Storytelling
The stories organisations tell about themselves
Founding myths and origin stories do real work, and the ones that fail do so for consistent reasons.
Esme Carrington
31 articles by Carrington
Conversation
Conversations with people much older or younger
The awkwardness across a large age gap comes from a few specific assumptions, all of which can be dropped.
Public Speaking
Speaking to camera
A lens is the hardest audience there is, because it gives you absolutely nothing back.
Storytelling
Structuring a longer story
Anything beyond a few minutes needs a shape the listener can feel, and there are only a handful that work.
Conversation
Talking to someone who is grieving
The fear of saying the wrong thing produces silence, which is the one thing that reliably makes it worse.
Public Speaking
The first minute
Openings are the most disproportionately valuable part of a talk and the part most often wasted on housekeeping.
Public Speaking
Rehearsing properly
Reading the slides through in your head is not rehearsal, and the difference shows in the room.
Storytelling
Telling a story to a hostile room
Narrative works differently when the audience is sceptical, and the usual techniques can make things worse.
Conversation
Apologising properly
A real apology has components, and leaving one out is what makes an apology feel worse than none.
Public Speaking
Teaching and training a room
Training is not presenting, and the most common mistake is treating a workshop as a talk with breaks.
Public Speaking
Running a meeting people do not resent
Chairing is a speaking skill, and the failures are consistent enough to be listed.
Storytelling
Endings
Most stories, talks and articles are ruined in the last thirty seconds by a speaker who did not know how to stop.
Conversation
Listening when you are tired
Attention is a finite resource, and the honest response to running out of it is better than a performance of listening.
Conversation
Small talk that goes somewhere
The transition from weather to something real happens at a specific point, and it can be steered.
Public Speaking
Speaking when you are the only one who disagrees
The pressure to stay quiet in a room that has already agreed is measurable, and so is the effect of one person breaking it.
Public Speaking
Presenting to senior people
Boards and executives listen differently, and the presentation that works with a team fails with them for predictable reasons.
Conversation
Meeting new people
Networking events are unpleasant largely because of how people approach them, and the alternative is more effective as well as more bearable.
Public Speaking
Giving a toast or a short speech
Weddings, leaving dos and birthdays have their own rules, and the main one is brevity.
Public Speaking
Reading a room while you speak
Audiences signal continuously and most speakers are too busy delivering to notice.
Storytelling
Telling stories about yourself
Personal stories build connection and require judgement about how much to reveal and to whom.
Storytelling
Finding stories worth telling
People who always have a relevant story are not luckier — they collect them deliberately.
Conversation
Talking to people you disagree with
Arguments rarely change minds and conversations sometimes do, and the difference is in the approach.
Conversation
Difficult conversations
The preparation determines the outcome, and the most common error is having the conversation you rehearsed rather than the one in front of you.
Public Speaking
Handling questions
The question session is where credibility is won or lost, and it is almost never rehearsed.
Public Speaking
Speaking without slides
Slides are a crutch that frequently damages the talk, and the alternative is more straightforward than it appears.
Storytelling
Using stories in professional settings
A concrete example is retained where an abstraction is not, which is why stories belong in serious contexts.
Storytelling
Why most anecdotes fail
The problem is almost never the story — it is the amount of setup and the absence of a point.
Conversation
Listening properly
Most people listen in order to respond, which is a different activity and produces different results.
Conversation
Small talk, and why it is not small
It is a social protocol with a specific function, and people who dismiss it as trivial generally find it difficult.
Public Speaking
Structuring a talk so people remember it
Audiences retain structure rather than detail, which means the shape of a talk matters more than its content.
Public Speaking
Nerves before speaking, and what to do with them
Being told to relax has never helped anyone, and the techniques that do work are more specific than that.