How To Make Your Stories Come ALIVE

A tech executive was preparing for an important conference and hired me to help him prepare. After reviewing his slides, which were packed with data, I asked if he was open to including some stories that would help his content be more relatable and memorable.

He told me he thought stories were "fluff" and didn't belong in business communications.

I asked, "Do you want people to trust what you're saying and be motivated to act on it because they want to not because they're being told to?"

He said, "Is that a rhetorical question?"

"Then sharing a TRUE story that demonstrates the real-word benefits of what you're proposing is the best way to make that happen. For example, I participated in a Clubhouse session on leadership. The first two speakers went over their allotted time. The last panelist only had four minutes before the session was over, yet he's the one I remember.

Why? He shared a true story that showed vs. told.

He said, 'My first boss taught me the best way to influence someone is with our ears. I stormed into his office one day, upset because he'd cut the budget for my project. He listened while I vented. When I finally finished, he said, 'What do you suggest?'

I gave him my recommendation. He said, 'Good idea. Make it happen.'"

This Yoda of a speaker said, "Over the next few years, I watched my boss do this at almost every staff meeting. Someone would complain and instead of arguing, defending his decision or explaining his rationale, he would listen and then ask, 'What do you suggest?'

He influenced me more than any other other leader I've worked with because he taught me we influence with our ears, not our mouth."

This speaker/storyteller then asked the Clubhouse audience, 'Who is someone who really listens to you? How do they make you feel? How do you feel about that person? I imagine you respect them and are motivated to follow their lead. In my book, that's influence.'"

Boom. In three minutes (!) he shared a real-life example with an intriguing AHA and asked YOU questions to make his story our story.

Let's put this in perspective. I don't remember anything the other panelists said, but I remember what he said almost word-for-word. Even more importantly, if I'm about to disagree withs someone or defend a decision, instead I ask, 'What do you suggest?"

He shifted my thinking and produced a real-life change in behavior... in 3 minutes.

So, do true stories matter?

Absolutely. If we want people to trust us, we can't make stuff up.

The apocryphal stories you find online are often fabricated. If we share examples that we haven't personally experienced, there's a dissonance that people pick up on. At some level, they're thinking, "If you're making this up, what else are you making up?"

That's why it's so important to turn your life into your lab.

When something happens to or around you that gets your eyebrows up, it will probably get other people's eyebrows up.

Craft that into a real-life example where you put us in the scene, re-create the dialogue of what was actually said, so we feel we were right there with you when this happened.

People will relate to you and what you're saying because it's real-life.

Real-life examples will always beat INFObesity - blah, blah information that goes in one ear, out the other.

Why? True stories make your communication come alive because you come alive when you relive what happened which means your experience/insights come alive in our mind's eye.

And if you ask three "You questions" to hook and hinge the point of your story back to us, we'll be actively reflecting on how this relates to our life and how we can put this into practice... which means your true stories are instigating real-world results in our life.

That's influence.

Want more tips on how to set up two-way communication that engages people and adds value from start to finish? Check out my LinkedIn Learning video training.