Exasperation Generators: Irrelevant Detail

Eye rolling. Doodling. Checking the tweet stream. More eye rolling. More doodling. These are signs of bored exasperation. They can happen in any meeting when the speaker's tale includes details that seem irrelevant to whatever the speaker's point turns out to be, if he or she has a point.

Listeners who feel powerful might interrupt, "What's your point?" or "Tell me why this matters." Storytellers who feel powerful might respond, "Be patient," or "Chill, I'll get there."

Storytellers who feel less powerful might deliver hastily formed summaries that make little sense without the details. The point-demander must then ask for details. A dance of Q&A ensues in which the questions don't elicit the right details, and the answers are meaninglessly skeletal, because the storyteller is intimidated into excessive brevity.

It's all unnecessarily painful for the storyteller, the point-demander, and the lookers-on and listeners-in. Worse, it takes twice as long it should to get the information into the open.

Here are two guidelines for breaking the deadlock — one for storytellers and one for point-demanders.

For storytellers: Master drama-free storytelling

Most storytelling is designed for entertainment. It's dramatic. It's suspenseful. But neither drama nor suspense is helpful in relating complex tales at work.

Listeners need to know from the very start where the tale is heading. Not necessarily in full detail, but at least the basics: "We'll make the deadline, but we'll need more of Phil's time than we thought;" or, "I don't think we can close this deal unless we can get some time with Andrea this afternoon."

Leading with the ending goes against all our storytelling experience. That's why it's so powerful.

For listeners: learn to guide drama-oriented storytellers

Listeners who try Dramatic storytellers feel devalued
by coercion. Coercion often
begets resistance to the
extraction of facts.to coerce the punch line from a storyteller who doesn't know, understand, or believe in the importance of drama-free storytelling will almost surely fail. Dramatic storytellers feel devalued by coercion. Coercion often begets resistance to the extraction of facts.

At the first sign of a dramatic tale structure, the listener can interrupt with, "I want to hear the whole story, and I want you to start with the end. Tell me, first, how does the story end? Then tell me the story." Do not use the word "point," as in "What's your point?" because it has baggage.

Honoring the storyteller's desire to tell the story usually earns the listener permission to influence the order of telling. And with the drama removed, the urge to spin a long yarn usually expires quietly.

Pressing some storytellers for the point can be problematic if they don't actually know what the point is. It might not have an ending yet, or they might be stumped. Demanding that they get to the point might yield nonsense. Tread carefully.  Top    Next Issue

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