Storytelling, the way its taught, coached, consulted and as a result practiced, is so focussed on telling the story (may be because its called story telling) that it lacks attention in an area that matters the most.
Who is it for and what is their worldview?
Currently this is how we think,
What is the key message I need to communicate?
And what is the story I can tell to communicate the key message?
I am requesting you to Stop Before Storytelling and ask yourself, “How did you even arrive to that key message?” Did you think, who is it for and what is their worldview?
What is worldview?
George Lakoff gave us a term called worldview. All of us wake up in the morning with biasis, beliefs, stereotypes, and that is what forms our worldview.
Our usual way of trying to convince someone is with facts and figures and features and benefits. It’s our worldview (the way we thought before we encountered you) and your story (the story we tell ourselves) that drives a human behaviour.
Now, you may think I am speaking to a group of people and they are all different. Yes, they are, but even though they are different, they are somewhat similar in how they see the world.
You can cluster them. In a corporate setting, worldviews could be of the following groups,
Stakeholders, Consumers, Team members, Cross functional teams.
Here are some questions that I suggest you ask before you get to the right key message and a story on it.
1: Who are the people you wish to change?
2: What do they believe?
3: When they jump to conclusions, what conclusion do they jump to?
4: As a group, what do they fear most?
The key to coming with the right key message and story to convey it, is in identifying worldviews, and understanding how groups of people can have similar needs and values and wants.
As storytellers, we can harness worldviews to help us target the people we seek to change.
Here is a 60 secs Wednesday Video (we post 60 secs videos on every Wednesday on our Instagram account with a purpose to share what we are learning about the world of stories) from our instagram @narrativestorytelling on worldviews.
"I attended your story telling course some time back. And I've enjoyed keeping up my knowledge with your blog. You may not have realised however, that the Whole of Government is implementing Internet Seperation. Hence I'm not able to access the links to read your articles. Could I suggest including a QR code in your emails so that I can use my mobile to scan it and gain immediate access to the article? It would be most helpful"
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