NotSpeeches

PLEASE? Don't give us speeches.

I was advised by a valued counselor many years ago that the most effective communicators are not the ones who give speeches, but rather, they're the ones who tell stories. After having adopted that practice, I now know what makes a story so compelling and a speech so mind-numbing: Stories help us make an emotional connection.

When we share three points, a poem, and a prayer (the traditional speech formula).....

OR

When we display spreadsheets full of data and start talking about the shortfalls or shortcomings.....

OR

When we distribute a binder full of information and pablum and history and projections and.....

We pretty much guarantee that we'll lose half or more of our audience.

HOWEVER, when we tell a personal and powerful short story that has embedded in it the point(s) we'd like to make, most of the audience is seeing with their eyes, listening with their hearts, and making connections with their brains. That's because they almost always have similar stories that they have lived, experienced, maybe even survived.

When we tell a story that generates thinking, we activate LEARNING.

Learning is PERSONAL. Always has been.