Why Storytelling is the Ultimate Weapon
From author Jonathan Gottschall on Co.Create:
In business, storytelling is all the rage. Without a compelling story, we are told, our product, idea, or personal brand, is dead on arrival. In his book, Tell to Win
, Peter Guber joins writers like Annette Simmons and Stephen Denning in evangelizing for the power of story in human affairs generally, and business in particular. Guber argues that humans simply aren’t moved to action by “data dumps,” dense PowerPoint slides, or spreadsheets packed with figures. People are moved by emotion. The best way to emotionally connect other people to our agenda begins with “Once upon a time…”
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Until recently we’ve only been able to speculate about story’s persuasive effects. But over the last several decades psychology has begun a serious study of how story affects the human mind. Results repeatedly show that our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values are strongly influenced by story. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence.
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The psychologists Melanie Green and Tim Brock argue that entering fictional worlds “radically alters the way information is processed.” Green and Brock’s studies shows that the more absorbed readers are in a story, the more the story changes them. Highly absorbed readers also detected significantly fewer “false notes” in stories–inaccuracies, missteps–than less transported readers. Importantly, it is not just that highly absorbed readers detected the false notes and didn’t care about them (as when we watch a pleasurably idiotic action film). They were unable to detect the false notes in the first place.
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When we read dry, factual arguments, we read with our dukes up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally and this seems to leave us defenseless.
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The new gospel of business storytelling offers a challenge to common views of human nature. When we call ourselves Homo sapiens, we are arguing that it is human sapience–wisdom, intelligence–that really sets our species apart. And when we think we can best persuade with dispassionate presentation of costs and benefits, we are implicitly endorsing this view. But we are beasts of emotion more than logic. We are creatures of story, and the process of changing one mind or the whole world must begin with “Once upon a time.”
Link to the rest at Co.Create
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as the saying goes ‘facts tell, stories sell’ the goal is to tap into people’s emotion, and facts are so logical and cold whilst when we tell a story we are being creative and warm. Human beings like warmth. I sell and yet I have not until now done this. from today I am telling pure stories.
Very interesting science about storytelling and the powerful impact fiction can have on the human psyche.
This is one reason I firmly believe that writing and ethics need to go hand in hand. Writers have a powerful tool in their hands – a tool that can change lives, and even civilizations – for better, and sometimes, unfortunately, for worse.
I do have to add that I found this alittle chilling, though, when put in the context of business and advertising. The intent to use this to manipulate is a scary thought. This is another case where the lack of ethical underpinning in capitalism bothers me.
It is scary, but politicians have been doing it for a long time. That’s the scariest part of all! Emotional appeal is nothing new. Business has been doing it to consumers in the form of marketing–appealing to our emotions to buy their products and fulfill an emptiness in our lives that we didn’t know we had until their product came along and they showed us what we were missing.
Melanie – that’s a really good point about politics! After all, in some ways politics is all about marketing and advertising.
Chilling.
Yep, that’s how I see it too, Melanie.
I think it’s cool that humans are storytellers, whether they invent their own or participate in someone else’s.
But unscrupulous folk use this all the time to manipulate. Makes me really mad, honestly. So many poor decisions, harmful decisions, being made because someone who wanted to make a buck or gain power was willing to propagate a beguiling lie.
This explains why sometimes reviews are all over the place. When a book sucks me in, I will ignore little inconsistencies for the enjoyment of the whole. If the story/style/voice doesn’t suck in another reader, then they will be jarred more by those same inconsistencies. Interesting.
Makes a lot of sense. It’s like watching a ballet and ignoring ugly costumes to enjoy the skill, but someone who doesn’t love dance might take the ugly costumes as further reason to hate the performance.
But I wouldn’t be too worried about business succeeding in this area. Storytelling is an art that takes a long time to learn. Would a brilliant storyteller really want to become a corporate shill?
Ad folk on Madison Avenue.
Love your ballet analogy!