2018 Storytelling

What’s Your Story? How to Use Storytelling to Lead Strategic Change

When vision and direction shift, you risk leaving people behind. Something gets lost between that brilliant new strategy and the people who have to make it real. They don’t get it. They don’t understand what it means for them. They check out or fade away or underperform because they’re overwhelmed and underinformed.

Great leaders know how to connect the dots between direction and action through great Storytelling. They use every touchpoint to build their story through written communication, presentations, direct coaching and ad hoc conversations. They know how to map the message to their audience. They go beyond bullet-points. They build a story that builds trust, gives purpose and inspires.

Unfortunately, most of our channels of communication at work undermine great storytelling: Furtive conversations in hallways, e-mail chains, PowerPoint presentations that have been crammed with bullet points and group-thunk into jargon soup. Each of us has the natural ability to be a better storyteller with some practice and mindful reconsideration of how we approach our message.

In this highly interactive presentation you will gain skills and insight you can use right away in e-mails, presentations and meetings to engage your organization.

• Recognizing the power of storytelling for making strategic change meaningful and personal across the organization
• Tools for framing your message to different audiences to help them understand the ‘why’ and ‘why it matters’
• An understanding of how to apply universal storytelling elements like Hero, Hook, and Metaphor
• Tricks for simplifying information to be more memorable
• Building rapport, trust, and transparency through a well-crafted personal or organizational anecdote
• Becoming more adaptive and connected in the delivery of important information

Andy Eninger plunders techniques from the world of improvisation, comedy writing, consumer insights, and marketing for an innovative and entertaining, experiential learning experience.

About the Speaker

Andy Eninger is a Storytelling Expert, Speaker, and Learning Designer. He is also a writer and comedian, and was the Head of the Writing Program for the famed comedy theater The Second City from 2011 to 2016. He helps individuals and organizations connect to audiences by understanding, crafting, and delivering their stories in a memorable way.

Andy has worked with hundreds of corporations, including Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Leo Burnett, Cigna, State Farm, Visa, Verizon, Salesforce, SAP, Deloitte, Nike, GE, Walgreens, Merck, MetLife, Kellogg’s, and many more.  His work takes him around the world to design and deliver learning programs in collaborative leadership, executive presence, innovation, and storytelling for sales teams. For the Second City Works, he has spearheaded their learning programs in Storytelling, Selling Skills, and Diversity & Inclusion and served on the design team for their work in Consumer Insights for brands.

In his spare time, he continues to write, direct, and perform with productions like “Bandgeeks! A Halftime Musical,” “Little House on the Parody,” “Whitney Houston, We Have a Problem!,” and in the comedy duo Pink Pony.

Andy has been teaching for The Second City since 2001, and performing there since 2006. He holds a BS in Mass Communications and an MA in Playwriting from Miami University, and studied film directing at the Academy of Drama & Film in Budapest, Hungary.  In a former life, he designed databases and created online media for the advertising agencies Tatham and Leo Burnett.  He currently lives in Los Angeles.