Stories constitute the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal.
— Dr. Howard Gardner
Picture Credits: Unsplash by Matthew Osborn
How many times have you found yourself stuck in a presentation where you hear nothing but a monotone voice talking numbers; gradually pushing the entire audience base into a gentle lap of sleep?
Imagine a scenario in which you are giving a presentation, where you have the podium to yourself and you’re putting your audience to deep REM sleep with your speech. A DREADFUL sight, isn’t it?
How to hook your audience when you speak is an art!
Whether you need to win over a colleague, an executive, or an entire bunch of spectators, an effective way of storytelling will make you stand out.
And, guess what you can get better at it with conscious efforts, no one is a pro at any skill without practice so with good technique and consistent efforts you can become a tremendous orator.
Here’s a 3-step framework that will help you accomplish the Art Of Storytelling-
1. Invoke Emotions By Connecting With The Audience-
Get to know your audience more by asking questions and setting a tone that will fixate them on what you want to share. Do not shy away from sharing a few personal telltales with your listeners, as invoking emotions is going to be the first step to connecting with your spectators. Mining your experiences can be a good start but be wary of making yourself a HERO! No one cares how great you are the only thing they care about is what can you do for them. A good approach will be to give a higher level view of some real-life experience you underwent that will resonate with your listeners, without covering unnecessary details.
2. Build The Plot By Contextualization-
Once the listener is hooked to you, now is the time to build up on facts and figures; using contextualized approach can prove to garner good effects. What does contextual storytelling mean? In simple words- whenever you try to throw in some facts and numbers. Go into details of explanation using the support of the context that happens to be the baseline of your story. Support with proper examples.
Anyone can come to hijack the stage and talk jargon, but to build proper trust amongst your audience you need to help them understand the root cause of the plot. It can sound difficult at first but gets better with practice.
3. Action Oriented-
Listeners expect a couple of insights towards the end of a session, be it a presentation, a speech, or any storytelling session for that matter. If you can summarize your story in a few actionable items, that give your listeners tangible results to hold on to, it’s going to push you into the category of a good storyteller. No one wants to sit through a boring 30 mins session where there is no proper conclusion. It will make you a powerful orator if you know how to end your sessions well, a major mistake many of us make without realizing is not ending the presentations, speeches, or even conversations in a concrete way. Speaking from a listener’s mindset- they might contemplate on what the session was about, and how the speaker navigated through it; if there’s no proper conclusion to your oration. It’s not going to ring a bell in the listener’s mind. If you want your thoughts to strike a chord within the listener, make your narration impactful.
Pro Tip: Don’t get too pushy, make suggestions filled with conviction. In the end, let your listeners decide what’s best for them.
Picture Credits: Unsplash by Priscilla
Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories, you tell.
There’s an interesting book by Nick Morgan called Power Cues, that emphasizes the importance of good storytelling capabilities as a method of powerful leadership patterns. Storytelling can make or break your leadership style.
Forbes has an interesting take on how to build a better leadership style using stories. They call it the famous IRS Method. It’s easy to remember, consciously include this whenever you see yourself narrating. 🙂
IRS Method —
- I: Intriguing beginning
- R: Riveting middle
- S: Satisfying end
The acronym IRS forms an interesting overlap with the methods presented in the 3-Step Framework above. An interesting hook makes the beginning intriguing, the contextualized plot makes the middle riveting and solid actionable making the end satisfying.
Here’s a TED talk by a famous business coach known as David JP Phillips that can help you understand the nuances around the topic in further detail.
Credit: Youtube –The Magical Science of Storytelling by David JP Phillips Best summarized as — 1. Introduce suspense or create a cliffhanger- as storytelling is essentially Dopamine induction. 2. Create empathy by sharing vulnerabilities, and inducing Oxytocin by causing an emotional response. 3. Make people laugh, by sharing funny anecdotes, this is used for inducing Endorphins. You see, it’s all about the game of hormones at play. 😀 Another stimulating way is to adopt- A unifying theory of 2+2- tell half and let your audience fill half into it. You can use this while presenting the hook. It will keep your audience wanting to know how your story ends. The human brain is meant to remember facts using stories, it tends to forget lists and bullet points. A tale describing the beginning and end is going to be banal. Instead, an approach to tell the same struggles in expectation vs reality is what makes it interesting. Hi friend, if you like this blog piece, do share this with your friends and family. Also, let us know in the comment section if you want us to cover any specific topics. 🙂 Check out other Blog posts from the author here.
