This week’s post comes from John Ghidiu, a retired storyteller, change manager, and organizational development professional.
Many years ago, as a young manager at Bristol-Myers, I had to give presentations to my group and to management. The very first things I considered were what color background to use, which font was most appropriate, and how many bullets per page. I could whip out a PowerPoint presentation in less than an hour. However, fifteen minutes into my presentations, I often saw blank expressions on their faces, heads being supported by elbows on the desk, and I could see people checking their eyelids for holes. I just wished they had gotten more sleep the night before and could see my presentation for the stimulating, exciting collection of words, charts and moving things I had put together. As I later discovered, I knew PowerPoint really well, but how to engage an audience – not so much. What I delivered was a powerful sleep aid.
Through Toastmasters, lots of reading and practice, I discovered that storytelling is a powerful and necessary communication and presentation skills. A story combines an idea with an emotion. Stories “connect” us to the world we live in.
Facts, numbers, charts and data don’t move people to change, but stories can tug at our hearts and persuade us to take action.
General Hospital made its TV debut in 1963, and has been on TV for almost 60 years. It’s a compilation of human, emotional stories… people learn, they try, they fail, good guys intercede as well as bad guys, and life goes on – there is no end to the combinations and permutations of the characters interactions as the writers present story after story, week after week, year after year… weekdays, 2:00 on ABC.
Sixty Minutes is one of the most successful news shows in broadcast history, largely because from the very beginning, Don Hewitt, the creator and producer, told the entire staff not to focus on events. His motto was “Tell me a story; tell me how the events affected people’s lives.” The show offered such compelling storytelling that in 1979, 60 Minutes earned a nomination for Best Television Series in the Drama category at the Golden Globe Awards. Amazingly, it won.
In 1982, Ronald Regan, “The Great Communicator,” was the first president to introduce and honor a guest in the gallery at his State of the Union Address, and that practice continues today. Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump all focused on someone in the audience at their State of the Union Address, and told a story about that person. Instead of presenting numbers and dollars, they might introduce a fourth generation Iowa farmer in the audience, and tell how his family almost lost his farm but was saved by their farm program. It brings to life emotion – and we identify with that. It’s not about dollars or programs, it’s about a family and how they escaped disaster.
In 2001, Robert McKee, an Oscar winning screenplay writer, began teaching CEOs of major corporations how to do presentations to their employees and to their stockholders. McKee knew that persuasion is the centerpiece of business activity, and he convinced business leaders to throw away their PowerPoint presentations and engage listeners on a whole new level by telling good stories.
If you go to YouTube and watch the top three winners of the Toastmasters speech contest last year, you will see that all three use personal stories to engage the audience. All these contestants use storytelling to connect with the audience.
And you can too. The formula is sooooo simple. Every story must include change – something changes, and that triggers our brains to pay attention. If nothing changes, it’s not a story – it’s a description.
There are just five elements of ALL stories. Characters, setting, plot, conflict, and resolution.
Every story has a hero, a protagonist who is confronted with a problem or bad person, then deals with the problem and is a stronger or a better person for it. That’s all there is to it. Stories tug at our hearts – they tell us about people, and how they deal with adversity. They help us understand our connection to the world.
There are five major movie studios and many streaming companies, pumping out new movies and content every day. We never tire of good stories, and neither will your listeners [students].
You don’t need to make your entire speech a story like the winning Toastmasters do, but you may want to consider adding a personal story to bring your speech to life. If you are talking about automobile repair, throw in a short story about how your car let you down, or saved you from a disaster. If you are talking about your job or career, put in a personal episode to drive your point home. No matter your topic, create a story related to it – whether it’s about you or someone you know. Our lives are rich with stories. On Facebook “I decided to go to McDonald’s yesterday and try their new broccoli burger. Ewww. I’ll never do that again.” How many think that is a story? Yes, it has a character, a setting, plot, conflict and resolution. And something changed. Stories are what social media thrives on. We tell stories about ourselves over and over.
At the beginning of my talk, I used a story about my failure to engage audiences with PowerPoint presentations – but learned how to better engage them with stories.
Spin your story, tug at our hearts, and I guarantee that we will remember your message for years to come. Jonathan Gottschall (literary scholar) said:
“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.”
Jonathan Gottschall
I like this talk because it reminds us how potent a tool storytelling is. I was looking to dig deeper into the implications of storytelling in the classroom after hearing about the book, Becoming: Transformative Storytelling for Education’s Future on the Tea for Teaching podcast. As fate would have it, my father was pulling a parallel thread. I look forward to transferring storytelling skills to the classroom. Thanks, Dad, for sharing!
