Storytelling Archive - Page 7 of 14 - The Art of Communicating

The magical question to increase tension and suspense

In a great movie or book, the question “What happens next” is basically the definition of tension and suspense. Whenever there’s suspense in a movie, we want to know what’s next. When there’s tension in a conversation, we want to relieve the tension.

“What’s next?” is also the magical question that keeps a speech in the flow. If you want to increase tension in your speech, the most important question to ask yourself is “What will my audience be dying to know right at this point in my speech?”

Leaving aside all the theoretical frameworks that teach us how to structure a compelling speech, this one question gets right to the heart of the matter. When you get that question right, you’ll end up at exactly the right structure without ever having to worry about any rhetorical theory.

To bring you on track to finding the appropriate question, here are a few variations for what your audience might be dying to know next:

“How is that possible?”
“Why is that?”
“What can we do about it?”
“How does this relate to our experience from that other project?”
“How did you manage to overcome that?”
“What does it cost?”

So, what’s your audience dying to hear next?

It’s the wrongness that gets our attention

We learn theory in order to be right but the coolest part that gets your attention is the wrongness. – Victor Wooten

We can give an amazing speech by doing all the right things. In fact, that’s exactly what most people strive for when preparing for an important speech such as a keynote or a big product launch. They try to get everything right.

Only that it’s not the rightness that gets our attention but the wrongness. Because all the other great speeches do all the right things, too. Because right never hurts. Because right never breaks our expectations. Right is just, well, right.

But when there’s a wrong note, our audiences take notice. Their expectations are broken. Their curiosity kicks in. Their figuring-out-what-comes-next brain-mode is ignited.

That’s why the great speeches that you recall right now, when I ask you to think of one, are precisely the ones that didn’t do everything in order.

It’s exactly like world-class bass player Victor Wooten describes it when he continues with the above quote:

When I just played the right notes, that’s “cool, cool!”. But if I want you to go “oooooh”, I stick a wrong note in there. So, the coolest notes are the wrong ones.

I urge you to watch the full interview and also listen to the musical examples (this part starts at the 5 minute mark). It’s well worth your time.

Beginning and end

Every presentation starts at the beginning and stops at the end. Unless it doesn’t. Like most presentations. (Yours?)

I mean, of course, every presentation starts and stops at some point but that doesn‘t mean that it has a beginning or an ending. It just starts and stops. It goes from the middle of somewhere to the middle of nowhere while delivering a host of facts that may or may not lead anywhere.

To see what I mean, let’s revisit what beginning and end really means. So, let’s take a step back.

Every presentation that’s necessary is about change – about changing the minds of your audience. You might need the board of directors to acknowledge a strategic problem. You might want your customers to buy your product. You might want to inspire your employees to understand where the company is going …

Whatever your change is, to make it happen you need the people in your audience to see the world differently after your presentation than before. It’s this difference that determines the beginning and end of your presentation. When the audience enters the room, they have one worldview and after the talk they have another. You pick them up at one point – the beginning – and guide them to another – the end.

It follows immediately that the beginning of your presentation isn’t about you (your CV, your company history, your achievements, organizational structure, portfolio or whatever) but about the audience. It’s not about where you are coming from but where your audience is coming from. Your audience needs to feel: She’s talking about me. This is where I’m at.

That’s the beginning – and it’s in stark contrast to the starting point of most presentations which is all about the presenter.

The end of your presentation is the point at which the change is achieved. It’s when your audience feels: “This is who I want to become. This is where I want to go. This will be me.” It’s the point of no return for your audience. They can’t unsee what you’ve made them see.

The thing is, only when you know your beginning and end can you become the guide that takes your audience from where they are to where they want to be.

Strange reality

People meet, incidents occur, without anyone ever having done anything intentionally for this to happen. Reality just happens.

Still, as humans we can’t help but look for motives and reasons. When someone tells us a story, we intuitively ask: “Why did he do this?” or “What is she up to?” – even when there is no meaningful answer to that at all.

What someone tells us must make sense. Even if reality doesn’t.

The challenge with speaking is this: to make a meaningful story out of a strange reality. Speeches are about reality but they are themselves narratives. Even if the source material is strange, the presentation about it must make sense.

What’s worse: Each listener has her own idea of what makes sense and each member of your audience looks for reasons and motives that fit his or her worldview.

Therefore, as a speaker we have to tell not only a story that makes sense and is truthful but one that makes sense from our audience’s perspective.

Where to find compelling stories

When we look for compelling stories, we tend to look for the extra-ordinary. Yet, more often than not, the stories that fascinate us most are the stories that are taken from real-life. Asked about his biggest influence, comedian Ricky Gervais puts it this way:

Being honest is what counts. Trying to make the ordinary extra-ordinary is so much better than starting with the extra-ordinary. Because it doesn’t really connect.
[…]
If something is real for one person, it touches their life. I think, as a creator and a director it’s your job to make an audience as excited and fascinated about a subject as you are. And real life does that.

This is not about being funny as Ricky Gervais, though. It’s about resonating with your audience. Just like Gervais, as communicators it’s our job to make our audience as excited and fascinated about our ides as we ourselves are. In particular, this means:

If you yourself are not fascinated by your idea, why would you expect your audience to be?
Stories from real life fascinate people.
People are fascinated by people.
Real life is much more fascinating than you think.
If you do not find anything fascinating in normal life, you do not look closely enough.
Ideas that fascinate people relate to their lives.
If you are looking for wow-effects, you either didn’t look closely enough or your idea doesn’t relate to the lives of the people in your audience.
When people realize how an idea relates to their lives, they get an aha effect.
Aha-effects are stronger than wow-effects.
Real life creates aha-effects.

Challenging the way we approach keynotes

In-person events aren’t going to happen for a while. With their recent keynotes, Apple embraced this by not even trying to pretend that they were on-stage. Their keynotes now feel more like long infomercials than presentations – recorded in different locations around their signature Apple Park building and produced in a way that resembles a TV show much more than a presentation.

We’ll see this happening a lot. More and more companies will skip the live on-stage presentation and pre-produce videos instead. As they do, we will see more and more companies embracing the freedom that the video format provides.

We will see tighter storytelling, quicker video cuts, breathtaking animations, and – of course – fewer hiccups. Here are a few challenges to think about if you want to stand out:

Find a unique tone! One that’s grounded in who you are rather than trying to imitate what Apple and others are pioneering.
Don’t be afraid to make it fun!
Consider making it interactive! Now, that you have all your viewers online in front of a screen, think of ways to make them an active part of your show and re-consider running the whole thing live.
Learn the laws of tension and suspense! People are even more likely to consider your show just another competitor for their attention along the likes of Netflix, YouTube etc.
Skip the boring parts and quickly dive into the relevant parts! For example, just as almost no movie opens with the credits anymore, you shouldn’t, either.

(PS: Don’t miss your chance to make a difference!)

Would they come back?

Remember serial TV? We had to wait a full week to watch the next episode of our favorite show (which was yours?). Back then, great TV shows excelled at creating cliffhangers.

For many of us, it’s a love-hate-relationship with cliffhangers. In a way, it’s why we watched the show in the first place. That feeling of tension. That urge to want to know so badly what happens next. But then, when at the moment of greatest tension, they just said: “To be continued … Please come back next week!” … we were all like “Gosh. Really?!”

But of course we came back.

Is there a moment in your presentation when you could do the same? When you could stop and the audience would riot because they want to know what happens next so badly? A moment to guarantee that your entire audience would come back? (and bring their friends along because they couldn’t help but tell them…)

“Would they come back?” is a much more ambitious goal than “Will they stay on their chairs until the end?”.

Once people sit down, there’s a good chance that they will stick through to the end. You’ll have to torment them quite a bit before they will actually stand up and leave.

But having them come back is something else entirely. Was it really that good?

So, was it? Would your audience come back? What would you need to change so that they would?

Communicating your product means telling your story

Marketers often think about stories as a tool in their communication toolbox. You have your product. And then you start looking for a story to tell around that product.

Yet, what makes the most beloved brands so successful is that their product is the story. We buy into the story that is Coca-Cola, Airbnb, or iPhone. We buy into the story that is Seth Godin, Simon Sinek, or Tony Robbins. All of these brands are they story they tell.

And because they are, it’s so easy to tell little everyday stories about those brands. Little stories that become part of the brand story. Little stories that communicate what that brand stands for in ways that are totally authentic to the brand.

Story isn’t a sideshow to our product. When you have a cause and want to make change happen, your story is the product. And communicating your product means telling your story.

Missed opportunities

The introduction is probably the single biggest missed opportunity in many presentations.

What’s the purpose of your first sentence?

Some people would probably answer it’s to introduce yourself. Or to welcome everybody. Some would answer to provide an overview of what follows. Others disagree and answer that one needs to tell a story. Or cite a surprising statistic. Build rapport with the audience by making a local reference.

While any of those might be valid introductions, this misses the point.

The purpose of the first sentence is to make your audience want to hear the second one. And, of course, the purpose of the second sentence is to make your audience want to hear the third one.

Does yours?

In memory of Sir Ken Robinson

It’s not the most spectacular presentation that works best but the one that resonates most.

This speech of Sir Ken Robinson not only resonated a lot with myself, but with millions of viewers around the world. It’s TED’s most viewed speech of all time. It lacks anything that would count as spectacular.

It’s pure conversation – Robinson letting us in to his mind. Inviting us to take a look from his perspective. Making us see the things he sees and feel the things he feels. Telling simple everyday stories turns his speech into a powerful message about our children’s creative potential.

It’s not fluff and decoration that makes his speech so powerful, but his thoughts that he invites us into.

On Aug, 21st Ken Robinson died of cancer. His message remains.

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