Storytelling Bites 17: Seeing the Full Picture
Great leaders, great colleagues, great suppliers, great sales teams, great friends…
What’s one thing they all have in common?
They’re all great communicators.
And one of the most satisfying and successful facets of a great communicator is that they share their ideas and projects well. We get it, and want to be involved in some way.
I mention projects and ideas together as they are linked: preparing an engaging presentation has many similarities to preparing a successful project. They are each well served by having and showing empathy and consideration for all the different people connected and involved. They take into account the many perspectives involved and how the benefits and problems play out differently across them.
Both need to factor in those to whom, for whom or by whom anything takes place; alongside the effects, both practical and emotional, that the plans being hatched or put into action will have on them.
This genuine 360* approach to a situation at the planning stage considers the myriad narrative possibilities to how any aspect could play out, by standing in the many shoes and seeing how their owners are affected. Considering and taking into account these many perspectives will make it easier to spot and eliminate potential issues at an early stage. Continuing to do so throughout the delivery of your project will keep you alive to the realities on the ground rather than the projected vision within your unique perspective.
The same is true in preparing a presentation. You empathetically explore the relationships key stakeholders have with your message, to ensure you have considered the many, sometimes differing, truths believed, known or held around it. Having all this preparation at your fingertips allows you to spot and eliminate problems up front, and then prepares you to bend and flex as you share the information, ensuring it is done in a way that uniquely suits the audience in front of you in this specific moment in time.
Including your audience’s perspective allows them to feel seen and heard throughout, building your connection and relationship with them and through that their connection and relationship to your message.
By communicating your message from the full spectrum of perspectives you can make sure it’s your audience, rather than you, who find themselves having moments of dawning realisation that ‘I hadn’t thought of it from that point of view, that changes everything/finally makes sense.’
Our workshops enable you to bake empathy (within the full spectrum of emotional, experiential and practical perspectives) into your messages and projects.
If you would like to incorporate it in the way you plan your projects and communicate to colleagues, suppliers, clients and other stakeholders to build stronger, more meaningful and successful working relationships then get in touch to bring our workshops into your business.
