Course Outcomes

This business storytelling course for executives will:

  • Provide tools for finding a compelling message.
  • Share best practices for choosing important story elements and cutting fluff.
  • Offer ideas for enhancing delivery.

Course Overview

In a world of information overload, a story can rise above the noise to inform, inspire, persuade, or entertain. Good stories activate chemicals in our brains and connect us with content in a way that data, facts, and figures cannot. This hands-on workshop consists of three two-hour segments that explore the power of stories and work. During the program, participants will learn proven techniques and methodologies for finding, refining, and creating powerful business narratives.

Segment One Objectives

At this segment’s conclusion, participants should be able to:

  • Discuss the benefits of stories at work.
  • Explain the elements good stories share.
  • Avoid common storytelling traps.
  • Create a story to support charts, graphs, and other data.
  • Explain three well-known story endings.
  • Identify a story’s characters.
  • Graphically map a story.

Segment One Modules

  • Brain Basics: Why Storytelling?
  • Storytelling Traps: How Narratives Go Wrong
  • Three Plots: Story Basics
  • Fast Framework: The Mind Map

Segment Two Objectives

At this segment’s conclusion, participants should be able to:

  • Explore best practices for preparing to deliver a story.
  • Leverage “sense words” to describe settings, characters, and other story elements.
  • Use conflicts and questions to drive the story forward.
  • Practice the LLC feedback model.
  • Create a story using the four-elements method.
  • Develop a storyboard.

Segment Two Modules

  • Story Prep: Before Taking the Stage
  • Four Elements: Building Blocks
  • See It in Action: Storyboarding
  • Your Turn: Tell Us a Story

Segment Three Objectives

At this segment’s conclusion, participants should be able to:

  • Discuss how storytellers can use body language, pauses, and tone to enhance a story.
  • Review best practices in powerful and succinct delivery.
  • Apply a checklist to evaluate a story’s stickiness.
  • Create an IPB story.
  • Build a story to bring charts, graphs, and other figures to life.

Segment Three Modules

  • Enhancing Delivery: Best Foot Forward
  • Lessons from Ted: Elements Great Presenters Share
  • Sticky Stories: A Model of Success
  • IPB Stories: Another Framework
  • Chart Talks: Data Plots
  • Final Practice: Write It Up

At the end of this session, participants should be able to develop and deliver a business story.