According to legend, the great writer Ernest Hemingway was lunching with a group of his literary friends in New York, and he agreed to a wager challenging him to write a story in just six words. Having secured bets of $10 each from his fellow diners, he finished his meal, took out a pen and jotted down a few words on a napkin. As the napkin was passed around the table, each of his guests gave a sigh of appreciation as they handed Hemingway his winnings.
What is it about stories that make them so powerful? In The Storytelling Animal, the American literary scholar Jonathan Gottschall explains why stories are so important to the human species. He describes how early humans painted scenes onto cave walls showing how to hunt, and what appear to be warnings about potential conflict. Stories provide a safe environment to prepare for the world outside. They allow us to react to things and learn from them without actually experiencing them. Studies have shown that our brains respond in exactly the same way to stories as to the direct experience. Storytelling is at the heart of religion, education and even criminal investigation - detectives need to create plausible stories of what happened based on the available evidence. Stories are such an integral part of being human that we even weave them as we sleep. Stories are even involved in how we process information. To take in what’s going on around us, our brains have specialized centres to process different types of stimuli: one for visuals, one for sounds, one for movement, and so on. The brain then brings it all together and makes sense of it. In other words, we’re wired to look out for and construct stories to enable comprehension. This is why storytelling is so valuable if we want people to take in what we’re saying. It’s particularly useful for turning complex information into something more digestible. A familiar story structure makes it easier for people to follow and understand the points being made, and string them together into something they can easily remember. Studies have even shown that information in the form of a story is scrutinized less and seen as more worthy of acting upon. To succeed in business, you need to communicate your ideas in a clear and convincing way in meetings, presentations, customer calls, press interviews, investor briefings and on public stages. And so, storytelling is a skill every business professional should work on developing. |