The Undeniable Power of Business Storytelling | Khushboo Nangalia | TEDxAPUKL

so good afternoon everyone are we ready to hear about some storytelling superb so ok can someone help me with the clicker yeah okay perfect yeah so a Steve Jobs said the most powerful person in the world is a storyteller and if you don't believe him it's completely okay you don't have to agree to what I say but let's walk together for the next few minutes and see if we can establish it but as we do how about we do a small exercise I'm sure you people are great you can support me here it's just a short one I'm gonna throw a sentence on the screen and all you need to do is count the number of F in it that's all don't tell it to everyone just keep it to yourself here it is I'm just gonna give you a few seconds three two one so how many of you got three F with raise of hands I see few hands that's nice how about four okay whew you're out there five by any chance and six yes there are six F what's that two letter word that most of you missed off and that happens zero because a subconscious mind tends to ignore the obvious and that's what we did here we ignore the obvious off as we get into business storytelling wanna tell something about myself I love defragmenting things and that's what I did with my talk I have defragmented it into three core heads why how when why we should tell stories how can we tell those powerful stories and then should we do that let's jump into why why should we tell stories but as I go with the why I want to share a story with you a story of a young Russian women she walks into the bar in Berlin and I'm talking about the year 1920 and as she walks into the bar she's going to make an observation an observation which has changed the way we look at stories today also to share a little bit about her at that point of time in 1920s she's doing her PhD in a field which which is very new and that's psychology ok I like this you let me show how you all are looking yes stories grab attention and that's what I did just now it did grab your attention and you did look like this cat yeah stories are also memorable you remember the time when your grandparents or your parents read you stories when you were kids most of you do and we still remember those stories that's because of the power of story they are memorable but only with attention and memorable business doesn't work we want more from stories we want stories to persuade specially in the world which has so much of noise around us as soon as we step out of our house or even if we pick up our cell phones we are targeted with ads everyone is trying to sell us something and if we successfully make that purchase then there's an exchange that takes place and both the parties gain out of it but imagine a situation what happens to the NGO they don't have anything to give all they want is raise funds so I'm sharing with you a story of an NGO Save the Children a world-renowned NGO which works two words for the betterment of children and they wanted to raise funds in Africa so what they did was they came up with two versions of ads in the first version they talked about the stats the magnitude of problem that the children in Africa were facing however in the second word they talked about the magnitude but they also talked about the story the story of little girl whose name was Rukia and she comes from Mali and she was suffering from severe hunger disease what we found was the audience's who were exposed to the story had donated double to that of the ones who were exposed to the stat side so we know that the stories grab attention they are memorable and they persuade action that's what we businesses and brands need we want our audiences to listen to us to remember us and act when we want them to and that's the reason why we should tell stories let's talk about the how how should we tell stories as I jump into the how I'm going to share a video with you a video which when you take a look you might feel this has nothing to do with business why is she showing me this video but let's look at it with business lenses it has a story to share and can teach our good business lessons so here it is can you help me play the video [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] what did you do to my same I brought the same but different words thank you [Music] so that's the power we see a man and he has some business issues what we do is he lay forward a elevator pitch a pitch a business message which doesn't seems to be working and that's when the lady comes in writes the same message but in a different way and magic happens with the short video we can derive four key principles that can help us curate stories which changes the way we present our brands and businesses to the audiences the first one and the most important one is stories speak to emotions we know we have two sides of the brain one the emotional side whereas the other is the practical side and decision scientists are studying especially for business leaders from which side do we people make decisions when given scenarios with options and alternatives and what they found was beside with emotions predominates we take decisions with emotion and then back it with rationale so if we want to win our audience we know stories connect with emotions and that's how we can get their attention so emotions second establish a connection with your audience build a common ground and that's very important it's very interesting to see the man in his business when he's laying down his pitch he starts with I I am blind but that's not a great position to start your pitch with and I have seen this with lot of corporate stories still sail story and even to say product pitches they talk about this is my product this is what I have done this is what I can do and that's not how you can present a perfect elevator pitch instead because what happens is when you talk about I you're assuming a situation where what's interesting to I is also interesting to you but the lady doesn't make that assumption she go here a heads and stab let's a common ground it's a beautiful day and yes it's a beautiful day so as soon as she gets her audiences to nod their head in agreement she's in a powerful position to sell them something so third and the most important one the power of contrast all storytellers have it in their stories the power of contrasts whether consciously or intuitively they have it because we always compare the good with the bad the rich with the poor and that's how the interest comes in specifically when you're launching any new product you can bring this power of contrast very easily what we are right now - what we can be - what it is - what it can be we can compare the two worlds rather than just limiting ourselves with that problem and the solution words you know we need to think beyond when we are launching new products and that's what happened here the man was what we saw him he was acting or he was operating from a point of view of sympathy I am in a sorry state I need someone to help me whereas the lady was operating from a place of empathy she tried to connect with people and she made them feel good about them by saying you don't have enough time to even pause and feel you have eyes you can see and the man cannot so that contrast is implied in the pitch by the man but it's explicit when the lady presents it so that's the power of contrast last but not the least the definition of story is truth well told and I completely agree with it if your story comes from a point which is falsehood knowing that the shelf life of your story is going to be very short and businesses can't afford it so it has to come from a point of truth but we see in this case the man is putting across the truth he is blind he once helped but that's not working so how you present your truth is also very important and that's why we combine the truth with well told the well told is how you present yourself how you articulate your story what's the contrast what's the metaphor behind it as we say not what we say only matters but how we do it makes all the difference so that's the four key principles you can use while you're creating your next stories the powerful and the impactful one for the businesses let's jump into when now when should we tell those stories as I walk towards when let me ask do you remember the story I shared while I started my talk the the story of the young lady who walks into the bar do you remember which year was it or where was it placed you do right why do you remember it it's not gonna be new anything I've got no goodies for you but you do maybe because I haven't told you her name or maybe because I haven't told you the observation she made at the bar before leaving her name is Bluma Zeigarnik and the observation she made at the bar was the waiters used to walk to the table table in large groups and used to remember the order each and every order but only until they were paid as the payment was done they used to forget about it and that's where she found psychic effect and effect which helps us to remember things which are unfinished and that's what story does stories makes us remember things which are unfinished because as its unfolds its unfinished and I love to call it cliff hanging because story makes me feel that I'm hanging from the cliff don't know what's gonna happen next and those are the best stories so when do we tell these stories when we have our audience's attention and we are ready with our contrasts finally we must be ready to cliff hang them so yes that's when we tell our stories so ladies and gentlemen as I create stories this is to code things that I always keep in mind we have data but we also have noise and how do we reduce the noise stories thank you so much thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 50,488

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Business, Marketing

Id: CabbUUrjFck

Length: 15min 2sec (902 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 13 2018