Storytelling Bites 3 - Descriptive Language

We experience the world around us through our senses.

Descriptive language is how the senses exist in our language and communication.

To not use descriptive language is to miss out on an essential tool that gets us understood, believed and remembered.

We all use descriptive language socially, at home or with friends. We describe (re-live and share) the good and bad times we’ve had, the holidays we’ve taken, the best or worst scene in a TV show, the fab new coffee shop on the way back from work, with a window-seat for people watching…

But communication at work can be too formalised, overly structured, relying on jargon or management speak that has a veneer of status but doesn't reflect or represent our realities.  

We’ve all heard someone speak in this way – in a weekly meeting around the table, at the lectern with power-point slides or even with a client over Teams – and haven’t fully understood what they are saying or been all that interested, let alone remembered what the point was. 

We can use descriptive language (sparingly and selectively) at work to make our point with clarity and so that it is remembered. By including people as part of what we tell, giving detail on what they are doing, illustrating where it is happening and when – we stimulate our audience’s imagination with those descriptions, steering it and shaping how they think and feel about our subject.

This is particularly useful when addressing a difficult subject where people feel threat, are ambivalent or need reassurance. By telling the story (without spinning it) of the change, of the restructure, of the takeover, your audience can experience it in their imagination because of your clear and evocative descriptive language.

You can guide them through the negatives and positives, reshaping their perceived experience by updating the way they think and feel about it.

The descriptive language, within the story you tell, allows them to live through the threat in a safe way and to learn from that imagined experience so they are better able and more willing to work with the reality. 

Descriptive Language is just one tool we can help you to make the most of through our training so you can think, speak and do better.