Executive Storytelling is said to be a model of organization or message construction that helps speakers and presenters keep their audience's attention and deliver more memorable presentations. In addition, this way of organizing the content of the presentation promotes the understanding of more complex ideas and data through context, relevance to the audience, and a structure that is easier for the human brain to assimilate. According to neuroscience studies, humans can retain stories more easily than data, so using a narrative improves retention, the impact of the message while creating a link between the speaker and his audience. So, what is the structure of Executive Storytelling? Let's look at the questions we need to answer:
A. First, identify the elements of the narrative..
- Who are the actors? Our customers, our investors, members of management or other departments of our organization, our employees, our new employees, the candidates we must recruit. Also, a piece of equipment, a resource, a service, or a factory.
- What is the framework? Market forces, the vagaries of the economy, competition, the endorsement of government authorities, a selection committee, management, our collaborators, employees, and new employees.
- What is the conflict? Define the difficulty, problem, stakes, or choices for internal/external stakeholders.
- What resolution can we foresee? How do we eliminate conflict? Problem/possible avenues/solution.
- What is the relevance of this resolution to the audience? Who loses/wins in this resolution?
B. Then incorporate them into space-time continuum.
- What was the conflict like before/now? Explain the difference between what happened before and what is happening now.
- What are the highlights? Chronology. Present highlights/milestones over time.
- What did the conflict look like in the past, today, what is the future situation. Mark these time stamps to identify how the situation has evolved/deteriorated, to report on the current situation and to present the desirable consequences or future pitfalls.
Let's look at a simple example:
- The players: our franchisees/dealers/business partners
- The Framework: Renewal of Franchise Agreements and Agreements.
- Conflict: Our franchisees are reluctant to initial renewal agreements.
- Space-time continuum. Previously, the end-user could only purchase these services from a physical branch because the technology did not allow purchases on transactional sites. Today, online sales are an important part of our franchisees' revenues in our network.
- Resolution. The solution we choose must stem the exodus of our business partners and attract the interest of new partners. This involves (1) demonstrating the value of being part of a franchisee system to our business partners, (2) meeting with each of our franchisees to listen to grievances and find solutions to the drop in sales and (3) reviewing and improving the list of products offered as well as the benefits of being part of the system.
- Relevance. The stakes are high because our franchisees are threatening to leave the distribution system/network on which we have made our success, and we will have a lot of work to do to replace them if they were to leave. In addition, by leaving the system, they could compete with us as independent distributors.
This is just one example, but the model can be replicated to communicate new projects, take stock of the situation, present commercial, financial, technical, or scientific information. In addition, we believe that storytelling allows us to connect with the audience, reduces filters and preconceptions, which gives us a better chance of retaining attention, building trust, and being understood.