When to tell a story at work as a knowledge worker?

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TABLE OF CONTENT

• Watch the video to understand when Knowledge worker can tell better business stories at work:
• Prefer to read? Transcript of the video about when Knowledge worker should use business stories at work:
• 1. What is a Knowledge Worker?
• 2. What is Explicit and Tacit Knowledge?
• 3. How is Knowledge Extracted?
• 4. The Lifecycle of a Project
• 5. The Curse of Knowledge System
• 6. Preparing for the Workshop
• 7. The Top Skills for Knowledge Workers in 2025
• 8. The Benefits of the Curse of Knowledge System
• Main takeaways

As a knowledge worker, it is essential to be able to effectively communicate complex projects to stakeholders. Business storytelling is an effective way to do this by using a narrative structure to transform tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. (see the difference below).

This can lead to better stakeholder engagement, clear communication, and improved public speaking. The Curse of Knowledge System is a complete system to help knowledge workers do this by providing templates, exercises, and examples to turn complex project information into stories that are logical and convincing. It is an invaluable tool to have in the workplace.

To understand when to tell a story at work:

1. watch the following video, or
2. read the transcript if you prefer reading.

Watch the video to understand when Knowledge worker can tell better business stories at work:

Knowledge workers are workers whose main capital is knowledge. Examples include programmers, physicians, pharmacists, architects, engineers, scientists, design thinkers, public accountants, lawyers, editors, and academics, whose job is to "think for a living". Wikipedia

Prefer to read? Transcript of the video about when Knowledge worker should use business stories at work:

1. What is a Knowledge Worker?

People working in an office are called knowledge workers. Workers whose main capital is knowledge are knowledge workers. We deal with lots of information that we collect in meetings, in emails, in reports, and by talking to each other. When this information is turned into a report or put onto a platform, we call it explicit knowledge.

2. What is Explicit and Tacit Knowledge?

A video, an article, an infographic, a PowerPoint presentation is explicit knowledge.

If someone else can find it later, it is explicit. But when the information is trapped in someone's heads, it's called tacit knowledge. It's the experience of someone on the project or what he learns, the mistakes he made and he won't commit again.

80% of all the knowledge of a you need to all organization is tacit. It's not written somewhere.

That's why we often need to organize meetings or call someone or ask questions via email to access this knowledge. And oftentimes we don't even know who has that knowledge.

Studies estimate that the average office worker spends between two and 3 hours per day looking for information to do his job. So much time spent. I believe it is frustrating and it is inefficient.

3. How is Knowledge Extracted?

So how can we extract knowledge better and make sure others can find it? How can we ensure that all stakeholders are managements and the rest of the organization? Learn what we know and remember us when they need more information? Can we even adopt a technique to make all knowledge explicit and not just in our head?

4. The Lifecycle of a Project

Let's take the lifecycle of a classic project which lasts 2 to 4 years. (see the graph)

1. Every project starts with an idea that can be shared with others to get feedback and support. It's also the moment you test the logic of a project before moving forward. The step is often called BRAINSTORMING.
2. A project then moves into a fully formed plan, including lots of emails, reports and meetings. During this stage you want to share your vision and get more support from partners and management. This step is called the VISION AND MISSION.
3. The project then enters the execution phase, which includes thousands of focused work hours, meetings and stakeholder collaboration. During this step, it is essential to update others on the project's progress and allocate resources effectively. The step is the STATUS UPDATE.
4. As the project nears completion. You might announced the release of the solution to relevant users and stakeholders. This way they know that a solution exists, how to use it and where they can find it. This step is the FINAL PUSH.
5. And finally, when a project is completed, you document and share the knowledge with others, resolve the lessons learned, the best practices, the tacit information turned into a nap hitting format. This step is the CASE STUDY. It is what remains once a project is over, and it will help future colleague colleagues to know what you worked on.

Each step of this project lifecycle is the source of information to explain what you do so you can convince others of your expertise and inspire more people to join your effort.

The main capital we have as office workers is our knowledge.

We don't use machines, we don't plant tomatoes, we don't extract oil.

So this process of extracting and sharing knowledge, is what we do at work. We might use dozens of different tools like meetings, briefings, evidence chats, 1 to 1 conversations; we might write emails, create PowerPoints, brochures, visual posters, infographics, data visualization, web pages, or even produce videos to extract this knowledge.

5. The Curse of Knowledge System

And up until now, you probably thought that these tools required hours or weeks to create. That some might even require to work with your communication department or hire freelancers or agency. And you were right.

Without a formula to encode knowledge, these tools were complicated and confusing and frustrating. Up until now.

Five years ago, I discovered a narrative structure that allows us to take any complex information, like a Status update or a complex topic, and fit it into ten logical steps.

This is called a story.

A story has a beginning, a middle and an end, and it is logical. We can have work stories and these are called case studies, or we can have informative stories and these are called documentaries.

Or we can even entertaining stories for kids and recycled fairy tales. But a story is not a fairy tale. It is a logical sequence of information we can share with others.

People don't need further instructions or explanations to understand it. When knowledge takes the form of a story, it becomes very logical and we can present it to others. We can present it to our peers who have a lot of expertise or a top manager with discovering what we do for the first time.

And the story might even start to circulate without you.

Like an anecdote you read in a newspaper and start telling to others. Stories are when knowledge basically becomes alive.

I will spare you the details of how I came up with this formula, but it involves reviewing over 300 professional case stories from a dozen different industries.

In 2018, I started teaching the formula to knowledge workers like you, diplomats, engineers, scientists, programme project managers, technical leads into managers, all professionals who had to explain technical information to non-specialists convince and inspire others.

For the last five years, I've worked with 3000 of these professionals myself, me improve my method and it is now the formula you will learn.

6. Preparing for the Workshop

I called my method the Curse of Knowledge system because it is a complete system to help us overcome the Curse of knowing too much about our own job and connect with people who do not have the same knowledge.

We learn the storytelling formula with templates, exercises and examples.

Once we understand it, it helps us turn a complex project into a PowerPoint presentation in under 3 hours or into a full video in under 6 hours. It will help you write an executive summary in under an hour, or a complex detailed email in 30 minutes.

You will decide which tool is best for your own audience. But the formula will be the same every single time.

And thanks to the help of A.I. technology, we can even start to dream of cutting down this effort by 90%. I'll show you a couple of emerging tools during the workshop that can exponentially increase your impact. To prepare for this intensive workshop. You will need to watch 60 minutes of videos similar to this one.

You will also use a digital template to create a product story, which will be the foundation for our work during the workshop. This will help you learn the necessary formula before attending the workshop so you have materials to contribute.

7. The Top Skills for Knowledge Workers in 2025

The World Economic Forum predicts that the top ten skills for knowledge workers in 2025 will relate to being able to solve complex problems, being able to learn and improve our own skills by ourselves.

Being able to share all knowledge, consult and advise others. And finally, our use of technology. You will improve in these domains during the course by learning how to communicate complex information, which again is what we do as knowledge workers.

8. The Benefits of the Curse of Knowledge System

It took me five years to create, test and refine the method.

You will learn in under 10 hours and this formula will save you time. It will save you doubts and efforts whenever you do your job of sharing knowledge. So it's fair to ask that you pay attention to each step and examples will use and that you come up ready to the workshop. You should like this presentation and this specific video also knows that it is based on the same formula. Ten steps to make complex information logical, convincing, and inspiring.

I hope to see you soon in the course of Knowledge workshop. My name is Charlie and I will be your instructor.

Main takeaways

• Knowledge workers rely on both explicit and tacit knowledge
• An average office worker spends 2-3 hours per day looking for information
• We can extract knowledge better by organizing meetings, calling people, and asking questions
• There is a 10 step formula to turn complex information into a logical, convincing, and inspiring story
• This formula can be used to create PowerPoint presentations, emails, videos, and more
• The use of A.I. technology can reduce the effort required to create these tools by 90%

If you'd like, let's hop on a quick phone call to see if overcoming your CURSE OF KNOWLEDGE is right for you.

Just book a time to chat that works for you: https://calendly.com/curseofknowledge/45-minutes-session-curse-of-knowledge

During the call, we'll look at how you can change how you communicate with non-specialists, build trust and see your recommendations accepted by using the CURSE OF KNOWLEDGE System, and what your best next steps would be if you decide to pursue this strategy.

Spots are limited, and there's zero obligation to work with me, but if we do end up being a fit, I'll invite you to become a private client of mine, and I can do all of this for you.

I look forward to speaking with you!

Charlelie