The most compelling story an organizational communicator can tell is an example of how has one life been turned around by our work.
But as communicators for educational organizations, we have a problem. We have good stories, but we don’t tell them well. We burden stories with jargon and they are unrecognizable as stories.
Andy Goodman’s presentation at EWA this afternoon provided some examples of very effective storytelling.
Goodman is an author and a consultant to nonprofit organizations.
Communicators should not think of storytelling as a sidebar, but rather as a Best Practice. It is a first thing, Goodman says. It’s the foremost way humans communicate.
His presentation addressed the questions:
Why is narrative so powerful?
What makes a good story?
How do I build a lasting storytelling culture?
Storytelling is an integral part of our history, identities, and culture, and key to how we remember. As a species we tell stories for tens of thousands of generations, Goodman said. Our brain his evolved with mechanisms that look for elements of story.
We all have personal stories and sharing them allows us to tell our personal mythology.
We have culture-specific stories in our brains as natural result of growing up in our culture.
When you have facts you want people to remember its mch more likely they will remember them if they’re part of a story.
What makes a good story? It delivers what we seek: meaning. It uses a time tested structure. It engages our emotions.
