I recently had the honor of being invited to speak at the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA) National Conference in Orlando, Florida. What a pleasure to meet so many experienced, thoughtful organizational leaders!
In addition to presenting my own session on Galvanizing Your Colleagues with the Power of Storytelling, I was able to attend a number of other educational programs. As eager as I was to listen to the speakers, I also found myself surveying the audience. In our age of digital distractions, how long would they be able to stay focused on the speaker, rather than their electronic devices?
My informal observations showed that when the speaker was telling concrete, realistic stories about experiences that the audience could relate to, the listeners were not only on the edges of their seats, but their own corresponding stories were bubbling to the surface, in the form of whispered exchanges with their neighbors, nodding heads, or quickly scribbled notes. They wanted to hear and tell the stories of the issues they wrestle with every day.
When presenters resorted to statistics and survey results, the audience slumped in their seats, and their attention wandered.
This conundrum was raised directly in my session during the Q&A period. Someone asked, “Are you saying that we can only tell stories? What if we have hard facts we need to convey?”
An excellent question. The answer that I gave is, a powerful presentation needs both: Stories to draw us in, and data to ground us in reality. The challenge for every presenter is to strike an engaging balance. For example, if your challenge is to communicate financial information to managers who you know are easily overwhelmed by numbers, you might try this:
Choose a timeframe. Are you telling the story of your organization’s entire life? The last fiscal year? A five year projection? Begin with that. Then choose a main character, a hero whose journey you can follow in your presentation.
Here’s an example of how a story about “us” (our organization) can help frame the delivery of difficult information.
Since the economic downturn began in 2008, our organization has been riding a rollercoaster. There have been highs, such as the big settlement agreement with ABC Company in 2009. There have been lows, like the layoffs at the start of 2010. Now, we’re facing a steep climb, and everyone’s efforts are needed to make sure that we don’t fall off the rails on the other side. Our cash flow is down by 17%, but we’ve managed to cut our overhead by renegotiating our lease to $25 per square foot. Nevertheless, our management team needs to lead us through a time of even harsher cuts. We need to cut 13 people from our support staff, reduce our overall annual bonus budget by 9%, and yet maintain morale.
Frame the vital data in a story about where your organization has come from and where it’s going. Highlight those pieces of information that are critical to the decision-makers, rather than overwhelming them in a flood of factoids. When the who, what, where and why of the story are clearly established at the beginning, then your audience is better able to receive the more granular data that you need to convey.
To learn more about how to craft a memorable business narrative, contact Ruth Halpern at ruth@biznarrative.com or 510-338-0241.
