Peter Stewart, PhD, is a Business Psychologist and Managing Partner at Stewart Leadership
getty
Throughout history, humans have used stories to explain, entertain, compel, educate, connect and illustrate more significant truths. Early storytellers recognized—perhaps instinctively—that stories resonate within the human brain in powerful ways. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to modern movies and novels, stories engage emotion to drive behaviors in ways no other form of information can.
Why Leaders Need To Be Better Storytellers
Telling stories to engage employees is a powerful way to improve trust, inspire commitment and drive purpose. But what makes a story so much more potent than a PowerPoint presentation full of data or a spreadsheet attached to an email?
In her powerful TED Talk on storytelling, consultant Karen Eber describes how stories activate the entire brain in ways that data can’t. Whereas consuming data or raw information will typically only activate two areas of the brain, reading or listening to stories causes additional areas of the brain to "light up" as emotions and senses are engaged.
She also discusses how stories trigger a process called neural coupling. This phenomenon makes the brains of story consumers light up in the same way as the storyteller's. Neural coupling is the activity responsible for making our hearts race and our bodies tense as we watch an action movie. We feel we are experiencing the same events as the movie’s hero.
Neural coupling triggers the release of chemicals that forge strong bonds with storytellers. As we experience emotion through stories, our brains release oxytocin, a "feel-good" chemical that is responsible, in part, for parent/infant bonding. The more oxytocin is released, the more we trust the speaker or storyteller. The brain also releases dopamine, the chemical that drives our reward pathways. This release of dopamine helps us remember stories more easily and accurately.
But despite the power of storytelling, Eber says that the leaders she works with seem almost "allergic" to storytelling. Perhaps they are data-driven or don’t feel like natural storytellers.
Here are five ways to hone your storytelling skills and put them into practice with your team.
1. Write Your Stories In Advance
Ronald Reagan famously kept a collection of notecards that contained motivational and entertaining stories and quotes close at hand. He started his collection in the 1950s and drew on it throughout his acting and political career. He didn’t start out looking for specific stories; instead, as he encountered interesting stories, he wrote them down, knowing they’d be valuable at some point.
You don’t need to have a specific event or meeting in mind to write a story. As you go through your everyday routines and experiences, look for moments you can turn into stories. Take a few minutes to write them on a notecard or record some thoughts on your phone. The stories don’t have to be your own experiences; be alert to the stories others tell you, and ask if you can use those in your presentations, speeches or team meetings.
2. Start With Your Audience
Audience may be a story's most foundational, yet most frequently overlooked, aspect (as discussed in a recent company blog post). All your story structure, soaring prose and emotional impact will go to waste if you tell the right story to the wrong audience.
As you hone your stories for maximum impact, define what you want your audience to know, think, feel or change afterward.
3. Form Your Story Structure
According to Karen Eber's TED talk, all good stories contain context, conflict, outcome and takeaway. (This idea may have originally come from a 2017 Medium post.) Here's how she describes those elements:
• Context: What’s the setting? Who’s involved? Why should I care?
• Conflict: Who or what is in dispute? What is the moment when everything changes?
• Outcome: What is the result? What is different at the end of the story compared to the beginning?
• Takeaway: What message is the listener left with? What is the desired change the story is communicating?
Write one sentence for each of these items. As you compose your story, be sure to add moments of tension when the audience thinks, "Where is this going? What will happen next?"
4. Don’t Wait For The Perfect Story
In his classic book On Writing, horror master Stephen King recounts how several disparate childhood memories came together to give him an idea for a novel. After writing three single-spaced pages, he "crumpled them up in disgust and threw them away." Later, however, his wife found the pages in the wastebasket and read them. She returned them to him and asked him to keep going because she wanted to know what happened.
King kept writing, and that novel, Carrie, became his first commercial success.
We won’t all connect disparate memories to craft blockbuster novels, but the principle remains the same. Look for ideas you connect with and combine them into the perfect story.
5. Practice Your Delivery
You don’t have to be a sterling public speaker to tell relevant, engaging stories. In this video for Business Innovation Factory, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh seems nervous and somewhat out of his element. Yet he tells a series of compelling, engaging anecdotes throughout his speech, and as a result, he comes across as authentic and likable.
Once you’ve honed your story, practice delivering it to a safe audience. If you can find a friend, partner or colleague willing to help, tell the story to that person and ask for feedback. Is the story too long? Does it have an emotional impact? Can the listener identify context, conflict, outcome and takeaway?
Final Thoughts
Engaging your team and customers through storytelling is one of the most important skills you can develop as a leader. While data may drive your decision-making or strategic thinking, communicating decisions or strategies to your team will produce better long-term change when that data is coupled with a compelling story.
So start collecting stories, use them in appropriate settings and watch results improve.
Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?
