Fundamentally, innovation and value creation are profound social phenomena. It is more often than not the story that makes the creation, rather than the other way around. Do you want your ideas to be heard? Learn the art of narration and storytelling. To be a better leader, you must pique your audience's interest and make them relate to you.
Influence is the paramount quality found in good leaders. Ultimately leadership is the ability to motivate people to do things they have no obligation to do. This concept is powered by storytelling and narrative crafting.
To influence means to impact other people's behaviours, attitudes, opinions, and choices. Influence is not power or control. It is not about using others to your advantage. It's about observing what motivates the audience's commitment and using that knowledge to leverage performance and positive outcomes. On the one hand, a leader's ability to influence an audience is rooted in trust; in fact, our influence expands proportionately to the level of trust in a relationship.
On the other hand, you have storytelling and narrative, two close concepts yet different but, when combined, can do wonders.
Building credibility for yourself and your ideas begins with telling a compelling story. Whether you're trying to persuade a colleague, a recruiter, or an entire conference audience, following these guidelines will help you convey care and compassion when presenting even the most daunting ideas.
Tell a captivating Story. Quite simply, your message must be audience-specific, clearly contextualized, human-centric, action-oriented, and relatable. The use of the three-act structure model is a tried and true method to shape the story. Stories have the power to draw our attention. However, when the story concludes, it's up to the audience to reach their own conclusion.
As such, you must craft the narrative. A narrative presents a situation or series of events that reflects and promotes a specific point of view or set of values. A narrative inspires people to go to extraordinary lengths. It shifts the way we think, for better or worse. Take note of how there is a narrative at the heart of any significant movement, whether religious, social, political, economic, or business-related.
When it comes to selling a product, you can have a great story about your company, which is excellent. But who cares?
If you have a narrative, you make people do impossible things to create or obtain your product.
When you have a narrative, and hopefully a good one. Then you document and articulate the stories of all the people who believed in your narrative and whose lives your product/service changed.
To generate this outcome, you need information.
The right information is crucial to win over or motivate the audience. That is why the timing of data usage is the new black of leadership.
Being a good communicator means nothing if you don't have the right data.
Data is at the core of everything. In our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous time, almost every role today requires data for decision-making. Yet, what makes Nancy Duarte's vision different is the conversion of numbers into persuasive narratives to drive action.
Duarte's book "Data Story: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story" teaches us the following:
Why and how you should communicate data effectively.
To develop a data point of view (DataPov) that persuades key decision-makers.
To structure an executive summary as a DataStory.
To make data more memorable, make it relatable.
When learning to communicate well through storytelling and narration, data moves from making sense to creating meaning. This technique is known as "data storytelling," It entails weaving stories or narratives around data to ensure that the insights from it are well received, retained, and acted upon. It involves the following three components: data, visuals and narrative.
Hence, the value and impact of data handling etiquette.
Winning an audience is hard work. This audience can, for instance, be work colleagues. With the proper steps, you can go from data explorer to leader. When you first start, you learn to explore the data that you're just digging around in the data and that you're an explorer of the data. Well, becoming a data explainer is significant career advancement. As a data explorer, you progress from being an individual to becoming a strategic advisor as you learn how to explain it well. And, sure enough, when you demonstrate your ideas in the data well and take a stand supported by data, you progress from strategic advisor to a leader. As a result, it will impact your career, your promotion criteria, and you will soon be a great leader as a result of the data you use every day.
When crafting a story, it is important to reflect both sides—the science side with data and the social side with communication. The art of influencing an audience is complex. Still, you can persuade, come to compromises, and even change your audience's opinions with the right tools. You can get the right tools delivered to you with a simple click. Subscribe to get our free content and be the first to hear about our updates!
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