Speaker 1: Thanks to social media, everyone's a storyteller now, whether you're
Speaker 1: guiding your work to the right audience, developing your personal brand,
Speaker 1: or keeping the public up to date on the COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen situation, your job is to tell a story. If
Speaker 1: people don't understand you or don't tune in, then everything
Speaker 1: else is for nothing. So how do you get better
Speaker 1: at communicating? Norman Swann, a physician, journalist, broadcaster, and the
Speaker 1: host of ABC's Corona Cast podcast, has decades of experience,
Speaker 1: not just in storytelling itself, but in helping others develop
Speaker 1: their craft too, So how can we avoid the most
Speaker 1: common mistake that new writers make when it comes to communicating.
Speaker 1: My name is doctor Amantha Imbat. I'm an organizational psychologist
Speaker 1: and founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is
Speaker 1: how I work a show about how to help you
Speaker 1: do your best work. On today is my Favorite Tip episode,
Speaker 1: we go back to an interview from the past and
Speaker 1: I pick out my favorite tip from the interview. In
Speaker 1: today's show, I speak with Norman Swan, and something that
Speaker 1: I always find really impressive when I listen to Norman
Speaker 1: is how effective he is at communicating health information. I
Speaker 1: wanted to know how he came to be so good
Speaker 1: at communicating complex things in simple terms.
Speaker 2: That's taking years to develop.
Speaker 3: So one of the joys of doing what I do
Speaker 3: do is it's exactly what you say.
Speaker 2: I really love it.
Speaker 3: That's what I loved storytelling, and so that's what journalismsm
Speaker 3: is is discipline storytelling. And when you're telling a story,
Speaker 3: you've got to work out what the narrative is, how
Speaker 3: to engage people in that narrative, how to stop their
Speaker 3: minds lifting to something else so that they're always there.
Speaker 3: And I liken it to grabbing somebody by the neck,
Speaker 3: sitting them down, nothing else to think about now, And.
Speaker 2: What's the ebb.
Speaker 3: And flow of the energy of a communication piece as
Speaker 3: well as the content of that.
Speaker 2: So when I first joined the ABC, that's what you know.
Speaker 3: I already had that love of storytelling, and then you
Speaker 3: had to apply it to communicating complex information more complex information.
Speaker 3: And I had a colleague then, unfortunately, actor young Peter Hunt,
Speaker 3: who we worked closely together.
Speaker 2: He was an environmental journalist. I was health and I
Speaker 2: was more health.
Speaker 4: Side, and we used to work together and do that
Speaker 4: TESSK together. He had something that he wanted to communicate
Speaker 4: till he wanted to communicate. We workshop how we did it,
Speaker 4: and we'd read each other's scripts and give people and
Speaker 4: give each other feedback. And we did that for some years.
Speaker 4: And I think that once you've been doing that sort
Speaker 4: of thing for some years, you kind of get what
Speaker 4: works and what doesn't work. And now one of the
Speaker 4: pleasures I get is actually working with young incoming broadcasters
Speaker 4: and working on their scripts and showing them ways of
Speaker 4: changing the story, how you might create a metaphor an
Speaker 4: image something to grab onto and get that rhythm right
Speaker 4: and pass that on.
Speaker 3: But it's just years and years of doing it, practicing
Speaker 3: and getting feedback, and years and years of failure as well,
Speaker 3: and learning from your failures.
Speaker 1: So when you are editing, say a less experienced person script,
Speaker 1: for example, what are some of the things that you're
Speaker 1: looking for or are some of the pieces of advice
Speaker 1: that you find yourself giving often?
Speaker 3: Well, I think the mistake that some people make, and
Speaker 3: it's not just young kids coming in and learning, it's people.
Speaker 3: Something you're doing is that you feel you're on a
Speaker 3: mission to explain. And if you feel you're on a
Speaker 3: mission to explain, you're going to fail. Before you start.
Speaker 3: That's why I'm talking about storytelling.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Storytelling is episodic.
Speaker 3: It has a beginning, a middle, and an end, but
Speaker 3: it also has episodes within it. And you don't tell
Speaker 3: the whole story up front. You've got to give people
Speaker 3: a reason to move on. So the common things that
Speaker 3: I find people do is they give away the story
Speaker 3: at the beginning. All you've got to do at the
Speaker 3: beginning is give people a reason to listen because it's
Speaker 3: going to be a payoff, and make sure they do
Speaker 3: get a payoff.
Speaker 2: It's explaining too.
Speaker 3: Much at one time rather than parsing out the information
Speaker 3: so that I'm going to give you a little bit,
Speaker 3: you get a little bit, No, consolidate that little bit
Speaker 3: of information. Then I'll take you to the next place.
Speaker 3: And I'm taking you by the hand through the story.
Speaker 3: And you've got to trust me that I will take
Speaker 3: you by the hand and i will not lose you
Speaker 3: during the story.
Speaker 1: I just loved hearing Norman's insight into what goes on
Speaker 1: behind the scenes and in his head when he thinks
Speaker 1: about how best to communicate important information, which I just
Speaker 1: think he does so well. And if you're looking for
Speaker 1: more tips to improve the way that you work. I
Speaker 1: write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three core things
Speaker 1: that I have discovered that help me work better. You
Speaker 1: can sign up for that at Howiwork dot co. That's
Speaker 1: how I Work dot co. How I Work is produced
Speaker 1: by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios. And
Speaker 1: thank you to Martin Nimba who does the audio mix
Speaker 1: for every episode and makes everything sound much better than
Speaker 1: it would have otherwise. See you next time.