Storytelling Presenting

Last week, I attended a course organised by my employer called 'The Power of Storytelling'. Now when we attend presentations, meetings or lectures, how often are they memorable? I bet no more than a handful. The reason behind this has a lot to do with the way our brain works. For example, neuroscientists have found that our brains can only remember no more than 7 different ideas at once. Hence, how is anyone supposed to remember a powerpoint slide full of texts? The answer to this was given in the course... by telling stories instead of facts and figures. As kids we remember stories that our parents or friends told us. I'm sure many people still remember the story of the 'The Three Little Pigs' despite it being many years ago in comparison to that work presentation last week. In this article, I will explain what I learned on the course such as why stories are important, tips and tricks to implementing a good story in a presentation so that they are meaningful and hopefully memorable.

Why are stories important?

Ultimately, stories make us care because there is something meaningful to learn from them. Our own life, who we are, is essentially a collection of stories we tell ourselves or hear from others. Our brain is designed to make sense of things and stories is the way it does it.

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who wrote 'Thinking Fast and Slow', said that there is peak effect in our brains when it comes to presentations where it is often the beginnings and the ends that we remember most.

What makes a good story? - The SIMPLE forumla

1. Strictly Structured
   
   A good story always has a constant - an underlying "golden thread". This could be a particular character trait, a concept or something ambiguous.
   
   A great example of this is the hit TV series Breaking Bad. On the surface, one might say that this show is about Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who, after receiving a cancer diagnosis, begins cooking and selling crystal meth in order to provide for his family. This is the case but it is also far more complex than that. What it really is about is resentment and the need to fulfil one's potential in life, this is the golden thread in the entire show that kept the audience tuned in.
   
2. Insightfully Inspiring
   
   Stories induce the emotion of surprise.
   
   Like Breaking Bad and many other TV shows, there are always twists and turns. This leaves us wanting to find out what happens next and keeps us engaged because the brain does not like uncertainty. Instead, the brain likes closure. How many times have you watched a film or tv show where it ends on a cliff-hanger and leaves the audience to imagine what happens next? These tend to be the most memorable as they leave us with no real sense of closure and sparks debate with others afterwards.
   
3. Memorably Meaningful
   
   Stories give us meaning. For example, they make us think about ethics and what it means to be a good person.
   
   As Walter White continues down the rabbit hole, each and every decision he makes becomes questionable and morally reprehensible.
   
4. Persuasive POV
   
   Walter White's initial motivation, which was that he was doing it for his family, may lead us to be compelled to sympathise with him. It makes us ponder about what we would actually do if we were put in a similar situation as opposed to what we like to think we would do. In other words, stories make characters relatable.
   
5. Language Led
   
   Stories are not for the jargon. The issue with using jargon is that it creates division among people. Often jargon is unnecessarily created or used to sound more sophisticated than it actually is. How often do you join a company as a new starter, already feeling like an outsider by the amount jargon used in presentations and meetings.
   
   A famous example is that of Rolls Royce. As a brand, Rolls Royce are known for luxury and so see themselves as different from a typical manufacturer. For example, they do not call breakdowns "breakdowns" but instead use the term 'Fail to Proceed'.
   
6. Emotionally Empathetic
   
   Social solidarity. This is something we missed during the lockdown but is part of the whole experience when going to cinemas or comedy shows. For example, laughter is something we do in communion, less so in isolation.

Practical tips for presenting in stories

When giving a presentation especially in a professional setting, there are certain guidelines worth considering which I will outline below.

Presentation Rules:

1. Two-thirds of total time. If the meeting is 1 hour, then present for 40 minutes. This leaves enough cushion time for Q&A, technical difficulties or saying more than you expected.
2. What if there is nothing new to say? No need for a presentation that wastes people's time, instead a simple email will suffice.
3. Story driven. A good way to start a presentation is to start off with the most interesting thing as opposed to a generic introduction about yourself.

Presentation Structure

Here, I am going to use a theoretical example of what I think the meeting between Netflix employees and executives was like when news first arose of their falling number of subscriptions to illustrate the presentation structure to follow. Once again, the dialogue below is made up.

CEO: "What's the issue?"

Business Analyst: "Netflix subscriptions have been falling".

CEO: "So what's the impact?"

Business Analyst: "Our customers will give our money to Disney+ and we will be bankrupt."

CEO: "Now what?"

Business Analyst: "Lets release a new season of Stranger Things and clamp down on password sharing."

This is a good example of the "what, so what, now what" structure.

Heroes and Villains.

When framing your story for a presentation, it is helpful to consider the 4 things that every story contains:

1. Heroes
2. Villains
3. Conflict
4. Quest

A great example of this is Lord of the Rings. The conflict is at heart of this very story which is essentially man's will for power. The hobbits Frodo and Sam, along with many others, are on a quest to destroy the ring of power often by traversing through perilous terrains and enemy territories. The heroes are all those who were not tempted by the ring and ensured its destruction. The villains are everyone else who sought after the ring. Again, all 4 aspects are present in this story.

To see how this would look in a business context, let's consider the example of presenting to senior executives about the impact of climate change and the need to use more recycled parts in the company's products. The conflict here is ignorance of the effects of climate change and the inability to change. The villain of the story could be the government or big corporations who like to profit from anti green policies. The hero of the story are the consumers who are boycotting the company's products for more environmentally friendly alternatives and forcing the company to change their mentality. Ultimately the quest is to convince the government or big corporations to adopt a new sustainability strategy.

Summary

Use the power of stories to make your presentations whether in business or in academia meaningful and memorable by following the SIMPLE formula. When framing your story consider these 4 aspects: heroes, villains, conflict and quest.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my employer for inviting Anthony "Tas" Tasgal who conducted the workshop as well as Tas himself for delivering an extremely memorable presentation as I think is evident from this blog. I also would like to thank Fatima Mahmood for proof reading this article.