Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes - The Goodman ...

pg. 28
See Checklists to Go
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summary of this section.
Building Better Presentations
How to Take Your Audience from A to B – cont’d
audience gets a carefully tailored message – and they work … that is, until the title character
goes decidedly off-message. “Most people’s response to the video is overwhelmingly
positive,” reports Ward. “What almost everyone says is that it got them to think about
messaging in a different way.”
Joel Bradshaw takes his audiences through a similar exercise by showing excerpts from
“The Music Man,” and I begin my storytelling workshop by telling “The Wizard of Oz”
story, only I use the jargon-heavy language favored by most public interest professionals.
The possibilities for context shifting are endless, and I encourage you to explore them.
Those audience members staring at you with crossed arms and furrowed brows will
thank you.
Tell stories
There’s a maxim in public speaking that holds true whether you are addressing five
people or 500: In a two-hour speech, people will remember a two-minute story. Millennia of
conditioning may have something to do with it. As a species, we evolved in storytelling
cultures: That’s how each clan preserved its most important lessons and ensured they
would be passed on to succeeding generations. Even today, we read stories to our children
beginning at very early ages, implicitly teaching them to look for the narrative structure
that can bring order and meaning to a seemingly random jumble of events (otherwise
known as “life”).
In previous sections, several expert commentators have already testified to their reliance
on stories, and all 20 told us they routinely incorporate stories into their speeches
and workshops. Like learning styles, though, storytelling is a subject worthy of entire
books – I have written one myself – so we do not intend to offer a comprehensive treatise
here. Instead, let me suggest some questions that can help you sharpen the stories
you want to tell:
1. Who’s the protagonist?
Just as a car needs a driver to get it where it’s going, stories need someone to drive the
action. This person (or group of people) is called the protagonist, and traditionally
structured stories follow protagonists in pursuit of clearly defined goals. To help your
audience identify with the protagonist and enter the world of your story, don’t be
afraid to name names (when appropriate) and provide enough physical description or
background to let them see this individual in their mind’s eye.
2. What’s the hook?
Another technique for drawing people in is beginning the story where the audience is.
This is your story’s “hook” – the description of a place, circumstance, or premise that
everyone understands and with which they readily identify. If the subject of your story
is global warming, for example, starting with facts about concentrations of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere is not going to engage the average person. On the other
hand, asking, “Have you noticed that hurricanes keep getting stronger?” is more likely
to get heads nodding.