Business travel is tough on the traveler and tough on families. In a post 9-11 world, you know the challenges of endless security lines, frisking, delays and luggage restrictions.
Life on the road just isn’t what it used to be.
If you find business travel stressful, join the club. You are not alone. According to the 2000 International Symposium on Stress, 73% of respondents found business travel stressful. More than half of the respondents reported business travel negatively affected their life.
The negative impact includes overall well-being, sleep and general performance. In addition, 100% of the respondent’s partners or spouses said business travel has a negative impact on their family life.
A different report, from the World Bank, found that 76% of business travelers suffer from more health problems during travel.
If you are suffering from stress due to frequent business travel, you have a healthy alternative. If you are concerned about a negative impact of business travel on the stability or happiness of your family, you have an immediate and relationship building choice.
The choice? Hold more virtual meetings. And hold your virtual meetings with a human touch. This human touch includes telling stories, which stick.
Effective storytelling in virtual meetings is the key to highly productive, relationship-focused, business meetings.
This is exactly what people do when they meet in person. We tell tales. If you think back to your favorite boss or most-admired leader, I bet this is a quality they had. They could tell stories. Stories with a message. Stories, which inspire. And stories you still remember, many years later.
If you want to recreate the intimacy of meeting face-to-face with your team, learn to tell emotional stories. If you want to increase collaboration in your virtual team meetings, encourage participants to tell stories.
Well-told stories help build rapport and trust in distance team.
The key word is ‘well-told’ and here are three tips to keep in mind as you plan your stories for your next virtual meeting.
Storytelling Tip 1 – Keep your story short.
Somehow, once we get on a roll, it’s all too easy to get long-winded. This can be the very thing which turns off virtual participants – whether clients or internal teammates.
Be ruthless. Cut your story down to the bone. Make sure every part is essential. Then cut out some more. It’s absolutely fine if you have more details, data or background information to share. Do it in a document or shared file. Refer to your extra data. But don’t read through the tiny 10-point font print. And please, please, don’t bore the entire virtual group with all your columns of numbers.
Storytelling Tip 2 – Be authentic.
Tell a story which puts you and your audience on common ground. Be yourself. You don’t have to emulate the style of your boss, a talk show host or anyone else. Be yourself.
When you are genuinely yourself, your passion comes through. This may show in your expressions, style, pacing and tone. That’s good! After all, you are the one telling the story. Be yourself.
Storytelling Tip 3 – Brief responses to questions.
In most virtual presentations, meetings, you’ll want to include time for Q & A, questions and answers. This can be another of those ‘Achilles heel’ moments. You may have told a fascinating, relevant and stimulating story. But, then a participant asks a question, and you go on for 10-minutes giving your response.
Resist the temptation to answer all the aspects of a question. Answer the question in the shortest way possible. If there are more details and sub points, invite the participant to contact you after the virtual meeting.
Long, drawn-out answers are the death knoll to a well-told story. Don’t fall in this trap.
With powerful stories, you can recreate dialogue, interaction, and productivity of face-to-face meetings – in a virtual environment.
Use virtual meetings to reduce your stress levels and support your overall health. Use virtual meetings to make your spouse, partner, children and families happy. Use virtual meetings to please your cost-conscious clients.
Once you see the power of virtual storytelling, you’ll have one more reason to rethink your travel schedule. Just imagine, better results, more money, happier teams – and you can still go home on nights and weekends.
Now, that’s a tale worth telling!
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