After hearing my “Mole” analogy in a training on change management (I’m from East Texas and grew up on a farm), a friend asked if I would consider writing out some of my stories. Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the desire to do so. However, I thought I would write a quick post on stories in training and teaching.
Few teaching tools have the impact of a good story and facilitators should always be looking for new stories to illustrate a point. I have found that the more stories and analogies I read, the more likely I am to see an analogy from my life that I might use in training. However, here are some of my favorite resources for stories:
- Reader’s Digest
- Chicken Soup for the (you name it) Soul
- Every Day Greatness
- Anything from John Maxwell, his books have numerous illustrations
- Fresh Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching
The internet also has a ton of illustrations for different topics. A couple of points:
- Use short illustrations
- Make sure they are relevant to the topic
- Use humor when you can; a funny story is remembered longer than a boring one
- Use emotion when you can; an emotional story is remembered longer than a funny one
Being a life-long reader not only gives you a better perspective to teach from, it also gives you a lot of resources to teach with. One of the most important tools you can use are short, humorous or emotional stories to make a point.
Got a good illustration, send it to poortrainer@gmail.com
Happy training.
