NANCY DONOVAL STORYTELLER STORY COACH CONSULTANT

Transcription

1 QUOTABLE QUOTES The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust Maybe stories are just data with a soul. Brené Brown Oh! Oh! I get it. Every data point reflects something real in the world! R&D VP in Storytelling for Better Presentations Workshop The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out. Voltaire All Materials Nancy Donoval. All Rights Reserved. 1

2 LEARNING FRAMEWORK FOR WORKSHOP KEY INGREDIENTS: Clarity, Trust, Impact KEY RELATIONSHIPS: Story to Teller (Clarity); Teller to Audience (Trust); Audience to Story (Impact) THREE TYPES OF STORY AT PLAY : Macro (Clarity), Micro (Impact), Interpersonal (Trust) Every professional (and personal) communication already has these types of stories and these relationships going on simultaneously whether we are conscious of it or not. The goal is to become aware of them and learn concepts and skills to help strengthen presentations and make them more effectively achieve the key ingredients of Clarity, Trust, and Impact. RECOMMENDED READING Conger, Jay A. Heath, Chip & Dan Heath Jensen, Rolf Shaw, Gordon, Robert Brown and Philip Bromley Simmons, Annette The Necessary Art of Persuasion Harvard Business Review, May Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Random House, The Dream Society: How the Coming Shift from Information to Imagination Will Transform Your Business. McGrawHill, New York, 1999 Strategic Stories: How 3M Is Rewriting Business Planning Harvard Business Review, May The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion through the Art of Storytelling. Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, MA All Materials Nancy Donoval. All Rights Reserved. 2

3 STORYTELLING CONCEPTS IN A NUTSHELL Story Teller Audience Triangle The dynamics of the basic storytelling relationships. Clarity, trust and impact can only happen when these relationships are intentional and strong. Macro & Micro Stories Clarity/Impact Macro Story: Logic the organizing structure of the presentation, how the pieces fit together. Clarity and context are essential. What is your presentation really about? Who is your audience? What do you want the audience to take away? How does the purpose and shape of the presentation change with different audiences and contexts? Micro Stories: Emotion multiple small stories that illustrate moments, provides analogies and metaphors, gives meaning and significance to the Macro Story. Logic + Emotion: Listening to a story is one of the few activities that utilizes both the left and right brain, giving it the potential to engage the audience on many levels at once. Images & Themes Specificity/Impact Images Making the story real and memorable. Bringing data points to life with vivid language and mental pictures. Themes Making the story matter, giving it impact. Identifying the underlying universal human experiences embedded in the images. Heroes, Helpers & Demons The Interpersonal Story/Trust A valuable tool for understanding the Interpersonal Story in the background of any presentation. Knowing the dynamics of the Hero s Journey helps build trust and defuse a potential source of friction and poor communication between presenter and audience. As a bonus it also models the fundamental structure of many stories and can be useful for gaining clarity around the Macro Story of the presentation. All Materials Nancy Donoval. All Rights Reserved. 3

4 DYNAMICS OF THE STORYTELLING RELATIONSHIPS Storytelling s Primary Players Story Ownership Permission Trust RISK Teller Audience All Materials Nancy Donoval. All Rights Reserved. 4

5 TRUST THE INTERPERSONAL STORY While we are always the Hero in our own story; we are Helper, Demon or Irrelevant Landscape in everyone else's. 1. HOME THE HERO S JOURNEY (Very freely adapted from the work and writings of Joseph Campbell) What Came Before or Start Where You Are 2. THE CALL OR INVITATION Voluntary Involuntary What Is at Stake? 3. HELPERS OR MENTORS The Exchange/Earning the Wisdom or Help 4. OBSTACLES OR DEMONS Forks in the Road Impossible Tasks in Unreasonable Time Frames Dangerous Encounters (The stakes almost always increase along the journey.) 5. THE UNDERWORLD 6. THE RETURN The Crisis Moment Victory is Not Certain Victory from What the Hero Has Learned/Changed Along the Journey Back Home Victory/Change Recognized (or not) All Materials Nancy Donoval. All Rights Reserved. 5

6 IMPACT THE POWER OF MICRO STORIES IMAGES & THEMES FINDING UNIVERSALS IN ORDER TO CONNECT STORY IS: A set of chosen and shaped images recreating an event or series of events, real or fictitious in which meaning, change or insight occur. NOT PLOT ALONE: The relating of an event or series of events. STORY NEEDS: Concrete Images and Universal Themes Remember: A Story s Images Must Exist in a Specific Moments of Time and Place Concrete IMAGES to Engage the MIND Making the Story REAL to the Audience Imagination The OUTSIDES of the Story: How the Story Looks Sounds Smells Tastes Feels to the Touch/Textures Moves...Physical Movement within the Story Universal THEMES to Engage the HEART Making the Story MATTER to the Audience Emotionally The INSIDES of the Story: What fundamental aspect(s) of being human is the story exploring or illuminating? What is the story about that is larger than just its events? What conflicts or opposing forces (internal as well as external) are central to the story? A story can have a number of themes within it but it s important for the storyteller to know what is the core universal theme. Questions to help get at the themes: What or who changes? What relationships are driving the story? What choices do characters make? WHY? What are the consequences of those choices? How do the characters feel about what they do or about what happens to them? Why? How do you feel about what happens in the story? Why are you telling this story to this audience? All Materials Nancy Donoval. All Rights Reserved. 6

7 CLARITY A MACRO STORY EXAMPLE 45minute Keynote at Headstart Conference by Bryan G. Nelson of MenTeach Distilled from a 60page publication of research study results filled with charts, graphs and numbers. Men Are Important in Lives of Young Children or Welcome & Invite Men to Teach Children Macro Story/Outline: 1. Men are Important in the Lives of Young Children 2. They aren t there in early childhood education. 3. Where are they? Why so few men? a. Stereotypes b. Fear of accusations of abuse c. Low status/low wages 4. What are we doing to INVITE men into the field? What more can we do? a. Invite boys & men. Invite them. Invite them and invite them again b. Welcome men. Make environment menfriendly. c. Help men succeed by providing a mentor. Men are important in the lives of young children!! Let s stop asking: Where are the men? AND Let s begin to WELCOME & INVITE Men TO TEACH. All Materials Nancy Donoval. All Rights Reserved. 7

8 HOT TIPS FOR TRANSFORMING SUMMARY STATEMENTS INTO COMPELLING STORIES Developed for Rural LISC Seminar Telling the CDC (Community Development Corporation) Story Tip #1: CLARITY What is your story really about? What is the most important thing you want your audience to take away from it? What is at the heart of your story? In my work as a story coach and consultant, these are the questions I find myself asking over and over and over again. You have to know what you want your audience to take away in order to decide what to include in your story and what to leave out. You must decide what really matters so that you can help your audience see clearly to the heart of your CDC story. Tip #2: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE (TRUST) The way you tell your story changes depending on its intended audience. Be aware of what knowledge or lack thereof they bring to the story. Don t assume that everyone knows what you know especially if you are telling the story outside your community. Also, what concerns, questions, interests or biases might a particular audience have? Tip #3: BE SPECIFIC (IMPACT) Stories happen in specific moments of time and place and to particular people. Informational summary statements tend to generalize and we cannot connect emotionally to generalizations. The more specific you are in your stories, the more you will tap into universal themes and shared human emotions. Tip #4: USE CONCRETE IMAGERY (IMPACT) To engage your audience s interest and emotions, you must engage their senses. Help them to see, hear, taste, smell and feel your story. Using imagery does not just mean using photos. Whether you are writing your story or telling it orally, your words must conjure up images in your audience s minds (hence the word imagination ) that pull them into the world of the people and communities that you want them to understand, care about and support. Tip #5: DON T LECTURE (TRUST) This brings us back to Tip #2. Once you know what the heart of your story is, you can t just tell the audience what to feel or think. Bring them into the story and take them on a journey so that they can discover what matters themselves. You don t want to lecture, you want to move and motivate. A basic success story might have a structure of: this is who we helped, this what their needs or goals were, this is why those needs/goals are important, this how we helped, and this is what we achieved together. This is essentially a Before and After story. For different audiences you may need to focus more (or less) attention on different aspects of that story. For example, if you are telling within your community, your audience may be very aware of why a need or goal is important; tell the same story outside your community and your audience probably will not have that awareness and understanding. All Materials Nancy Donoval. All Rights Reserved. 8