Stories are an inseparable part of growing up. How many stories have we heard in our childhoods? As children, we all loved to listen to stories that people told us. Even as adults, we love listening to others' stories, only this time we call it 'experiences' or informally, "the grapevine." It is definitely an experience that most of us have gone through.

1. Storytelling An Effective Training Method!
Story-telling methods, if used for training, can ensure a captive audience. It is a wonderful means to
establish rapport with a group. Real-life experiences narrated in story form can help forge better
relationships in a team and build credibility with the team members. Stories are an effective method to
communicate important messages to people as they can be fun and interesting.
Stories can be used to teach ideas and impart complex concepts. Trainers who have successfully used
story-telling techniques in their training sessions will vouch for their effectiveness as a teaching or training
tool.
There are a lot of aspects of learning that are concrete or measurable, while others are abstract or those
that cannot be measured, but only imagined and understood. Stories can be used to explain both concrete
and abstract concepts. A story, when used as a study or learning technique, is a chain or thread that can
be used to link different facts, whether related or unrelated.
The story doesn’t really have to make a lot of sense by itself as much as it needs to be the medium that
links different facts that we know. This kind of linking is what makes it easy to study or remember and use
it later. Stories can be used to introduce new ideas and reinforce old concepts. Existing stories can be
modified and reused to accommodate newer ideas.
Story-telling techniques, when incorporated into training sessions, make the session effective and
engaging. It also increases the listeners’ enjoyment quotient tremendously. Research has shown that the
efficacy of stories is not due to the story itself, but more because, people generally relate the story to an
incident they may have experienced at some time. Thus, they can actualize the message and internalize
the essence of the story.
A calculated use of story-telling can include reflections of past experiences, understanding and conveying
the meaning embedded in those instances and using them to channelize key messages in a host of
contexts. These can be used to guide values and priorities, promote desired behaviors and share learning.
Using one’s life experiences can be a sure-shot success strategy for your training session purely because
you can convey its inherent integrity, credibility and passion first-hand. A story should ideally create a
timeline, proceed to focus on a related task or event and end with a focus on the acquired learning. The
stories used in the session can then be used to elaborate on the meaning it holds for you, the influence it
has on your thinking or approach to work and the value it can provide that makes a difference to others.
Do share your thoughts on the same.
To read more such articles, visit http://blog.commlabindia.com/
No.30, II Floor, Sarvasukhi Colony, West Marredpally, Secunderabad – 500 026 INDIA
Telephone: 0091–40–27803080 & Fax: 0091–40–27716308
URL: http://www.commlabindia.com Email: info@commlabindia.com