Season 3 | Episode 26: The power of story to construct a pathway to impact that can inspire change

This week Mark shows how you can use seven elements of powerful stories to plan for and create impacts that engage and inspire. He uses examples from The Lord of The Rings, and two impacts from his own research on peatlands and research impact. The seven points are: Know who you want to benefit and treat them as the “hero” and you as the “guide” in your pathway to impact; Identify the external and internal problems your publics and stakeholders face and care about deeply; Be a guide who enables your publics and stakeholders to become the hero in their own story; Give them a plan to engage more deeply and learn about your work and/or act on what they learn; Make a call to action and give people concrete opportunities to put their new-found knowledge into practice; Identify what your audience has at stake if they don’t solve the problem - what is the cost of inaction or failure; Help people visualise what success might look like for them. To download the stakeholder and public analysis template mentioned in this episode, visit www.fasttrackimpact.com/resources Follow Mark at @fasttrackimpact and @profmarkreed or on LinkedIn. If you want more information about training courses, please write to [email protected]