quarterly notes
March 2010
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Capecci Communications provides training, consulting, and advanced writing services
to help clients communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact.
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Barriers to Personal Storytelling
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The First Steps in Becoming an Effective Advocate
Why should I care about your cause? Successful advocates and
organizations know the most powerful way to answer that question: stories. While
compelling arguments and conclusive data are essential to making a case for a
mission or a cause, it is the personal story that makes an audience feel, imagine,
and empathize.
Every day, millions of people step forward to tell their
stories and make a change in the world. Every day, millions of organizations,
large and small, depend upon them doing so. But as anyone who has stood in
front a microphone or camera knows, telling your story as an advocate for a
cause presents certain challenges and requires a unique mix of storytelling,
public speaking, and media skills.
Over the past twenty years, I've worked with hundreds who
have made the choice (or have been enlisted) to share their life experiences in
the service of a greater good: from "ordinary" people and first-time speakers
to experienced presenters and media personalities. They've spoken in support of
large and small non-profits, local and national advocacy groups, and
cause-related marketing campaigns for the arts, education, environment,
animals, health, and youth. I've observed in almost every case that advocating
with storytelling often surprises speakers with its combination
of challenges. The first step for an
advocate--or for an organization relying on the effective storytelling of its
champions--is to recognize the potential personal barriers.
These are three of the most common personal barriers we encounter
in speakers just starting out as storytelling advocates:
My Story isn't Dramatic Enough. Or sexy enough, or important enough, or
entertaining enough. Perhaps because we're fed a constant pop culture diet of
"shocking real stories" we often feel our life experiences must compete, or measure
up to an ideal vision of what makes a "good" story. While it's true that the
events of one life may be more dramatic than another, this doesn't
discount individual experience. I once worked with an amazing group of health advocates,
all of whom were women with heart disease. We went around the room and listened
to each woman's story. When we got to Helene, she began, "Well, my story is not
very dramatic. I only had the one heart attack." Often, our first step as
advocates is to articulate the connection between what we have experienced and
what we are advocating. Each story we tell contributes to the larger narrative
surrounding our mission or cause.
If I Practice Telling My Story, I'll Lose the
Spontaneity.
Or the emotion. Or the authenticity. Or the freshness. The first time we share our
stories, they may feel more spontaneous, more raw, perhaps more emotional. Those
qualities do not define success,
but neither should they go away. Speakers often confuse emotion with
performance energy, that natural rush we eventually learn to harness and focus.
It is lack of preparation that keeps otherwise powerful stories from having maximum
effect on an audience. Stories require practice and a measure of craft. By
relying on "precious spontaneity," we do a disservice to ourselves, our story,
and our cause. We also risk placing ourselves in a risky and emotionally vulnerable
spot.
Good Storytellers are Born,
Not Made. We are all born
storytellers. We may not all be practiced storytellers. Effective
storytelling follows simple rules and requires skills that can be learned and
rehearsed. We need to get rid of the "ideal storyteller" in our heads, and
focus instead on our natural storytelling abilities. They are there, but may
not yet be crafted. We recount our dreams, we narrate our days, we relate our childhood
memories. We are historians ("I used to live in this house.") and journalists
("I can tell you what poverty looks like."). We are documentarians ("He said,
'I'm sorry, I can't help you'.") and inventors ("I am a survivor."). We are
storytellers--and through our stories we make sense of the world for ourselves
and others.
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A Tree, a River, a Hat. (No Bar Graphs.)
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Ten Speaking Reminders from Ranger Kirk
Sometimes you find reminders of basic public
speaking principles in the strangest places.
A few weeks ago I visited my author/actress friend
Irene* in Richmond, Virginia and we took in some local history at
Jamestown. Since I could recall embarrassingly little from grade school history about the Jamestown
Settlement, I (and about twenty other tourists)
thought it best to begin with the 45-minute guided tour. We paid our ten bucks, strolled down to the James River, and sat down on
rough-hewn benches to await our guide beneath a bare oak tree.
I was dubious. I had bad memories of somnambulant historians, and Disney-fied
"infotainment". I briefly considered ducking the tour and watching the
introductory film instead. (At times like these, it's not fun vacationing with a
communications trainer.)
Enter Ranger Kirk.
Ranger Kirk was in his 50s, sturdy, dressed
in regulation khaki, with shortly cropped hair under his National Park Service
hat. He claimed his space under the bare oak: feet
firmly planted, weight evenly distributed, at attention. Reminder #1: Focus forward.
He then took out some ibuprofen, shook
a few tablets into his hand and said, "These old military knees need a little
help!" and took a swig from his water bottle. Reminder #2: Start when you
start. The first words out of your mouth are the first words of your
presentation.
With that quick bit of shtick, Ranger
Kirk introduced his persona, what Irene calls "a benign curmudgeon, salty yet
avuncular, imparting words-to-the-wise one moment, booming absolutes the next.
He needn't have told us he was ex-military; he was channeling Sergeant Carter
to our Gomer Pyle for the entire tour."
For the next forty-five minutes,
Ranger Kirk offered one of the most engaging and informative presentations I'd
seen in a long time and it required no PowerPoint, no laser pointer, no handouts--just
a guy
speaking effectively.
He framed the tour with his rhetorical goal--to
claim Jamestown as the true birthplace of a nation: "When I grew up, the
history books said that the birthplace of our country was where? PLYMOUTH
ROCK. And why did the Pilgrims
come to Plymouth Rock? Religious freedom. And why did the British entrepreneurs
of the Virginia Company come to Jamestown? For MONEY! Now--which story do you
think a textbook author is going to go with?" Reminders #3, #4, and #5: Draw
appropriate examples from your own or your audience's personal experiences.
Know your General Purpose. Tell a story.
As he moved from the oak tree to the 1922 statue of
Pocahontas (where he pointed out the historical/cultural inaccuracy of
her attire): "And in a moment I'll tell you why it
was IMPOSSIBLE for John Smith and Pocahontas to have known each other, LET ALONE
have a romantic relationship." Reminders #6 and #7: Know your transitions. Leave
'signposts' for your audience along the way from where you are to where you're
going.
Irene again on Ranger Kirk's delivery style: "I imagine he's as popular with school groups as he was with
us middle-aged know-it-alls, we of the 'tell me something I don't know'
mentality, nodding automatically until BAM, he slapped us with a perfectly
timed, exquisitely delivered one-liner in his growling, drill sergeant voice,
as if he were a veteran not of the military, but Vaudeville." Reminder #8: If you're
going to use humor, know what you're doing.
I was curious about what presentation training the
National Park Service provided its squad, so I called Historic Jamestown and spoke
with Ranger Kirk D. Kehrberg himself, who's been with the NPS since 1990 and has
worked as an interpreter at the Jamestown Settlement for the past eight years. He owes his effectiveness as a speaker to his mentors, he said, two
"old school" supervisors who understood that "communication was the biggest
part of interpretation." He received coaching and feedback from them, and was
able to share ideas with other interpreters as to what worked and what didn't
("Stealing from them.") He laments the fact that today's rangers receive
mostly online training, with less face-to-face coaching. Reminder #9: There
is no substitute for a coach.
"If I can bring history to life for someone," he told me, "then
I've done my job." Reminder #10. There is no substitute for enthusiasm and
passion.
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WordForum: Communication Training
for Design Professionals |
Applying Design Principles to Speech and Text
The WordForum Series is a collection of communication workshops created specifically for design professionals to improve writing and speaking skills. #1: Finding and Expressing Your Key Messages
#2: Organizing Clear and Compelling Presentations
#3: Using Visuals Cleanly and Effectively
#4: Making Language Work for You
Developed in partnership with writer and landscape architect Adam Arvidson of Treeline, WordForum is the only communication training series designed by and for design professionals such as architects, landscape architects, interior and exhibit designers, engineers, or city planners. Instruction applies the design process to the crafting of text and speech, and incorporates examples drawn from actual design projects. Each one-hour workshop focuses upon an essential aspect of written or spoken communication, and can be customized to meet designers' skill levels, learning objectives, and schedules. For more information, contact Adam at adam@treeline.biz (866.859.7593) or John at john@capeccicom.com (612.229.8896). |
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Creativity
Author Elizabeth Gilbert, through personal stories, explores how to nurture--and manage--the creative spark in us all. Her TED talk is here:
Complimentary
Cause Communications makes three great books available free to non-profits: The Communications Toolkit, When Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes, and When Bad Ads Happen to Good Causes.
Coming Clean
April 1 is around the corner. (Apologies to those who tried to purchase one of these.)
Compact
Presentation assistance? There's an iPhone app for that. iUmmm lets you count "ums," "y'knows" and corporate jargon with a tap, and Presenter Pro has tips on everything from visuals to gestures.
Clarity
Looking for another way to illustrate the jumble of ideas in your head? MyMind combines outlining with mind-mapping to help organize your content, your strategy, or your family tree. (Mac, Donationware)
Core Readings
Jerry Weissman does his part to stop mind-numbing business presentations. Surprise: it's all about telling your story. This is a good resource for presentation basics, with tons of tips on creating and using visuals.
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Come see what we're working on this week at capeccicom.com
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Capecci Communications provides training, consulting, and advanced writing services
to help clients communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact.
612.229.8896
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