23. The Art of Storytelling as a Leader

Gabrielle Dolan is a speaker and author, and an expert in storytelling. While working in a corporate setting about 20 years ago, she noticed that all the best presenters and communicators got their message across through stories.

Through her leadership development and change management roles at one of Australia's largest banks, Gabrielle was able to test the efficacy of storytelling in communicating a larger business message, with fantastic results. 

"People tend to understand things better, but also remembered the story - and when you're in a leadership role, it's so important to get people to not only understand what you're saying, but to remember it when the meeting's over".

Inspired by a book on storytelling written by the World Bank's Stephen Denny, Gabrielle decided to explore the concept further.

She decided to produce a framework that would allow her to teach businesspeople a really practical way to implement storytelling and to use stories more effectively in their work. 

At the time, people equated storytelling with the old "once upon a time" style of telling stories, and couldn't understand why Gabrielle would leave a well-paying, secure job to pursue the concept. And it was a risk, certainly - but one that paid dividends. 

"I was always the one at the pub on a weekend telling the stories, so it was no surprise to my friends and family that I ended up in this line of work, but it was a surprise to me!"

"One of the powers of storytelling is that it taps into emotion, and that's why it's so powerful. The brain processes logic differently to emotions, so you still need logic for structure and legitimacy, but the storytelling aspect makes your information 'sticky', it'll make people think of things in a different way."

Gabrielle says that the litmus test of a good story is that it helps people understand something, helps them remember it, and helps them to retell it without losing its meaning.


Gabrielle's top tips for crafting and presenting a story

A good story needs to have a clear message. Know why you're sharing your story, and stick to one or two main points. 

A case study is not a story. Often, people default to work-related stories. Business examples often don't evoke emotions the way that personal stories can. 

Never start with "Let me tell you a story"

Don't get too fat around the middle. People tend to leave too much in when they're crafting a story, particularly in the middle of the story where they can start to go off track or feel like they need to 'pad things out'. Your stories should be succinct.

Finish strong. There's a fine balance between allowing people to 'get' what you're saying without summing things up for them, like you would in a speech. 

People should be able to get your point without you having to ram it down their throat. The point of sharing a story is to inspire action, get people to think, behave or act differently - and in order to do that, they don't need to be told what to do, they should feel MOVED to act. 

Practice makes perfect. If the purpose of telling your story is to deliver a message or influence an outcome, it's important to practice. You need to prepare your stories, and you need to practice them. Many people who are considered 'natural storytellers' are really just better prepared and have put in the practice - the skill and art is to make your presentation look effortless.

Show respect for audience by practicing. If people are spending their valuable time listening to you, the very least you can do is come prepared and polished. 

People buy with emotion, and justify with logic. Companies are underutilising stories - both internally and externally - providing case studies or timelines instead of emotive stories. An example of this is the About Us page on most websites, where the banner has changed to Our Story, without any real effort having been put into crafting a true story. 

Gabrielle and I continued this chat, discussing why small businesses are doing a better job with storytelling for business, potential story ideas for businesses and how she finds balance between the different facets of her business.

You can hear our conversation in full, here.
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