Story-Telling as a Vital Skill

Thinking I need to put together an @atdc Lunch-N-Learn on Story-Telling. Most people SUCK at it.
— Jen Bonnett (@jen_bonnett) January 16, 2013

Story-telling is a vital skill for entrepreneurs and leaders. It’s a great way to motivate employees, engage audiences, and move leads through the funnel. It’s also vital for most any talk to be interesting.

A few weeks ago, Jen posted the tweet above, and I love the idea to teach the art of story-telling in entrepreneur circles. Great story-tellers seem to:

Have excellent memories
Be able to quickly connect relevant stories to applicable situations
Read enough to have interesting things to say
Experience enough to have stories to tell

Whenever I think of story-telling, I remember the biography of Abraham Lincoln by Dale Carnegie, “Lincoln the Unknown.” Excellent read. The book concludes that Lincoln’s rise from obscurity to the Presidency was mostly due to his excellent story-telling skills. Here’s a NY Times piece describing the same. (Dale Carnegie also wrote “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”)

As I sat down to write this post tonight, I popped open my twitter feed and found David Cancel’s tweet linking to a great article on this topic, “Entrepreneurs Who Master Storytelling Win More.”

I feel like I should have a story to tell about story-telling. I don’t. But it sure feels good when I do have a story to tell. Nothing quite like leading into a good one with the words, “Let me tell you a story…”

How do you incorporate story-telling into your leadership style?

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