Esther K. Choy's Blog

The shrinking attention span is an urban myth... well, almost one. Here's why. Attention is all about individuals and what interests them. “People can and do focus their attention well when they want to and are interested in a particular task or activity,” says Dr. Gemma Briggs, senior lecturer in psychology at The Open University, who notes that psychologists don’t consider “average attention span” to be a very meaningful concept.This means there's good news and bad news for speakers who want to catch their audience’s attention. The good news is that your audience’s attention isn't as elusive as others might have you think. In fact, it's at your fingertips, if you want it and if you're willing to work for it.The bad news is that you do have to work for it. Are you willing? There is no magical formula here. Gaining and retaining your audience’s attention requires thinking differently. The status quo just doesn't work.Attention span is highly context based. Briggs says that how a person applies attention to different tasks depends on what that individual brings to the particular situation. What task are they trying to complete? What is their previous experience with similar tasks? What else are they trying to accomplish at the same time? These are factors Briggs says can change audience’s attention levels.For instance, while listening to a keynote speaker, an audience member might be trying to grasp a concept that they hope will change their life. Likely they’ve attended other keynotes in the past--some that have revolutionized their thinking, some that left them flat. While listening to the current keynote, they may also be trying to decide which session to attend next, wondering if they remembered to bring their hotel key or worrying about who they will eat dinner with. All of this factors into their ability to focus their attention.Know your audience’s script. Briggs explains that we all have “cognitive rules of thumb, or scripts” for situations. She uses going to a restaurant as an example--”we have a script for what will happen: sit down, get a menu, order, get your meal” and so forth.“When we know what to expect,” says Briggs, “we may pay less attention as less cognitive effort is required.” She theorizes that “if you put people in a situation which deviates from the norm for that particular task, and you ensure that they aren’t multitasking, you could in theory encourage people to apply more attention to the task.”For example, what is your audience’s script for attending a presentation? A colleague of mine remembers showing up to an astronomy class where for the first few minutes, no professor showed up. Then, all of a sudden, someone in the third row started talking, raising questions about astronomy. It was the professor! He was sitting in the middle of the class, starting his lecture from his seat! The simple act of changing the script immediately caught the attention of a hundred undergraduates.Briggs stresses that each person will differ in what they bring to the situation and how much attention they apply--so flipping the script may be effective for some and not others.Aim for the “Flow State.”Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the first psychologist to study flow state describes it as being so totally engrossed in the task at hand that we feel our “existence is temporarily suspended,” says Csikszentmihalyi. It’s the state of mind that makes video gamers lose track of time. It’s what many people feel while competing in a favorite sport, playing an instrument, designing a new product, reading a good book or doing other challenging things that they love.So how do you catch the audience’s attention, keep it and ensure that they are learning throughout your presentation? Here are three tips.1. Remember that speaking and giving presentations isn't about you the speaker, how much you know or how awesome you are.“Many speakers think that the goal is to prove that the speaker knows their stuff,” says Dr. Steven M. Smith, professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Texas A&M, “but the real goal is to get a clear message across. Audiences remember only a few things from any talk, so the speaker needs to know exactly what those few things are, and present them with as little distraction as possible.”What are some possibly counterproductive distractions? It boils down to irrelevant information. Smith cites “having too many words on the screen, having cute but irrelevant things on the screen and funny but irrelevant jokes.”2. Rinse and repeat. Find ways to repeat key terms in a non-patronizing way. “Telling people something only one time,” says Smith, “especially the meaning of an important term or an acronym, does not mean that the audience will remember it for the rest of the presentation. If someone misses the original explanation, or forgets it 30 seconds later, they can be totally lost. Use frequent reminders!”3. Check for understanding.Has your audience really heard your message? Yes? You're sure? Well, there's a difference between hearing and understanding. So find out if they have understood or were just smiling and nodding.“Check in now and then with the audience,” Smith advises. “Ask a question, ask for a show of hands, to see if they get what you said. A risky, but potentially effective strategy is to make a relevant joke that can be understood only if the audience gets the point -- no laughs shows that they didn't get it (or that you aren't as funny as you thought you were).”Preparing to address an audience always involves a heavy investment of time and thought. The good news is that you can walk into the room confident that your audience can be persuaded to pay attention. It just takes a strong commitment to shifting from your perspective to theirs, remembering that the main goal is to facilitate their learning.Read the full interview transcripts with Dr. Gemma Briggs and Dr. Steven M. Smith here.Related Articles3 Ways Neuromarketing And Leadership Storytelling Help You Captivate AudiencesAttention, Memory and Retention: Q&A with Psychologists Gemma Briggs and Steven M. SmithDon’t miss out on your next opportunity to gain and retain your audience’s attention. Contact us for business storytelling training! Leadership Story Lab trains and coaches managers in storytelling techniques to help them become more engaging and persuasive communicators. Whether you would like to stand out in the interview process, add punch to a presentation, or make a compelling case for a new initiative, we can help. Schedule a working session with us today!Esther’s book, Let the Story Do the Work (published by HarperCollins Leadership), is now available!Photo credit: Photo by Stefan Cosma on Unsplash

Our conversation with Dr. Gemma Briggs, senior lecturer in psychology at The Open University:1. In the “Busting the Attention Span Myth” article on BBC, you argue that attention spans are not getting shorter, and that the idea of an “average” attention span is not meaningful. Is this good news for public speakers?Yes, the notion of an average attention span isn’t very meaningful for psychologists, largely because how we apply our attention is affected by many different factors, including what the task we’re trying to complete is, what our previous experience is with similar tasks and what else we’re trying to do. People can and do focus their attention well when they want to and are interested in a particular task or activity. Although there are more distractions available to us now that doesn’t mean we are unable to pay attention to something of interest. In terms of public speaking, this means a speaker who can capture the attention of an audience, via whatever method, needs to work to retain their attention throughout the talk.2. You mentioned that how we apply attention to different tasks depends on what the individual brings to the particular situation. What might this mean for public speakers? For instance, are there ways they can encourage their audience to apply greater attention to the task at hand?The individual experiences of people can directly shape how they perceive and interact with the world. This in turn can affect what captures and retains someone’s attention. This means that although collectively an audience can get a general message from a talk, the individual experience still remains somewhat unique. Speakers might find ways to personalise a talk by asking audience members to think about a particular personal situation or memory, and use that as a basis for explaining over arching concepts. Ultimately though, the decision to fully apply attention in any context is in the hands of each individual.3. You noted that “expectations and our experience directly mould what we see and how we process information in any given time.” Does challenging those expectations lead to greater ability to process information? Are there ways you’ve seen this done effectively?I’ve touched on this above, but by expectations I’m referring to cognitive rules of thumb, or scripts, that we all have for certain situations. These act as shortcuts for how we perceive and apply attention (e.g. when going to a restaurant, we have a script for what will happen: sit down, get a menu, order, get your meal, etc.) When we know what to expect, we may pay less attention as less cognitive effort is required. This works well in everyday life, but when we try to dual task we can over-rely on these kind of shortcuts/expectations to the extent that we fail to notice things around us. So the notion of challenging expectations means something different here. However, if you put people in a situation which deviates from the norm for that particular task, and you ensure that they aren’t multitasking, you could in theory encourage people to apply more attention to the task. That comes with the caveat of individual differences, touched upon in question 2 though.4. You’ve done a great deal of work on dual tasking. Could you sum up why dual tasking is problematic?This really depends on what the two tasks are! My research into phone use while driving shows that the tasks of a hands-free phone conversation and driving actually require some common attentional resources. This is because speaking with someone on the phone causes you to picture where they are, what their saying and what they’re doing. These mental images draw on mental resources which are needed for accurate visual perception of the driving scene. So in this case, the problem is that there is competition for shared attentional resources in the brain. As with most competitions, there’s usually a winner. If the phone conversation ‘wins’ the resources, driving performance quickly deteriorates, leading to serious consequences. There’s no universal explanation for why dual tasking may be problematic as it all depends on which tasks an individual is attempting to complete.Our conversation with Dr. Steven M. Smith, professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Texas A&M:1. For audiences listening to a public speaker, what factors are working against memory and retention--especially factors that might not even occur to the speaker? Hindsight bias, sometimes referred to as “the curse of knowledge,” is the biggest problem. That is, the speaker knows this term or that concept, and so they unconsciously assume the audience knows it, too. Another big problem is that telling people something only one time, especially the meaning of an important term or an acronym, does not mean that the audience will remember it for the rest of the presentation. If someone misses the original explanation, or forgets it 30-seconds later, they can be totally lost. Use frequent reminders! 2. What would you change if you could alter one thing about the way most public speakers deliver their messages (thereby helping audiences learn and remember better)? Many speakers think that the goal is to prove that the speaker knows their stuff, but the real goal is to get a clear message across. Audiences remember only a few things from any talk, so the speaker needs to know exactly what those few things are, and present them with as little distraction as possible. Counterproductive distractions include having too many words on the screen, having cute but irrelevant things on the screen, and funny but irrelevant jokes. 3. What do speakers have to do to make sure that audiences not only hear them, but actually understand the messages? What can speakers do to help audience's memory that have nothing to do with speaking? (Body language, engaging the other four senses, etc.) Check in now and then with the audience - ask a question, ask for a show of hands, to see if they get what you said. A risky, but potentially effective strategy is to make a relevant joke that can be understood only if the audience gets the point -- no laughs shows that they didn't get it (or that you aren't as funny as you thought you were). 4. Speakers are so often limited to delivering a speech or workshop in only one space. But are there ways you’ve seen them creatively multiply the number of contexts for learning? (Maybe follow-up work?) How do your findings about the role of context influence the way you teach and speak? Knowing something independently from a single context is how we acquire knowledge that is generally useful. That requires understanding the same idea in varied contexts. I try to bring up ideas that are similar to the ideas I am trying to get across, things that audience members may know from other contexts. For students, I bring up and highlight concepts they should have gotten from previous classes, but I assume they have mostly forgotten those concepts, so I provide plenty of helpful reminders about their prior learning. Similarly, when you teach concept X, have the audience imagine X in other contexts, to help them generalize that knowledge beyond the classroom or workshop context.Related ArticlesYou might be making these big mistakes in your marketing. Advice from an award-winning filmmaker will help you avoid them.5 Quotes That Teach You Everything You Need To Know About Leadership StorytellingDon’t miss out on your next opportunity to tell a story and intrigue and delight your audiences. Contact us for leadership storytelling training! Leadership Story Lab trains and coaches managers in storytelling techniques to help them become more engaging and persuasive communicators. Whether you would like to stand out in the interview process, add punch to a presentation, or make a compelling case for a new initiative, we can help. Schedule a working session with us today!Esther’s book, Let the Story Do the Work (published by HarperCollins Leadership), is now available!Photo credit: AbsolutVision on Unsplash

In 2015, when my daughters were six and three, I jotted down the following story:Tonight the girls are trying to go to sleep, with Dad keeping them company in the rocking chair. All of a sudden Alina sits up on her bed and begins a dramatic episode of ‘I’m-too-scared-to-sleep.’ Then, Melia [her younger sister] lifts herself halfway up and tries to comfort her older sister. She says, ‘If you wake up in the middle of the night and you are scared, it’s okay if you go to Mom and Dad, I will be okay here by myself.’ What a brave thing for a barely three-year-old child to say!Children love hearing stories about themselves, so I share this story with my two daughters, knowing that the stories I select can help shape their identities. As a leadership storyteller, I help leaders build relationships, credibility and impact via stories. That includes leaders’ impact and relationships at home, where many of us are raising the next generation of leaders.Storytelling is foundational to the survival and resilience of families. In fact, the research of author Bruce Feiler has shown that understanding and conveying your family’s narrative may be the single best way to strengthen your family.When we bring up the past, the selection of stories is intentional: there's something we want to highlight that we want others to remember and repeat. So, when my daughters fight as siblings inevitably do, I can remind them of the time Melia was so thoughtful and protective of her older sister that she was willing to subject herself to the horror of staying in her room by herself (a frightful thing, apparently) if it meant her sister received comfort and reassurance. And I can remind Melia of the bravery she has demonstrated from such a young age. She has a well of resources to draw from for any obstacles she faces in life! I can turn my daughters’ experience into a story that is shaping their identity, relationships and future.Shaping of values and identity isn’t the only reason to tell stories in the home, though.Here are three more:Children are more resilient when they know the challenges their ancestors have overcome. Studies have shown higher self-esteem and a more accurate self-image among preteens whose families discuss both family history and everyday events. The findings of psychologist Marshall Duke confirm this. He asked children 20 questions about their families, and then had them complete a series of psychological tests. “The more children knew about their family’s history,” writes Feiler, describing Duke’s experiment, “the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned.”Your kids become better storytellers. We know that storytelling is a top skill in the workplace. And it turns out that when parents model good storytelling for their preschool age children, those kids go on to tell more complete narratives of their own a year or two later!You get to practice! An added perk of telling stories to your kids is that you get to test out storytelling techniques. Most importantly, you get to think from the perspective of someone who is different from you, so you learn how to craft messages for diverse audiences.Of course, all of us can brush up on our storytelling skills, both in the home and in the workplace. Here’s how.Make space. Dinner time, weekend breakfasts, walks to the park, the drive to sports practice… all are opportunities to make storytelling part of the routine.Know what they like. Sometimes we hesitate to tell stories because it’s hard to think of them. Having tried-and-true categories helps. My kids, for instance, love to hear stories about times when they said or did something funny. Maybe they’re both aspiring comedians like their mom. Other known favorites for kids include stories about their birth or early years, or your own school days. Stories that especially build emotional resilience include tales of redemption or transformation, and an “oscillating” family narrative that shows that even though the family has had ups and downs, they’ve weathered them.Let them interrupt! Interjections help your kids take part in building the family narrative and develop their own perspective on events.Collect their stories. My story of Melia’s bravery could so easily have slipped away, as so many parenting memories do. Taking the time to write it down adds it to the library of family stories that can instill values, shape their identity and strengthen the family overall. Here are five resources for capturing family stories.Mothers can play a central role as bearers of stories. Mother’s Day is chance for families to reflect on storytelling's role in preparing the next generation for success.Related ArticlesTelling Family Stories. Why Capturing And Sharing Your Collective Memories MatterTelling Family Stories, Part II: Collecting The Stories You HearWe can help you tell and capture family stories, especially if you are in a family enterprise. Contact us for leadership storytelling training! Leadership Story Lab trains and coaches managers in storytelling techniques to help them become more engaging and persuasive communicators. Whether you would like to stand out in the interview process, add punch to a presentation, or make a compelling case for a new initiative, we can help. Schedule a working session with us today!Esther’s book, Let the Story Do the Work (published by HarperCollins Leadership), is now available!Photo credit: Photo by Jhon David on Unsplash

In my last post, I mentioned that while interviewing MBA candidates, I saw how their efforts to prepare often backfired. Preparation made them cling to their rehearsed answers, rather than listening closely to what I was truly asking, and answering in an authentic, informed way.Thankfully, there are tools for connecting authentically with your interviewer and going beyond simply rehashing what you’ve prepared.Tools for ConnectingHave you ever watched kids build forts, castles or cabins out of simple materials? All they need is a pile of plastic poles and a few handfuls of connector pieces. With these tools in front of them, the output is only limited by their imagination.This simple combination is a good metaphor for persuasion. You have piles of stories. After all, you’re sitting on a goldmine called “life.” And since the person you’re trying to persuade is also sitting on a goldmine of their own, they also have an abundance of stories.Persuasion is what allows you to connect your story with theirs. It’s like the connector pieces kids use for their imaginative building projects. Without the connector pieces, there is no structure and no bonding agent. But if you can find that magical mechanism that locks your story together with other people’s, you can begin to persuade them--whether they are a hiring manager, prospective client, employee, colleague or anyone else you want to join your cause.Finding that “lock” that authentically intersects your story with someone else’s is what makes persuasion happen. It enables you to establish rapport, build relationships, and earn trust from your audience so that they see you as truly in the same tribe.Four Steps For Finding Connection1. Mine Your Audience’s Stories. The first step is always to consider your audience’s stories. Invest time in getting to know your audience. You can do this through casual conversation, or if you’re giving a formal presentation or workshop, consider what you can accomplish through preliminary surveys or prep work. Listening to the audience’s stories made the difference for my client Margaret Page when she was campaigning to be the 2nd Vice President of Toastmasters, a position that could set her on the path to become the organization’s president. She called 500 Toastmasters members from all around the world to hear their stories of how Toastmasters had made a difference for them. Her listening paid off: Page won the campaign and is now on the path to climb to the top of a renowned international organization. When you want to ask the right questions to elicit stories in a conversation, these Crazy Good Questions inspire reflection and storytelling.2. Find The Concept Behind The Story. Based on the specific events, time periods, plots and characters that your audience communicates in their stories, what ideas are important to them? For example, when someone is struggling with whether to join the family business or strike out on her own, she could really be trying to find her professional identity. When someone is trying to fend off a market threat from a major competitor, he could actually be struggling to innovate within his company. Find the high-level concept behind each story you mine.3. Choose A Intersecting Story From Your Own “Story Library.” Consider the stories from your own life. Which ones will best resonate with the concept the person is talking about? It does not have to be an identical story. For instance, it could simply be a thoughtful story about a time when you struggled to find your own professional identity.Time It Right.Timing is everything. When should you introduce your story? You don’t want to come across as trying to tell a better story than the one just told. Nor do you want to shift the focus to yourself. And if someone happens to share a sensitive story--an experience of discrimination, trauma or grief--don’t search for an intersecting story at all. Simply listen well and affirm what they are sharing.There are three phases for telling an intersecting story:First, fully acknowledge that you've heard their stories and that you empathize.Second, when the opportunity presents itself, share your stories that intersect with theirs on a conceptual level. It doesn’t have to be immediately following their story. Remember to fully acknowledge that you’ve heard and empathize with their story first.Third, together, imagine a future story that captures yours and theirs. You could preface this with a phrase like, “What would it look like to…?” or “Based on our shared interests, what if we….?”As Margaret Page listened to the 500 Toastmasters members, she carved out time to listen. The whole first part of the call was devoted to listening. She followed this up with time to share her own intersecting stories.4. Keep Building Your Story Library. In order to find intersecting stories, fill your own “story library” with good stories. Reflect on your own life experiences and shape them into brief stories that you feel prepared to tell at a moment’s notice. One simple way to do this is to take out those Crazy Good Questions and use them to reflect on your own experience.When you find intersecting stories, you can begin to build countless good things with the people you’ve authentically persuaded to join you.Related Articles5 Quotes to Get You Inspired To Engage Your Audience3 Business Storytelling Opportunities You’re Probably Missing Out OnAll About the Audience: Seeing From Your Audience’s Point of ViewDon’t miss out on your next opportunity to connect authentically with your audience. Contact us for business storytelling training! Leadership Story Lab trains and coaches managers in storytelling techniques to help them become more engaging and persuasive communicators. Whether you would like to stand out in the interview process, add punch to a presentation, or make a compelling case for a new initiative, we can help. Schedule a working session with us today!Esther’s book, Let the Story Do the Work (published by HarperCollins Leadership), is now available!Photo credit: Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Last time you had a job interview, what lengths did you go to in order to prepare? Bonus points if your prep included buying new clothes or hiring a coach!When we want to land a new job we’re excited about, we try to plan the details. But do those details include preparing to demonstrate our character? The thing is, credentials aren’t enough to make us stand out when the pressure is on. They too easily blend in with what the interviewer has just heard everybody else say. If you emphasize your character, on the other hand, you can give the interviewer an idea of what it would be like to work with you.Therefore, it is absolutely vital to highlight our character when we need to convince someone to choose us over the competition.Bad news: Most people don’t do this well. Good news: There are two easy ways to improve.Improvement tip 1: Get Ready to Tell about Your Character.Do this before the interview. Take out a piece of paper and write down your top five strongest character traits. Maybe you are known for your empathy, grit, fairness, optimism or curiosity. List these, and then plan to repeat them at strategic points during the interview.In other words, tell the interviewer exactly what your strongest traits are. Don’t just drop hints. Don’t just tell a story and leave the interviewers to form their own conclusions. Tell them who you are.Now... if you’ve had a chance to absorb some storytelling lessons so far in your career, right now you might be thinking, “what about ‘show don’t tell’? Shouldn’t I be showing the listeners my character instead of just telling them?”I’d say the adage should really be “tell AND show,” instead of “show don’t tell,” because both are important and work together. Tell the interviewer what your top strengths are. But don’t stop there.Improvement tip 2: Get Ready to Show Your Character.When it comes to illustrating your character, evocative descriptions, dialogue and brief stories are all excellent tools to deploy. Here are examples of each category.Evocative description: “I love to read so much that I read even while blow-drying my hair.”This isn’t a story, per se, but it sure tells us a lot about this person! When one of my clients shared this detail, all of a sudden, I could see what being an avid reader really meant to her.Dialogue: “It’s always been important for me to be authentic on the job. Recently a student in my executive education program said to me, ‘I appreciate what you do. But more importantly to me, I think one day you’re going to be an awesome grandmother! Look at that mischievous smile.’ That student’s comment made me realize that I was bringing my full self to work, mischievous smile and all.”This isn’t a fully developed story, either, but when a student of mine mentioned my mischievous smile, I knew she had shown me something about my character. And if I chose to relay what the student said, it would be engaging because the dialogue shows an exchange between two characters: student and teacher.Brief story: What do you do when you see a horse galloping down a main street with lots of pedestrians? That’s exactly what most people who witnessed this happening one spring day were asking themselves: “what do we do??” The cars were stopped, people were looking at each other—no one knew what to do. Then the horse ran around a corner where one of my clients was standing. She was afraid, but felt like she needed to do something despite her fear, so she stepped into the middle of the street and grabbed the horse’s bridle.When my client shared this story in a job interview, it was in response to the question, “can you really execute an idea?” She told this story to show that when no one else was taking action, she did what needed to be done--despite her fear. The story showed that she could be the one to put an idea into practice and take action. She got the job.Go back to the five character traits you jotted down. For each, come up with two or three ways to show your character: perhaps an evocative description, a snippet of dialogue, or a brief story.But be aware... the most earnest preparation can easily backfire. When you’ve spent so much time preparing, the temptation is always to get your message out at all costs! Instead, be sure to slow down and listen to what your interviewers are really asking you, and answer in an authentic, informed way.When I used to spend days doing back-to-back, marathon interviews, I could tell the interviewees had prepared every last detail. That’s what made being an interviewer so draining. Many of the candidates were so well rehearsed they sounded robotic. (And yes, I could tell which ones had hired consultants to coach them!)Thankfully, there are tools for connecting authentically with your interviewer and going beyond simply rehashing what you’ve prepared. More on that next time....Related Articles5 Pitfalls To Avoid In Your Next Job Interview"I Had No Formulaic Answer!": Elizabeth Shares How a Story Made Her Stand Out and Got Her a JobPreparing for a job interview? Contact us for business storytelling training! Leadership Story Lab trains and coaches managers in storytelling techniques to help them become more engaging and persuasive communicators. Whether you would like to stand out in the interview process, add punch to a presentation, or make a compelling case for a new initiative, we can help. Schedule a working session with us today!Esther’s book, Let the Story Do the Work (published by HarperCollins Leadership), is now available!Photo credit: Amtec Photos via Twitter

For a few days about ten years ago, I felt like I was stuck inside a version of the movie Groundhog Day. Except instead of being in the sleepy little town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, I was in a Hilton hotel in downtown Seoul, South Korea. But I was experiencing a feeling of deja vu quite similar to what Bill Murray’s character goes through in the movie.I was spending eight hours interviewing business school applicants. And they had done everything “right.” Every last one of them had checked all the boxes of big, impressive accomplishments. All of them had dressed to impress and had clearly spent hours rehearsing.But doing everything “right” was actually part of the problem! After my first full day of interviewing, I left that downtown Hilton feeling like I hadn’t had the chance to actually meet any of them. In fact, I felt downright lonely, even though I'd just spent an entire day talking and listening!The interviewees had focused on their credentials and competence, and this made me like I was just having the same conversations over and over, hour after hour, for two days straight.If they had let themselves come out of their over-polished shell just a little bit—just enough to tell a story that illustrated their character—I would have taken special notice! In fact, as the interviewing progressed, a few applicants did do this, and I still remember their stories.Stories make a huge difference in job interviews. But people often avoid sharing them because they’re afraid they might do it wrong. It’s true; there are a few pitfalls you’ll want to be sure to avoid. But if you’re avoiding these top five mistakes, you can feel confident sharing your story.Pitfall 1: Oversharing.Most likely, your interviewer will ask you a question inviting you to reflect on a weakness or failure. A story can be appropriate here. Just choose wisely and then tell it with confidence. Choose a failure story that suggests that you lacked experience but not character. Never tell a story about treating a team member poorly, procrastinating or doing halfhearted work.When sharing any story, find the right level of vulnerability. I encourage clients to choose stories from the realm of “personal” but not “private.”Pitfall 2: Rambling.Keep your story short. Preferably under two or three minutes. Hook the interviewers’ interest within the first few seconds. And then be sure follow that with a clear statement of what your story is about.Use my IRS model to structure your story:I - Intriguing Beginning (30 seconds)R - Riveting Middle (1.5 minutes)S - Satisfying End (3 seconds)Pitfall 3: Limiting yourself to the role of “hero.”It’s easy to think you should be the hero of every story so you can prove your “fit.” But you have other options. Interesting stories can just as easily arise from your role as witness to a discovery or a beautiful transformation—or simply your role of friend.Pitfall 4: Forgetting the takeaway.What do you want the weary interviewer— who may have seen 14 other candidates before you— to remember? What’s the one thing you hope they’ll remember, even if they forget everything else? Build on this to create an unforgettable ending.Pitfall 5: Replaying the narrative after you leave the interview.You know how it goes after interviews. You tell yourself the story of the interview again and again, reading into every awkward pause, cough or smile.But this is the wrong narrative. Humans are notoriously bad at reading body language. So it’s important to stop rehashing the subtle clues we think we noticed during the interview. We need to stop telling ourselves that story.Here’s the story to tell yourself instead: “I did my best. Now I need to keep working.” Part of that work should be to send a heartfelt, personalized thank you note. Thank the interviewer for their time, and for a particular part of the interview experience that you appreciated. After writing thank you notes, do something else productive as you await the decision. Focus on a hobby. Tackle a new challenge. Call your mom.Ultimately, remember that interviewers are human too. Sure, they have some power over your future, but just like you, they want authentic connections, which means they need to understand who you are as a potential future colleague.Avoiding these five pitfalls will make the interview process more successful and enjoyable for you both. Preparing for a job interview? Contact us for business storytelling training! Leadership Story Lab trains and coaches managers in storytelling techniques to help them become more engaging and persuasive communicators. Whether you would like to stand out in the interview process, add punch to a presentation, or make a compelling case for a new initiative, we can help. Schedule a complimentary session with us today!Esther’s book, Let the Story Do the Work (published by HarperCollins Leadership), is now available!Photo credit: Amy Hirschi on UnsplashRelated ArticlesDon't Start With Your Credentials. Start With This Instead.Telling Your Story in Job Interviews: Esther speaks with the American Marketing AssociationHow Mastering the Art of Storytelling Can Lead to Your Next Great Job: Read Esther’s Interview with Monster.com

Three plots: Underdog/Rags-to-Riches, Overcoming the Monster, and Origins.Every person’s life is rich with material for stories. When it comes time to share some of these stories, it is helpful for listeners if we structure our stories in a well-organized manner. We can do this using the five basic plots that work best in business contexts. Whenever you choose one of these five plots, you elevate your presentation in three specific ways.1. Guiding the audience’s emotional response. Each type of plot evokes a different kind of emotion:Origin stories inspire curiosity about a brand, organization or leader’s origins. A well-told origin story satisfies the audience’s desire to connect the dots between past and present in an inspiring way.Overcoming the monster stories provoke righteous indignation.Rags to riches stories promote empathy.Quest stories instill a sense of restlessness as the audience wishes for quests of their own.Rebirth stories evoke optimism. They’re all about second chances.When you know what emotions each plot is likely to inspire, you don’t have to wonder, “How will my audience feel after my presentation?” You can guide and predict their emotions with greater accuracy.2. Improving your presentation’s structure. Has this ever happened to you? You sit down to narrate your story, and it just starts to feel chaotic as all of your memories begin to swirl around in your head? Life is complex. But if you can figure out how this story fits into one of the five basic plots, you can turn that complexity into a tale that is much easier to communicate.3. Eliminating superfluous details. Part of what makes storytelling difficult is that the more we reflect on our stories, the more details we find. Plot can keep your story on a straight path instead of entangled in the weeds of extraneous details.Convinced you should use one of the five basic plots? I’ll walk you through three of them here, and the other two can be found in my book Let the Story Do the Work.Origin StoriesYour “about us” section on your website, your pitchbooks, your networking conversations… all are opportunities to tell an origin story. People are naturally curious about how movements, causes or companies got started.It’s vital to learn how to tell these stories better. To get started, all you need is a simple template:Begin with the moment it all started.Narrate the moment the leader realized this idea was big enough to be a business (or beloved enough to be a life’s work).Mention the people who helped the leader launch their business or career.Introduce conflict: the initial problems and solutions (optional).Reflect on how the past has influenced the present. For instance, what has changed since the beginning, and what core values or visions have stayed the same?Here, I analyzed how two different origin stories work: one of these examples will be useful if you need to tell your company’s origin story, and the other will be helpful if you need to narrate your own career story.Rags to Riches / Underdog StoriesHonestly, not every leader should be telling a rags-to-riches story because not every leader had a rough start in life. When the top dogs characterize themselves as the underdogs, audiences will spot this lack of authenticity from a mile away.However, many leaders have had times when they’ve been underdogs. (Just think of Steve Jobs getting fired by Apple--the company he created! Suddenly, he’s the underdog.)To tell your rags-to-riches / underdog story, follow this simple template:Describe your current level of successNarrate where you were when your career/company/idea started, or go back to your childhood to give your audience examples of the adversity you experienced.Explore and explain the personal qualities that existed “back then” that carried you through, or people who intervened, or the lessons that guided you.Say how you got the chance that led to the riches or opportunityNarrate the setbacks and your response to themExplain when you started to feel like you had “made it.”Reflect on how the “rags” give you perspective on the “riches.”Here, I analyzed one of the most moving rags-to-riches stories I have heard lately: the story of Hazim Avdal. Be sure to read this if you need an example to inspire your own underdog story.Overcoming the Monster StoriesMany organizations have stories about helping to overcome seemingly intractable social problems. Still others have powerful examples of how their employees, founders or clients have looked a difficult personal situation in the eye and overcome it. These organizations are sitting on a goldmine! Their stories will inspire and motivate their customers, investors or donors.Here’s how organizations--maybe even yours--can craft their “overcoming the monster” stories:Set the scene and narrate a normal day in the life.Introduce the day everything changed and you were faced with an overwhelming challenge.Recount your initial reactions (lost, hurt, confused, did not want to deal with this challenge)Explain what (or who) convinced you to tackle this problem. Describe the moment you decided to embrace the challenge.Narrate the beginning of your journey.Describe your setbacks and rebounds, leading up to the final moment of confronting the monster once and for all.Reflect on what you learned from your battle with the monster.Connect to why this matters to your audience today.Here, I looked at how entrepreneur Isaac Lidsky tells his own “overcoming the monster” story--and what we can learn from the way he structures it.Hopefully these three templates will get you started on crafting the right leadership story to guide your audience’s emotions, solidify the story’s structure and eliminate extraneous detail.Related Articles3 Tricks to Stand Out From Your CompetitionA Very Good Place To Start: The Most Important Thing You Need in Your Founder’s StoryStep Into the Spotlight: How Introverts Can Become Inspiring StorytellersNeed some individualized input on crafting your story? Contact us for business storytelling training! Leadership Story Lab trains and coaches managers in storytelling techniques to help them become more engaging and persuasive communicators. Whether you would like to stand out in the interview process, add punch to a presentation, or make a compelling case for a new initiative, we can help. Schedule a complimentary session with us today.Esther’s book, Let the Story Do the Work (published by HarperCollins Leadership), is now available!Photo credits: Alligator eye, Samuel Scrimshaw via Unsplash; Sunrise, Rebecca Talbot; Rock climbing, Andreas Fidler via Unsplash.

At one very memorable Leadership Story Lab workshop a few years ago, a participant named Mary Johnson sat down to exchange stories with a partner. After they interviewed each other, the partner shared Mary’s story:When packing for a trip to Australia, you normally think of taking your swimsuit, sunglasses, and sunblock. However, for Mary, her most prized possession for the trip is a binder. The binder contains all the well-planned details of the trip – where to go, what to do, what time to do it and where to eat. She takes this step because the unknown can be scary.Even though Mary was once scared of the unknown in her career, others have encouraged her to accept talents she had been afraid to embrace. “Now,” said Mary’s interview partner, “Mary helps support low-income children at her organization by giving them planning tools to overcome their unknowns.”The most memorable moment in the workshop happened when Mary’s hiring manager, who was in the room when Mary’s partner shared this story, said: “Those characteristics are exactly why we hired you, it just took many interviews to figure it out.”I thought about how lucky Mary was that her hiring team stuck with her long enough to uncover those characteristics, finding out that Mary isn’t afraid of the unknown anymore, and not only that, she’s able to help others manage their unknowns. Mary is lucky—but imagine if she had walked into her first job interview and shared a story that revealed her character!This is the power of the “Paired Introduction” exercise we’ve developed at Leadership Story Lab. By spending just twenty minutes with a partner, our clients uncover the essentials of their character.Learning Each Other’s StoriesAt work, we tend to define “professional” as keeping others at arm’s-length and never disclosing much about our true character or what really matters to us. This means that we can work beside the same colleagues for years without getting to know what truly motivates them. And that’s a problem, because it means we aren’t building the kind of trust that comes from knowing why people do the things they do. That trust is at the core of all positive and productive relationships.The solution happens when people sit down together—be they complete strangers or long-time colleagues—and ask each other story-collecting questions. Their essential character begins to rise to the surface. I like to use this set of questions, called “Crazy Good Questions,” because they prompt people to share a story that is personal and authentic, but is not private.When people understand each other’s character through an exercise like this, things change. Here’s what I’ve seen:You manage conflict. You can never completely escape interpersonal clashes in the workplace, but you can certainly manage them. I’ve found that the best way to handle conflict is to understand my colleague’s stories. For example, someone I know is trying—under extreme time pressure—to get on the same page with his business partner. The partner’s family obligations make it tricky to schedule calls and meetings. Moreover, the fact that the partner is an exercise nut—exercising five times weekly— also makes scheduling difficult. But why does she exercise so frequently? Once the business partner can understand that, he knows the context for why she sticks to this routine. This is exactly the kind of information a story-collecting exercise can reveal, building trust and defusing conflict.You find undiscovered talents. You tell someone your story. They rework it and tell it back to you. That means you get to see how your story looks to somebody else. At a recent Leadership Story Lab workshop, for instance, a client shared about a kindergarten experience—a time when she’d confronted a group of sixth graders. She’d always framed it as an example of standing up for herself. But when her partner interviewed her and re-told the story, it became, instead, a story of “courageous problem-solving.” From her partner’s view, the client had strategized, recruited allies (her friends and even the kindergarten teacher) and then bravely stood up to a group of kids twice her age and size! She’d done much more than stand up for her own rights. It was an example of fearless problem solving.You grow. When I needed to rewrite my bio, I decided to call up a colleague and have her interview me and write about me from her perspective—as Mary Johnson’s partner had done for her. This process helped me remember that I used to hate my Chinese name. Until that moment, I had not realized that this name said a great deal about who I am and how far my parents hoped I would go in life. The name they chose revealed that they always believed in me 100%. This is the kind of realization that can lead to personal and professional growth.Finding and telling other people’s stories is useful for teambuilding, networking, introducing a keynote speaker, or—as I found—revamping your bio. But underneath those purposes is a quest for something that is too often neglected in the business world: understanding other people in a meaningful way.Need to learn more about what motivates your team? Want to explore the best ways to reveal your own character as you lead? Contact us for business storytelling training! Leadership Story Lab trains and coaches managers in storytelling techniques to help them become more engaging and persuasive communicators. Whether you would like to stand out in the interview process, add punch to a presentation, or make a compelling case for a new initiative, we can help. Schedule a complimentary session with us today!Esther’s book, Let the Story Do the Work (published by HarperCollins Leadership), is now available!Photo credit: Mimi Thian on Unsplash

A 2018 Gallup poll made a strong connection between an increase in employee engagement and “recognition received for work accomplishments.” Employee engagement is as high it has ever been since Gallup started tracking it in 2000--yet it is still just 34%. This makes it likely that a large portion of any organization’s workforce could stand to be more engaged—including yours!Storytelling has the power to bring about this engagement by letting people know their contributions matter. And we know people who are working to make that happen. We recently spoke with Dan Balzer, a participant in one of Leadership Story Lab’s online courses, who says that he has seen the effectiveness of storytelling first-hand as he has worked in retail with a multi-billion international conglomerate.Read Dan’s story.Don’t miss out on your next opportunity to use storytelling in your workplace. Contact us for business storytelling training! Leadership Story Lab trains and coaches managers in storytelling techniques to help them become more engaging and persuasive communicators. Whether you would like to stand out in the interview process, add punch to a presentation, or make a compelling case for a new initiative, we can help. Schedule a complimentary session with us today!Esther’s book, Let the Story Do the Work (published by HarperCollins Leadership), is now available!Photo credit: Dan Balzer

It’s tempting to think that telling stories is about us as the tellers. After all, the stories are usually taken from our life experience. But every story must connect with an audience. Every teller must actively and constantly engage their audience.Here are 5 quotes that give you a crash course on how to earn and keep your audience’s precious attention.Don’t miss out on your next opportunity to tell a story and intrigue and delight your audiences. Contact us for business storytelling training! Leadership Story Lab trains and coaches managers in storytelling techniques to help them become more engaging and persuasive communicators. Whether you would like to stand out in the interview process, add punch to a presentation, or make a compelling case for a new initiative, we can help. Schedule a complimentary session with us today!Esther’s book, Let the Story Do the Work (published by HarperCollins Leadership), is now available!Photo credit: Photo by Jessica Ruscelloon Unsplash