I joined the Geneva Creative Morning Sessions. The theme of this month was “risk”. An interesting topic, even though my facilitation work is happening in a rather safe environment, at least when I compare it to what Ghislain Bardout is doing. He undertakes submarine polar expeditions. He dives deep into Arctic waters in the extreme North.
The talk starts with Under The Pole – Underwater Polar Exploration bringing the audience right into an Arctic scenery. The crew is sailing through the rough sea and diving into icy water. The photos are beautiful and unbelievable. We were in it, Ghislain Bardout had our attention and curiosity right form the very beginning.
He started outlining how he and his team do the risk assessment for a polar underwater expedition. At a certain point of his presentation I had the feeling the audience was hungry for stories. What he is doing is such an unbelievable experience. Ghislain Bardout has many stories to tell. But he kept his talk to explaining things, generalizing insights and naming key factors.
Moments = stories
When he finished the talk someone asked him about a key moment and how he felt. Yes, I thought, here we go, people really want stories.
I learned from Mark Schenk about assertion, generalizations end moments.
Drawing inspired by Anecdote: Assertions are red, stories are blue
When we talk we change from assertion to moments, from moments to generalization etc. We make a statement, give a general explanation with some learning points and move to the level of moments where we underline our point through a story.
People want to hear about moments. People crave for stories to better understand what happened, to picture a situation and imagine how Ghislain Bardout felt in the icy water.
Learning moments 
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