http://www.onethousandandone.com.au
Hi it's Gabrielle Dolan from 1001 and welcome to this video on how to use negative stories. Our clients tell us that that while there are too many negative stories -- some are too good not to use! But how do you use negative stories well, so they are not demoralising and you are not perceived as a negative. NOW in this video we will reveal the secrets of how you can make negative stories work for you. And The first thing with using negative stories is to understand their purpose because they have a very specific purpose ...Negative stories are pattern interrupt stories -- they can shock people into seeing a situation a new way, they can create a sense of urgency and they can carry powerful lessons. They raise awareness to a situation especially if no one currently thinks there is even a problem. The crux of using negative stories well is understanding they INFORM people but they do not influence behaviour. That is actually worth repeating...negative stories inform but don't influence. If you want to influence behaviour in a positive direction and for the long term -- you have to tap into positive emotion via positive stories. This is the second secret of using negative stories -- know their limitations. To inspire action and change of behaviour you must follow your negative story with positive stories. So you may need the negative story first -- to pattern interrupt -- shock your audience and raise awareness to a problem -- but if you stop there you leave your audience in a dark place... feeling angry, fearful or helpless. To give you an example of how this works in the public domain is to look at Australia's Workplace Safety ...Years ago when workplace safety was not high on people's radar, Work Safe Australia used negative 'shock' advertising to raise awareness to the problem. That is the power of negative stories BUT they soon realised that negative stories can only get you so far. NOW Those familiar with the workplace adverts over the last couple of years will notice that they have started using positive stories. One such advertisement is about a boy sitting on the step waiting for his dad to come home, his mother is getting increasingly worried and all the time you are thinking the worst then his Dad pulls into the drive way and the tag line reads "The most important reason for making your workplace safe, is not at work at all." Finally ....what if you are in role where you are constantly being bombarded by negative stories? How can you use these negative stories? We suggest the powerful counter balance method. Every time you hear a negative story about how badly things have gone, how poorly the organisation has performed, how your organisation always gets it wrong -- IMAGINE IF you counter balanced this with a positive story of sharing the time when things did go well? We are not asking you to Pollyanna about this and you can acknowledge the negative story and say you are right that is how things were 6 months ago but have heard what happened yesterday when the customer rang us? And launch into your positive story. We find very few people play this role in an organisation -- and especially if you are in leadership role, counterbalancing negative stories with positive stories (even if they are far and few between) can give positive stories the oxygen they need to survive, thrive and become part of your organisations DNA ... because when the stories start change you know the organisation has changed ...So there hopefully that has helped you using negative stories effectively. FIRST understand their purpose -- Negative stories are pattern interrupt stories they can grab people's attention they inform, people or raise awareness of a situation or create a sense of urgency. SECOND understand their limitations ... they will not change behaviour, to achieve that you quickly need to follow your negative story with some positive ones and finally try and counter balance negative stories you meet with positive stories ....many thanks for your time and attention -- if you enjoyed this video please leave us a comment or give it the thumbs up. And if you are interested in finding how more about how you can successfully use stories then come and visit us at our website at www.onethousandandone.com.au Look forward to hearing from you and thanks for listening.
Storytelling techniques
Business storytelling
Organisational storytelling
Corporate storytelling
Storytelling in business
Negatives stories
Art of storytelling
Storytelling tips
How to tell stories
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How To: Story Tellingby kevinallenpartners607 views
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