One area that I want to improve is my ability to tell good stories. I tend to rely heavily on my ability to connect with the audience by using numbers/figures but do not spend enough time preparing simple stories that effectively relate my points. Here are a couple pointers to improve your story-telling. Here are 2 simple rules that I found from the executive coaching sit: Essential Communications. Please see below for the link to the website. Stories soar when you follow two rules:
- Tell us details of what people did, said and felt. Don’t hover over the forest telling us about the landscape; bring us down onto the forest floor so we can enter the landscape. Give us the leaves and roots and dirt. Details of what people did, said and felt pull us into the story.
- Connect the details to other details. The details of what people did, said and felt must connect to and influence other details of what people did, said, and felt. The details you tell us need to feel important. In order words, the details you include must affect the outcome of the story.
Other Tips:
- If the details don’t connect to other details, cut’em out.
- Does everything in the story have to be true? The answer is no. But everything in the story has to feel true. The details what people did, said and felt have to create a truth that feels authentic.
http://www.essentialcomm.com/tips/execcoachtips/making-stories-soar-030311.html
Haha, I like that the author of the article doesn’t require honesty. Let’s be realistic, most good stories are at least partly fictitious. I agree that it needs to feel authentic, at least the gist of it.
I have found that using action verbs can really fire up the audience. Words such as attack, infiltrate, dominate etc. Sometimes alliteration grabs people i.e. aggressively attain, crush competitors, strong strategic solutions.
I get the sense that the central theme is trying to bridge the gap in communication of “What does this really mean?” and “How does this affect me?” If you are able to effectively communicate that message to your audience, then you have a better chance at capturing their attention and ensuring they are able to follow your message.