Three Letters to Supercharge Your Storytelling

Asking someone to tell a story without giving them the technique to do so is like saying, ‘Jump out of the window and fly.’

Over the years I have developed a technique that uses three letters: PHD. They stand for Picture, Headline and Detail. If you apply these letters to your presentations, it WILL change them for the better. This blog is adapted from my book, so if you like it, buy it!

Picture

I was coaching a German banker years ago and he really needed to grab his audience’s attention. It was a tough crowd – passionate but hard-nosed sales people who liked doing things their way. But he needed to motivate them to change. He got up to speak to them at 9.00am one day in their main conference room. They have floor-to-ceiling windows, and parked outside he could see all their fast cars and the orange Porsche belonging to the CFO. So this is how he began: ‘Okay guys, when it comes to sales...at the moment it’s a little bit like we are driving around the backstreets of Hamburg in a Porsche. We need to get out onto the Autobahn and go full throttle.’

Why did he say that? Because our brain processes at least two-thirds of all the information it receives in picture. His audience understood fast cars, so the metaphor he used shocked them into thinking differently. If a Porsche is made for speed, our sales team is made for speed...why are we on the backstreets of Hamburg and not on the Autobahn using our true sales power? He spent 30 seconds talking about fast cars, but that was all he needed to get their brains on board.  

Try some of your own metaphors now. What does your job feel like at the moment? Here are some starters to help you.

It feels like trying to push water uphill…with a rake

It feels like trying to keep up with Usain Bolt in a 100 metres race with a weight tied around my ankle

It feels like having a glass of water in a hot desert

It feels like I’ve gone from watching on a black and white TV to full HD/virtual reality

It feels like going from dial-up to broadband (for anyone who remembers that!)

It feels like I’ve been riding with stabilisers and now they are off – which is terrifying, but I can go faster...

Headline

A headline by nature is a short sentence. Daniel Kahneman says that when we speak in long convoluted sentences, our audiences actually become suspicious. They think we are not telling the truth. But when we speak in short simple sentences we appear more trustworthy.

Journalists know they need to use a headline that grabs people’s attention. If they don’t reveal the really juicy information until halfway down the page they are ‘burying the lead’. This is just the same with presentations. Don’t bury the lead. Make your headline short.

We're going to play a game called 'Line Five to Line One'. It's really simple – find a presentation you are working on, take your last line (it may even be your fifth line) and put it first. Let's get started with a simple example – tell the story of your previous weekend, writing it down in chronological order, in the order the events happened.

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Here is my real life example:

1. We got a puppy last November and had been getting up early every morning.

2. On Christmas morning, we chose to ignore Sully’s barks and have a lie in.

3. We came downstairs to open our stockings but were met with trampled dog poo all over the kitchen floor.

4. Sully’s thoughtful gift definitely made for a different Christmas morning.

5. We are never going to ignore our dog barking at 6.00am again.

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Now I am going to move line five to line one:

5. We are never going to ignore our dog barking at 6.00am again.

1. We got a puppy last November and had been getting up early every morning.

2. On Christmas morning, we chose to ignore Sully’s barks and have a lie in.

3. We came downstairs to open our stockings but were met with trampled dog poo all over the kitchen floor.

4. Sully’s thoughtful gift definitely made for a different Christmas morning.

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Can you see the difference? It creates a sense of ‘story gap’. Why am I never going to ignore my dog barking at 6.00am? It sounds a bit dramatic. What happened? Then I tell the story and create a sense of anticipation. And there is a strong ending. All I did was move line five to line one. The line we thought was the conclusion is in fact the headline. It is genius!

Detail

Detail is the who, what, why, where and when of your presentation. It's where you paint the picture for your audience. Ask yourself the following questions when you present a problem and solution:

1. What happened/is happening? 'We developed an app in 2021'
2. Where were you, physically? 'We were in lockdown, in our bubble in Hackney'
3. Who else was there? 'Me and my co-founders Janice, Simone and Abdul'
4. When did this happen? '1 July 2020 is when we hit the lightbulb moment'
5. Why did it happen? 'We had to flip our business from physical to digital or we would have gone bust'

Often the details don’t feel important, but those details are the paints with which you bring colour to your canvas. They are integral to the picture: remember that your brain is wired to process at least two-thirds of information in picture.  

If you can begin to apply PHD every time you need to present – on the phone, on Teams, in person – you will start to see your communications increase in energy and your audiences will pay more attention. I guarantee it!