. Old Boys (not young men): Many of these 25-30 year olds have grown older but not necessarily grown up. They are not the 25-30 year men and women, they are the 25-30 year old boys and girls. This has various reasons behind it. Some of the reasons are to do with the fact that they were the only children in their family and the extensive pampering slowed down their growing up into matured beings. The other factor is the rapid change of the Chinese society – especially in the urban areas. The explosion of opportunities, rise of materialism, winds of consumerism, ‘one life so no compromise’ mindset, and the notion of “I need to do better for myself before anything else” has given way to delayed marriages and even broken marriages. Together these factors keep a person from acknowledging and realizing that he has transitioned from a boy to man. Thus, while they might look like they are settled in life but deep within they ‘not done yet’.
2. Reality TV as a coping Mechanism: Whie there are many changes happening in the society and economy 'around' the life people from the 80s generation - most of these people find themselves left behind. Most of them are unable to cope with dramatic change and increasing competition. The broken dreams amplify the pain of failure. In this wider social context - reality TV and talent search shows offer that rare opportunity to break the pattern and achieve dramatic success fast. Reality TV is almost like a talent-lottery and everyone wants to make the best of it.Its sheer presence symbolizes hope and happiness - sometimes for self and sometimes vicariously.
3. The unsung professions and unconventional careers: There is a China beyond the stereotype of the successful white collared men and women working in swank new offices.  Sure these images of modern day success represent the aspirations of the whole nation but the whole nation is not doing only this. There are people working in factories, there are people working as teachers, there are saloon owners, there are wedding hosts for the not so glamorous celebrity weddings. All these less talked about people and professions might not be the most aspirational but for a brand trying to connect with its audience beyond the newly build façade of 21^st century success, the lesser known stories can more memorable and effortlessly distinct. 
4. 80s Nostalgia Sells: One of the largest consuming groups of today comprises people from the 80s generation (the 25-30 year olds). Both products as well as marketing communication messages that capture the past beautifully and personally, will attract a lot of attention and positively predispose people towards products and brands that use this approach.

There is a temptation to write more because frame by frame, 老男孩 has a lot to say - but I should stop here and let you judge by yourself.

I wish I could see more of such creations in Chinese popular culture. These are more accurate in their understanding and representation of people than many research reports.

 

Will you talk to your Mom like this? 3

This is the third in the short series of posts on Challenges facing Qualitative research in China. As I have said in the posts before, the idea is not to castigate research agencies or trash the ways of some of the marketers. Instead the idea is to highlight the research & marketing issues plaguing various marketing and research systems & highlight that if we address these we can find a way to superior understanding of people in China and consequently do better marketing and market planning.

Have you ever wondered what kind of working people would take out time on a Wednesday afternoon (or morning!) to go to a discussion in a room full of strangers talking about sanitary napkins or tyres or adhesives etc for over two and a half hours? I can hazard a guess - these are people who do not have much happening in their personal or work life. Some of my not so polite friends have another word to describe these people - they call them "losers who don't have a life!"

Come to think of it - who can take out so much time for a relatively unimportant topic and that too in the middle of a workday! These people are outside the stream of active social or professional life and thus have so much time to spare. They are the laggards in all kinds of product adoption processes. Outside of occasions like the focus group discussion - they are a conservative lot without strong opinions on most of the subjects - leave aside consumption choices.

This is the other challenge that a lot of qualitative research faces in developing markets like China. Most of the people that we end up recruiting for research are at best not savvy about the topic being discussed. This is dangerous because we base many of our marketing decisions on the feedback captured from these researches. When we do this – what we are effectively doing is taking feedback from the masses and ending up with the lowest common denominator of understanding. This might be a better idea in electing a government but it can definitely not help us make strategic breakthroughs in marketing.

Having said that - this also does not mean that we only speak with opinion leaders – that is not realistic either. What we really need to do is to structure our research in a fashion that we strike a balance between such dull followers and some savvy adopters. Learnings from only that kind of a mix can be considered more balanced and representative of the reality.

Only such a respondent mix can help us find inspiration not just information.

 

Happy Working!

 

Will you talk to your Mom like this? 2

This is the second in the short series of posts on Challenges facing Qualitative research in China. As I said before, the idea is not to castigate research agencies or trash the ways of some of the marketers. Instead it is to highlight research & marketing issues plaguing various marketing and research systems & highlight that if we address these we can find a way to superior understanding of people in China. And consequently do better marketing and market planning.

In this second part, I will share some thoughts about the way we ask the questions in our researches.

It pains me to see how we run our consumer immersion groups.

Why are we so direct?  

After every response – we simply barge in with a “why?” or “why not?”

Do we really believe that people will give an honest explanation for their usual behaviour?

Add to this, people in China take much longer to open up than people from most of the other cultures that I have been exposed to. We need to respect this cultural truth. China is a lot about steady conversations and negotiations. It is not a “on and off” culture, it is not about this way or that way, it is not the start and stop mindset. It is a continuum. It is about maneuvering around and about topics – touching them enough to give a hint rather than making them obvious.

Our way of talking to people needs to learn from this. 

My long-time friend once told me how Chinese and Westerners think differently. He explained it to me through a business meeting analogy. For the Westerners – if a meeting is short it must be very good because everybody was talking the same language and thus not much conversation was required to reach an agreement. Contrast this with the Chinese idea of a good meeting. The Chinese think that if the meeting is short – it did not really achieve much. The underlying principle is that it takes longer to know people and understand their motives – too quick and you have not really achieved anything. On the contrary, if it is longer – it sure means that it helped people know each other more. Knowing people is most important. All the business can follow.

Now think about our interview situations - how can we rush through it with a 100-bullet point checklist?

I often say – “In China – slow down, if you want to speed up. Things move forward briskly when we do not labour them too much. Conversations are no exception. Of course we need answers to “why” and “why not” but we need not ask it that way. We need to make the questions indirect, help respondent speak about himself without feeling shy about it by. Make it less sharp and allow the real answers to flow in. Only a comfortable respondent is a natural respondent.

A few more to come in this series.

 

A Mega Cloud of Cultural Insights

I recently saw this promotional video/TV Commercial for TrueRoots International Calling Service. As an Indian - I laughed at it, agreed with and then began to wonder- this is just about India and these are just some of the many possible observations. 

Now imagine how interesting would it be, if we put together more of such observations about India and then put a question mark at the end of each. 

The mere mention of these observations layered with some good music - engages us so much. Imagine how engaging, insightful and useful would be a discourse explaining why do Indians do these things.

Now step back & imagine cultures and societies across the world generating such observations and then their explanations for their respective societies. If each society attempts this - we would have a global mega-cloud of cultural insights. Anyone?

Meaning of Human Development – Notes from the streets of Hong Kong

This is my fourth time in Hong Kong in the past two and a half years.  I now feel that know something about this city. Something more than just a passing tourist’s photo stream or Visa hopeful’s city maps. So after a lot of back and forth, mental dribbling and a heavy downpour on my way from the nearest subway station, I decided to pen down my thoughts.

Hong Kong is like a moving theatre paused forever - everyone is moving around but nobody is going anywhere. It is tall, very busy, sometimes green, most of the times gray, proud of its glass-concrete, very cramped, always rushed, mostly hashed often rehashed, super calculative and much more of these. It is overflowing with business suited; straight haired fast walking women and carefully gelled, well clothed men, with the latest designs in apparel and accessories. They all seem to have come straight out of a style magazine.

Even the traffic police refuses to be ordinary. It is so well equipped that for a man like me who is used to seeing police with a big bamboo cane, these blokes look like astronauts who lost their way back home and ended up in the street.

 

Hong Kong has it all. It has the glamour, the energy, the stars and subway lines full of people who look like stars but have somehow decided to take the subway with you!

It makes you feel good about being single. It is a city that makes you want to be bachelor. It makes you want more. No, it actually makes you greedy and totally insatiated, for no matter how much money you decide to carry in your wallet – you will almost always feel poor.

Hong Kong is sorry-serious. No one has time for now. No one has time for anyone. No one has time because they have already spent all of it to make the money that can get them the time they really want. Everyone is busy fuelling his tomorrow.

Hong Kong speaks and you listen. Beeps, clicks, alarms, horns, announcements, and other such similar sounds dominate the airwaves, telling you about the your mundane life. These are the sounds of the system that no one can see but everyone is blissfully intoxicated with. These are sounds that hold conversations and gentle whispers to ransom.

 

Stand anywhere in the city and you can’t escape the constant humming of the street. It is the echo of traffic sounds rising along the tall buildings that literally have their heads are in the clouds - like a halo of some kind – of success or struggle, you decide.

So many people brush past you but nothing really touches. The touches do not move. The moves are not lasting.

In Hong Kong even the weather cannot touch you. People walk from one under pass to another overpass. From subway station - to the Mega Shopping arcade and into the apartment elevator. The rain at best becomes a hassle - a topic of discussion about how it spoilt the dress or slowed the traffic or made you remember that you need to carry the umbrella.  The raindrops disappear on their way down the glass panes – hoping for someone to notice them.

 

The bright sun is blocked and bored behind the buildings – with nowhere to go, other than home. The incandescence of the Vichy & Fancl signage never really allows people to look very far. The pursuit of a colon cleaned glowing look is what dominates many a damsel’s weekend agenda.

 

 

Hong Kong is the dwarf king of opportunity who gives each of his dwellers a personal shield. A shield of indifference, that makes it easy not to look people in their eye. A shield, that makes it easy to carry an expression that will discourage people from approaching you or smiling at you. And a shield that makes it easy to turn every interaction into a transaction, a transaction that must be completed in the notional quota of time allotted for it, for time is to be earned here not spent. Hong Kong is overflowing with human heat with no traces of warmth.

Not surprisingly, I see the marketing world understanding and profiting from this state of the society. On one side are adverts that talk about making women more attractive in various ways – from cosmetics, to mineral water, from spas to push up bras. All of this to help them to pamper themselves and put their best foot forward. There is, what I call the 'relax and pamper yourself market' and the 'get ahead in the corporate battles market'  and 'win the best guy market').

 

On the other hand there is the personalization and warmth industry trying to balance the impersonal and cold world it lives in. Brands trying to draw people’s attention to the softer hues of life. You see a cell phone with the social media features exclaiming ‘let the life come to you’ (read - enjoy yourself!). 

 

We have an airline exclaiming that each of her staff really enjoy what they do  - so you can be sure of getting personalized services on board! (read - we are not cold and mechanical!)

 

Why has Hong Kong come to be like this?

Is it the dogged pursuit of money that makes people pragmatic and cold?

Is it the development or lack of it?

Is it their embrace of the ‘western ways’ of life that makes the city so full of itself with no room for anything else? 

Is it the cultural change sponsored by the English?

Is it the ethnic background of the Han majority that originated mainly from Guangzhou & Taishan in Guangdong province in Southern China?

It sure is not the English – they were in India long enough, but India did not become like this. Not even the really big cities like Mumbai.

Then what is it?

It is Darwin.

When you put 70,55,071 people in about 1104 square kilometers, you get a density of over 6000 people for every kilometer. You also get an urban jungle, thin on all kinds of personal resources.

Hong Kong is just this – an urban jungle where everyone is fighting for survival and minding the gap between what they need today and what they can get. The daily struggle for survival takes out the humane from the humans. From there comes the dog eat dog race, the survival of the fittest - the constant challenge to outlast the one next to you. And Hong Kong does outlast almost everyone - with an average life expectancy of 80 years for men and 86 years for women – Hong Kong is ahead of almost the whole world when it comes to survival! But ‘survival’ and ‘living’ were never really the same. I also find the ‘survival of the fittest’ a little awkward because if you look at the development indices – Hong Kong is a developed city, in fact it is among the top Alpha Cities of the world. Developed and yet struggling for survival?! I have not been to another place like this before.

I often used to tell my parents, that Hong Kong is like a bonsai New York. This time I added one more thing to this description. Hong Kong is the Mumbai without the innocence but with the flyovers and other trappings of a developed world. I say this because Mumbai is not very different from Hong Kong is some basic ways. In about 600 square kilometers we have about 13830884 people, which gives us a density of 22,920 people per square kilometer –far higher than Hong Kong’s.  But still – Mumbai does not feel the same dog-eat-dog, survival of the ‘coldest’ place or at least not as much. It still has some innocence left in it.

Why?

I believe it is the stage of development. The more economically developed a place, the more people believe in the Theory of Evolution. Look the survey chart here - it shows belief in Darwinism across the most developed societies in the world. I am sure if this survey were carried out in Hong Kong, it would also figure in the upper quartile. 

 

Truth always seems to come with a dose of irony. The idea of development is usually linked with notions of peaceful coexistence and equilibrium etc. However it also seems that as societies develop, they tend to become more of where we as a species started from – believers in survival of the fittest.

As the rest of China urbanizes – I would not be surprised to see more Hong Kong’s mushrooming all over the country. Shanghai is leading the charge on this front, as it strives to become ‘a very big & influential Hong Kong’.

Personally I hope more cities continue to be like Beijing or Bombay - as big and warm at heart as they are in size and scale.

May innocence live longer..

Introducing the well-known

I usually avoid talking about advertising here but I could not help putting this one up. I have not seen any television advertising for the Accord 2009, but what I saw in print really caught my attention.

Imagine what perhaps would have been the brief for this piece of communication?

Accord is a well-known brand from Honda and has a history of more than 15 years or so. Thus with a new 2009 Accord coming to the market – the objective was not as much to talk about Accord as it was to talk about the 2009 version. It is not very difficult to imagine that, with one new version of Accord coming to the market almost every 18 months, the new features would be more incremental than transformational. The twin challenge could thus have been

1. How to make incremental changes, from a well-known brand, look interesting

2. How not to leave everything just to the looks of the car?

This is the beauty of this magazine advertisement. Here is how it addresses the above among other challenges, effectively:

1. Make a well labeled diagram but give it a story: The cross section of the car is more than just that – it uses a visual compartment with miniature people in it to demonstrate each feature. It makes each new feature personal and thoughtful and visually arresting. You will definitely stop and read more.

2. Talk about many things and yet give one message: The care has many new features – but the one message that it gives is that the new Accord is loaded much more than ever before

3. Do not just get stuck with the inside: The advertisement still shows the car from outside – looks take care of the rest of the concerns about “is the new Accord looking any different after all?”

4. Tell people what they want to know: Everybody knows Accord is good. Everybody also perhaps knows that the new Accord would be having something new. The question would be - what? This is exactly what this advertisement tells the reader.

Accord 2009 is a winning product. And if I were to go with this example, I would say that the communication also does full justice to make everybody understand that. 

Story and the Summary

These days you tell people something and they will urge you “Tell me fast!”

When you have an interesting idea you are urged to “turn this concept into an elevator speech!”

When you have a concept you are often asked “what is the key visual for this creative approach?

When you have a theme with multiple facets, people say “can you show this as a visual board?”

And one of my favourites,  “Do not give me a research report – just give me a well edited video film that I can play for about 7-10 minutes..”

 

People try to get more out of their life and time in more ways than one “The album sucks – just get the 1st and 4^th track”, “What is the one thing that this workshop told you?” “So what is this book really saying?”

 

And then of course everyone tries to convey their feelings with communication expressions like “LOL”, “Rgds”, “Tks” “tc” (in addition to, the now, more than 50 kinds of smiley)

 

Also, in the past almost 2-3 years, people have even started rationing spelling their names – I guess it started with the lack of time and soon turned into a statement of style through on brevity. So Saurabh Sharma is not needed at the need of every mail – ‘s’ is enough however if you really mean to sign off, it can be “S”.

The rise of visually rich adult comics, messages with symbols, PowerPoint presentations without words, word documents without many words, music without words, music videos with Karaoke are some examples of the new shorthand culture.

While on one side everything is getting “shorter, crisper, smoother, faster, focused, narrow, now and quick”, on the other side there is this constant appeal for the “Story”. “Can you say what you want to say in a way that I not just hear but I also ‘like to listen’, ‘remember’, ‘believe’ and ‘act upon’?”

I believe that the paucity of time is intensifying the tension between ‘relaxed story telling’ and ‘brevity geared for efficiency’. The long story needs to get short but the short point needs to tell a story!

Today, the classic - ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ also needs a story that can be engaging and yet at the same time ‘the stories that we tell need to be told in the elevator’.

Interpersonal communication, especially in work situations, is becoming increasingly demanding and most of us who do not recognize this end up at the wrong side of it. The key perhaps is to understand (in real time) when to switch to the story, when to say the summary and when to say the story in a summary.