How often do you use stories in your communications and presentations? When I say stories, I mean experiences and examples with rich detail, compelling challenges and convincing outcomes that take your audience beyond the facts and beyond the data.
Most of the people I coach aren’t using stories when we begin our engagements. They change their behaviors when they learn about the science. There is extensive research from the fields of evolutionary biology, psychology, neuroscience, linguistics and more that reveal that our brains are wired and our minds attuned to best understand and make sense of information if it is presented in story form. We instinctively look for characters, intent, actions, struggles and details. Yet, most presentations I see just offer facts.
Stories and Emotion
This is a huge missed opportunity, especially considering what we’re trying to accomplish with every communication: to be remembered and persuasive. We know that memory and emotion are closely linked. What we remember best from yesterday, last week, last month, last year generated a meaningful emotional response within us. We know that we primarily make decisions emotionally, then rationalize those decisions. Stories connect with our emotions. It’s a straightforward science-driven proposition: Stories make our content far more memorable and they generate favorable decisions from our audience. If you want to learn more about story science, I recommend the book Story Proof by Kendall Haven.
Once a client understands the science, the questions I get are: “Where do I find stories?” “How do I create them?” “When and where should I use them?” Stay tuned. I will answer those questions and more over the next few weeks.