Get their attention. Tell a story

My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas is a one-sentence story that is much easier to remember than the sequence of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Students throughout history have relied on mnemonics in the form of short stories to aid memory.

Stories work because they imprint mental images accompanied by feelings in our consciousness. Can't you just see that celestial mother quick-stepping through our solar system dispensing pizzas to a family of planets?

Telling a good story about a product is the secret of super-salespeople. An engaging thirty second story on radio or television is a brand's marketing gold. In a troubled organisation, an empowering story well conceived and well told can spur everybody to achieve what they never thought possible. Because when a good story is in the telling, the audience pays attention. Their curiosity is engaged and they really want to know what happens next.

The persuasive magic of story

A story is about change. There once was a situation that was just so. And then something happened… It could be a threat, an opportunity, danger, loss - even a stranger that appears in a settled community. The story is about how ordinary people deal with the 'something' and about how they are changed by the event.

In organisations, selling a radical idea to staff or clients can be daunting. The idea may have taken a long time to develop and the logic could be perfect, but how do you get people interested? How do you get them to understand where you're coming from? How can you quickly take them on a trip through the thinking process? How do you get them to be as convinced and excited as you are?

Ahah! A powerpoint presentation. Lists. Bullet points. Facts. Figures. Charts. It's easy to do; anybody can do it. The trouble is that there is rarely applause at the end of such a presentation. The audience is happy it is all over so that they can be on their way. They may have seen some point, but they are unmoved and unmotivated. They didn't connect with your passion.

Developing and telling a story isn't easy. It takes longer to prepare. It requires more personal input from the originator. You need to be able to describe the past and present situation clearly and with real insight. You need to think about how the change will affect individuals and understand how they may react. You need to consider not just the facts and figures, but feelings too. And you need to be completely honest and not hide any of the down-side of a situation. Says Robert McKee, a scriptwriter who works with companies like IBM. You emphatically do not want to tell a beginning-to-end tale describing how results meet expectations. This is boring and banal. Instead, you want to display the struggle between expectation and reality in all its nastiness.

Story and organisational culture

Part of working together as a cohesive whole; an organised entity that knows where it is going and how it can get there, is that there is one simple, easy-to-understand story that everybody can buy into.

Everyone loves a story – especially if they can see their part in it. An increasing awareness of this idea allows practitioners in organisational storytelling to access, mould and reinforce the stories that guide and shape organisational culture. We are rediscovering the principles of how the purposeful use of story, together with meaningful symbols, can achieve desired outcomes within an individual, a community, or an organisation.

(c)opyright by Eugenie Banhegyi eugenie@storytelling.co.za