For a heroic presentation, add story moments to the mix and identify your presentation hero.
You should incorporate story moments throughout your business presentation to maintain momentum and to retain audience attention.
You make the audience the hero for the same reason.
The story moment may be no more than two sentences that breathe life into a staid exposition of facts. Or it can extend to a one-paragraph allegory that plunges your audience into the meat of your show.
This is one key to your story’s power. You select a story the audience already knows, and you populate it with characters sympathetic to the audience.
Who’s Your Presentation Hero?
As you prepare your story moment, carry in mind that every story must have a hero. That hero must be in the audience. For your audience to embrace your stories wholeheartedly, portray your audience heroically.
Remember that you determine the presentation hero of your story.
Choose a presentation hero that makes your audience feel good.
If your audience is the CEO and his senior staff, then he or she is the presentation hero, aided by trusted colleagues – he is Napoleon; she is Joan of Arc.
If your audience is the shareholders, then they are the heroes of your story. It is through their guidance and wisdom that the company is successful.
If your audience is your subordinates, then they are the heroes for providing the nuts-and-bolts of the machinery.
If your audience is your students, then they are the heroes of the subject matter as they arm themselves to slay corporate dragons. You are but the armorer, and perhaps a former warrior.
The Heroes of UPS
Speaking coach Suzanne Bates provides an excellent example of this type of Story Moment. She relates the example of a speech given by UPS chairman Mike Eskew to his employees. The occasion of the speech was a change of the company logo.
In speaking to his employees, Eskew crafted his message to make them the heroes . . . not himself.
Many CEOs believe erroneously that employees want to hear a story of the CEO’s vision and leadership. Eskew instead seized the opportunity to showcase the striving of his employees and gave a masterful show, demonstrating how a CEO can tap into the sympathies of his people.
In this case, he made his audience of UPS rank-and-file employees the heroes of the UPS story:
Our brand is all about our people and keeping the UPS promise. Just as Marty Peters . . . . Marty’s the longest-tenured active employee at UPS – out of 360,000 around the world. Marty is a fifty-seven year veteran of UPS. That’s right; he started with us in 1946 . . . and guess what . . . he still shows up at the job every day as a shifter and a customer-counter clerk in Detroit.
And there’s someone else we’ve brought to New York for this special day . . . Ron Sowder, a Kentucky District feeder driver. Ron’s been with the company forty-two years. In fact, he started in 1961 . . . the year of our last logo change. When Ron started with the company . . . he wasn’t old enough to drive. But today he carries the distinction of having the most years of safe driving among active employees in the company. In my book, Ron and Marty are UPS heroes. They not only represent the brand . . . like you – they live the brand every day.
This is a superb example of the speaker transforming the audience with a powerful story.
One moment they are employees assembled to hear a speech by the CEO on the company logo. The next moment, they are heroes in an adventure story that spans decades! Here, Eskew does it explicitly and quite deftly. The result is an especially powerful presentation moment that uses the trope of the presentation hero.
He outright calls them heroes, but it isn’t a bald bid for flattery. That kind of thing falls flat quickly.
The good news is two-fold. First, injecting a story moment is not difficult to do. Second, it is guaranteed to work. By work, I mean that it transforms your presentation into something magical.
Think of it this way.
A story is magic dust.
The President Weaves Magic into His Speeches
When the President of the United States calls for national action in time of need, he doesn’t just inform us . . . he inspires us. He alludes to the wisdom and fortitude, the strength and durability, the innovation and drive of the American people. He sometimes refers to the Greatest Generation, the generation that fought and won World War II.
The president may talk of hardy pioneers to dramatize the American sense of adventure. He may use story moments of American inventors to make his points about innovation – Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Steve Jobs. He ties us to these powerful stories and he makes us the hero, not himself. Who among us would not want to be the presentation hero? President Ronald Reagan was a master of the Story Moment, calling on them to craft powerful speeches.
But you need not pull out the heavy artillery every time. Use short punchy stories to launch your show or to illustrate minor points. A great source for this kind of story-telling is Aesop’s Fables.
Why Aesop?
Aesop’s Fables are narratives that can convey your point quickly and crisply. They are short, familiar, and freighted with morals. Most of them also carry heavy business relevance.
You can find a fable to illustrate most any business point. Take the familiar fable of “The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg,” which teaches that “Much wants more and then loses all.”
But the Goose fable also captures deeper lessons about discovering the true sources of wealth and nurturing the processes that create wealth. Fables can run the gamut of lessons, from betrayal to bigotry, from deceit to damnation.
Thumb through Aesop’s for your next story. You already know that almost no one does, and that’s the first requirement for discovering Blue Ocean market space. Try it, and I guarantee that something good will happen.
For more on exalting your presentation hero, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.