Storytelling Strategy
Lesson 2 from: Storytelling for Leaders: How to Inspire Your TeamCory Caprista
Storytelling Strategy
Lesson 2 from: Storytelling for Leaders: How to Inspire Your TeamCory Caprista
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Storytelling Strategy
So let's get into the first section, which is being strategic and entertaining, and, guess what, you're seeing another yin and yang symbol. Cory really loves the yin and yang symbol. He really is a Daoist, yep, I really am. So today what we're talking about, I just talked about being strategic and entertaining. So we wanna figure out, when we're being more strategic, can we, when you look at the yin and yang you can see there's a bit of white in the black and a blick of, bit of white, black in the white. Try to say that three times fast. So the point is, when you're being one thing, can you also incorporate some of the other to stay in balance, yeah? So if we're gonna be strategic, while we're being a little bit more strategic and being clear with our content, can we stay entertaining? And when we go entertaining, can we not lose track of what the point is of all of this, yeah? That's what helps us find that balance, okay? So we're gonna start with strategy, 'cause strategy's really th...
e bedrock. What are you trying to accomplish? What is the point of all of this, right? So the first thing that I recommend people think through is the pyramid approach. We're gonna be using the rule of three a lot today, and this is another use of the rule of three. The rule of three is the shortest way to have a beginning, middle, of an end. The rule of three has a certain rhythm to it. A lot of jokes are buh, bu-buh, bu-buh, and the punchlines's on the three. When you're writing you have three acts in a play usually. So three is a very powerful structure. We're gonna use it here. The bottom of the pyramid is tactics, and what I mean by that is getting tactical, and what I mean by that is the most amount of detail. Details are important and they can add a lot of richness, but you can get lost down here. A lot of people start with tactics, which is why I'm putting it first. Tactics come last, okay? Tactics come last. Then we have strategy in the middle. This is sort of the strategic piece, you're getting a little bit closer to the tactics but you're up-level, and then there's vision at the top. So I'm gonna show you all of it and I'll talk how I think through it. I think about it like vision is 30,000 feet, strategy is 10,000 feet, and tactics is on the ground. So when you're planning out what you're gonna say, what you wanna accomplish, what the story is, or the influencing topic, think about the vision first. What's the highest level themes or point to this whole thing, okay? Then you work your way down one level. What does that mean in terms of some of the key points I might wanna make, right? Just bullet points, bullet points of what I wanna get across that's gonna support the theme or the goal, yeah? Just key points, no more than three in any given section, is what we're really gonna talk about. And the last is what is the richness I wanna add, the little moments, the little details, that are gonna make the story pop or make the communication really land and have an emotional resonance, yeah? So Sam, what did he put at the tactical level that really stood out to you in his story? Do you remember any of the details? If you think about the movie of it? Got off the bus, and he was walking through the park. Yeah, he was like coming down a hill, I think, at some point, too. Yeah, she was. She was, oh, see, you remember even better than I do, nice. (laughing) So he had just enough kind of place and setting that we could kind of imagine, maybe all of our parks, if we drew them out on a piece of paper, would look different, but we all felt like we were at a park, right? Beautiful, so we kind of know the playground of the mind there. That's the tactical part, but he didn't give us too much, 'cause the point, well, going back to the vision piece, what were the themes of it? You said it, Mandy, earlier, what was the vision piece of Sam's story, the theme? Courage. And triumph, right? Great, what were the key turning points of his story? If you think about the strategic level, if you were bullet pointing out, here's where things turned, what were the couple things in his story? Seeing her. Seeing her, then what? Getting home. What? Walking past and like going home-- Yes. And turning around. Seeing her, going past her, then turning around, and then tapping on the shoulder, right? There was probably four strategic anchors to that story. Sam could probably tell the same story 10 different ways. He could add detail, he could put it out of order, he could memento it, as they say, and tell it backwards. He could give his mindset, he could do it from the first person, the third person, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes it doesn't really matter to plan that out unless the story is very important. You can get more detailed in your planning, and that's great, but we wanna keep it simple today, be more improvisational, so you can see, he had major theme, here's the story. Here's four anchor points, and then he gave it some details, and boom. Voila, a story has made in the pan. Any questions about the pyramid approach? Cool, so you be thinking about that, as I ask you, 'cause I'm gonna ask you to plan out your stories, so be thinking about this approach so you don't get lost in it. God, what story am I gonna tell? How'm I gonna tell this? You might be in tactics, go back up to vision, the top level, and think what is this story about? Or what do I wanna accomplish? And then, what are just a couple key points I need to get across that are really gonna anchor this? And then let yourself plan the details. Yeah, Sam? So, another way to put this, if you were to replace the three words, would be you could say vision is just another word for theme? What's the theme of the story? Yeah. Strategy is just the anchor points, like what are the key turning points in the story that are important, they're like the most salient points. And then tactics are just the details, the where, the when, the who. After this, Sam, I'd love if we could edit this slide together, 'cause I think you just made it better. Yeah, that's absolutely the, I think that's the exact right way-- Your words. To look at it. We talked ourselves into a better model, so let's improve it, fantastic, yeah. I think that's the right way to do it, so as you go forward that theme, anchor points, details. Feel free to translate in your workbooks appropriately, (laughing) accordingly. The good thing I want you to know about this is I actually use this in many different areas not just storytelling. This pyramid approach is so powerful in content development or planning this workshop, this course, I used this. I use this everywhere. It's a way of thinking, it's a model of thinking, so what Sam just did there was use creativity to then apply it to the specific area we're focused on a little bit better, a little more tailored, perfect.
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Ratings and Reviews
Sang Hyo Lee
The live audience group is too small. Always the same people are giving input to Cory. Would be better if the group size is twice the size. He's constantly asking his group who wants to share. This makes it awkward for everyone in the live lesson.