Replace PowerPoints with your stories
In your next presentation, what would happen if you tossed your PowerPoint slides and told a story instead? Although this drastic measure is probably not applicable to all situations, stories are more likely to be remembered and make people take action. Stories create a visual representation in the listener’s mind, and they activate the experiential centers of the brain. When the audience hears stories that touch emotion, they are remembered and are all the more effective. When the CEO or the company’s leaders share personal experience it is particularly powerful.
All too often, instead of a personal touch, business people use an intellectual process to communicate, building their cases through facts and statistics. PowerPoint slides dryly describe the organization’s challenges, report its data, and communicate its plans and strategies to succeed. Agreed, your team needs facts and data that they can trust. Consider how a compelling story can convey needed information by incorporating your data and analyses. When done well, it will stimulate the audience’s energy and motivate them to act.
When the CEO is faced with tough decisions, and needs to inspire the leadership team and the organization to act, a clear and frank story can drive new ways of thinking and behaviors. Painting only a positive picture not only loses the audience’s interest, but also does not ring true. Stories describing deeply human life experiences, especially the struggle against adverse forces, energizes the storyteller and the audience alike. There is neither exaggeration nor minimization of the situation. Examples and narratives that involve real people will convey meaning and are more likely to spur action, even more so when delivered from a person in authority.
Years ago, I became the CEO of a company with a very well respected name and a mission of personal development and organizational learning. It was facing an increasingly difficult, changing market environment. New competitors entered the field and new delivery technologies were emerging. We did not have the capital to deploy strategic acquisition as a solution, nor to advertise our way out of the problem. Instead our team developed a vision of what was needed to compete and grow by engaging each other in relentlessly honest communication in an environment of trust. This difficult process brought us to understand what was needed, and what each person’s role would be as we moved forward. All levels of the organization understood our honest story of the difficult business situation. Yes, data and analyses underpinned our strategy and supported the story of the great effort needed to transform the organization in order to survive and thrive. Our stories helped crystallize the effect of change and inspired confidence during those tough times.
My personal stories were from the perspective of a parent and a spouse, and not just the CEO. Clear personal communication engaged our organization in the conversation. It was a powerful way to bring the strategic vision to employees. They needed extraordinary energy to fundamentally rethink and reshape the business while continuing to run it day to day. PowerPoint slides were not required, just our clear, honest, and personal stories.
