Stephanie Judd is the founder and managing partner at Wolf & Heron.
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At the end of a talk or presentation, I usually get questions about the line between authenticity and dramatization. Stories, in particular, lend themselves to being dramatized—in some ways, dramatization makes the story more interesting and engaging—but that very same dramatization has the potential to feel affected or “put on” by the storyteller.
Recently, I gave a talk about influential storytelling in Switzerland to an audience of product managers from all over Europe. As usual, the question came up, but this time it was framed as a cross-cultural question. An audience member mentioned that my storytelling felt distinctly “American,” and she could never imagine herself telling a story in that way, let alone to an audience of “French and German executives.” Her question was “How do I be me, be engaging and resonate with my audience all in the context of working cross-culturally?”
I thought this was a profound question because it touches on three very important considerations when crafting a story and points out the fact that sometimes these considerations are in healthy tension with each other.
Know Your Audience
Of course, knowing who your audience is, and tailoring your story to that audience is extremely important. Your story, and its delivery, should be appropriate for the context. How you adapt both your story and the telling of it for an audience of executives at a mature global organization will certainly differ from what you say and do for an audience of direct reports at a rapidly growing startup.
And of course, culture plays a role here. Cultural expectations and tolerances vary, so being aware of what those boundaries are within your audience is critical. It’s important to be situationally appropriate.
Keep It Real
Being authentic is the first rule of influential storytelling. People are more likely to listen to you if they like you first. As a storyteller looking to persuade, the first rule of thumb is to build a relationship with the audience while telling the story. The way to do that is to reveal something about yourself in a real, authentic way.
That means that you have to tell the truth, but it also means you have to tell the story as yourself, without affectation and without putting on airs. This can be intimidating for many irrespective of culture. We don’t always feel comfortable bringing our whole selves to work. If you have this fear, consider that most people err on the side of sharing too little, not too much. You don’t have to reveal everything about yourself, but find a way to bring aspects of who you are into what you say and how you say it.
Be Engaging, Emotionally and Intellectually
Often the storytellers that I coach use Keep It Real as an excuse to avoid stepping into a more exaggerated expressiveness that can help the story come alive for the audience—both in terms of an emotional and intellectual experience. I coach storytellers to use delivery strategies like varying the pace and pitch of their voice, adjusting their face and body to match the emotional subtext of the story or physically underlining a verbal point. These behaviors can feel awkward at first, especially when amplified even further in a large room or auditorium environment. But feeling awkward because the delivery strategies are unpracticed isn’t the same as being inauthentic.
Step into expressiveness in stages. Take your story and dial up the drama of your vocal pitch and pace by 10%, or use your eyebrows and smile with 10% more intentionality. Over time, this new level of dramatization will become more comfortable for you and will no longer feel like a boundary push. At that point, challenge yourself again.
When presenting, keeping all three of these considerations in mind is important to ensure you are effective at delivering your message. Sometimes you’re lucky and you’ll feel entirely comfortable being yourself in front of the audience and have no problem even stretching into a delivery style that feels a bit risky (read: vulnerable). But other times, you might feel restricted—intimidated, even—because the audience is different from you in some way (more powerful, culturally different, etc.). You won’t know what to reveal about yourself, how expressive you should be or what will land with your audience.
When this happens, testing and iteration are key. Find a representative audience with whom you can vet your story. Get feedback and hone your story further. My experience has been that most of us actually have a well-developed intuitive sense of what is appropriate and safe for a given audience and context. The true artistry of storytelling (and presenting in general) comes from stepping outside of what’s safe just enough to be provocative and interesting without being offensive or inappropriate.
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