Telling Stories
In a recent Wall Street Journal article titled How to Avoid a Bonfire of the Humanities, a supposedly “tech-savvy, empirical, ferociously competitive” Silicon Valley high-tech entrepreneur said:
“English majors are exactly the people I’m looking for. [With virtual products] you have to establish strategic partners, convince talented people to join your firm, explain your product to code writers and designers, and begin to market to prospective customers. And you have to do that without an actual product. How do you do that? You tell stories. That’s why I want English majors.”
My take: Great fodder for a newspaper article, but total nonsense. Not the part about telling stories, but about English majors.
Telling stories — at least the way the quintessential entrepreneur means it, not lying, fibbing, and telling tall tales — is what great leaders, managers, and salespeople do. And becoming a great leader, manager, or salesperson is hardly the domain of English majors.
I’ve worked with a lot of English majors over the last 15 years. They make great editors. Some of them might be great storytellers, but their academic training isn’t necessarily the source of that skill.