Our work provides us with the opportunity to observe many different storytelling styles that people use in business.  Regardless of age, gender, race, role or industry we have noticed four distinct storytelling styles in business.  We have placed these four styles into our  Storytelling Intelligence Model.  You have probably heard of Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Emotional Intelligence (EI), well let’s introduce SI to the party.

 

Your Story Intelligence is determined by two factors.  How purposeful you are with your stories and how engaging your stories are, and the four styles are…

 

The Avoider,  who tends to tell very long winded stories about themselves and their successes and with a focus on ‘the good old days’ or sport.   The Avoider’s stories are very low on engagement and there is no clarity around their purpose.   You probably know one or two Avoiders. These are the people who avoid learning the new way of storytelling and these are the people you probably want to avoid, especially when you are in a hurry!

The Joker tells lots of really funny, engaging stories which have either low or no purpose, except to make people laugh.  It’s an admirable aim in life but the Joker misses some amazing opportunities when it comes to storytelling in business.  The opportunity they miss is connecting their stories to a business purpose.

The Reporter is the most common style in business.  The Reporter’s stories tend to have lots of facts and figures and statistics in them.  They tend to use a lot of case studies, thinking they are stories and they tend to use a lot of business examples.  While the Reporter may have clarity on their purpose for the story, their stories are very low on engagement.

The Inspirer is crystal clear on their purpose in using and narrating stories stories and their stories are highly engaging. They achieve this high engagement with their stories because they are not afraid to share personal stories and they know exactly how they can connect a personal story with a business message.

This may be a case of stating the bleeding obvious but the Inspirer is where you should aim to be on the SI Model.   Regardless of where you are on the model our workshops are aimed at helping you become the most inspiring storyteller you can be.  They show you how to tell a story and give you lots of sparks for stories for storytelling

If you want to start inspiring people, contact us directly about an in-house workshop or check out our public workshops for 2013.  ONLY 2 scheduled for year so book early to secure your spot.

MELBOURNE –  23rd October 2013

SYDNEY – 21st August 2013