Home Delivery

When it's time to drop the Power Point and tell a story

Patricia Kitchen | Change@work

11:47 AM EST, January 25, 2008

Article tools

E-mail

Share
- Digg
- Del.icio.us
- Facebook
- Fark
- Google
- Newsvine
- Reddit
- Yahoo

If you want to ensure you get across the key points in a presentation, you could throw data at people in the form of PowerPoint graphs and charts.

Or you could tell a story like this one from Kenny Moore, ombudsman for KeySpan Energy, who uses it to drive home the value of the business' employee appreciation program.

As ombudsman, "I'm fair game for anything," Moore says. A couple of months ago, he got a voice mail from an employee who was getting ready to retire -- and who had a beef. The employee said his retirement benefits weren't jibing with what he had been promised. Could Kenny help?

So Moore, 59, called the employee and told him to get in touch with so-and-so who heads up retirement benefits and tell her that Kenny thought she would work with the employee to fix the situation.

Patricia Kitchen Bio | E-mail | Recent columns

The employee then told Moore that he knew this wasn't his area of expertise, but "10 years ago you gave me an employee certificate of appreciation that said, 'Please retain this document. It entitles the bearer to one personal favor from Kenny Moore'." And now, the employee said, "I'm cashing in my chips."

That story, says Moore -- who does not use PowerPoint when he makes presentations -- is the kind of personal example that gets across the lasting value of an employee appreciation program in a way that numbers and graphs don't.

Even as business leaders and managers have mastered the objective elements of communication -- the charts and metrics and spreadsheets -- their audience is floating "in an ocean of data and disconnected facts," says Annette Simmons, author of "Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins -- How to Use Your Own Stories to Communicate With Power and Impact" (Amacom, $22). "The missing ingredient in most failed communication," she writes, "is humanity.

"This is an easy fix. In order to blend humanity in to every communication you send, all you have to do is tell more stories and bingo -- you just showed up."

If you're not convinced, just think back to college days and the professors you remember: those who were steeped in theory? Or those with real-world experience who shared war stories that made those principles come alive? Ben Dattner, an organizational consultant in Manhattan, has a technique designed "to vividly illustrate how stories are memorable and PowerPoint is forgettable." Dattner asks his master's-level classes at New York University to put away their notes following team presentations and call out details they remember from the slides.

"The students are often shocked at how few bullet points they can summarize after listening for 20 minutes -- usually around 5 percent of the PowerPoint content," he says. "However, students generally remember about half of the stories or anecdotes in the presentation."

Moore puts it this way -- "more data doesn't change people . . . but emotions motivate them." Just look at how so many of us ignore health-related warnings -- but how we adopt a better eating and exercise programs when a relative or friend is struck by a heart attack.

Moore says he even involves his audience in selecting the stories he tells. He points to placards with various images and asks listeners to choose: Pick the coffin image and you'll hear the story of how he conducted a corporate funeral, an event intended to recognize the demise of one culture and pave the way for a new one.

"The business world taught me that people support what they help create," says Moore, who got his storytelling training in homily-writing 101 class. Yes, Moore, who's been at Keyspan 23 years, is a former priest.

Now, if you're a real numbers dude, storytelling may sound daunting. But Simmons, a Shreveport-La.-based consultant who has worked with clients such as Microsoft, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the IRS, explains that we tell stories all the time -- but just aren't being mindful about it.

Business people often feel uncomfortable sharing personal information in the workplace, she says. Certainly there are many things you would not want to share, but holding back on experiences that are worth sharing in the name of being professional "causes people to be plastic," she says.

She tells of one client at a financial organization who insisted she had no stories to tell -- even about the three marathons she had run. About two weeks later, Simmons says, she got an e-mail from the woman, who had been converted when she heard her boss tell a story related to jogging with friends.

The moral? Simmons says that "every time you think you need a PowerPoint, delete at least three slides and put in a story."