Skip to main content

Imagine mastering a magical communications technique, powerful enough to engage entire organisations

By 18th October 2022November 13th, 2024Blog
Axiom Storytelling Graphic

Imagine.

Imagine living with debilitating seizures, following an accident in your youth. Then imagine discovering a pharmaceutical product that stops them. Overnight, your life transforms. You start living your best life and do so for many years.

Now imagine going to the pharmacy one day to find that product is unavailable. Annoyed at the inconvenience, you head to another. But it’s not available there either. The pharmacist tells you there’s a supply issue.

You start to panic. The memory of those seizures comes flooding back. The life you’ve built will come crashing down without that product. So, sick with dread and worry, you keep driving from pharmacy to pharmacy. You finally find what you need on the 18th try. Now you are at that pharmacist’s counter, crying in relief, but wondering why it had to be so difficult.

Imagine.

‘Imagine’ is one of the most powerful words on the planet. We can do it with ease because we are wired, as human beings, for this type of information… and it works best in story form.

A story, like the one told above, engages us. It enables us to emotionally connect. The right story, told the right way, can move us to think, feel or act differently. And while that’s so often what we need to achieve in business, to get others to think, feel or act differently, we still tend to shy away from storytelling in business. We shouldn’t. It’s transformative.

The story above moved one leadership team, the one working for the provider of this wonder drug, to take immediate action, but only once they’d heard about the impact their supply issues were having on patients, real people, with life affecting problems.

The trouble was these leaders didn’t understand the full impact their supply chain woes were having for months and months, despite being ‘briefed’ about them regularly. Those briefings were delivered with spreadsheets, full of figures, accompanied by a comprehensive dashboard – no mention whatsoever of the impact patients… Patients, the very reason this leadership team got involved in the Pharma industry and developed life-changing medicines in the first place

Accurate information? Yes. Engaging? No.

Each week the presenter would leave these briefings increasingly frustrated. This supply chain issue is really important. Why aren’t my leadership team colleagues responding with urgency?

The problem? Bogged down in detail, the presenter failed to paint a picture of the impact.

The solution? The story above.

Upon hearing this story, told from the standpoint of the patient, the leadership team became visibly moved and took immediate action to fix their stock shortages. Because while facts, figures and data all matter, we need to connect emotionally first. Story can do that. And, once it does, the results can be more magical than Harry Potter’s wand.

The magic of story is that, once engaged, we become far more receptive to the facts, figures and data. And the best bit is that we remember stories and pass them on. Stories speed change and transformation.

“Do we remember any of the facts and figures presented at that conference in Barcelona in 2019?” asks Axiom’s strategist and communicator, Natasha Bye. “Of course we don’t. But had one of the conference’s presenters told a story, like the one that opened this article, there’s a good chance we’d remember why the strategic focus in 2019 switched to improve the supply chain and put the patient first.”

Natasha, who together with Managing Director, Chris Carey, fronts Axiom’s new e-learning storytelling programme, is a firm believer that we’ve been hiding behind technical expertise, tables and charts in business for too long.

“Let’s take a global issue like plastic waste as an example that everyone can relate to,” says Natasha. “We’ve had all the stats and the meta-analysis proving we’re polluting our planet for years. There’s publication after publication showing scientists agree on this. The trouble is too few of us have been listening. It takes someone like David Attenborough, presenting a programme and telling a story about what’s happening to our planet, to help us see the real problem. He’s painted a picture and we don’t like what we see. Arguably he’s done more to connect people with the issue of plastic waste than anyone else. I don’t say that lightly. I come from a scientific background, so I know science is critical. The science must be there for Attenborough’s story to be credible but, what he’s shown is, if you want to engage the world, you need to tell a story and connect with them emotionally.”

And that’s what Axiom is doing with the launch of its new storytelling e-learning programme – helping professionals become a better business storytellers – and the long lasting impact of effective stories can be yours in a matter of minutes.

“Strong communication is always about connection before content, and storytelling is one of the most impactful tools we have to connect,” says Chris Carey. “It’s why we’ve developed this storytelling programme. We want to help the magical power of storytelling transform the communication powers of every leader. It doesn’t matter if you’re a computer programmer, an engineer or a scientist, the big boss or a team leader, it’s story that most often leads to effective and lasting engagement.”

The power of storytelling in business e-learning programme is packed with Axiom’s practical and immediately implementable tips and techniques – guaranteed to help any professional, from any industry, learn how to and when to harness storytelling’s magical superpowers.

This engaging, fun and professional resource is accessible 24 hours a day, for a full year from point of purchase. So if you, or someone in your team, struggles to effectively engage others with their ideas or has an important presentation coming up, then this is a quick and easy way master some magic.

And if you’re going to present your story, especially if you’re delivering it virtually, and let’s face it who isn’t these days, why not explore our sister workshop… ‘How to present brilliantly online“.

Axiom has been helping leaders engage their people for more than 25 years with story. This storytelling programme is part of a new, e-learning series designed to help busy business professionals communicate more effectively and deliver better results. If you or one of your team would like to become a better storyteller or a better presenter, check out our latest offerings or contact us.

TALK TO AN EXPERT