You may know how to craft a story or presentation well but presenting it effectively is a different skill altogether. A well-crafted story that is delivered poorly is like a vintage wine drunk out of plastic airline cup.
How you deliver your story can significantly change your desired outcome. You may have amazing verbal skills but you can very easily fail as a storyteller because in oral communication, a lot also depends on non-verbal aspects of communication and often what you don’t say is of equal importance to what you do say.
I am going to share some principles of Storytelling in Presentations, but learning Storytelling and presenting effectively is like learning to dance which cant be mastered by reading or attending workshops. You have to actively do it. The good news though is that, effective storytelling is not the domain of great storytellers. Anybody who is willing to make an effort can learn to use Storytelling for communicating and presenting effectively.
Even Warren Buffet had to work at it. Hear him talk about the only diploma he has ever done.
So what are some important factors in using Storytelling to communicate effectively and make your presentations memorable.
1) Which types of stories are best to tell?
Choose your personal experience as a story to tell since this is the only way you would re-live it and emotions will be experienced. Without your emotions your story will simply be an example, which is understood but not felt.
Story = Example + Emotion
2) How do I bring emotion into my stories?
The only way to bring emotion into your story is by using emotional words
You can say, “ The project failed” or you can say “ The project failed and we were all frustrated”
3) How long should the story be?
You can work with the principle of within two minutes but what is more important than that is to take out everything that is extraneous to the message and emotion you are wanting to convey. Its not about what you add, what you take out is often more important.
In Part 2 of this series we will look at further principles of using Storytelling in Transforming Presentations
"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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