“If you can’t tell a good story, you ought not be in leadership.” Mark DeSantis on storytelling, being real, and torpedoing the slide decks

The Sage Sayers

You don’t get great at entrepreneurship without being an amazing storyteller. And Mark DeSantis, an entrepreneur whose robotics company was acquired by Kubota Corporation, is truly excellent.

But not everyone embraces the opportunity of storytelling or knows they can bring these skills they use with their kids, those they love, or friends to work. Even fewer realize that storytelling might simply be framing an idea as “our experience.”

Failure to employ this innate skill we all possess is a missed opportunity, especially for leaders, Mark muses in our insightful interview. (And don’t even get him started about his disdain for slide decks, the very death of effective persuasion—and storytelling, in his view.)

You can hear our earlier interview from January, another favorite episode here. You can find Mark DeSantis who also consults and teaches entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University here.

Your show host, D G McCullough is a former reporter for the Guardian, the Economist, and the FT of London. She runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a communications coach to leaders all over the globe. Find her on LinkedIn. Join her active listening workshop on Maven, Listen Like a Boss.