Let the Story Do the Work: The Art of Storytelling for Business Success

Let the Story Do the Work: The Art of Storytelling for Business Success

92 ratings 4.6 out of 5 stars

Jul 27, 2017

Product Description People forget facts, but they never forget a good story. Unfortunately it’s never that simple, though. Because for most, there’s nothing easy about crafting a memorable story, let alone linking it to professional goals. But material for stories and anecdotes that can be used for your professional success surround you! Let the Story Do the Work shows you how to mine your experience for simple narratives that will achieve your goals. You can learn to:• Capture attention• Engage your audience• Change minds• Inspire action• Pitch persuasively• And more!When you find the perfect hook, structure your story according to its strengths, and deliver it at the right time in the right way, you’ll see firsthand how easy it is to turn everyday communications into opportunities to connect, gain buy-in, and build lasting relationships. Review “…one of those special business books that isn't just a business book. It's a gift.” –Blue Heron Journal “Choy illustrates skills that make storytelling work—giving raw experience narrative shape, finding the right structure, and ending on the right note.” –Success magazine “In Let the Story Do the Work Choy explains how to turn even the most boring situations into fabulous anecdotes.” —Monster “Every business pitch has to tell a solid overall story…I found some great guidance on how best to do this in a new book by Esther Choy.” —Inc. magazine “We can soon forget facts and figures but we never forget a good story, and Choy can help us make sure our story is a good one.” –The Chronicle Herald “Check out Choy's book for stories, tips and boilerplate scripts you can use. Then prepare yourself—because once you transfix people with one good tale, they'll no doubt want more.” –HR magazine “…makes a compelling case about how building up you skills in this area can help make leaders more effective…offers plenty of practical exercises and guidelines that will boost your business success.” –Accounting Today “With a wealth of examples, strategies, and insights, [Esther Choy’s] book can help anyone become a more effective storyteller.” –Infoworks “…in-depth, practical, packed with great advice…perfectly illustrates why storytelling is important to your professional career. It can help you persuade others and make yourself more memorable.” –TD magazine “Introduces the reader to storytelling as a tool to motivate, influence and communicate sometimes complex issues and ideas to the listener...chock full of tools and information.” — PM World Journal Book Description People forget facts, but they never forget a good story. It sounds so simple: Incorporate a story and people will remember your message. But when you get down to crafting one, there’s nothing easy about it. Material for stories surrounds us. Yet few people are skilled at sharing personal anecdotes and even fewer know how to link them to professional goals. Whether you want to stand out in the interview process, add punch to a presentation, or make a compelling case for a new initiative, Let the Story Do the Work shows you how to mine your experience for simple narratives that convey who you are, what you want to achieve, and why others should care. Packed with enlightening examples, the book explains how to find the perfect hook, structure your story…and deliver it at the right time in the right way. You’ll discover how to use stories to: Capture attention • Engage your audience • Change minds • Inspire action • Bring facts and data to life • Clarify challenging concepts • Pitch persuasively • Fundraise effectively • And more Never underestimate the power of a great story. Learn to leverage the elements of storytelling—and turn everyday communications into opportunities to connect, gain buy-in, and build lasting relationships. From the Inside Flap For millennia, people have used stories to simplify a complex world, make facts and events memorable, and stir action. Today, storytelling has emerged as a strategic skill that every business leader must master. Yet few use storytelling to its full capacity. Stories work beyond telling how a company overcame competitors, or the rags-to-riches background of a founder; these are classic plot devices, and they’re frequently layered into corporate messages. But stories can also operate more subtly. By adapting proven story structures and conventions, you can transform forgettable presentations into truly compelling ones, and make lasting impressions with every interaction. Whether you’re trying to attract investors to a startup venture, get donors to commit to a non-profit’s mission, explain a merger to customers, or stand out at a networking event, Let the Story Do the Work helps you weave storytelling techniques into your communications and strengthen their impact. Part practical workbook, part definitive textbook, it breaks down the art of storytelling into step-by-step guidelines, insights, exercises, and examples drawn from various business environments, including the financial industry and health care. The book helps you: • Dispel any fears that you can’t tell great stories • Employ the five principal elements of storytelling, such as the three-act formula, and planting a hook • Craft stories of your own—using five traditional business plots • Connect with an audience by determining their point of view and speaking to their concerns • Cut through a thicket of data to explain what the numbers actually mean and why people should care • Strip away jargon, tame complexity, and make a convincing case no matter how unwieldy the topic • Blend in simple visuals to amplify a presentation’s persuasiveness • Mine stories from your life and collect them from others • Tell your personal story in a way that builds credibility and forges relationships Anyone can make a presentation and parade a list of credentials. But nothing resonates and persuades as powerfully as a story. Esther K. Choy is founder and president of Leadership Story Lab, where she coaches managers in story-telling techniques and helps them become more engaging and persuasive. She served as an admissions officer for the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and now teaches in the executive education pro-grams at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, where she also received her MBA. From the Back Cover “Esther Choy isn’t just smart and wise and sensible, but she also imbues her work with a spirit of kindness and positivity. The result is a book that’s rousing in both its practicality and its encouragement. You should read it immediately.” — Stephen J. Dubner, coauthor of the Freakonomics books, and host of Freakonomics Radio “As this book shows, simply and powerfully: to get people interested in and convinced by what you are saying, tell a story. But not just any story—you have to tell the right one. What to say and how to say it is what this book is about. Brilliant, entertaining, and powerful.”— Don Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things, co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group, and Director of Design Lab at UC San Diego “Few people understand the power of storytelling; even fewer know how to make it work for business, education, or even just around a campfire. Esther Choy is one of those people. The tools she shares in her book can help anyone become a better storyteller, and meanwhile her book’s a lot of fun. Highly recommended.”— Robert Wolcott, Ph.D., co-founder, KIN; Clinical Professor of Innovation, Kellogg School of Management; Managing Partner, Clareo “In this book Esther Choy not only provides you with the fundamentals of storytelling, but also gives you very valuable examples for how to convert complex facts into compelling, interesting stories. A must-read book for all communications professionals.”— Andreas Schwab, SVP of Corporate Communications, Siemens “Esther Choy’s book is a great resource for anyone wanting to be a more effective communicator.”— Roxanne Hori, Associate Dean, NYU Stern School of Business “In Let the Story Do the Work, Choy lays out simple, practical tools for strengthening influence and persuasion skills. Whether one is just starting a career, looking to make a change, or taking on higher levels of leadership responsibility, this book offers fresh, actionable insights. In fact, I put some of those insights to good use in an executive presentation just a week after reading it!”— Dave Burdakin, President, JBT AeroTech “As a business, brand, or job seeker, being able to stand out from the pack in today’s competitive marketplace by articulating a memorable, purpose-driven story is more important than ever. With over a decade of experience helping others leverage the art of storytelling, Esther Choy guides readers through this process in Let the Story Do the Work—empowering them to craft their own narratives in a compelling, persuasive, and authentic way.”— Amy Ward, Emmy® Award-winning writer/producer About the Author Esther K. Choy is founder and president of Leadership Story Lab, where she coaches managers in storytelling techniques. She is currently teaching in the executive education programs at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Have you gone through a year-end evaluation where you had to contribute, at least in part, to assessing your own performance? Have you ever had to pitch your great idea to colleagues who weren't sure of the value you could bring? Have you had to ask friends and neighbors to donate to your breast cancer walk and found yourself wondering why people have to be asked to give to breast cancer awareness in the first place--aren't their mothers, sisters, aunts, and wives reason enough? Hardly a day goes by when you aren't trying to inspire others to join you in some effort. But we live in an increasingly commoditized world, where even the things you hold most dearly--your ideas, projects, and causes--are commodities in someone else's eyes. The true luxury good is your audience's attention, and everyone is clamoring for it. At the heart of leadership lies persuasion. At the heart of persuasion lies storytelling. Whether you know it or not, you engage in both daily. Competitive admission is only one example where you have to stand out however you can. Whether you are competing for a great job, seeking funding for a start-up or nonprofit, building a professional practice, or selling goods, ideas, and services, you must stand out in a strategic, authentic way. You can even think of these efforts as "lifelong mini-admissions applications." The parallels are striking: you have a lot of "competitors" in any such contest; your competitors may not even be people, but other companies, funding priorities, or endless perfect substitutions to what you're offering; you're also competing constantly for attention with other things that demand people's attention, mostly their phone screens! Here are several examples of mini-admissions applications from different domains. In 2010, an investment firm was vying to be one of the first Western players to manage assets for a mainland Chinese sovereign wealth fund. But its performance record ranked it only in the middle of eight finalists. How should this firm have approached its 15-minute final presentation in Beijing? In 2012, a numbers-driven executive was preparing her speech to accept a lifetime contribution award from a charity at its annual gala in Chicago. She was used to giving only dry financial presentations, not heartfelt speeches aimed at moving and inspiring audiences. How should she have prepared? In 2014, the owner of a fund-management firm and major sponsor of an important industry conference was told that he would have only five minutes to discuss his company's approach at the conference's main luncheon in Palo Alto, California. In the past, he'd always had at least an hour for such presentations. How should he have made use of those precious minutes? All of these are examples of people going through mini-admissions applications, facing off against numerous competitors for the hard-to-get attention of important decision-makers. You may have guessed that these were all situations in which I had the opportunity to consult and coach. In each, I showed the executives how to use the power of story to stand out and succeed: the investment firm won the mandate; the executive awardee received a standing ovation at her gala speech; the fund administrator had a long line of potential clients waiting to talk to him after his presentation. How can you harness the power of storytelling in your own mini-admissions applications? Excerpted from LET THE STORY DO THE WORK: The Art of Storytelling for Business Success by Esther K. Choy. Copyright © 2017 by Esther Choy. Published by AMACOM Books, a division of American Management Association, New York, NY. Used with permission. All rights reserved. http://www.amacombooks.org.

The free availability of data and ease of search has opened many businesses that were structurally or geographically insulated to global competition. Many business models have become commoditized and easily comparable by customers. If you don’t want to compete purely on price you need to find a way to differentiate your offering from that of your competitors.As a portfolio manager in the investment management industry we feel the competition daily not just from others around the world but also from the rise of the machines. Passive/index ETFs are starting to offer Zero-cost products.Being able to clearly articulate what differentiates your business through stories that are easy to remember are engaging to the customer has been key to our continued success.Esther Choy provides an easy to read, practical road map even for introverted financial types how to tell stories to engage and persuade.Stephen Dubner is right: “You should read it immediately!”