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Storytelling for learning with Rance Greene

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Episode summary

In this episode of the Learning While Working Podcast, Rance Green talks about the transformative power of storytelling in learning. He shares his "instructional story design" method, emphasising the need to understand the learning audience deeply and integrate conflict effectively into training narratives. Rance also provides practical advice on creating impactful training stories that act like flight simulators for the brain, driving both context and action.

About Rance Greene

Rance Greene is a story designer, author and speaker. Rance helps leaders connect with, inspire, guide and persuade their people through story-based messaging. He also equips talent development professionals to reach business outcomes through story-based training. A leader, consultant, coach and frequent speaker in live and virtual sessions on leadership storytelling, story-writing and instructional story design.

Key Takeaways

  • Understand your audience: Rance emphasises the importance of deeply understanding your learning audience to create relatable characters and scenarios. This ensures the training is tailored to their specific needs and resonates on a personal level.
  • Incorporate conflict: One of the essential elements of a compelling story is conflict. It engages the audience and drives the narrative forward. Rance highlights that stories in training should end at the height of conflict to leave a lasting impression and a desire for resolution.
  • Story design as a process: Rance’s "instructional story design" method combines analytical and creative steps, making storytelling accessible to everyone, even if you don’t see yourself as a natural storyteller. By focusing on behaviours and actions, training stories become both relatable and actionable.

Segmented time stamps:

  • 00:00 Introduction.
  • 06:12 Scenarios compared to stories.
  • 11:08 Training stories need relatable characters and conflict.
  • 16:07 Encourage stakeholder responsibility through system-based thinking.
  • 18:22 How will training benefit individuals personally?
  • 25:21 Start a story, resolve conflict, and ask reflective questions.
  • 28:39 Efficiently teach storytelling: conflict, action, brevity.

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