Facts and figures will only take a company so far. To truly engage employees, customers, prospects and other business stakeholders, there must be an emotional connection that drives action. Storytelling is the key. These five books discuss the science behind the story, share examples of stories that had proven results and provide tactics to use a company’s unique value proposition to engage an audience.
The Storyteller’s Secret: From TED Speakers to Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch On and Others Don’t
Author: Carmine Gallo
Released: Feb. 23, 2016
In The Storyteller’s Secret: From TED Speakers to Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch On and Others Don’t, keynote speaker, bestselling author, and communication expert Carmine Gallo reveals the keys to telling powerful stories that inspire, motivate, educate, build brands, launch movements and change lives. The New York Times has called a well-told story “a strategic tool with irresistible power” – the proof lies in the success stories of 50 icons, leaders and legends featured in The Storyteller’s Secret: entrepreneurs like Richard Branson, Sara Blakely, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and Sheryl Sandberg; spellbinding speakers like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Bryan Stevenson and Malala Yousafzai; and business leaders behind famous brands such as Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Wynn Resorts, Whole Foods and Pixar. Whether your goal is to educate, fundraise, inspire teams, build an award-winning culture or to deliver memorable presentations, a story is your most valuable asset and your competitive advantage.
Show and Tell: How Everybody Can Make Extraordinary Presentations
Author: Dan Roam
Released: March 1, 2016
In this short but powerful book, Roam introduces a new set of tools for making extraordinary presentations in any setting. He also draws on ideas he’s been honing for more than two decades, as an award-winning presenter who has brought his whiteboard everywhere from Fortune 500 companies to tiny start-ups to the White House.
Even if you’re already a good speaker, you’ll learn more about understanding your audience, organizing your content, building a clear story line, creating effective visuals and channeling your fear into fun. And you’ll master three fundamental rules.
- When we tell the truth, we connect with our audience, we become passionate, and we find self-confidence.
- When we tell a story, we make complex concepts clear, we make ideas unforgettable, and we include everyone.
- When we use pictures, people see exactly what we mean, we captivate our audience’s mind, and we banish boredom.
From nailing the opening to leaving a lasting impression, you’ll soon be able to give the performance of a lifetime – time after time.
Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince and Inspire
Author: Paul Smith
Released: Aug. 10, 2012
Storytelling has come of age in the business world. Today, many of the most successful companies use storytelling as a leadership tool. At Nike, all senior executives are designated “corporate storytellers.” 3M banned bullet points years ago and replaced them with a process of writing “strategic narratives.” Procter & Gamble hired Hollywood directors to teach its executives storytelling techniques. Some forward-thinking business schools have even added storytelling courses to their management curriculum.
The reason for this is simple: Stories have the ability to engage an audience the way logic and bullet points alone never could. Whether you are trying to communicate a vision, sell an idea, or inspire commitment, storytelling is a powerful business tool that can mean the difference between mediocre results and phenomenal success.
Putting Stories to Work
Author: Shawn Callahan
Released: March 18, 2016
The most successful leaders are storytellers. By mastering business storytelling, they achieve extraordinary business results. As a modern-day leader, you know you should develop this skill, but you don’t have the time to do this in an ad-hoc way. What you need is a practical, reliable method to follow, one that will allow your business to reap the benefits of storytelling as soon as possible.
In Putting Stories to Work, Shawn Callahan gives you a clear process for mastering business storytelling. He demolishes the thinking that storytelling has no place at work, reminding us that sharing stories is what we all do naturally, every day, and that it’s one of the most powerful tools for getting things done. You just need to adapt this natural superpower to boost your business.
The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human
Author: Jonathan Gottschall
Released: April 23, 2013
Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. It’s easy to say that humans are “wired” for story, but why?
In this delightful and original book, Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life’s complex social problems – just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival.
Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal. Most successful stories are moral – they teach us how to live, whether explicitly or implicitly, and bind us together around common values. We know we are master shapers of story. The Storytelling Animal finally reveals how stories shape us.
Book summaries provided by the publishing entity.
