Storytelling – A powerful tool to bring people together in a solution

Challenge

I am a university student at ULVR and I had studied leadership core for  my first year as part of the mandatory modules. So, for leadership core, there  includes several presentations where students present their findings and feasible  solutions to real clients as per what they are looking for. Now, that was challenging  for us as it was something new and we had to build on our presentation skills such  as communication, research and to be working in teams. These clients actually  come to college to attend our presentation followed by a question and answer  session. It was not just a mere graded presentation or project for us students but in  fact, we had to make sure that the clients were convinced that our solutions would  really work and sound effective enough with strongly supporting facts for them to  at least include our proposed solutions as part of their implementation process.  That was the actual and real challenge for the students; to be able to convince the  clients.

Selection

We selected the storytelling tool as a means to convince our clients as to what we  were explained by our facilitators.   What is story telling? - The storytelling is basically about telling a story which would  connect with the audience and try leave a big impact on them which would force  them to reflect on the different points or perspectives mentioned or even  questioning same. Also, I believe that storytelling is about bringing your audience  on the same page you are, regarding the topic being discussed, or simply bringing  them to see things from the way you are seeing things. Jose Lopez, Global  Leadership Development Director at Mars, states that storytelling refers to the  connection, mostly an emotional one with the people on the information being told  and also conveying a logical message. A storytelling has more to do with initiating a  cause rather than just solving any particular problem. If a storytelling is compelling  enough, the audience will listen and pay high attention to what you are saying.   We chose to use storytelling in our presentation so that we could build this  connection with our clients and help them better understand the reasons behind  the solutions we are proposing.

Application

There were one project where my team had to provide solutions to an NGO which  catered for the less privileged people who could not afford healthcare. So, the  NGO’s issue was that they had a shortcoming in terms of staff due to a lack in  transport facilities. Therefore, time management became a problem and they were

stagnant in terms of receiving funds and donations. They wanted a sustainable form  of funding and a poor marketing strategy was the cause.  So we depicted a problem breakdown in our presentation slide and then showed  how we would tackle each issue. That is how we started our storytelling by giving a  background story or introduction to be precise, and describing the difficulties of the  situation and its future impact. This way, we were gradually bringing in their  attention and when this happened, we started proposing solutions back to back  with supporting facts. That was the moment when the NGO owner asked, “How  and why do you think that your solutions would be feasible for our NGO?” That is  when we responded by our competitor analysis which we conducted and turning it  into a storytelling of what few competitors did in a similar situation, why they came  about certain solutions and how did they successfully carried out these solutions  followed by statistical data. It created a kind of logical flow and made sense to them  as to why they should consider our proposed strategy. That storytelling created a  passion and the energy among the NGO authorities which caused them to further  engage with my team to know more since the way we told the story, it was  compelling to them that they actually considered implementing our very own  proposed strategy and solutions.

Insight

This was not a first experience with storytelling since almost everyone uses this tool  in everyday conversation. Whenever we are stating our perspectives or whether we  want to convince someone of anything, we automatically reach to a point where  we are telling stories and eventually that becomes a great conversation among  friends. However, when I had started presentations at college, I used to be always  stressed of how I could give my best presentation since for the first few one, it was  not impressive for my audience and it would come across as boring as I would just  state facts and less questions would come from the clients as they lost interest  quite soon. Nonetheless, with the storytelling as the very fundamental, it just made  the presentation livelier and engaging as people would always want to hear stories  that are so relatable. Further, it breaks the monotonous or boring atmosphere and  makes it more exciting.

Approach

It depends on the situation as to what we can do differently but storytelling  remains one of the most powerful one as it helps build a stronger emotional  connection with our audience and also making sure that they pay full attention  throughout the session or presentation. Whatever one may try but if their  storytelling is not compelling enough, people would not even bother buying your  idea. Storytelling works best in any situation, however followed by facts and it also  helps the audience understand things from the angle through which you are seeing

the problem. In addition, I also believe that if your storytelling is honest and  truthful, people will listen to you or might even applaud.   This tool finds it utility among design thinking where organizations needs to focus  more. Design thinking is about understanding the fact that any product or services  concern human beings since they are the one buying them. It is really  commendable to businesses if they really want to keep on improving and stay  longer in the market. In addition, the level and quality of design thinking could  determine a company’s competitive advantage in the long run as it leverage on  creativity and invention which amazes many potential customers.

