Stories are important, the monster said. They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth.
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls
Did you ever stop to think that stories have helped humans survive?
Long before books, there were stories. We told them around campfires and cave mouths for millennia. It’s how collected wisdom passed to future generations.
Without stories, our forebears would have kept making the same mistakes. And DIED.
So stories are in our DNA. People love them.
But are they appropriate at work?
Neuroscience is showing they’re not only appropriate, but essential.
Stories drive action through simulation (how to act) and inspiration (giving the energy to act). Using stories to engage is a powerful way to help people understand your message, remember it, and act on it.
The ultimate engager
Bullets and benefits aren’t bad, but it’s not long before they give your audience MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over).
Start telling a story, however, and people’s attention spikes. As a trainer and speaker, I see my audiences respond better to facts delivered in stories than in any other format.
You’ll be surprised how easy it is to find good stories you can use.
Need to get some budget approved? You could talk about when you bought a car; the budget you had determined the quality of what you got at the end.
Want your boss to approve new software? Tell the story of how your new cultivator dug out your garden beds: it reduced two days of pick-and-shovel to just two hours’ work. In the same way, your new software will boost your productivity.
Stories are an excellent way to bring an issue or decision to life.
They encourage mental simulation or re-enactment—think how a flight simulator is more effective than a text book for pilots.
Image source: maxresdefault.com
Here are three time-proven ways to build a story and make your message stick:
1. The Challenge plot
Image source: ireitinvestor.com
The classic underdog story. Rags to riches.
You/your team/your organisation is up against it. Everything is going wrong. But here’s how you’ll snatch victory from the jaws of defeat…
With a little more budget, a little more time, a few more resources, you’ll turn it around.
The key element is that the obstacles are daunting.
Find examples of big challenges that have been turned around. Maybe your organisation’s history contains an underdog story. Perhaps your audience has faced similar issues. Maybe a famous historical figure succeeded when it looked like failure was imminent.
Telling the story of adversity reversed will spark new courage in your readers or listeners.
2. The Connection plot
Want to inspire people to give better customer service? Be kinder to their neighbours? More tolerant of diversity?
The Connection plot can bridge the gap.
A possibly apocryphal story like this is told to Nordstrom department store staff to encourage top customer service: A customer walked in with a tyre, and asked for a refund. Although Nordstrom had never sold tyres, the clerk gave him a refund. That story is much ‘stickier’ than a plaque saying, ‘The customer is always right.’
What stories can you dig up from your managers, staff or customers?
3. The Creativity plot
Need a new solution to an old problem? To inspire innovation? Try the Creativity plot.
These stories are about long-standing puzzles that were solved.
Like Copernicus, who created the model proving Earth revolved around the Sun, not vice versa.
Or the Large Hadron Collider, revealing the mystery of the Higgs boson and the origins of the universe.
Or Dan Brown’s character, Robert Langdon, who solves the Da Vinci Code. (See how popular the Creativity plot is?!)
Image source: Columbia Pictures/Imagine Entertainment/Skylark Productions
How could your project, job application, new procedures, budget request or report solve a long-standing problem in your organisation or industry?
Tell a Creativity-plot story to capture your readers’ imagination, and make your message stick.
So what’s your story? Could you use stories to engage your audience so they want to know more?
Just keep it short, simple and sensory to make it ‘sticky’. In fact, follow the SUCCESs principles, and you can’t go wrong!
I’d love to hear your thoughts: got a good example of using stories effectively at work? Let me know in the comments below.
Paul & the Magneto/Credosity team
P.S. One of the most loved storytellers ever was Ernest Hemingway. One secret to his success? Super-easy-to-read text. The Old Man and the Sea had a reading grade level of only 4. Most business writing clocks in at grade 10 or above: hard to read. Credosity, our virtual writing coach, resurrects your readability! Try it free, for 30 days. Works in Outlook and Word.