Four stories to get your audience excited about your manual, guideline or procedures – Part 1

Regular readers know that I am a strong proponent of sharing stories and extending the metaphor to help drive points home and to convince an audience to act after a presentation is over. This is the first in a series of several stories providing metaphors to help you get your audience invested in a new manual, guideline or procedure.You may have a great presentation or speech planned, but you need someone to take action after the pitch and start using a new process or reference a large volume of info. You are not alone. Often, a presenter can only tell part of the story and excite the listeners, so the encyclopedia sized reference material is saved for later. Here is the first of several stories you may wish to include to help everyone realize how to use the supporting material.

Freedom within a framework theme used to reinforce the need for detailed operating manual

Let’s imagine an airline pilot preparing for flight. He rests in the cockpit, surrounded by dozens of switches and levers with many decisions on the horizon for the next three hours. Some of his actions will be dictated by standard FAA procedures. Some are decisions that the pilot will make on his own. As he takes his seat, he begins reviewing the flight plan. Step by step, he maps the flight…and he must follow the checklist to ensure a clean and successful trip.

As our pilot takes off, he receives instruction from many sources: air traffic control, his co-pilot, etc. But the flight plan is his guide. At all times, the pilot is ultimately responsibility for the flight. But he uses a set of guidelines that exist to ensure that he follows standard operations for a successful takeoff and landing. In the book, Good to Great, author Jim Collins calls this “freedom within a framework.”

We want our airline pilots to have freedom to make critical decisions – to adjust for wind sheer or bad weather, but a framework is necessary to ensure the flight is a consistent and safe experience for all.

Now you may be thinking, this works well for a people guiding an $85 million jet with the lives of 200 people in their hands. But, what about you and me? I would argue that the same principle applies in the business world.

Instead of an expensive jet, you have the responsibility for guiding a $26 billion organization, and your cargo is our greatest livelihood…the customer. Think about it – Freedom within a framework makes sense.

So let’s dive into our flight plan, our new operating manual.

Stay tuned for more stories to help you convince your team to move in a new direction.

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photo by celesteh