Episode #18: Storytelling Is A Winner

Having the ability to influence decisions separates the leaders in business from the rest. Getting others to accept our suggestions and recommendations is not easy. Everyone is so much more opinionated and skeptical today. We need a smooth way in to their mindset which will allow us to persuade them to follow our advice. The ancient art of storytelling is one powerful way to get others on board with what we say should happen. It sounds like a snap but it isn’t and few business leaders spend the time needed to master this key ability. That is a shame and shame on them for not learning such a fundamental communication skill.

Before we get into this week’s topic, here is what caught my attention lately.

Japan’s education system may start changing. Currently it focuses on memorization skills and rote learning rather than critical thinking and pro-active, participatory learning. To date this has been good enough because manufacturing industries needed uniformity and quality controlled labour for their production processes. The Programme For International Student Assessment (PISA) shows 15 year old Japanese ranked top in academic performance. At the adult level problem solving skills of the Japanese in technology environments are barely at the OECD average. Japan went through a stage of reducing the memorisation component of education, encouraging creativity and thinking skills called yutori or relaxed education. The PISA scores fell rapidly, everyone panicked and rushed back the focus on rote learning. If the change needed more time, it wasn’t given it. Interestingly today in the West, companies need people with better capabilities in interpersonal and communication skills, an ability to content with new information and solve unstructured problems, working in multicultural and international environments. To this end, PISA is going to start assessing global competence as well as core academic skills. The Japanese Government is yet to announce whether they will participate in this new survey. If they do Japan will get killed in these scores without a doubt.

This is episode number 18 and we are talking about howStorytelling Is A Winner.

Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going.

Best intentions, higher callings, righteousness – all good stuff but without good communication, our efforts fail. Instinctively, we all know storytelling is a great communication tool, but the word itself is a problem. We associate it with bedtime stories and therefore the idea sounds a bit childish. In the modern era, Hollywood talks about the arc of a story or in the political world, the media punishes the lack of narrative. Actually, this is storytelling but dressed up in more formal clothing.

The other problem with storytelling is that we are not very good at it. It is too simple, so we gravitate to more complex solutions – frameworks, theories, models, four box quadrants, pyramids, Venn diagrams – anything to appear more convoluted and pseudo-intelligent. If we present something complex, we must be smart. On the other hand, anyone can tell a story. Ah…but can they?

How many really good stories have you heard told in business lately? Have you been captured by the speaker, as they have taken you into a story that has you emotionally and logically involved? In my observation, businesspeople are usually poor communicators. To ensure they never improve, they are invariably uninterested in “childish solutions” like becoming a great storyteller.

No matter what industry we are in, we have four main business communication objectives. It might be to increase credibility for our organisation. It might be to inform an audience of some pertinent information. It might be to move people or it might just be for entertainment purposes. If we are to have influence with others that means having them do the thing we recommend.

Storytelling focuses on moving people to action. We might tell this story from the point of view of our own experience in the first person or we may refer to the adventures of someone else, told in the third person. Once we have our audience join us inside the story they are automatically set on a path to an outcome we believe is best for them. The trick is how to get them to join us inside that story. Here are five steps which we need to follow to take our audience with us on the journey we advocate.

Step One - We begin by clarifying the “Why” it matters. The story draws out the immediacy and relevance for the audience of the problem or issue. This is critical step, because everyone is surfing through hundreds of emails, Facebook and Twitter posts, LinkedIn updates, Instagram, Snapchat messages, etc. They are dealing with family, work, financial and health issues. There is a tremendous competition for the mind space of our audience and we have to smash through to be heard. If we don’t have a powerful “Why”, game over right there. This means the start of the story is vital. We have to get them straight into solution mode once they hear the issue around the Why. We are problem solving creatures so we easily slip into fix mode. There is one caveat however we must be aware of. That Why has to be seriously big or nobody will care enough to get involved.

Step Two is to tell them the “What” – the information they need to know, which they don’t already have or have not focused on sufficiently enough as yet. We can’t keep up with all the data floating around these days, we are awash with information. We need to bring forth data or perspectives which are pertinent, immediate and grip the attention of our audience. When you find out something very serious is happening and we didn't know about it we are relieved and concerned at the same time. We are glad we now know but we are worried about what we need to do about it. To have credibility we need to be imparting key points linked with evidence. This is essential because we are all card carrying skeptics today. There is so much false information floating around, “fake news”, we are permanently on guard against feeling cheated or foolish. We must communicate to the audience what they need to do, to overcome the problem we have highlighted. This might be our own recommendation or we may relay that of the third person in the story.

Step Three, Having isolated out the issue, imparted some evidence to provide more compelling reasons to take this issue seriously, we now tell the “How” to move forward. This will explain in some detail what needs to be done, so that the listener can take action immediately. This needs to be practical, logical and within the scope of the listener. When complex solutions are needed, then breaking them down to bite size pieces makes their completion more inviting.

Step Four - To deal with any potential doubts or concerns, we tackle them head on by exploring the “What Ifs”. Every high level sports team go through their what ifs for potential major problems before they compete. They do not allow failures in logistics, timing problems, health issues etc., to impact their primed mental state to enable high level performance. Doing the same makes a lot of sense. We join the listener in the conversation going on in their mind about the fears they might have about what is being suggested by us. We don’t dodge the difficult issues or problems, we tackle them head on. We address these inside the story, so that there are no longer any barriers to the listener taking action.

Finally, in Step Five we repeat the “Action Steps” we recommend, succinctly and clearly, so that these stay fresh in the mind. Compressing the steps into numbers like three, five or seven work best, as they tend to be easily recalled. For example, action recommendations like “The 15 Steps To Engaging Employees” are always trouble, because few people can hold fifteen data points in their head.

Let’s keep it short, keep it memorable. Outlining the next steps makes it easier for the listener to calculate how to integrate what we are suggesting into what they are already doing. The action steps create a type of ready road map for them to follow. If we want to have influence, if we want people to do what we recommend, then we need to make the steps clear and infinitely possible. Wrapping all of this up in a story works well because people can easily access and remember it. Our job is to become really skilled at the storytelling part. If we can do this, our ability to have influence with others will skyrocket and as business leaders that is what we want, isn’t it.