STORYTELLING Workbook Storytelling Workbook Use STORYTELLING to engage listeners Telling stories is an invaluable tool to communicate ideas and concepts in a highly impactful and meaningful way. Stories challenge the listener to visualize the settings, characters, situations, actions taken, and outcomes and to derive unique insights based on their own interpretations. Stories do not explicitly point out the ideas, solutions, or key insights the storyteller may be trying to get across. Instead, they paint a broad picture that encourages the listeners to fully concentrate on developing their own understanding and solutions. Ask an accomplished leader who has great stories, and you’ll undoubtedly hear they have a mental library of stories they tell again and again. These stories help them implement change, influence behaviors, and build commitment. Good stories revolve around turning points, when deep problems were solved, and lessons that were learned the hard way. Storytelling Exercise Whether your goal is to develop a story you can use to convey important ideas and insights or to address a current challenge, follow the process below: Pre-work If you have a specific lesson you need your team or employee to learn, think of the competency and knowledge necessary for them to do their jobs at an exceptionally high level. To develop your mental library, actively recall the times when a decisive change occurred in your career or someone else’s. The story might also be based on times when beneficial capabilities occurred in organizations, such as when you made a mistake and learned from it. Will your story feature overcoming big challenges, convey substantial ideas and insights, explain how you did it, or explain the impact of your actions? To construct your story, follow the process below: 1. The opening—Setting the stage Create a hook that will engage your employees in the story and introduces the context and key players. Describe the setting—the when and where of your story. Determine whose perspective you want to tell your story from. First-person - telling the story from your perspective is very powerful. You can also use historical figures, coworkers, staff members, and competitors Introduce the key players. 2. Introducing the problem or challenge What is the need, problem, missing knowledge, or challenge you will address? Describe the moment when you developed empathy for and an enduring connection to the key players Describe the “why,” which is the need for your solution. Describe the business or cultural environment. 3. Describing the “a-ha” moment or turning point What was the solution? What was the journey taken to the “a-ha” moment? What was unique or transformative about the solution? 4. Explaining the “how,” the solution or sequence of actions that resolved or met the challenge . 5. Detailing the impact—The benefits of the transformation Identify supporting qualitative or quantitative data. How did employees affected by the problem respond to the solution? What’s the positive difference in their careers, results, lives, security, engagement, etc.? 6. Identifying key learnings and future steps What your audience can do or how they can help The plans and vision for the future What is the call to action? Gifted storytellers further drive the impact of their stories by conducting discussions, asking pertinent questions, and providing reminders that further facilitate listeners’ growth and insights. The key is to avoid lecturing and spoon-feeding the solution to the intended audience. Submit Δ
