Storytelling Bites 5 - Motivation
We’ve all heard countless presentations…
…updates, 5-minute slots at meetings which, as they conclude, we absent-mindedly think to ourselves (assuming we’ve managed to pay attention to the end): “What’s that got to do with me?” or, worse still, “Why am I even here?”
It is essential that, after having spoken to or with your audience, they know why this interaction just took place.
This is such an obvious statement that I feel slightly foolish committing it to paper.
And yet, and yet…
The speaker, whether reading a prewritten statement, embellishing slides you’re also reading or relaying facts and details, may have covered all sorts of content, but what was the point? What did it have to do with you? And, more importantly, what were you meant to now be doing having received the information?
Too often, the outcome seems to simply be that the information has been disseminated. That people have now heard the new strategy, the new protocol around digitisation, the revamped values, the report on the data from the last quarter… And yet, however engagingly delivered, if we aren’t sure what’s explicitly expected of us from a piece of communication, by the time we return to our desk - the avalanche of emails that have arrived/looming deadline/other calls on our time and bandwidth kick in - and what we just heard slips out of our thoughts, isn’t acted on, doesn’t become part of what we do next. So there was no reason to give that presentation let alone listen to it.
Within the first few exercises of our training, when participants start to prepare a piece of communication, we ask them to outline what is motivating them to speak and what they want to motivate who they are speaking to, to do. And to consider what their audience need to think and feel to achieve this outcome.
Having this this Motivation clearly in mind, throughout both the preparation and delivery of any communication, ensures that we stay on point, it gives absolute clarity to our audience, and is the perfect editing tool. All those things that we might have included because they seem essential or are exciting aspects of our subject, but that don’t help our audience to think, feel and ultimately do what we want them to, are cut. They aren’t for this audience (or, at least, not at this moment).
Keeping things pertinent to our audience in the present moment, and ensuring there is explicit clarity as to what we want from them having heard us, means that we aren’t just telling them the story of the subject at hand, but telling them their story, of which the subject at hand is a chapter. They are armed with the required knowledge, clear expectation or ask, that they now take responsibility for to enact the next chapter.
Our training will equip you with the tools to inspire your audience to do what it is they clearly understand you want them to be part of.
