The Narrative Gym for Business: Introducing the ABT Framework for Business Communication and Messaging

By Randy Olson and Park Howell

The ABT Framework (And, But, Therefore) is a new model for business communication that brings focus to our information-overloaded world. The book is a collaboration between the creator of the ABT Framework, Dr. Randy Olson, and the #1 voice for the power of story in the business world, Park Howell.

The applications of the ABT to business communication are limitless. It is THE tool needed to craft compelling sales pitches, marketing campaigns, business presentations, brand strategy...anytime your message must connect and convert your audience.

Why is the ABT so powerful? Simplicity. In a world that is increasingly bogged down in excessive complexity, the ABT Framework is the tool that “gets to the point,” “cuts through the noise,” and provides the confidence to “know what you’re talking about.”

The book presents the 3 Step ABT Development Model, then Park Howell provides 5 applications of the ABT to the business world. This is the book that you will want sitting on your desk, constantly ready to help you shape anything and everything that you have to say to in the world of business.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randy Olson
• Release date: Jul 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005486402

Randy Olson

Randy Olson earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University and achieved tenure at the University of New Hampshire before resigning and moving to Hollywood, obtaining an M.F.A. from the University of Southern California School of Cinema, and embarking on a second career as a filmmaker. Since film school he has written and directed the critically acclaimed films Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus (Tribeca, '06, Showtime) and Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy (Outfest, '08), and co-founded The Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project, a partnership between scientists and Hollywood to communicate the crisis facing our oceans.

Book preview

THE NARRATIVE GYM

FOR BUSINESS

THE NARRATIVE GYM FOR BUSINESS:  

Introducing the ABT Framework For

Business Communication and Messaging

By Randy Olson and Park Howell

THE NARRATIVE GYM FOR BUSINESS:

Introducing the ABT Framework For Business Communication and Messaging

Randy Olson

Park Howell

Copyright © by Prairie Starfish Press

July 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except it the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the author at [e-mail]

Book Cover Design by ebooklaunch.com

Edited by Adina Yoffie

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THIS BOOK IS HOPEFULLY NOT A TL;DR WORK

CHAPTER 1 - The Power of But

CHAPTER 2 - Let’s Get Started…

CHAPTER 3 - The ABT Build Process

CHAPTER 4 - The ABT Build Process, Step 1: BUT – What’s Your Problem?

CHAPTER 5 - The ABT Build Process, Step 2: AND – Back to the Start

CHAPTER 6 - The ABT Build Process, Step 3: BUT, THEREFORE – Your Two Big Moments

CHAPTER 7 - That’s It, You’ve Got Your ABT, Now Go Communicate to the Business World

THE ABT DEVELOPMENT CARD

FIVE CLASSIC ABT EXAMPLES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

WELCOME TO THE NARRATIVE GYM FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

AND …

Some day in the future, you’ll go to the Narrative Gym for Business Communication AND, as you walk in, there will be people in one corner doing ABT Crunches, people in another corner doing Dobzhansky Squats, and, in the center area, there will be a woman performing Superlative Jump-Ups.

BUT …

There won’t be any movement. The names of those exercises are just humorous tributes to physical actions people used to do repetitively. Now their bodies are withered, as they long ago figured out how to get machines to do everything physical they need in life. A thousand years from now, the world will be incomprehensibly complex, yet who wins in business, as with life in general, will still be determined by who can communicate best. And that will come back to mastering narrative structure, which enables you to convert that complexity into simple, persuasive business communication.

THEREFORE …

The Narrative Gym will help you build the narrative muscle you need for the future, which is what this book is about. And at the core of that process will still be the age-old workout equipment known collectively as the ABT Framework, which this book introduces.

THIS BOOK IS HOPEFULLY NOT A TL;DR

The business world moves fast.

In business, you can’t afford to get bogged down in parenthetical comments or go off on tangents. You need to focus and get to the point.

That’s what the ABT is for. It’s a storytelling tool to help you focus and get to the point. Which means that it’s only fitting that this, the essential book for the ABT, is also focused and gets to the point.

This book is short, useful, and intended for everyone in the world of business. It’s meant for sales people, marketers, content creators, business developers, HR professionals, risk managers, IT professionals, chief marketing officers, chief revenue officers, chief executive officers, and receptionists.

The book is only about 75 pages long.

You know why it’s so short? TL;DR.

That means, Too Long; Didn’t Read. It’s used a lot these days—not just by editors, but by people on discussion websites like Reddit.

Somebody goes on a lengthy rant in the comment section, and other people reply with, TL;DR. Someone cites a lengthy book, and people reply with, TL;DR. Or someone posts a lengthy video, and they get the Didn’t Watch variation: TL;DW.

And that’s fine, BUT … there’s too much of it happening in our society, especially in the fast-paced world of business. Too many people talking about books of which they’ve only read two chapters. Too many people excitedly ordering a book off Amazon but never getting more than a few pages in.

THEREFORE … we don’t want TL;DR’s for this book. We’ve kept the content to the bare minimum you need to get you up and running with the ABT Framework.

If you want to go deeper into the weeds, then get a copy of the original non-business version of The Narrative Gym, which will steer you to the website, NarrativeGym.com.

The bottom line is that this book is meant to be a quick read. Hopefully, people will blow through it in little more than one sitting. Then they will write in response, JR;TRI, meaning, Just Right; Totally Read It.

CHAPTER ONE - The Power of But

Wait!  Did we instantly turn you off with the title of this chapter?  Have you been advised, somewhere along the line, to avoid using the word but?

Maybe you’ve heard it from couples’ therapists, who say, the word ‘but’ negates whatever precedes it and creates a sense of defensiveness.

Maybe you’ve heard it from improv acting instructors, who are trained to avoid negating and thus not to use the word but.  

Maybe you’ve heard someone who works in diplomacy, a field that trains its people to simply never say the word But.

There are good reasons for all of those recommendations, BUT … (there’s the word, no escaping it) the word but is at the heart of all that is human.  And