http://www.onethousandandone.com.au
Hi it's Yamini and welcome to this video on, 'How to find business stories that work' and believe me it's not always in business!
The biggest challenge most people have with business storytelling is How to find stories? Because it's business storytelling quite often people limit their stories to stories from business, but that need not be the case. Because guess what a lot of business stories can be hmm, how do I say this boring. There I have said it! NOW I say that because I want to set you up for success with business storytelling.
So in this 'How do I find business stories that work' video we will cover:
The richest mine for stories that do work
So let's get started.
To understand why some business stories don't work I am going to take a lateral step and ask you how do you explain the success of reality shows like Australian Idol or Master Chef? One of their success secrets is they are based on real people like you and me. We are interested in other people just like us. On the other hand a lot of business stories are about other companies, organisations teams etc, which makes it really hard for us as individual people to connect with and engage with. Because some business stories now please note I am not saying all business stories, some business stories simply don't have 'human-interest ' factor.
So then where is the richest mine for stories that do work?
The richest mine for stories that do work is in your own backyard -- your own personal experiences. The everyday, the ordinary.
Doug Stevenson in his book Never Be Boring Again says, 'Why would anyone want to hear stories from my life? They're so ordinary'. Now this would be a normal reaction for all of us. It's a good question. Why would anyone be interested in hearing about my ordinary life? Perhaps it's because most of us lead pretty regular average lives ourselves and we find it fascinating when someone else with a life like ours can make sense of it for us.
Your audience will get involved with your ordinary story because they've 'been there -- done that' or at least they've been there -- heard, seen or read that.' We hear this sentiment echoed by many leaders, business people and entrepreneurs we work with. 'Why would anyone be interested in hearing about my stories?' The reality is people are interested in your stories BECAUSE Your stories remind them of their stories.
So what's an example of this?
One of our clients wanted his leaders to get out there and have more face to face conversations, instead of always sending out emails. That was the purpose of his story -- Have more conversations end out less emails. Instead of using a business story about where other leaders had done this in some other organisation which would have been boring, hard to find and also probably put his own leaders off, he used this personal experience as his story. I am going to flip into first person to narrate it
'Last month I had the opportunity to travel overseas and was looking forward to it as it would be a break from the routine.
When I was overseas, my wife set up our laptop on my daughter's breakfast table and I talked to my daughter daily via web cam. My wife told me that once when the lap top was lying shut on the sofa, my daughter picked it up and hugged it and said 'Daddy'. That moved me and I realised that sometimes in life you can substitute the real thing but sometimes only the real thing can do.
I am sharing this with you as it reminds us that every day we have that same choice as communicators. We can send out emails or we can go out and talk to our people face to face because sometimes only the real thing can do...'
Now you would have noticed the story is purposeful, it uses a personal experience that is refreshing and immediately captures our attention but links back to a business message at the end.
The biggest barrier for most people in using personal experiences as business stories is how do you know which of your personal experiences are appropriate to bring into the workplace?
We always recommend that you are guided by, your audience and your purpose the twin touchstones of successful business storytelling AUDIENCE PURPOSE. AUDIENCE PURPOSE. You pan through your experiences to see which of these would work for your audience and your business purpose. You also need to be comfortable with the level of self disclosure bringing a personal experience into work requires. The level of self disclosure also needs to be right for your audience.
A note of caution or a health warning around using personal sporting experiences. They can work but you have to make sure they are right for your audience. Just because you are passionate about soccer, doesn't mean your audience will be too. Sporting stories tend to be overused in business, so they lack freshness and can seem clichéd. We would actually ask you to tread lightly and use sporting stories sparingly.
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Organisational storytelling with Yamini Naiduby CPAaustralia1,578 views
Loved this video. Such useful information, well presented. The tips are just what I needed for my upcoming presentation. Thanks so much!!
66correa 6 months ago