The power of stories to enthrall starts at an early age and never goes away. Stories are how we make meaning, how we remember, and what motivate us to act. In short, stories are the universal language of persuasion, and it’s their ability to persuade that makes them such a potent instrument for leaders and their organizations. But like most powers, storytelling can be used for good or ill. Especially today.
Chemistry Lesson
The power of stories to persuade lies deep in our DNA.
In “Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling” (HBR.org, October 28, 2014), neuroeconomist Paul Zak describes how, when we’re trusted or shown a kindness, it produces the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin enhances our sense of empathy: our ability to experience others’ emotions. That in turn motivates voluntary cooperation, which in his research happens with character-driven stories.
For a story to motivate a desire to help others, it must first grab our attention, which happens when tension is introduced into the narrative. In tense moments, the brain releases the stress hormone cortisol, which creates focus. In 1949 Joseph Campbell published “The Hero With a Thousand Faces,” articulating a hero’s journey common to mythologies the world over. It begins with tension – a protagonist’s struggle – and ends with the hero discovering previously unknown abilities to overcome adversity. As Zak’s research shows, the brain is highly attracted to this story style because happy endings activate our limbic system – the brain’s reward center – to release the hormone dopamine, which makes us feel hopeful and optimistic.
Taken together, all of this neurochemistry creates “narrative transportation,” a theory that explains how stories focus attention and create emotional engagement. In a February 2022 HBR IdeaCast, author Jonathan Gottschall (“The Storytelling Animal”, “The Story Paradox”) describes it as an authentically altered state of consciousness that comes with high suggestibility.
Storytelling can take many forms inside an organization, from its origin story and cultural foundations to its vision for the future; from employee efforts to overcome business challenges to how its products and services uniquely solve customer problems; to how the organization helps the communities around it thrive. Of note, all of these speak to an organization’s purpose, which in my experience motivates employees more than anything else. A word of caution: it’s important that the leader not be the story’s hero. If anything, the hero’s guide on their journey. Depending on the story, the heroes are the leader’s audience – employees, customers, suppliers, community members, and others.
How Not to Tell a Story
Robert McKee is a renowned screenwriter and screenwriting coach widely considered the world’s foremost teacher of story arts. In “Storytelling That Moves People”, a conversation with Harvard Business Review in June 2014, his storytelling prescriptions take full advantage of our neurochemistry.
If we’ve learned anything since the dawn of the internet age, particularly with the ascendance of social media, it’s that data and statistics, even settled facts, don’t by themselves inspire people to act. Too many executives think that once they’ve described a desired change and detailed the case for change, associates will naturally follow. I know from my own past experiences that people are generally skeptical and it’s hard to change their minds – arguments backed up with evidence alone won’t cut it. It requires narrative transportation.
To achieve that, McKee recommends a version of Campbell’s hero’s journey:
- “Display the struggle between expectation and reality in all its nastiness.” You don’t want to tell a beginning-to-end tale describing how results met expectations. That doesn’t inspire action.
- “Position the problems in the foreground and then show how you will overcome them.” Rosy pictures sow distrust. You’re more convincing when you’re truthful.
The Perils of Storytelling
The erosion of trust in information that the internet and social media has fueled, and that artificial intelligence is now speeding along, makes it more important than ever for leaders to communicate genuinely, engagingly, and directly. Stories are the best way to do that. Unfortunately, cynicism around information has increasingly freighted the words “story” and “narrative” with the connotation that someone’s getting conned. But don’t worry: always be an honest and truthful storyteller and that will take care of itself.
A less innocuous peril of storytelling stems from the power of narrative transportation to cut both ways. Stories can inspire action by well-meaning people and malign actors alike. As Gottschall points out, by their nature stories are one-sided and can form ‘in’ and ‘out’ groups if not outright villains. Resist that temptation with your stories.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Most of us are pretty good at deluding ourselves. Unwittingly or not, we create mythologies to protect our self-image: stories that scrub or explain away the role of others or just plain good luck in our successes, or that assign our failures and mistakes to others or to circumstances outside our control.
It’s easy to find the holes in someone else’s hero story, much harder in our own.
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