It is hard to fi nd a good story to fi t a particular point in your presentation “ on demand. ” I suggest that you start to collect good stories as you come across them, and fi le them away. Once you start looking for good stories, you will quickly become good at identify- ing them. And then when you happen need a story, you can look into your story fi le.
You can fi nd stories within your organization and outside. Within your organization, some useful sources are customer interview notes or video; focus groups notes or video;
any kind of qualitative or ethnographic research; anecdotes told by sales representatives or any other employees; or verbatim quotes from survey research.
Outside your organization, useful places to look for good stories include the front page of The Wall Street Journal , which often contains “ human interest ” stories. Mary Wacker and Lori Silverman ’ s (2003) book Stories Trainers Tell contains more than seventy “ ready to use ” stories, categorized by topics such as “ problem solving, ” “ customer service, ” and “ living our values. ” Silverman’s website, Say It With a Story (www.sayitwithastory.com), features three stories from the book each month, along with numerous free articles on story use and has a story shop where additional stories are available for sale. Websites such as the Smoking Gun ( www.thesmokinggun.com ) contain amusing and some- times shocking information from legal documents, arrest records, and other manuscripts acquired through Freedom of Information Act requests and public records, which can form the basis of engaging stories. Another source is the work of great storytellers such as Malcolm Gladwell. His bestselling books The Tipping Point and Blink are packed with mesmerizing stories, as are his New Yorker columns — which are archived on his website ( www.gladwell.com ).
c05.indd 71
c05.indd 71 7/25/08 11:44:45 AM7/25/08 11:44:45 AM
Still another source of good stories is your own life. Grady Jim Robinson, one of the pioneers of the recent revival of interest in the use of stories in business communication, advises that some of the best stories come from your own experience, where you learned useful lessons that you can then share with your audience. Stories that allow you to admit some vulnerability, or share an embarrassing moment, can be endearing to audi- ences. Nevertheless, do be careful with these, and avoid any story that could in any way put your authority in the area of your presentation topic into question. ( “ You see, I don ’ t know as much as you think I do about depreciation schedules, folks! ” Then why are we listening to you? )
Outright humor is a bit more delicate. If you are not comfortable with yourself as a humorist, then avoid it. It ’ s not necessary for a successful presentation. It should go without saying (but it doesn ’ t, so I will say it) that you should never use any kind of potentially offensive humor in a formal gathering. I once organized a dinner meeting in New York City for a group of chief marketing offi cers of large corporations. The invited speaker was an authority on branding. He began his talk by describing a Harley - Davidson billboard ad that he saw on his way to the gathering that evening, and how much he liked it. “ It showed a motorcycle rider from behind, ” he said, “ and on the back of his black leather jacket it said, ‘If You Can Read This, The Bitch Fell Off. ’ ” The shock and horror from some members of the audience (which was only exacerbated by the uproari- ous laughter coming from other members of the audience) was just not worth it.
The safest way I know to use humor is to make sure that your joke has an important point to make. In effect, use the joke as a metaphorical story. That way, if nobody laughs, it ’ s not a failed joke — it ’ s just a story. This gives you a safety net, taking away your fear of telling a joke, and paradoxically — because you ’ ll be less nervous without the pressure of getting it right — makes it more likely that you will deliver your story well and there- fore that your audience will laugh.
FIGURE 5.1A PowerPoint Humor
Copyright CartoonResource.com, reproduced with permission.
c05.indd 72
c05.indd 72 7/25/08 11:44:45 AM7/25/08 11:44:45 AM
ASSEMBLING THE ANECDOTES THAT WILL ILLUSTRATE YOUR EVIDENCE 73
Another easy way to use humor safely is to include a good cartoon in your presentation.
CartoonResource ( www.CartoonResource.com ) and The New Yorker ’ s Cartoon Bank ( www.CartoonBank.com ) both have large collections, searchable by topic. Figures 5.1 a and b are examples of cartoons about PowerPoint, from CartoonResource (reproduced with permission).
FIGURE 5.1B More PowerPoint Humor
Finally, if you want to improve your storytelling ability, there is nothing better that you can do than to read more stories. Not just any stories, though. Newer fi ction doesn ’ t work as well. Since contemporary fi ction competes with video entertainment — television and the movies — it tends to rely more on the inherent interest of the content — the violence, sexual interest, or other highly emotional content — and so the burden on the actual story plot is not so great. Older fi ction tends to be more restrained, and so the plot — the struc- ture of the story itself — had to work hard to keep the reader interested. To really improve your storytelling ability, then, be sure to read some of the classics of Western fi ction.
Appendix E contains a selection from the “ 1000 Good Books, ” books that have been popular and in print for at least three generations.
The next challenge is to decide how to sequence all the evidence that you have gathered so that your entire presentation is in the form of a story. It turns out that the seven basic plots are not as helpful here. Fortunately, there is a fundamental principle that underlies all good stories, which we will uncover in the next chapter.
c05.indd 73
c05.indd 73 7/25/08 11:44:46 AM7/25/08 11:44:46 AM
75
Sequencing 6
Your Evidence
Step 6: Sequence Your Information So That It Tells a Compelling Story
At this point, you should know who your audience members are and what the commu- nication implications for each of their personalities are; what the specifi c objectives are for your presentation in terms of how you will change your audience ’ s minds and actions;
and what business problem they face and what solution you are offering them. You should also have a stack of facts, analysis, and anecdotes, which embody the content of your presentation. Step 6 is all about taking this stack and ordering it into a compelling story that will capture your audience ’ s attention while you deliver your message.
While the Seven Basic Plots described in the previous chapter are useful for structuring individual anecdotes, they are not so helpful for sequencing your entire presentation into the form of a story. This is because you do not want to lock yourself into a specifi c plot type while you are still working on your presentation. You want to allow yourself fl exibil- ity as you iterate through the process to change the plot. You may start out thinking that you have a Tragedy on your hands, and as you work through your presentation you might fi nd a solution that turns it into a Rags to Riches story.
Fortunately, there is a fundamental insight about all good stories, no matter which type of plot: they proceed by creating and resolving tensions. The way to take advantage of this insight is as follows. First, introduce your presentation with a “ situation ” — Why are we here? Write this down on an index card. Then write down a “ complication ” and a “ reso- lution ” — typically the problem and solution that you identifi ed in Step 3. Write these down on two separate index cards. Then follow the resolution with a specifi c example, also on another index card. I call this the S.Co.R.E. method (Situation, Complication, Resolution, Example).1
Then ask yourself: At this point, what is the most likely objection the audience would raise? Write that as the next complication. How would you respond to it? That ’ s your next resolution. Then add an example. Each of these is on its own index card. (The point of using index cards is so that you can easily move things around or substitute others as you work on the sequence.)
1 The S.Co.R.E. method is based on the Method of Opposites, outlined in detail by Henry Boettinger in his Moving Mountains (1969, pp. 82 – 96).
1 The S.Co.R.E. method is based on the Method of Opposites, outlined in detail by Henry Boettinger in his Moving Mountains (1969, pp. 82 – 96).
c06.indd 75
c06.indd 75 7/25/08 11:46:55 AM7/25/08 11:46:55 AM
Keep on going in this way until you ’ ve covered all reasonable objections. You will most likely have included all the information you need. Whatever remains probably should not be in your presentation — put it in an appendix instead. Figure 6.1 contains an example of what this could look like for a presentation proposing a new training program.
Why does this approach work? It works because you are not giving any information to your audience without fi rst creating the need for that information. That ’ s the role of the complication in this process: it raises a question, which creates the need for the answer, which you then provide — the resolution.
This chapter is the most important one in the book. It will provide:
More detail and examples of the structure of all effective stories
How exactly to use the S.Co.R.E. (Situation, Complication, Resolution, Example) method to sequence your evidence in a way that captures and keeps your audience ’ s attention
What to do with information that does not fi t into your new outline
•
•
•
Situation
We’re here to discuss staff morale
Complication
Front-line morale is low Resolution
Develop a training series to strengthen staff core skills, to improve their effectiveness and therefore morale
Example
Overview of a similar successful program used by Alpha Co.
Complication
Won’t the staff see this as just another “flavor of the month”?
Resolution
No - we’re recommending a broad-based survey so that all employees will have input into the skills they want to develop
Example
Details on how this was done at Alpha Co.
FIGURE 6.1. Sample S.Co.R.E. Story Outline on Index Cards
c06.indd 76
c06.indd 76 7/25/08 11:46:56 AM7/25/08 11:46:56 AM
SEQUENCING YOUR EVIDENCE 77