Connection Stories

By: Andrés Oliveros

In this article I’ll talk about Connection Stories, using as context what I experienced a few weeks ago: an opportunity to meet new people and test my hypothesis that you can almost always use these types of stories in short interactions.

Latinos in Silicon Valley

A few days ago I put on a suit and attended the Silicon Valley Latino Leadership Summit in Mountain View, a conference with a very good lineup of Latino speakers (an Executive VP at Wells Fargo , the mayor of San José California, the SVP of Global Brand & Consumer MKT of the NFL , the Global VP of DEI at LinkedIn, to name a few).

According to my notes, I met—in the sense of talking to each of them for at least 2-3 minutes—a little over twenty people, almost all of them during breaks.

These encounters were brief, spontaneous, and almost always in English, although with a Spanish “buenos días” or “mucho gusto” to give it a Latin flavor.

My intention was always the same: first, to get to know each other. Then, if there was time, to talk to them a little about Astrolab and the investment we were making in the Latin market in the US.

80 % of my content  on social media is about storytelling, but I spend perhaps more time in my head thinking about how to meet more people and grow my network. This habit or practice has brought me great satisfaction throughout my life. 

My takeaway was that there was always time, even if it was little, to tell a short story of less than a minute. Sometimes in thirty seconds.

As it was an event with many people, and there were few breaks, I was very pragmatic, and decided to always tell the same story: one that would help me introduce myself personally and professionally.

Specifically, the story was a brief account of how I had arrived in Philadelphia a year ago with the intention of returning at the end of that year, and how a few months ago I had realized that there was a great business opportunity to bring our storytelling workshop to Latinos in the US.

If the conversation allowed time, I would tell other things about:

  • How my children did in the first days of school where everything was in English
  • How my son had become sad when I told him I was going away for the weekend
  • How depressed I was when I saw that the flight from Philadelphia to San Francisco was six hours long!
  • What happened in Adam Grant’s interview with Rainn Wilson (aka Dwight Schrute) last Wednesday at Penn

At least three of these people—Armando, Franco, and Jorge—introduced me to others in subsequent conversations as “the storytelling guy, you need to meet him!”

So if you’re at a networking event—or any other social moment or conversation—Connection Stories can be a great conversation starter.

An alternative to our face

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman cites the work of Alex Todorov, a Bulgarian psychologist and professor, related to automatic judgments about people.

Todorov proved—and the results have been widely replicated—that our immediate impressions of people are made based on how safe we ​​feel around them.

Specifically, Todorov found that with just one look at someone’s face we can make a judgment about how dominant (and therefore dangerous) they are, and how much we can trust that person.

The shape of our face determines whether we are perceived as dominant or not, and our expression—smiling, expressionless, angry—largely determines the level of trust we convey.

So our best tool is to smile, but that only solves the first impression.

The second and the rest of the impressions are derived from what we say and do.

In the following installments I will talk a little about what science says about the power that personal storytelling has for

  • Explaining an idea better
  • Building trust and credibility – leaving a mark on memory
  • Influencing judgments and behaviors

But not yet: I don’t want to bore you so soon 😉

When to use Connection Stories?

Connection Stories are usually short and light (uplifting , as the Americans would say), and are used to make your audience feel good. They also help you build rapport. If you achieve these two things, your audience will be more willing to listen to you and then you will be more likely to be remembered.

Now, using Connection Stories successfully is difficult.

Why are they difficult? Because Connection Stories are different depending on who your audience is.

Yes, you can have some Connection Stories prepared, but oftentimes, it’s impossible to know where a conversation will go (did you just lose your passport? did your town flood? did you buy a new phone? did you find a new cafe? ).

My networking event example works, but many times you’ll find yourself in a different kind of conversation: the one-on-one conversation, whether you managed to get an appointment with an investor, you’re meeting a prospect, or you ran into a colleague in your industry on a flight.

How to use them

Connection Stories can be a way to introduce yourself, but they can also be improvised, based on the first topics that arise in a conversation, better known as small talk .

For example:

  • How is the weather in your city? (Just kidding, don’t talk about the weather! Or, well, do it: we all expect it)
  • How’s the traffic?
  • Do you follow any sports teams?
  • Did anything interesting happen to you this weekend?

At this point, you have two alternatives: make small talk, that is, say anything polite and even kind, but irrelevant and not at all memorable.

Or you can share something related to that subtopic that might bring a smile to your audience’s face. Talk about your daughter, your sports team, your experience at Starbucks, or the misunderstanding with your husband.

Connection Stories are typically less than a minute long, and are told with energy—in the end, you want the other person to not regret investing their time in you.

In the post How to find ten stories in an hour I share some Connection Stories that I have used recently:

  • The story of my son, a Dallas Cowboys fan, and our visit to the Eagles game
  • The story of how my wife told me we were going to have a daughter

Eventually, the time for Connection Stories passes, especially if you already have a defined theme for that meeting.

My suggestion is that if you’re already talking about the core topic, avoid Connection Stories unless you really feel like you’re going to add a lot of value. If you’re not careful, you can sound snobby, distracted, or unprofessional.

Remember, the goal of these types of stories is not to persuade, influence, get investment or close a sale: that will come later.

The goal of Connection Stories is to “get on your good side,” put your audience at ease, and pave the way for another ten or fifteen minutes of conversation.

That’s more than enough.

Challenge

I want to give you a little challenge together with a rubric for self-evaluation.

Don’t see it as a task, but rather as an opportunity to begin this path towards interpersonal communication based on stories, and therefore, make it easier for you to win over others.

Instructions

  1. Open your calendar for this week
  2. Identify 1-2 calls, meetings, or conversations with new people or frequent colleagues where the risk is low (i.e. skip that final presentation with a client, investor, boss, or partner…we will eventually increase the difficulty on these challenges)
  3. Take a minute to think about each of these people: What are they like? What do they like? What is their personal situation? Do they have pets? What team do they support?
  4. Prepare a short story that you can tell in less than a minute
  5. We haven’t talked about the elements of the best stories yet, but here’s a tip: include at least one line of dialogue that serves as a punchline and is intended to make you laugh or smile.
  6. Tell the story out loud at least twice before sharing it.
  7. Once you tell the story, go back to the self-assessment rubric

Rubric

Did you get them to pay attention to you? YES/NO

Did you tell it in less than a minute? YES/NO

Did you include a punchline? YES/NO

Did your punchline make the other person laugh or at least smile?
YES/NO

About the author

Andrés Oliveros

CoFounder

Andrés le ayuda a líderes a aumentar su influencia usando storytelling - LinkedIn Top Voice 💬


Date:
02 de November de 2023

Category:
Learning


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