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Written by Robert Tallent

The SYNERGY GROUP

The hullabaloo at the weekend when Qantas boss, Irishman Alan Joyce, grounded the entire fleet all over the world raised many questions.  Why did he do it? Did negotiations take place? Were the unions intransigent? Did the management not show flexibility and restraint?

Well, there was a discussion in the Australian Parliament about it.  Parliamentary debates are the same there as they are here in Ireland.  Anthony Albanese, the Leader of the House and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, told a story about how he was at Sydney airport after the planes were grounded and how he met a distressed American couple who were unable to get home.  Now, I don’t know the exact wording but Mr Albanese went on to say something like, "the woman was 43 weeks pregnant and needed to get home."

Now I know all you know-alls out there are starting to calculate, 43 weeks, wow, isn’t she doing well to be able to travel at 43 weeks pregnant?  They must breed them differently over there.  If you check the Qantas website, their policy is "For routine pregnancies, you can travel up to the end of the 36th week for single pregnancies and the end of the 32nd week for multiple pregnancies (e.g. twins)."

Let’s look at this from a business point of view.  The first test is that Mr Albanese's story failed the believability test.

Whenever we listen to a story we instinctively match the experience we're hearing with our own experience and if there's a significant mismatch between your understanding and that of the storyteller's, their credibility crumbles, no matter how true the event.

The believability test occurs as the story unfolds. But we have another test we unconsciously make before the story hardly gets started: the relevance test.

In business settings where everyone is pressed for time, if we know a story is about to be told we want to know there's a good chance it'll be relevant. To help the listener judge the potential relevance of a story we often prepend a short statement suggesting, or simply stating, the point of the story.

"When Qantas grounded all their flights it caused incredible distress for people.  It was a good thing the government stepped in.  I was in Sydney airport on Sunday ... {the pregnant woman story – but make it believable}"

Without thinking about it, we can lose our audience with our efforts to enhance our message - as did Anthony Albenese’s story of the 43-week pregnant woman.

With these two tests in mind, business storytellers should be thinking of ways of conveying the relevance of their stories so they're afforded the ears of their listeners.

Also, they should be working out ways to increase the believability of their story.  Facts count.  Details count.  Names of people and places are less important. But most importantly will your audience believe what you're saying?

The best advice comes from the master screenwriter and director Quentin Tarantino in a scene from Reservoir Dogs, lovingly called ‘The Commode Story’. Be warned: do not click on this link if you or your workmates in the office are offended by intense cursing.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9ObbvrQxAc&feature=youtu.be

Business & Finance - Business & Finance - Company News/Finance/Banks

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