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

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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:

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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