Do you remember much from your high school history class? Whether or not you do depends mostly on the kind of teacher you had. Were they the kind that asked you to memorize a bunch of dates and events? Or did they weave the subject matter together — injecting suspense, intrigue, and human emotion into the lessons? If you were fortunate enough to have the latter, you probably remember a lot of what you learned. And you probably remember that teacher’s name, too — along with the way their lessons made you feel. If you had the former, you’ve probably forgotten all but a few isolated facts.
A National Institutes of Health study found that most people forget more than 40% of the information they’ve been told by the very next day. That figure likely increases to 90% after a week. Add to these findings the well-documented decline in our attention spans over recent years (a topic for another day) and, as leaders, we begin to see a pretty concerning picture.
Knowing when to prove… and when to persuade
To lead any group of people, we must accomplish two fundamental things. First, we have to chart a course for the future supported by data. Second, we have to inspire people to take action along that course. And we have to do these things not just once, but continuously. With our paltry attention spans and limited capacity for remembering, how on Earth are we to accomplish this?
We need to first understand when to prove and when to persuade. Esther Choy, the founder of Leadership Story Lab, points out this critical distinction in a recent Forbes article. She clarifies that data is for proving, while persuading requires something different. In short, it requires something all great high school history teachers understand: storytelling. When a business leader invokes the core values established by the founder, or relays the experiences of someone who personally benefited from the organization’s mission, they’re actually telling a story. Unfortunately, most of us don’t do it often enough or effectively enough.
It’s also worth pointing out that persuasion is often necessary but rarely sufficient on its own when we are striving to lead in good faith. We’ve all seen evidence of this in the worlds of politics, advertising, and beyond. When persuasion lacks proof, it can feel opportunistic and suspicious. When proof lacks persuasion, it can feel flat and uninspiring. We should always be watchful to avoid invoking the power of storytelling in a way that is counter to what the data is telling us.
How to tell better stories
We all know people we consider great storytellers, but it’s important to understand that anyone can become one. Like most things, it’s a learnable skill. Choy outlines in simple terms how we can up our storytelling game, and we’ve added to it from our own experiences:
- Become a story collector. Make a note of effective stories you hear, so you can refer back to them.
- Become a reverse engineer. Once you have a collection of good stories, you can start dissecting what makes them work. How is data used to support the persuasive power of the story? Is there a main character? Who?
- Notice the bad stories. This is easy, but the essential part is asking “why.” This helps us understand what to avoid.
- Seek feedback. As you begin to develop your own stories, test them to find out what is memorable and how they make the listener feel. This helps us to fine-tune our stories.
- Find your authentic style. An audience can discern authenticity, so it’s important to tell stories in a way that is consistent with who you are. Do you often use humor to make a point? Are you comfortable being self-deprecating? Do you have a penchant for folksy anecdotes? If a story feels out of your comfort zone, it probably is. Find a way to tell your story in a way you are comfortable.
But why do we need to invest energy into developing this skill? How can this skill impact the organizations we lead? As the author Alan Weiss concisely puts it,
“Logic makes people think; emotion makes them act.”
Ultimately, we need people to act. And stories are how human beings transmit emotion.
As Choy goes on to point out, “If you want your audience to have a sense of hope, fervor, or team spirit, the fastest way to help your audience be receptive is to tell a story that inspires that emotion.” Don’t we all inherently know this to be true? Of course we do, because the human brain is hard-wired for storytelling.
A more skillful aspect of leadership storytelling involves discerning when a situation requires persuading instead of proving, and thus calls for a story. This can be a challenging shift for some leaders who see “bringing people along” as overly time-consuming — instead relying on more direct, fact-based communication. But our experience shows your chances of success grow dramatically when you’re able to inspire buy-in from your team. As an example, in our world, organizational change is most often a situation where persuasion is the more effective route.
Let’s say you recognize that a situation requires persuasion and storytelling. How do you decide what story needs to be told? We have to consider the emotional response we are seeking and the connections we are hoping to forge.
The right story at the right time
Jeff Gothelf is a leading author and speaker on this subject, and he lays out in a 2020 Harvard Business Review piece a series of helpful steps toward crafting the right story for the right moment:
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- Be audience specific. Considering the end consumer of the story and how they will receive the information is a critical and often overlooked starting place. If your entire organization is your audience, you need to understand the different perspectives and concerns at play. Not everyone at every level of an organization is motivated by the same things. A few quick conversations should help to understand what worries, inspires, or motivates the different groups among your audience.
- Contextualize your story. Every story happens in a particular time and place, and those details lend power and purpose to what we communicate. How does this story fit into the organization’s history? How does it support where we are going? Why is this a story made for this moment?
- Humanize your story. A parade of facts and figures is not a story, and it’s the last thing that’s going to inspire empathy or connection. Keep these in your back pocket should you need them for the more analytically-inclined team members, but don’t lead with them — unless a specific audience requires it. Put your audience in another person’s shoes — whether yours or someone else’s. Help them to empathize and connect with the inherent “human-ness” in your message.
- Make it action-oriented. Drawing a clear line between the story and the actions you hope the message inspires will give your audience clarity and the confidence to take action.
- Keep it humble. While it can be difficult to bear witness to our own failures and shortcomings, few things inspire connection better than a small display of vulnerability. If a change is happening based on a decision made by company leadership or yourself, taking ownership is an opportunity to build trust.
Making your story their story
Every day, organizations large and small tap into the power of storytelling to build new or deeper connections with customers, clients, and partners. Because these relationships must be built from scratch — and pay our bills — it’s easy to see the value of using the emotional power of stories to persuade and inspire.
We tend to overlook the need to build similar connections with those within our organizations, whose hard work fuels all those other relationships. We take this need for granted because they show up every day to invest their time, energy, and talents in our mission.
No matter how logical the path we set out may be, and no matter how sound the data backing it up, we still need to persuade our people that there’s a reason beyond a paycheck to show up each day.
We still need to illustrate how their work is embedded within a larger context of where we’ve been and where we’re going. And we still need to call upon the power of emotion to inspire and connect — a power that lives inside every good story.