Do our word choices for telling stories engage, delight and convert colleagues and clients? Or, do our word choices make listeners feel like they are not invited to become part of the stories we tell?
Word choices make a difference for just about everything we do, as Professionals of Worth. It’s just that something peculiar happens when we think about telling a story.
First, when we tell stories, we carry over professional terminology we use every day, into the stories we tell. However, the audiences we address when we tell stories may not be composed of our professional peers. As a result, we marginalize the people listening to our stories from truly enjoying the stories we tell.
When listeners do not understand what we are saying, they quickly lose interest in our stories.
Then, our demeanor changes when we tell a story. As a result, we feel compelling to use “fancier” words than we normally use to conduct business. Consequently, our stories are less-than conversational-sounding. And not only to the folks listening to our stories. We do not even recognize ourselves, because we thought we need to use “storytelling words” (whatever those are 😉).
In fact, our stories and our word choices need to easily reflect our normal voices to tell stories.
Simple stories, simply told, create communication bridges, as well as colleague and customer experiences. Across job titles, pay grades, levels of education and generations. Our stories reflect our understanding of our professional world, and invite listeners to ask questions and connect their stories to ours.
Those storytelling word choices speak volumes to our listeners. These words reflect that we took care in assuring that they would understand our story. And find relevance and value in the points we make.
How comfortable, conversant and confident are you in telling stories: to colleagues and clients? My Introduction to Storytelling Workshop starts with word choices as your foundation.
To learn more, take the next steps.
- Planning your next team, corporate or association meeting? Engage me to present one of my Storytelling for STEM Professionals and Left Brain Thinkers speaking programs, workshops or moderated facilitation services. Contact me here.
Babette Ten Haken’s One Millimeter Mindset® Storytelling for STEM Professionals and Left Brain Thinkers Speaking Programs target purpose-driven professional success. Become more visible, relevant and valuable to your organization.
Find out more about Babette’s professional story here. Babette is a member of SME, ASQ, SHRM and the National Speakers Association. Her playbook of communication hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Babette’s speaker profile is on the espeakers platform. Contact Babette here.
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