In the movie Saving Private Ryan, there is a clip in which three soldiers disagree because of their respective choices, so that everyone points a gun at the next person's head, and the situation is critical and deadlocked. At this time, Captain Miller knew the dissatisfaction of the players and broke the deadlock with his own story.
He talked about his career and his real thoughts. He said that he was a teacher before the war, teaching English writing, and was a hard ball in summer. I've changed a lot because of the war. I'm worried that my wife won't know me when I get home. As for Ryan, he said, "I don't know anything about Ryan and I don't care. He is nothing to me but a name, but if I find him in Lamr and send him home, I will accept the task, so that I can be qualified to be with my wife. "
This personal story resolved the deadlock at that time, and the "going home" in the lieutenant's mouth inspired the soldiers to sing, and it was this * * * that reunited them. It can be seen that storytelling can resolve contradictions, communicate ideas and exert influence. This is the power of stories.
Story Thinking: Key Skills for Influencing Others and Solving Problems (referred to as Story Thinking) is a book on how to achieve effective communication and enhance influence by telling stories. The book introduces six stories that everyone should learn to tell, and also focuses on how to tell good stories, and shows that telling good stories is always better than reasoning, and it is very important to take story thinking as a skill in business.
Annette Simmons, the author of Story Thinking, is an American management expert who studies the application of story thinking in marketing and team, and is also a pioneer in applying story thinking to business. She once founded the American group solution consulting company, dedicated to improving the team building and overall coordination level of public and private institutions. Her clients include NASA, IRS and Microsoft. Simmons has written many books, including The Power of Stories, Your Team Needs a Storyteller, and so on. This book is recognized as his foundation work.
Telling a good story is a tool to effectively communicate and influence others, and it is also an indispensable story thinking skill in the business field. Choose a good story and exert influence; Telling a good story makes it more powerful; Find a good story and master the skills of story thinking.
First, choose a good story and exert your influence.
Story is the brand of thought, full of emotional color and sensory details. A good story can influence people's ideas and touch the deepest part of the soul. Therefore, it is more acceptable to communicate with stories than to make sense with facts.
For example, in the book, a professor from the Department of Agriculture came to give a lecture. In the department of agriculture, the word professor will give us data, facts and a flat sense of plane, but before the story told by the professor, it will give us a three-dimensional picture. He told me that he studied agriculture and weeds because he lived on a farm when he was a child and needed to help his parents pull weeds in the fields. These intractable weeds made him lose his happy childhood and have no time to play. This kind of story makes the audience have different feelings and attitudes, which greatly promotes the influence of the next lecture.
Stories are like a thinking software you provide to others. If they encounter a similar situation in the future, they will naturally start this software. If we see another professor in the department of agriculture, we will not blindly think that it is boring, but we will expect something. This is the influence of stories on our thinking.
There are six types of stories in the book, which are also six stories that each of us should learn, namely
1. The story of Who am I-building trust;
2. The story of "Why am I here"-further increase trust;
3. The story of "vision"-producing * * * sound;
4. The story of "teaching"-educational significance;
5. The story of "action value"-influencing values;
6. The story of "I know what you are thinking"-answering questions;
These six kinds of stories provide us with storytelling routines, which can effectively enhance our influence, especially the two questions of "Who are you" and "Why are you here". Only by answering well can you gain the trust of the other party. Only by building trust can we further communicate and influence.
If you want the other person to sing with you, tell the story of "vision"; If you want the other person to do what you want, tell the story of "teaching"; If you want the other person to change their values and attitudes, tell the story of "action value"; If you find that the other person doubts your thoughts and practices, tell a story of "I know what you are thinking".
Storytelling is for better dissemination and influence, and the source of the above stories is best from personal experience, because personal experience can better express real feelings and be more infectious. Just like the agricultural professor mentioned above, he told us "who he is" and "why he is here" with stories, which made the audience interested in him, established trust and naturally enhanced their influence.
Second, telling a good story makes the story more powerful.
After we choose a good story and know what kind of story to choose on what occasion, how to present it better is an important issue, which requires the skills of telling stories well.
Telling a story well requires some skills besides the story itself.
1.
As shown in the book, in the process of telling a story, the audience can only hear about 15% of the vocabulary, which shows that the audience gets very little information from the story itself and more from the storyteller.
In a sense, you are a story to the audience.
2. Body language
Body language is an important aspect that affects others when we tell stories.
The first is image, including gestures and facial expressions. Gestures talk, but they don't show their teeth. You can imagine yourself holding a basketball in your hand. This gesture can make people feel your control and make people form a picture in their mind. For example, Jobs often used this gesture in his speeches. Facial expressions will convey some story information, and you can make your story more infectious by changing facial expressions. For example, when you talk about some important and specific information, you can frown and focus on a certain point, so that you can express it.
Followed by voice, including silence and tone. Voice represents a personality, and the voice in the story is an important aspect for the audience to see, touch, smell and taste the story. Just like a storyteller, he can add sound effects to his words to show the appeal of the story and give people an immersive feeling.
In addition to sound effects, it also needs timely mute. Silence is a megaphone for emotions and feelings, and it will also make your story meaningful. In order to make your story more infectious and express your true feelings, tone is the most important factor. Just like "ah", four different tones convey completely different meanings on different occasions.
3. Other links that need to be paid attention to when telling a story well.
1) Pay attention to details. Sometimes, details determine success or failure. For example, we don't want to buy a car because of the salesman's attitude. At this time, the attitude of the salesman is the detail for the car companies.
2) Use your imagination. Using stories and body language, let the audience exert their imagination and show a picture in their minds. For example, if I say "I like the smell of horses", I can make the action of smelling with my nose, take a deep breath, and then describe the specific smell in words, so that the audience can leave a sense of picture in their minds.
3) Learn to listen. The promotion of influence requires effective listening. Listening to the stories of people you want to influence to inspire your own wisdom requires us to be curious and willing to pay attention to others. For example, we can chat with family, friends or neighbors, pay attention to each other and listen to stories.
Telling a good story requires skill, which can be acquired through practice. But more importantly, telling a good story needs true feelings, and true feelings are what we can really understand by thinking and living with story thinking.
Third, find a good story and master the skills of story thinking.
Good stories need us to explore constantly, and story thinking is one way. Story thinking is a way to communicate and communicate through stories. The purpose is to make the other party accept our ideas and practices through the stories we tell, that is, to influence others through telling stories.
Learning to find stories, choose stories (types) and tell stories is an important skill for us to enhance our influence in the business field. Only by finding a good story can we apply it to the type of story, tell a good story and exert the influence of the story.
1. A good story is a process of accumulation.
Personal experience is the best influence story. For example, we will have lectures, speeches or speeches at work, so how to answer the two questions "Who am I" and "Why am I here" will determine our influence. So we can try to figure out these problems so as to accumulate our own stories.
For example, your own glorious moments, frustrated moments, some stories of friends and relatives, a book, a movie, a current event and so on. Can be used as "material" into their own stories.
Such stories are more human, more likely to show true feelings, more likely to build trust, and more likely to lead to * * * influencing others.
2. A good story can solve the problems of a company or an organization.
A good story is not just your own experience. As long as it can really solve the problem, it is a good story.
Use stories to deal with difficult people. In the company, there will always be some "special" people who may be difficult to communicate and often have negative emotions. At this time, it is better to communicate with stories. For example, in the face of an indifferent person, he always puts on a gesture of "nothing to do with himself, hanging high". Telling a warm story can slowly awaken his inner feelings and promote good interpersonal relationship with him.
Change an organization with stories. The culture of an organization can be passed down from stories, which can be a story of success, a story of hope or the story of the founder himself. Just like Tao Huabi, the founder of Laoganma, his own life experience is the best story of corporate culture inheritance.
Solve company problems with stories. When the subordinates of the company ask the leaders for instructions on everything and feel dependent on them, the leaders are very upset. When you ask and answer, you acquiesce in their dependence; If ignored, some subordinates will make absurd decisions. If the leader tells a story, guides his subordinates to change their perspective, or learns to look at the problem comprehensively, this situation will be solved.
3. Use the magic of the story carefully
While advocating the power of stories, we should also understand the taboos in the use of stories.
You can't control the audience with stories. Influence is a double-edged sword. You can't think that you can control the audience just because your story makes them ecstatic. Just like Li Yang is teaching Crazy English and making students kneel, this is to control the audience with influence.
You can't think that stories are paramount. Seeing the influence of the story will cultivate the inner arrogance of the storyteller. As storytellers, we should always remember that our self-esteem is a blatant disrespect for the audience, and we must be wary of illusory superiority.
We should dig out good stories from our own experiences and apply these stories to our work to solve problems. At the same time, some taboos should be kept in mind when telling stories.
In a word, we can apply story thinking to negotiation, marketing and cooperation in the business field. Accumulate your own good stories, choose appropriate story types, and skillfully use storytelling skills to tell stories, so as to achieve the purpose of effective communication and enhance influence. These are the key skills that we should learn. If you also want to learn how to tell stories and how to solve problems by telling stories, the book Story Thinking is a good choice.
End of this article
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