Episode #9 – Jane Praeger: The Role of Personal Stories at Work

The Story Factor Podcast with Annette Simmons

Episode 009 Personal Storytelling in Business

Jane thinks there is definately a role for personal storytelling in business. The best application is when you can turn a case study into a case story by making it more personal…making it about the people. She teaches this with a NASA case story that you can request by contacting Jane on her website www.ovicinc.com.

Listen as she describes a Jetta car commercial as an example of the element of surprise in good storytelling technique.

Jane says the biggest obstacle convincing business people that stories work is the idea that taking the risk of sharing a piece of yourself will pay off instead of making you regret being vulnerable. The goal is to get comfortable with sharing something you might not be comfortable sharing. Revealing imperfection is a fast track to trust. No one is perfect so it isn’t as big of a risk as you might first assume.

We discuss various ways to pull a story out of others and ways to handle stage fright.

Jane says the best part about teaching business people how to use stories is when someone goes from “paper to people” and starts telling their stories without notes. She loves it when a client realized that not only is storytelling better, but it is easier as well.

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Feed link: http://archive.org/download/StoryfactorPodcast009/StoryfactorPodcast009.mp3