How to tell a compelling story in the office?
We end up giving a lot of presentations at the workplace. We all find attending those presentations very dull. But here are the tips that can make the storytelling compelling in the office
The poster
This is your first slide(slide 0) which stays on the screen before you start. The one that stays on screen till people settle down. Try to make it immersive. Try to set the sentiment with this slide. If you go with the standard slide of the company logo in one corner with just a title of the slide, it may not do much. But if you take a photo that represents the theme of the presentation and spread it on the slide end to end it will capture the audience. e.g. for a presentation recently, I used the customer’s baseball player hitting the home run. It set the sentiment right. It is about our customer. It is about a home run we hit with the customer(successful completion of a project).
The opening scene
This is your slide 1. Unlike in the movies or the stories we tell to our kids you do not have time to start slow. You cannot go the “Once upon a time.. “ way. This slide is your deal-breaker. If you capture audience's attention in this slide they will continue to stay glued to you for some more time. If you lose them here you will have to really try hard later to get their attention back. You will have to explain in the slide what you are going to talk about. But, more importantly, you will have to also tell implicitly why your audience should continue to listen to you. The more senior the audience, the more paucity of time and attention they have, the more compelling your case has to be. You cannot be explicit in telling the audience why they should continue with you. Respect their intelligence.
The Heroes
Every story needs to have heroes and villains. Without them, the stories are not interesting. Choose your heroes and villains based on the audience. In front of your customer, you need to present them as heroes. In front of your management, you are not the hero. Making your management look like a hero would be condescending. Chances are that if you make the org or team look like a hero it would go down well. What if the presentation is jointly done to the customer and your management? Make the collaboration between the organizations come out as a hero.
And the Villains
No story is interesting without the villains. Villains do not have to be people always. At least not in the context of the workplace. These should be the challenges that came along the way. The most important aspect of a villain in the story has to be the entry of the villain. Do not bring the villain too early in the story. Try to bring the villains when the audience has settled down with the story and it has just started looking like a “.. and they happily lived ever after” story for the rest of the part.
The climax
This is your last slide. You are going to leave the audience with this message. Try to make it visually impressive. If you have some interesting numbers put them in bold here. If there are congratulatory messages from the customer or leadership team put them here. This is the slide that you are going to leave on the screen when you are concluding, thanking the audience and taking their questions. Avoid the “Thank you” or “Q&A” slide. Even if you have those do not keep them on the screen when you are thanking people or taking their questions.” Thank you” and “Q&A” slides are like rolling credits are at the end of the movie. No one stays back in the hall once those start rolling. Even if your audience does not leave the room, they will switch off once they see those slides. Your last slide with impressive numbers, text and messages should continue on the screen so the message stays with the audience
Text
I got this advice from a colleague. Keep as less text on the slide as you can. Keep a lot of white space in the slide for the audience to be able to read whatever text is present. Avoid long sentences and go only with words and phrases. These words and phrases are only cues for you and the audience. It is a cue for you to talk about it. It is a cue for the audience to stay anchored. Think about comic books. What made them interesting were the bold colourful images. Not the text!
What do you think? Do you have any additional tips for us to tell our stories in a more compelling manner in the workplace? Do leave your comments!
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PS — Some of the advice I presented here is what I learned from my colleagues and managers at the current and earlier organizations!
