← Insights Unlocked
Insights Unlocked
Business storytelling with AI that drives clarity and trust with Gabrielle Dolan
00:37:20
Learn how business storytelling drives clarity, trust, and action. Gabrielle Dolan shares how to turn insights into impactful, authentic stories.
Loading summary
Transcript55 lines
- [00:02]
A
Welcome back to Insights Unlocked. In this episode, I'm joined by Raoul Dolan, a global expert on business storytelling and author of the recently published Story Intelligence. We explore how authentic stories, not just data, can help you communicate more clearly, build trust, and drive action. We also dig into how AI fits into storytelling and how to find and tell better stories in your work. Enjoy the show.
- [00:27]
B
Welcome to Insights Unlocked, an original podcast from User Testing where we bring you candid conversations and stories with the thinkers, doers and builders behind some of the most successful digital products and experiences in the world, from concept to execution.
- [00:46]
A
Welcome to the Insights Unlocked podcast. I'm Nathan Isaacs, Principal Content marketing manager at UserTesting, and our guest today is Gabriel Dolan. Gabriel is a global expert on business storytelling and the author of multiple books, including Story Intelligence the Craft of Authentic Storytelling Made Smarter with AI. She helps leaders and organizations communicate more effectively by using authentic stories to build trust, connect emotionally, and inspire action. Welcome to the show, Gabriel.
- [01:16]
C
Hi, Nathan. I'm excited to be here with you to talk all things storytelling.
- [01:21]
A
As I was saying in the introduction there, you're a leading voice on storytelling in business, but that was not where your career started. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey into this work and what made you realize that storytelling is such a powerful tool in business?
- [01:37]
C
Yeah, no, you're right. My career did not start there. In fact, my career started way back as a training mainframe computer operator. So that's, that's, that's showing my age. I'm not even sure if they have mainframe computer, opera computers anymore. So I did, I did start in technology back in the, you know, mid-80s and I worked in corporate Australia and it was, I was probably in corporate Australia for about 20 years. And it was in the last couple of years I had evolved into change management roles. So it was actually still in technology. So rolling out the technology to the, you know, business units, into the organization. And it was in those roles, in the capacity as a change manager and in leadership roles that I sort of started to experiment with storytelling. And I started to notice that the very good leaders were sharing stories, the brilliant presenters were sharing stories. So I started to experiment myself in those change management roles. And what I found is it tended to get the message across and people seemed to, I was better able to influence, you know, the change or the, you know, messages around the change. So it was about 21 years ago I decided that storytelling is a skill. It's a leadership skill, it's a communication skill, it's an influencing Skill. And because I've had a bit of experience in designing and delivering leadership programs, I sort of thought maybe, maybe I could teach people how to tell stories. And that was 21 years ago. It was a bit of an uphill battle way back then, but it'd be fair to say it's worked out the.
- [03:16]
A
And I, you know, like. And with all that, that's 20 years plus of working on this, tinkering on it and stuff like that. And that's led to this book, then.
- [03:25]
C
Yeah.
- [03:26]
A
And can you just tell us what is Story Intelligence?
- [03:30]
C
Yeah. So this is actually the eighth book I've written on, like, communication, storytelling. And my previous book was five years ago, and I was totally convinced that that would be my last book on storytelling. But what I found, Nathan, is, you know, this was about 18 months ago, and I would be running storytelling workshops, as I do, and I'd have more and more people ask me, will AI replace storytelling? And I was sort of horrified by the question. It was like, no, AI won't replace storytelling. But then I had people say, can you use AI to help with stories? And initially my reaction was like, no, that's cheating. You can't do that. That won't be real. But I thought I should experiment with it. And. And I realized that you could use AI. So hence. Hence the title of the book, Story Intelligence. The Craft of Authentic Storytelling Made Smarter with AI. Ultimately, it is still a storytelling book. So it. It is still ultimately a storytelling book. And the. I liked the title of it, Story Intelligence, because I think it linked quite nicely to emotional intelligence. But there was no definition of what Story Intelligence was, so I had to craft a definition. And what I came up with is the ability to purposefully and skillfully use authentic storytelling to communicate with clarity and to connect, engage, and inspire. And some people go, that's way too long of a description. I was like, whatever. But I think the key things here is purposefully and skillfully use storytelling, and it's gotta be authentic. And the whole reason we're doing it is to help us communicate with clarity, but actually to connect and engage and inspire, whether that's our employees or our customers or potential customers. That's what we're using storytelling for.
- [05:21]
A
The here at User Testing, we, you know, connect companies with their audiences to try and get custom customer feedback. We record those sessions, you know, there. These are think aloud. So as people engage with your product or service, whether it's online or even in real life, and those clips are then used. And there's real. What we found is that there's a lot of power in having those voices. And, and I think that gets at what you were just saying, the authenticity of it, right. Hearing your actual customers trying to do what you think they're going to do. And I'm just wondering, like, what advice do you have, you know, as for, for leaders, for people within their organizations who want to use storytelling to turn those sort of insights, those raw, that raw stuff, the antidotes you hear from the field or from customers support, how do you turn those into stories that will then later influence the organization?
- [06:17]
C
Yeah, that's a really powerful one. And your question around user testing brought me way back to, I was probably doing that 30 years ago, you know, getting it, getting in a room, getting people and they're doing things and you have to keep going. No, think out loud. We want to hear what you're thinking. So those, those insights are really powerful because can you imagine, a lot of the time what we do do is, you know, we do all this user testing and we'll, we'll draw data from that. It was like, you know, so 78% of users tested did this or whatever. Okay, which is fine. But the real powerful one, and this is, this could be leaders or it could be anyone saying in user testing there was one individual that, you know, they were doing the thing and they said, oh bloody hell, why don't they put that button there? It would make so much more sense. And that was the insight where we realized, yeah, like everyone else was doing it this way, but we needed to do it this way because it made the experience better. Now that one little raw, like you said, raw insights, authentic story is so much more powerful than 78%, you know, responded to it this way. It's just that one little story that, that is so powerful. And the insights from those user testing, they could be used, they could be used by leaders in the organization to drive the change, but they could also be used to, you know, customer facing staff to sell a product. I mean, how powerful would a story like that be when you, you know, you walk into a whatever and there's all these various products around and the service person is just telling you a little story like that that you sort of go, oh yeah, that makes sense. And the other cool thing that you, when you're hearing a story like that is like, wow, they've put a lot of thought and effort into this and it's all about the customer. But that story gives credibility around the message as opposed to, you know, we're all about Customer service. And we responded to blah, blah percent over whatever, you know.
- [08:25]
A
And as you're telling that, I'm reminded of a story I've been sharing on different interviews about how a customer. It turns out it's a great way I say, oh yeah, we connect big companies with their customers and they get insights and like, what does that really mean? And then I got into just telling the story of a, a company that stocks their product in big box stores. But it's a big box that their product comes in. And the way the stores always shelved it, they actually turned it on its side so the customers were not seeing that. And so once they had the customers going, like, why is nobody buying our product at Walmart or wherever we're going? It's because they're seeing only the side of the box, which is just a, you know, some print. And so they realize this and realize that, you know, the constraints of the, you know, the stores and stuff like that. So they move the front of their box, essentially, you know, all that beautiful artwork and design over to the side of the box where it's actually being seen now. And then all of a sudden, bam. You know, sales improved whatever percent. But it was, it was just that insight like, oh, we, we, we had all these people spending all this time and energy designing something to look really pretty. But when we actually saw how people were using, how it's out there in the world, we realized how we should be doing things differently. But it's a great, I'm thinking now there's. Obviously you would coach me to say, tell this, tell that story in a better way, Nathan. Yes, that's true. All my years, even when I was a journalist, trying to tell stories. But it's also a great way to just kind of tell the bigger story. Right. And show one little example to get to the bigger story.
- [10:12]
C
Yeah, and that's exactly what it is. That one tiny little example of what I was in a store and I watched a customer walk buy because they couldn't even see the whole product because we had the, you know, marketing. And it's just literally one story that could then change the whole design of something. So, yeah, it's, it's. People sort of think we need data, data, data. We need all this data. No, we need to do more testing. It's actually that one example. And people go, oh, that's pretty, pretty obvious, isn't it? And that's all it needs is one story. And the story gives it credibility. People, people aren't going, well, how many other People did that. It was just that one story works.
- [10:51]
A
The. And you can just think like, all the billions of dollars that was involved in that process. Right. And, and, and they're like, oh, why are sales flat there? Blah, blah. And you're like, oh, my gosh.
- [11:04]
C
Anyway, we sell more. I often. Nathan, a lot of people, organizations spend a lot of money on doing employee engagement surveys and they test everyone and want to find out what the culture's really like. And I. Why don't you just go and sit in the cafeteria or the canteen or what the equivalent and just listen to the stories going on. You'd be able to get a really good idea of what the culture's like by hearing a few stories around.
- [11:31]
A
Yeah. Or, you know, and how do you do that virtually? Right. If you're running a big corporation is. But you. There are ways to do that. You know, it really means making the time and not. Not having the all hands meeting. And then have everyone on screen say, well, all right, who has a question now?
- [11:52]
C
Any feedback? No.
- [11:54]
A
Any feedback? No, no, I don't want to be called out. I don't trust anybody here.
- [11:58]
C
It's genuinely like understanding that these are important and then making the time and then really, truly listening to what you're hearing.
- [12:07]
A
The something you mentioned in the book is this, you know, the curse of knowledge, where something feels obvious to us but isn't clear to our, our audience. Why is this such a common communication challenge for leaders? And how can storytelling help bridge that gap?
- [12:23]
C
Yeah, so the curse of knowledge is, is literally that, like, you once you know something, like, it seems really obvious to you and you explain it and like, you know, why don't they get it? I mean, anyone with kids has experienced this on a daily basis. Like, how many times do I have to tell you? There's. There's a great quote from George Bernard Shaw and he said the single biggest problem with communication is the, the illusion that has taken place. And this happens on a daily basis, whether it is with our kids or with at work, where, you know, people go, well, you never told us that. And you're going, you were at the meeting last week. We discussed this. Or this is the third email I've sent. So normally people get really frustrated by. And it is frustrating. I was like, why? Why don't they get it? They weren't listening. They weren't paying attention. But the reality is, if we are doing the communication, it is our job to help them get it. And if they're not getting it, we have to change the way we communicate and a story is really powerful. I might illustrate this with an example. So share a story. I did some work with a risk team. So it was the entire risk team and the head of risk, her name was Rosemary. And Rosemary said to me, one of the biggest challenges I have is that when I'm walking, working with the business units that I support and risk is raised, they sort of look at me and go, you're the risk manager, that's your job. And she said, it doesn't matter how many times I've told them, I cannot manage your own risk. I can only help you manage the risk. I can only provide the skills and advice for you to manage your risk. She said, I've given case study after case study, example after example of the benefits of managing your own risk. The consequences of not. She goes, nothing has worked. So she's really experiencing this curse of knowledge. Why don't they get it? She had tried everything except the personal story. And I think some of the most powerful stories are the non work related stories attached to a work message. The work stories absolutely still work. So let me share the story that she started to use to great effect and, and I'll ask you a few questions afterwards to, to help you experience, I guess, the power of story. So when I was a kid, I grew up on a farm and growing up in a farm, there was all these dangers we needed to be aware of, but Mum would teach us what to do. So we knew what to do when we came across redback spiders in the timber heat. We knew about all the potential traps in the dam after heavy rain and we knew what to do if we came across a snake in summer. And I remember this day, I was running down to get my bike from the front gate and then I just froze because in front of my bike was this massive copperhead snake. But I remembered everything Mum taught us to do. So I played statues and I slowly walked backwards until there was enough space between me and the snake and I ran back to the house to tell Mom. And I'm sharing this with you because it reminds me of the role we play in risk. All I can do is give you the skills, knowledge and advice. So when you come across your own copperhead snake, regardless of what that looks like, you will know what to do. So, Nathan, let me ask you a couple of questions. Does that story help you understand the message better? So does it help you understand the message around risk management and the role you play in risk management?
- [15:37]
A
Yeah, absolutely right. It gives me that framework on how do I encounter something, you know, what I should be doing, what are the next steps I should do when I face that situation?
- [15:47]
C
Right, yeah. So the story helps you understand the message better. So this is coming back to the definition of story storytelling to communicate with clarity. Will, will you remember that story? Do you think you'll remember that story?
- [16:01]
A
I'll probably tell that story to my kids tonight at dinner.
- [16:04]
C
Okay, so you've, you've, you've answered my next question. You will remember it. And I can talk a little bit about why our brain remembers stories. But the third question is, could you retell that story without losing its meaning? And you've literally just said that you will tell your kids that story. So when you think about when we're communicating the real challenges we have, do people really understand what we're saying? Like really understand it? Can they remember it? So when the meeting's over, the presentation's finished, the discussion has ended, can they actually remember that message? And if they had to, could they retell it to others without losing the meaning? And a story will give you traction on those three things. So just like you share that story now with your kids because, you know, hey, it's, it's teaching them a life skill about snakes. Like, it's sort of not about risk management, but it is about risk management. You know, can you imagine the power of these stories when you've got a story that happened like in user testing, for example, we were talking about before, but it's such a great story that a leader has shared or the marketing team have shared that the frontline, customer facing people can reshare it because they understand, remember, and can retell it.
- [17:18]
A
The. What about the pushback you get from people who say, I don't have a story. Right. Do I have to just steal her, you know, growing up on a farm story? You know, what, how do we, how do we recognize stories? How do we know when the, how do we turn an antidote into a story?
- [17:39]
C
Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of people, when I run my workshops, they go, oh my God, I love that story so much. It was like, but I didn't grow up on a farm. And it was like, okay, so we're not just, we're just not stealing that story or we're not not making up story, but it could spark other stories. So you might not have grown up at a farm, but your parents might have told you about stranger Danger. For example, you might have went, you could have gone on a, you know, a safari through Africa and the guide gave you all These safety instructions. I mean, we've all been in a place where we've been given safety instructions. I mean, even a plane on a car safe. So it could, it could spark your own story. But I do have people sort of say, I don't have any stories. What they're saying to me is, I don't have any big amazing climbing Mount Everest, surviving cancer type stories. And I said, it's not about that. I mean, you know, good on you if you've climbed Mount Everest. But they're not overly relatable. So it's the day to day story. So it's helping people understand that the daytoday stories, almost to the point where you're sort of going, why would anyone be interested in that? They're the most powerful stories and they're the most relatable and I get to know you a little bit better. So it, I do work through a process of helping people find those stories to the message. And then once, you know, once they, I get them to share it and once they share it and people are going, wow, that was, you know, I connected to it. So that's, that's the whole point again, going back to the story intelligence definition, it's you got to connect, engage and inspire. And the point is our human brain is wired to connect to not only the story, but to connect to the storyteller as well.
- [19:27]
A
Is that kind of what you found too? I recall you mentioning that you tested, you tested AI stories. They can come up with a story really well and you have these other stories that you have, but the people trusted the human stories more. They connected emotionally more with the human stories than the AI stories. Is that difference? What is that?
- [19:48]
C
Yeah, that was, that was. So when I first started to, you know, when people sort of said, would AI replace storytelling? And like I went, no, no, it won't. I sort of thought, you know, if I'm the so so called expert in storytelling, I should like start exploring this. And I, you know, I'd ask, you know, chatgpt, Claude, what, you know, the platforms I was using, you know, can you, can you come up with a personal story to share around risk management? And I actually used the risk management one because I thought, you know, let's see if it's as good as my Snake story. And I was disturbingly concerned about how good it was. And so it came back and I went, well, this is actually pretty good, but, but it was missing something. And what it was missing was, well, it was missing authenticity because it wasn't true. But it was missing. Just like something doesn't feel right. And that's every time I hear an AI story, it's like something doesn't feel quite right. So I actually, as part of the book, tested my hypothesis that AI related AI created stories were good. Okay, but they weren't, they weren't engaging and they didn't feel real. So yeah, I, I came, I, I, I came up with six different topics. I wrote a story for each one of those topics. So there was six stories from me and I got Chatgpt and Claude to come up with stories. So there was 18 stories in total. And then I asked people to rate them on all these different things. And you know, most of the time my stories were rated higher. In one occasion it wasn't, which was a bit of an ego hit to me. But, but the, but the, the real results proved what I was trying to achieve. That in, in my stories, the difference between clarity as in the story made sense and the story felt real were, were pretty much equal. In the AI stories, clarity was rated high as in the story made sense, and I could get the message. But did it feel real and did I connect with. It was really low. So that, that's what I mean. There was something missing. I, and I spoke to a lot of people that did the, you know, testing for me and they just, the AI ones, they were saying things like, it just felt cliche, it didn't feel real, it felt too good to be true, that type of stuff. And so, yeah, so you can use AI, but you just don't want to just take an AI generated story and, and go, well, that sounds good, and use it as your own.
- [22:18]
A
Well, I think to the extent I was going to steal the, the Farm story, right, I, I think I'm at risk of that feeling not authentic as well. Right. I can't tell that story, but I can find my own story that's similar to that and, and be able to share that with my kids. Right. I can tell the story from the perspective of a Navy submariner, which is my story. I can tell that story and tell about all the risks that are involved and what you do when you encounter risk. And here are some steps, you know, stop walk back. This is true in life, everything, right? Stop walk back.
- [22:57]
C
And, and you're right, Nathan. Like, I, I still, you know, when I run workshops with leaders, there will still be some leaders that go, but if the story's believable and made up, like, no harm done. What, what's, and I often go back and go Say if you heard Rosemary share her snake story and you, you know, afterwards you went, oh, I really loved your story about the snake. I grew up on a farm too. Where did you grow up? And she said, oh, I made that up, all right. I grew up in the city. So she's now told you the story's made up. Where's her credibility? Like, can. And some people say it's just a little white lie. I get that that's more than a little white lie. It actually feels more than a lie. What it feels like is a betrayal. Like, it feels like a betrayal of trust. It feels like manipulation. So. And I always say, why, why would you make up stories when you've got so many of your own stories that you can share really authentically? Why would you make them up? So. So, yeah, part of my training is showing people that you've got the stories and your stories are so much more powerful than any made up or exaggerated story.
- [24:00]
A
And yeah, it might be this imposter syndrome where I don't have any interesting stories. And you just have to maybe this is. I was going to lead into my next question. I want to know if AI, if we should avoid. If we can, using AI to come up with our stories. How do we use AI in developing our stories?
- [24:20]
C
Yeah. So again, look, as part of the book, I thought I better, I better test this and see what works. And what I've found is I think the most authentic and effective way to use AI is as your creative partner. So, for example, Nathan, say, say you were, you know, we were sitting down and having a coffee and you said, oh, I've got this big presentation next week. And I. It's all around innovation. And you know, I hear what you say, sharing a personal story will help, but I just can't think of any story. Now, I would work you through a process and the first thing I would say is, well, what does innovation mean to you? So helping you get really clear. And then I would start to ask you all these questions, like, well, you know, you can't. Mico. Innovation means to me challenging the status quo or whatever. So I would be saying, so when have. Where does that come from? Where have you experienced that before? Is that something your parents instilled in you or you had a teacher or where have you challenged the status quo? Where have you not challenged the status quo? So when have you not had the courage to do it? And I would start to ask you all these questions. I guarantee you, 100% you would think of an example, you'd Go, oh, yeah, actually, that. I do remember a time when. And you would think of an example. So use AI for that. Literally use AI to say, act as my storytelling coach. I've got to give a presentation around innovation next week. Ask me questions that will help me uncover some stories. And so we'll ask you all these questions. I guarantee you'll think of a story then. Now, this is when you got to be really careful. Then AI will say, just give me a few, you know, bullet points and, you know, roughly what happened. And they. It creates a story. So you do. You do that and it comes back and this story appears. Now the. The temptation is to go, oh, that sounds good, but you got to go, it might sound good, but does it sound like you? And actually, is it true? So sometimes AI will, you know, it's making up stuff, right? It will say, this happened and I felt really nervous about it. And you go, actually, I didn't feel nervous. I actually felt really excited. Okay, fine. So say I was super excited, blah, blah, blah. Right? So you were changing it. And if it's got words in it or phrases that you wouldn't use, you have to change that. So don't. Don't give up creative control to AI. I use AI And I had to fill out. I had to come up with a couple of paragraphs about what I did. And one of the things was, I teach people how to use. I teach people to communicate more effectively through stories, something like that. And it came back and said, I teach people how to communicate more effectively through stories that bridge the gap between impact and trust. And I'm thinking, what. What the hell does that mean? But I think a real trap when we're using AI for content creation is it can be really efficient, so it can help us generate content faster, but you don't want to lose it being effective in that. So I think use it as your creative partner, but don't ever let it take control.
- [27:37]
A
Yeah. Read it out loud if you know.
- [27:39]
C
Yeah, and that's. And that's. That's a great. That's what. One of the things I say, Nathan, just read it out loud. And if you're stumbling over the word or you go, oh, God, that sounds a bit weird, then change it.
- [27:50]
A
Yeah, well, I mean, because sometimes you read it on screen and like, oh, yeah, that, that sounds really smart. And then you read it out loud and you're like, what the heck am I actually saying there? Yeah.
- [28:01]
C
Yeah. So it's a. I think, I think it's a real trap where we Will go, oh, that sounds good. That sounds smart. Yeah. Bridge the gap between impact and trust. That sounds so smart. It's like I don't even know what it means.
- [28:14]
A
So when leaders are trying to bring this into their organizations, when teams, product teams or marketing teams are trying to do this, you know what, what's your advice for getting started? Like, do they, maybe it's a chicken and egg stories they. Do they start with a story or do they start with their problems and then try and find the story? That kind of helps explain that, you know, how do they get started?
- [28:44]
C
Yeah, look. So I'll answer that in two ways. It's. Storytelling is really popular at the moment. Everyone's gone, oh, we need to tell our stories better. We need to get better at telling stories. It's an absolute skill. So it's like anything, you know, if you get trained, if you learn more about it, you're going to get better at it. So, and I know I may be completely biased because this is what I do as a job, but if you want to get better at, if you want to bring storytelling into your organization and you realize it's really powerful, you need to train people how to do it well, how to share it more effectively and how to find them. So that's. Having said that. But when it comes to storytelling and this is the advice I give people, you've always got to start with the message. So like you said, what is the problem you're trying to solve? Why, why aren't they getting this? Why? You know, helping them unpack the curse of knowledge. What, what is the real message? You're trying to. And then find stories for that and find both the personal stories and the professional stories. But it always comes back to what's the real message. So I find, you know, I've been involved in rolling out technical change and, you know, for 30 plus years. And I think one of the mistakes we make is like, no, we want to get across the message why this change is so great and why we need it. And, you know, the improvements we're going to get and how it's going to be better for the, the customer. So we have all stories around that. And I just say, just, just back up a minute. What do you think your employees are feeling right now? And that's when they go, well, they're probably thinking, here we go again, another change. They're probably thinking, there's nothing wrong with the old system. Why are we. So it's like, okay, well maybe have a story around that first before we go into the benefits of the change. So I think sometimes we, we sort of don't want to raise their issues, but a story is really impactful.
- [30:37]
A
Then it goes back to having those conversations with your customers and understanding your problems. Right. And yeah. Identifying and not just having your opinions on what their problems might be. As I'm thinking about this. Okay. Yeah.
- [30:54]
C
I mean you do, you do like, you know, when I go in and sell storytelling into organizations, it's, it's a good idea to go into and have a very good idea of what their problems are. Because as I say to anyone, if you're not selling anything to anyone, if you're not solving their problems, and I, and I do have a pretty good idea of what their problems were. But, and I have stories for when they come up and when they're raised, I have stories to show that I understand that that was their problem. That's their problem. And you know how I've helped in solving it.
- [31:28]
A
How do you, so you, you have stories and you have many stories. How do you sort of index that's that, that library. How do you know, here's my risk avoidance story and here's my, yeah, just go for it story.
- [31:43]
C
Yeah. So there's different ways, but I, this might surprise a lot of people because I truly do love storytelling, but I also truly do love an Excel spreadsheet. So I, I've combined my two loves and I call it my storytelling spreadsheet. And if you, if you literally, it can be a thing of. These are all the messages I need to get across. And then you can go, well, what's a personal story I could share as in a non work related. And then what's a work related story I can share? And it could be, you know, whether, whether you, you do an Excel spreadsheet or just a note notebook, but you do, you do sort of have to start to capture the stories. You could also see sometimes when you realize how powerful these stories are, you could be, you know, something could happen to you today at gym or walking in the park and you could go, that's a great example of teamwork or that's a great example of innovation. So then you go, I could use that story or I could replace that story. Now that's, that's sort of capturing your stories. And of course there's a whole framework of how you start your stories, what you put in the middle and most importantly how you end their story so they're told really succinctly and effectively.
- [32:55]
A
I was just going to ask about that the, as I'm recalling like you know, the, those big keynote personalities. Right. At all the conferences. What we don't realize is that they spend countless hours and hours and hours practicing how to tell that anecdotal story that about their big presentation and how they tweak the words here or there just a little bit, you know, to get a, a laugh track at this point in time or, and, and how they just wait or have you silence before the next thing they say or whatever it might be for a point to sink in. That's all. You do all that from practice. But if you're just starting out, what's, what's your advice for someone who's listening to this episode and they want to take that first step? What should they do?
- [33:45]
C
Okay, but so my advice is when you start to share your stories, make sure they're super succinct. So my, my guidance is around about 60 seconds, 90 seconds. There's some brilliant stories like this. You could tell stories in 30 seconds. Absolutely. But if you're telling a story and it's going for two minutes or longer, people are starting to think, get to the point. Now they might not be saying get to the point, but they're well and truly thinking get to the point. So keep it super succinct. Start, start with time and place. As in do not start with let me tell you a story. Because you know, when people go, let me tell you a story, it's like, oh please don't. Because we conjure up all these stories that have gone for so long. The most effective way to start your stories with time and place. So you know, this morning at gym, I saw this guy. It's like writing, you know, so, and you know, you don't need any more than a sentence there. People sort of tend to feel they need to add lots more context into their stories. But if you keep your story succinct and if you start well and then there's, there's a real skill to ending it, especially when you're using a non work related story and bringing it back in. It's, it's sort of got to be respectful and you've got to guide them to the message without, without knocking them on the head with it. So you don't want to end your story with the moral of the story is.
- [35:09]
A
Right, right. I had, I mentioned I used to be a newspaper reporter and one of my editors once said, Nathan, if you have to tell me that it's ironic, it wasn't ironic.
- [35:19]
C
So it's like, if you have to tell me a joke's funny, it's not a funny.
- [35:23]
A
Yeah.
- [35:24]
C
And, you know, the ending is sort of like the punchline of a joke. If you, if you stuff it up or you forget it or you're like, it's. It doesn't work. The joke doesn't work.
- [35:35]
A
But maybe you can use that also as a tool in a situation where you. Because everyone's going to tell that story later on how Nathan bombed at telling this story. So maybe, maybe there is a way to use that. I don't know. And definitely we can tell from my examples that I do need work on my storytelling. So, Gabriel, I appreciate your time today. I enjoyed our conversation. How does someone learn more about you, your thought leadership and where can they and I go to get a copy of your book?
- [36:08]
C
Yeah, so the book's available on, globally on all, you know, online bookstores. So, yep, just do a search for that. I'm very active on LinkedIn for people on LinkedIn. So Gabriel Dolan and I also run my own podcast. So if you like listening to podcasts, which you clearly do because you're listening to Nathan right now, it's called Keeping It Real with Jack and Ral, and I'm the Ral of that duo. And we release an episode every Monday just on all career advice and things like that. So they're the three best places to get more of more. Find out more about me.
- [36:46]
A
Perfect. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much.
- [36:50]
C
Thanks, Nathan.
- [36:51]
B
Want to keep the conversation going? You can find the show notes@usertesting.com podcast if you, if you haven't already, don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or Google Play, so you never miss an episode. And if you enjoyed today's show, please share it with a friend or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And until next time, this is Insights Unlocked, an original podcast from User Testing.