- a comprehensible reason (Reason Why)
- a motivating vision and
- people's confidence that they can follow the path they have chosen.
In addition to the messages, one thing is crucial: an authentic narrator. Storytelling has therefore been part of our work for a long time. Nevertheless, the topic was given a new boost by a customer workshop.
01 Once upon a time
We accompanied the retrospective of a management team in the innovation sector, which revealed the need for better communication skills. As technical experts and strategic thinkers, it is crucial for our clients to convince others of their own ideas. They usually have to deal with different target groups that need to be addressed differently. We got straight down to business and put together a one-day workshop. In addition to knowledge transfer and gamification, direct application to specific everyday situations was particularly important to us.
After a successful first implementation, the next team expressed interest. They wanted to use this workshop to improve their project communication. After a little modification, our two-day face-to-face workshop was born.
The rest, as they say, is history. We have used the coronavirus situation as a "call to adventure" and expanded our portfolio to include a number of digital storytelling offerings.
02 Why we need business storytelling
We have now held our various formats with over 400 participants. Our insight here is that everyone shares the "why" for storytelling. We want to convince and inspire people with ideas so that they want to become part of a shared success story. As Jorge Bucay said so well: "Children are told stories to put them to sleep - adults are told stories to wake them up".
Here are a few examples:
- A manager wants to introduce agile procedures and values into their team. She wants to use storytelling to create an understanding of agility and motivate employees to try it out.
- A strategy team wants to ensure that the new strategy is known within the company and provides alignment for all employees. With Storytelling Enabling, they want to support managers in conveying the messages clearly and giving them personal meaning.
- An HR development team wants to shake up colleagues in the business so that they continue to develop and learn new skills. Storytelling is used to illustrate the relevance and urgency of skill transformation and motivate them to take the first steps.
- An organizational unit wants to improve and promote internal international communication. Storytelling online impulses are used to raise awareness and curiosity and provide support for effective digital communication.
We are excited to see what other occasions for storytelling we will discover together with our customers - feel free to contact us and tell us about your occasion or "call to adventure". But perhaps you are still hesitant to answer the call and are asking yourself: Why can storytelling help in all these cases?
Strengthening our own powers of persuasion helps us in the short term in our day-to-day work, but also in the long term. We increase our impact on our team and our organization through greater communication effectiveness and improved motivation of our team members.
Ira Müller
Senior Consultant at CPC
03 What makes storytelling a wonder weapon
A small distinction can be useful here: for us, storytelling does not mean telling fantasy stories and opening the storybook in the management meeting. For us, it means not only conveying content - the facts and figures - but also taking the emotional level into account and acting as an authentic spokesperson.
Because all the effects that stories have for us only work if the listeners and viewers are willing to listen. It is therefore important to tailor the story to the respective target group. If this is successful, a few exciting mechanisms take effect that make stories such an effective element:
- Stories promote acceptance for their content: People love stories*. We can learn from them - without being taught.
- Stories promote optimal understanding: Stories offer familiar structures and patterns that make it easier to absorb and process content.
- Stories trigger emotions : Well-told stories are stored as personal experiences.
These three success factors - acceptance, understanding and emotion - are necessary in order to trigger more than just conviction or even enthusiasm in the audience. It is even more important that we can motivate people to stand up and join in. This is how we gain supporters for our cause.
04 Our storytelling formats: Digital and on site
Of course, developing and telling a convincing story requires a lot of practice. But the great thing is: we are surrounded by stories. Use cases and inspiration await us at every turn! And a great quote from Robin Moore says: "Inside each of us is a natural-born storyteller waiting to be released!" So let's not keep this inner storyteller waiting any longer - join us on our adventure!
Understanding and taking into account the target group and their expectations and needs of me as a speaker is the first step towards effective communication and an AHA experience for our participants.
Noema Löw
Senior Manager at CPC
What can you take away from our formats?
- Impulses and inspiration on the topic of communication
- Development of stories and communication tools for your specific use cases
- Various techniques, methods and examples of storytelling
- Get to know other storytellers, share experiences and have lots of fun
And that's what our customers say:
"Reaching my target group and communicating important messages effectively - storytelling helps me to do this. CPC's modularized training was very professional, interesting and fun! Noema - our trainer - shared her extensive knowledge, experience and numerous practical examples with us. She inspired and mobilized us to practice and get out of our comfort zone and habits. I can only recommend this format. Extremely helpful."
Julia, HR Business Partner
"As managers and experts, we have been trained for many years to have the facts ready and to argue logically. But especially in times of change, you have to bring yourself into play with every story you tell. This creates credibility and trust. We have offered this learning experience to many leaders in our organization and have been very happy with the great feedback. It really helps a lot of colleagues with their daily challenges."
Christine, HR Transformation Strategy & Projects
05 Our training portfolio
Classroom training
Our online training portfolio
Have we aroused your curiosity?
Contact us and book an initial consultation to discuss which product is right for you.
After contacting us via the form, one of our storytellers will get in touch with you to clarify details about the target group, use cases and organization. We look forward to hearing your stories and even more to writing them together with you!
Download: Business Storytelling
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