The Power of Story Telling - Verbal Communication Techniques Explained

Storytelling is a self-explanatory word. As the term suggests, it is the art of telling stories to your audience and is a great way of communication. You need to tell your story in a way that makes your audience visualise it as you speak. They should be able to connect to your story on an emotional level.  When you are able to do this, the process of persuasion begins.

If you were asked to recall the equations you learnt in a chapter in Physics in the twelfth grade or the story of the Tortoise and the Hare, which you read in the fifth grade, which one would you remember? Definitely the story. This is the power of storytelling. 

Let's understand this briefly:

• Storytelling is the gentlest form of persuasion. For example, politicians convey their agendas through narratives that appeal to their target audience.
• There are certain layers in your brain that understand and process messages based on emotions, and they get triggered by good storytelling.
• A presentation with a lot of maths and data is quite difficult for people to process, and hence, it often makes persuasion an arduous task.
• Research also shows that an engaging presentation with elements of storytelling is more effective than a plain and simple presentation equipped with maths and data.