Stories that Move Mountains: Storytelling and Visual Design for Persuasive Presentations

Preferences, Not Prescriptions

The important activity in this chapter is to identify the core styles appropriate for the key decision makers and influencers in your audience. With this information, you can achieve the right balance between explanation and proposition in your story, and you can phrase it in a way that best educates and influences the audience.

Before going further, we'd like to throw in a word of caution: People defy categorization. You may find that a person learns differently depending on whether the content is a personal passion, or a necessity for work. You may also find that a person uses a different way of making decisions depending on his or her abilities and experience, or if it's been a rough day. Please treat the categorizations as a good guideline, not a perfect science, on the way that your audience learns and decides so that you can tailor your message accordingly.

You don't have to be a mind reader to get through this part of the CAST process. We will ask you to consider the learning and decision styles for your audience, and then take your best shot. Think about how well-aligned members of the audience are with the content of the story. Think about what they need to know in order to make a decision.

A second caution: You have your own learning and decision style preferences as well. Be careful not to create the story for yourself. It is all too common for people to present their stories in a way that relates best to their own preferred styles. ...