Have you ever had the experience of listening to a story and wondering in the back of your mind:

Exactly what does this mean?

What is driving this person?

What’s the problem they were facing?

Why did they mention the person with the funny hat?

If you have faced this kind of situation before, you are not alone.  

One of the key challenges in storytelling is setting the stage for what you are planning to discuss.  We refer to it as the Current, as in the Current state of the world.  We believe that storytelling elevates our hero from their position today to a transformed state in the future.

The problem most storytellers have is getting their audience to understand what their current state actually is.  Some common themes we see include:

• Not enough detail
• Too much detail
• Vague or unknown references
• Context to the scenes

I recall one speaker friend of mine who was giving a speech at an event that described how they went from their old position as an individual contributor to a people manager in their organization.  In addition to this main theme, he introduced challenges that he faced with his health, his marriage and his kids.

The theme was clear from the way he positioned his speech.  Although instead of using a foreshadow, he really gave away the ending at the beginning.  In essence, we know where the journey was going before he even spoke.

In addition to this he made these errors above.  I recall specifically that he mentioned about his strained marriage based on him not being at home much because of his work.  Being that I was a married man at the time (and still am as of this writing) and was focussed on my career, sometimes not giving enough attention to my family I could relate to this part of the story.  When he concluded his speech, he had elevated to a new people manager role and explained how his life was much happier now in the future.  What he neglected to explain as part of the story was that his wife and he had divorced and he found new love.

I knew this ending because as stated above, he is a speaking friend of mine.  I quickly pointed out that he let his audience know he was happy again, but without additional context around his new partner, it would seem that the situation with his wife just resolved itself, and anyone else in the audience would have figured they just reconciled.

While the marriage part of the story was not meant to be the main theme of the speech, it was introduced and therefore, the audience was expecting to hear more about it.  In this case, the “Too much detail” challenge is identified as he could have easily explained in shorter detail that the problems he was facing affected his personal life outside of the workplace.  At that point, I would have recommended that this be addressed later.  The other option would be to take the reference out entirely so the audience did not have to question itself about the outcome.

I would also include the context challenge here.  While it was important to the speaker about the battles he was facing as a result of the work life he was living, the impact on the personal side of his life was not addressed at the end, or was only mentioned as a passing comment.  The context then of the personal side never really transformed as part of the story, and therefore left the audience hanging.

Our role is to ensure that the opening scenes of our story are clear and directional.  The characters and setting of the current time need to be clear for our audience so they can follow the path to the end with us.  Adding more information that never materializes, or sets a scene that never goes anywhere, or offers just a nugget of information that the audience is left wondering what it means or questioning why it was introduced, will cause your audience to tune out on your speech and perhaps not understand the transformation you have outlined.

When you think of the Current state, make sure you are addressing the points provided so that the journey is complete and your audience is along with you for the entire time.