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

Make your next presentation a Success Story The secret is out and it′s called CAST, an amazing new presentation system that combines sophisticated storytelling and visualization techniques. While it may not literally have the power to move mountains or part the Red Sea, wherever it′s been used to sell an idea or spark organizational change, the results have been nothing short of miraculous. If you′ve been tasked with selling a revolutionizing product, pitching a concept, or getting people on board with change, your life just got a lot easier. Written by the creators of CAST and the Visual Story Map model—a powerful process visualization tool— Stories That Move Mountains gives you everything you need to put this high–impact presentation process to work right away. The book includes: A practical introduction to CAST concepts, tools, and techniques Sample Visual Story Maps and templates Illustrated mini–guides showing how to use specific techniques most effectively Step–by–step guidance on how to create your own Visual Story Maps Expert advice on how to deliver high–impact presentations One–page handouts and other valuable presentation aids Tips on how to reengineer the same presentation for different audiences Detailed worked examples that run through the book with screenshots, handwritten notes, and images of whiteboards to illustrate how to apply the techniques in the real world Selling change is hard. Motivating people to enthusiastically embrace and act on it, nearly impossible. Learn how to harness the power of visual storytelling and make the hard simple and the nearly impossible easier than you ever imagined it could be. The companion website at www.storiesthatmovemountains.com features examples of CAST in action; links and blog postings to more examples; and downloadable Story Maps and other templates from the book.

1 THE POWER OF STORIES 2 Visual Stories 5 Should We Blame the Tools? 6 Finding the Right Tool for the Job  6 To Be Effective, You Have to Affect People  7 Convincing Evidence 10 2 CAST AND THE VISUAL STORY MAP 12 The Visual Story Map 12 3 USING CAST TO TELL STORIES 22 Use the Visual Story Map 23 Learn From Our Experience  24 Examples of Using CAST 25 Build Your Own Example 25 Example 1: Personal Trainer 26 Example 2: City University Hospital  27 Tell the Right Story 29 Tell the Story Right 29 4 WHY 34 The Three Big Whys 35 Focusing First on “Why” 36 All Motivation is Personal 37 Techniques for Discovering Whys  37 Five Whys 38 Pain Chain 40 Outcome Mapping 41 5 WHAT 48 Elements of Change. 50 Brainstorming the Changes 52 Filter and Focus  53 6 HOW 62 Traceability and Milestones 64 Finding the “How” 65 Understanding the Dependencies 68 Cum hoc ergo propter hoc 70 7 WHAT IF 76 Walking Backward Through the Story  78 Alternative Scenarios 80 Final Thoughts on the Story Content  89 8 WHO 92 Finding the Common Ground  96 Creating a Power Map 98 9 LEARNING AND DECISION STYLES 108 Categorizing Your Audience 109 Preferences, Not Prescriptions  109 Learning Styles 110 Decision Styles  112 10 STRUCTURE 122 Plot Structure 123 Nesting and Embedding (or How to Tell Many Stories at the Same Time)  139 Using Reality and Fiction 139 Hope’s Story  141 Putting All the Parts Together  141 In a Hurry? 143 11 CHARACTER 148 The Hero and the Villain 150 Character Associations 152 Believability 153 The Cast of Characters 154 Personification  154 12 SENSE OF URGENCY 164 The Enemies of Change: Complacency and Distraction 165 Common Factors Creating a Sense of Urgency 166 Success Is a Decision 168 Success Is a Commitment 168 13 DELIVERY PLAN 174 Decisions Take Time 176 Planning for Scale 178 Hook, Line, and Sinker 179 City University Hospital 180 Delivery Tips  186 14 DESIGN 192 Intentional Design 193 Many Formats, One Root 196 The Infographic 197 Ideation 198 Composition  200 Content Coding 209 Writing 214 15 TEST 222 Testing and Rehearsals 223 Opening, Closing, and Timing  224 Repetition 225 Retention 225 The Six Key Tests 226 16 CAST EXAMPLE: WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY CAN MAKE 232 17 AFTERWORD: IMPROVING YOUR VISUAL STORYTELLING 242 Practice Makes Perfect 242 Use Your Tools. 243 REFERENCES 246 INDEX 252

Martin Sykes is a leader in the Enterprise Strategy business at Microsoft Services. The CAST process and Visual Story Map has evolved over 12 years from a personal quest to improve his own communications, to a technique delivered at international conferences, used in workshops with customers in the public and private sectors around the world, and training for people in the Microsoft organization. A. Nicklas Malik is an enterprise strategy architect for Microsoft in the United States and a well–respected leader, speaker, and writer in the field of Enterprise Architecture. Key to his success has been the use of visual stories, a technique he learned from Martin′s early training sessions. Nick has used the CAST process in settings ranging from founding a small business to influencing corporate executives. Mark D. West is a graphic designer and educator, with experience developing successful training and graphic design solutions for retail and IT–based clients in the US Pacific Northwest (including Boeing and Microsoft) over the last 15 years. Numerous design colleges and IT–based clients have benefited from his expertise in design to support organizational effectiveness, learning, and results that stick.