We’re all storytellers. No one is uninteresting. It’s just how you tell the tale.
In the new world we all find ourselves in, the need to communicate with one another has only intensified. Whether in-person or remotely, connection remains fundamental.
Telling a story is art and science. It’s the art of connection. And it’s the science of understanding how we hear, what compels us to listen, what inspires us – or puts us to sleep.
Knowing all the answers doesn’t mean you’re ready to effectively answer questions. Believing deeply in an idea or product, no matter how remarkable, will not convey what you want to say without preparation.
Working worldwide as a communications consultant and network television journalist, I’ve developed a distinct and highly effective approach to helping people find their voice. I draw on my decades as a reporter and nearly 15 years working as a communications consultant with dozens of the world’s most renowned companies to help you find the essence of what you want to say and communicate it with authenticity, clarity and not a word too many.
Even the most complex ideas can be distilled to a clear, irresistible story. Working with companies as a communications consultant, I’ve built my approach around the fundamental premise that everything worth saying can be said well.
At the same time, I’ve been struck, again and again, by how many brilliant and highly accomplished people find it challenging to express themselves as clearly, concisely and compellingly as they would like. That’s because providing the toolbox of resources to help people get across their ideas just may be the single most neglected aspect of professional life.
My workshops aim to change that. Working with a tremendous variety of business people, as well as with doctors, lawyers, academics, administrators and even journalists, I’ve seen the empowerment and, truly, transformation that can come from simply having a chance to explore the art and science of storytelling in an energetic, interactive, intellectually engaging and just plain fun environment.
That’s Bill Delaney Communications.
You can also visit my Linked In page.
Workshops
A workshop session can include discovering the story you want to tell, executive coaching and presentation training to help you tell it, as well as writing, from speeches to op-eds to white papers. I’ve worked globally with dozens of companies, including several of the world’s best known.
In my previous work as a journalist I reported globally and domestically as a correspondent and producer for CNN and ABC News, after beginning as a writer and reporter in New York City. I’ve won several major journalism awards, including 2 Edward R. Murrow Awards. I now live in New York; I’ve lived overseas in Chile, the Middle East and Europe and visited or worked in more than 60 countries.
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I offer two core programs, both now adapted for working remotely, which I shape to the needs of every session. “The Art and Science of Storytelling” is a highly practical, results-oriented workshop exploring storytelling approaches and techniques as old as the first tales told around a prehistoric campfire and as new as the digital screen. It is a session based on the simple but fundamental premise that persuasion is storytelling – you can’t have one without the other.
I focus on how to tell a story most effectively, whether to 3 people or to 3000, whether in a speech or presentation, sales pitch, or in a meeting, on the phone, even over lunch. I introduce the “paradigm” – a core tool for effective storytelling developed from decades of experience in executive coaching, speechwriting and journalism. I address both the spoken word and the use of images. Videos of outstanding and less than outstanding presenters are offered throughout the workshop. These are highly participatory experiences, which often end with participants remarking on how quickly the time went by, which is certainly the hope!
In this workshop, I will encourage a number of participants to present to the group at the outset of the session, or, if the focus is one person, he or she would also be asked to present at the beginning of our time together. These presentations are then revised “live,” in the course of the workshop, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in real time.
We also explore the basics of how to manage questions, including tough Q&A.
The final goal is to collaboratively arrive at the strongest possible presentation delivered by a confident, persuasive – and dynamic – presenter.
My second core offering is “The Art of the Answer.” This workshop focuses on finding your voice and core narrative as well, but with a greater emphasis on managing public questions, especially from journalists. After an exploration of technique, we do rounds of role-play interviews, usually on-camera, with a constructive critique following each interview to show gradual mastery of even the toughest questions in a public moment.
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The approach has worked for more than a thousand participants, worldwide.
A workshop will:
• Provide tested tools to enable anyone to discover the heart of what they want to say in any public presentation – how to distill a story to its key themes and create a memorable and persuasive narrative every time
• Reduce complexity in spoken language
• Increase the likelihood of an audience taking away what you want them to take away
• Deepen understanding of the important differences between written and spoken language – and the danger of mixing them up
• Heighten confidence in any public appearance
• Enhance awareness of key performance aspects of presenting to a live audience
• Review fundamentals of responding to tough questions in interviews and in other public forums
We’ve never had more people trying to persuade us. We’ve never had more access to information. How can we break through the noise? How can we raise the odds that what we say truly gets across?
That’s an art, and that’s a science.
That’s Bill Delaney Communications
Experience
In a wide-ranging and award-winning career in communications, I’ve become a specialist in the clear and effective presentation of ideas. Drawing on my long and varied career as a global journalist and more than a decade working as a communications counselor worldwide, I offer a deeply practical approach to communication. The goal is to help individuals and businesses articulate who they are and what is most distinctive about the work they do. We work from the strong belief that anyone can be a confident presenter who can captivate any audience with clarity and vitality.
I counsel on approaches to the media with the goal of enhancing a person’s self-image and point of view most powerfully, concisely and unambiguously, whether in a time of tough challenges or in the more routine but still critical marketing and positioning of any product or service. As a storytelling strategist, writer and media and presentation skills trainer, I draw on both my own experience as a reporter and producer and the creative, tested approach I’ve developed to help individuals and companies find their voice, their authentic story. I’ve worked with CEOs, and other upper-level management and staff for hundreds of companies. In recent years, I’ve worked extensively with Microsoft, co-creating the company’s first in house-media training program as the company undertook one of the boldest and most successful transformations of any major business in the world. Over the years I’ve also worked with the leadership of American Express, HPE, MasterCard, IBM, FedEx, Volvo, Disney, GE, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks, Philips, World Economic Forum/Davos, XL Catlin, Stryker, Smartsheet, Michelin, Amadeus, National Women’s Law Center, New York City Board of Health, Atrium Health, Partners Healthcare, Wartsila, Finnair, H&R Block, GE, Time Inc., People Magazine, ABC News, Gucci, Delta Airlines, AMD, DSM, Open Invention Network, ISACA, and many other companies.
As a journalist, I worked as a network television correspondent, producer and Bureau Chief. I’ve either traveled, lived, or worked in more than 60 countries. In a ten-year career at CNN, I was Chief Correspondent in Jerusalem and Bureau Chief and Correspondent in Berlin and Boston. For ABC News, I worked as Chief Field Producer in Latin America, based in Miami. I was also based in Santiago, Chile as a correspondent on the award winning ‘World Monitor’ program, on the Discovery Channel. I’ve covered armed conflicts from Latin America, to the Middle East, to Bosnia, as well as the peace processes and elections that followed, and I’ve been in the middle of hurricanes, earthquakes, presidential campaigns, and a multitude of other news events. Besides working in front of and behind the camera, I’ve also hosted a syndicated radio program and worked as a print journalist.
I’ve won several important journalism awards. I’ve twice been awarded the Edward R. Murrow Award of the RTNDA, for both a television piece on an earthquake in Colombia and for a radio broadcast at the beginning of the Iraq War. I also won a Gracie Award, for Best Foreign News report, for a report on challenges women face around the world, and a Cable Ace Award, for coverage of an election in Russia, as well as awards for his coverage of Haiti, and of Amerasians in Korea.
I attended Hamilton College, from which I graduated with honors, with a BA in English. I won the IBM Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, for writing, after Hamilton. I’ve resided full-time in Chile, Israel, and Germany. I now divide my time between New York and Seattle.
Photography Gallery.
An occasional gallery of images from here and there.
