Using Stories to Make Your Point

As communications expert Jim Lukaszewski says, "A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a good story is worth 10,000 pictures." Well, maybe only 9,999. But his point is well taken. In the world

The do's and don'ts of using stories

The following sections give you some guidelines for using stories effectively. Most of them come courtesy of Jim Lukaszewski. (He's founder of The Lukaszewski Group, Inc., a management communication consulting company based in White Plains, New York.)

Tell stories for a purpose

A story should have a reason for being told. And the reason — a lesson, moral, objective — should be obvious to the audience. One of the fastest ways to turn off a business audience is by telling pointless stories.

Tell stories about people

Face it, human beings are a narcissistic species — they like to hear stories about themselves. So if your story involves people, it gets attention. And if you can talk about people familiar to the audience, such as other industry members, even better. Here's the uncommon knowledge: If you can't talk about real individuals, talk about hypothetical people. Use names. Personify your stories. Jim guarantees that this gets your audience involved.

Try out stories first

The first time to tell a story shouldn't be when you're standing at a podium addressing your audience. You need to know how the story works. Try stories on your friends, neighbors, colleagues, and anyone willing to listen. Theoretically, the story will get better every time. By the time you use the story in a presentation, you should have a polished gem.