“We’re all storytellers. All of us stay in a community of tales. There isn’t a stronger connection between individuals than storytelling.”
Jimmy Neil Smith, Director of the Worldwide Storytelling Heart
Introduction
Image it with me: a time once you had been a baby and somebody learn your favourite story to you, or once you had been an grownup and also you learn somebody their favourite story. I need you to deal with the feelings remembering that have generated. Personally, I considered studying the e-book, “Guess How A lot I Love You,” to my daughter when she was younger and the way she would sit on my lap and hold on to each phrase. The smile on her face, and the enjoyment in her voice as she talked in regards to the story, was priceless.
I share the above as a result of storytelling, whether or not with a baby or within the boardroom, when achieved proper, will depart an impression on individuals and infrequently evoke an emotional response. This is the reason now we have seen the current rise in storytelling as a key talent for finance and FP&A professionals. Specifically, we’re repeatedly requested to inform tales with information; the remainder of this text focuses on how we are able to optimize our information storytelling.
On this article, we talk about:
- Why storytelling is so necessary
- The best way to make your information visible
- The best way to craft persuasive narratives
- Bringing all of it collectively within the presentation
Significance of Information Storytelling
“The human thoughts is a narrative processor, not a logic processor.”
– Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist
Information storytelling is a key talent, and the function of Storyteller is among the 5 commonest roles of FP&A professionals, based on analysis carried out by FP&A Developments. The typical FP&Knowledgeable spends greater than half of their time working with information. Sadly, we spend virtually all of that point analyzing the information. Most finance professionals want extra time to consider convey the information story in a method that will get the viewers’s consideration and influences them to make clever choices with the information.
The information storytelling course of begins with analyzing the information and gathering insights; this stage is crucial. One generally is a grasp storyteller, but when the information doesn’t help the story or present insights that may drive actionable outcomes, you’ll fail to affect the enterprise positively. Nonetheless, for many finance professionals, conducting evaluation and discovering insights is just not the issue. The issue is we fall flat once we current the information.
I discovered this lesson the arduous method a number of years in the past when a presentation went utterly sideways. After the presentation, I requested my boss what went improper, and I can nonetheless hear his phrases in my thoughts at the moment at any time when I give it some thought. He mentioned, “Paul your evaluation was sensible, however your presentation lacked.”
That was an incredible reminder that we can not put all our time into the evaluation and assume others will perceive the message within the information as a result of we perceive the message. We should spend time crafting the story from the attitude of the viewers.
Framing the story is about understanding your viewers and making a narrative that gives worth to them. It requires creating compelling visuals and a strong narrative, then bringing all of it collectively by presenting it in a method that can curiosity and interact your viewers.
You will need to bear in mind the story is not only for large displays however ought to permeate all of our reporting, from variance commentary to board decks, as each quantity has a narrative.
Making your Information Visible
“Information visualization helps to bridge the hole between numbers and phrases.”
– Brie E. Anderson
Information visualization is about extra than simply creating fancy charts and visuals so your viewers doesn’t have to have a look at a bunch of numbers and tables. It’s about utilizing visuals to make it simpler in your viewers to grasp your story.
We don’t use visuals simply because they give the impression of being fairly. The typical individual will retain 80% of what they see, 20% of what they learn, and 10% of what they hear. Mix that with the truth that a human can course of a picture a lot sooner than they’ll course of textual content, and you’ve got a compelling cause why it is best to use visuals to reinforce the story.
Relating to creating visuals, it is very important preserve it easy and deal with the principle level of every graph. I’ve seven fundamental visualization design rules I wish to comply with; these rules come from Storytelling with Information by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic. The seven rules are as follows:
- Suppose like a designer – When creating visuals, design issues. It’s not sufficient to simply choose the primary graph in Excel and name it good.
- Maintain it easy – No want for the graph to be complicated; the extra you’ve gotten occurring, the tougher it will likely be in your viewers to grasp the important thing message of the graph.
- Ruthlessly cut back muddle – Ask your self whether it is wanted to convey the principle message. If the reply isn’t any, take away it.
- Use colour sparingly – Colour ought to solely be used to assist strengthen the message, not since you assume colour will make it fairly.
- Use distinction successfully – Distinction is a good way to attract consideration to one thing particular within the information. Use it to reinforce your message
- Choose the precise visible – Understanding what visible is greatest in your information will make it a lot simpler in your viewers to achieve insights out of your information.
- Context is necessary – Present sufficient context in your viewers to grasp the message the graph is attempting to painting. Don’t make your viewers guess.
Under is an instance of the distinction a well-designed graph could make in telling the story.
As you evaluate the 2 visuals, you may rapidly see the primary visible is a knowledge dump that reveals weekly efficiency, however the reader is left to guess what all of it means. Within the second visible, you may rapidly see the objective is to hit a weekly revenue goal of 550,000 and see what weeks this was achieved and what weeks it was not achieved because of the colour coding. You may also see lots of the different design rules we mentioned above being utilized right here to incorporate colour, ruthlessly decreasing muddle, and so on.
As you spend time utilizing the design rules above and setting time apart to be deliberate in how and once you use visuals, you will see that they are going to make an enormous distinction within the message you might be sharing along with your viewers. As you’re employed in your visuals, you additionally must deal with the narrative you’ll share along with your presentation.
Crafting a persuasive narrative
“A scarcity of narrative construction, as you realize, will trigger nervousness.”
– John Dufresne
In case you are like me, on a couple of event, you’ve gotten left a presentation or completed an article or e-book questioning what on the earth the individual was speaking about. It was arduous to comply with as a result of the narrative lacked construction. I as soon as had a VP who advised me, in his opinion, that finance professionals didn’t spend practically sufficient time fascinated by what they had been going to say. On the time, I assumed it was good recommendation, however didn’t give it lots of thought. Nonetheless, at the moment I couldn’t agree extra with the thought. Discovering a framework that can assist you take into consideration craft a persuasive narrative is de facto necessary. Many frameworks exist, however one framework that can be utilized is Monroe’s Motivated Sequence:
- Consideration – Discover a method to seize the viewers’s consideration
- Want – Present to the viewers the necessity for what you might be recommending
- Satisfaction – Present a advice to resolve the necessity
- Visualization – Assist the viewers see the advantages of the answer
- Motion – Embody a name to motion
Utilizing a framework like this may also help you place collectively a story that can persuade your viewers to motion. As finance professionals, the objective is to offer value-added insights, and this requires persuading your viewers to motion. A well-structured narrative will go a great distance towards serving to you affect your viewers.
Presenting: Bringing all of it collectively
“I believe that nobody, or only a few, are born pretty much as good presenters. It’s a talent that you just be taught.”
– Dale Carnegie
The final a part of the method is the presentation, whether or not that be a proper presentation or an e-mail. I really like the under picture from Brent Dykes, exhibiting how we are able to drive change by bringing information, visuals, and narrative collectively.
We convey this all collectively within the presentation we give. Inside Finance, I believe most of us are least comfy giving formal displays, so we’ll deal with that space and use a framework that Ron Monteiro created known as ACE in your presentation. ACE stands for
- Viewers – perceive and cater to your viewers
- Content material – create insightful and impactful content material utilizing visualization
- Execution – Keep in mind physique language and vocalization are crucial
The ACE framework may be very straightforward to implement and focuses on the three foremost areas of presentation. If you consider every of those and the way they are going to affect your presentation, and observe forward of time, the subsequent time you give a presentation you’ll be more likely to ACE it.
Conclusion
“Numbers have an necessary story to inform. They depend on you to offer them a transparent and convincing voice.”
Stephen Few, information visualization professional
Information storytelling is among the most necessary abilities for FP&A professionals at the moment. We’d like to have the ability to not solely analyze the information but in addition create compelling visuals and narratives so we are able to drive change. The excellent news is, it is a talent we are able to all develop with time and deliberate observe.
Many nice assets exist to assist us on our information storytelling journey. Just a few nice assets embrace:
Along with spending time studying, working towards, and studying from consultants within the discipline, many instruments exist that may assist us analyze and visualize information extra simply. We’ve got seen an explosion in BI and information visualization instruments, all designed to assist us analyze and visualize the ever-growing quantity of information obtainable to us in at the moment’s world.
One instrument that’s designed for enterprise professionals working in information analytics, operations, gross sales, provide, and finance that may assist with the evaluation and visualization is Energy ON from insightsoftware. In case you are on the level in your information journey the place you want an answer that brings planning, evaluation, and information visualization collectively in a single acquainted instrument, Energy BI, then try Energy ON. With its real-time write-back capabilities, Energy ON affords you extra management and suppleness over your information, taking your corporation past conventional enterprise intelligence
Keep in mind that expertise in and of itself is not going to make you an incredible presenter however having instruments that may assist you within the evaluation and visualization of your information could make it simpler to current insights to administration in a method that drives worth for the enterprise. Watch this one-minute video to see how Energy ON supercharges your evaluation and information visualization abilities.
Energy ON Visible Planning Energy BI
Watch Now
