During our prsentation skills workshops we encourage the use of stories as a good way to create understanding. Stories can bring a presentation to life, making it personally relevant for the audience and moving from the spoken word to images, tastes, feelings and smells.

There are some common threads with the great storytellers I know, in corporate and personal life:

a. Storytellers usually have some sort of basic structure. Structure is something audiences know well in their subconscious. Think of the opposite of structure: it is a bit like watching a confusing movie that never seems to go anywhere. At the very least all good stories should have a start, middle and end. You can add transitions (sometimes called bridging) to each section to maintain the flow, which pleases audiences greatly.

b. Storytellers all have a confident, assured delivery. Great eye contact, a calm measured pace and relaxed posture all help.

c. Storytellers can all think on their feet, to freshen stories up. Sometimes it’s the “ad libbing” that really brings a story to life. This is especially true when it comes to involving the audience along the way. A nod to audience members (”John you will relate to this bit”) can work wonders for audience attention.

d. Humour plays a strong part. It seems the ability to laugh at yourself is a safe and simple way to give the audience a laugh.

e. It seems that great storytellers have an in-built filing system in their memory that they are able to call upon readily for relevant stories. If you imagine that your memory is a search engine, then you can assign key words to each story for easy recall.

f. Although they may not admit it, great storytellers will run through a story out loud or think it through in detail before first telling it. It is this practice that makes the story work.

Some of these above common threads are easier to learn than others. The bottom line is that the story must have relevance to the subject matter. Sometimes stories really don’t hit the mark in terms of proving a point or supporting the presentation, and that’s why they fall flat.

Interested in your feedback or any further thoughts.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 16th, 2007 at 8:19 am and is filed under Natural news, Adding impact to presentations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.