Can you use ‘traditional’ storytelling in your work?
We all tell stories. For some of us, we do it every day.
There are stories we tell ourselves. A handful for our friends and family, or even our children. Of course, we tell stories to our colleagues and clients as well.
As we communicate with one another, we subconsciously engage ourselves into a method of information sharing, which probably existed as long as we have. And that is storytelling.
What makes a good story?
‘Good’ is subjective. What defines a ‘good story’ can be personal. For a start, good stories should be simple enough to be retold to others, with important details shared. They should move us and be understood by a large audience, not just a select few.
For most of my career, I have been involved in roles where a large part of my success was due to my ability to convey information. Whether it was acting as a conduit between technical teams and less technical clients or translating a big vision into simpler terms which the teams could help actualise — passing on information was paramount.
I would present. I would use email. I would address a small team or a large audience. I became a professional storyteller.
There are many facets of storytelling, be it the arts or in the business world, even in the traditional sense. If we look into the methodology of storytelling, we can learn and borrow a few things that can help with improving the effectiveness of how we share information.
Storytelling is all around us
Romeo & Juliet. Cinderella. The Lord of the Rings. Some stories stick with us.
This is not as organic as it seemed to be, and there lies one underlying rationality. Storytelling aids us (the human race) in passing on information to others, quite possibly for as long as we have had language. It allows information to cross borders, cultures and generations. There are good stories which are translated into hundreds of languages and live on to this day.
We all remember a good story and a big part of our world view has been shaped by how certain stories made us feel.
So, to the crux of this article, why should you be thinking more like a storyteller? Well, you probably doing some of these things which I am going to cover in this article, without even knowing. I am hoping that this article will help to make you more aware of the benefits of storytelling and provide some practical tips that you can consciously incorporate into your work and life.
Telling stories
Good stories consist of common elements; let’s call them ‘ingredients’. In addition to that, stories will have ‘structure’, practically we could call this a ‘method’ to help you frame your story better.
Ingredients
For me those common elements or key ingredients are:
People, Purpose, Drama, Head and Heart.
Most stories are centred around people. Protagonists, Antagonists. Characters. Goodies, Baddies.
People or characters in storytelling terms are what propel our stories. Good characters have strong backstories and relatable personalities. We know how they would react in certain situations.
Frodo Baggins (Lord Of The Rings) is relatable because he is flawed and fearful. I am certain that most of us would be when presented with an army of Orcs in our way. We root for underdogs. We empathise.
Empathy is really crucial for compelling your audience. The more you are able to articulate about the people in your story, the greater resonance they will have with your audience. What are they scared of? What are they hopeful for? What drives them?
What is the driving force for him/her? The characters’ motivation is definitely a key ingredient to attract your audience. They need to know the purpose of the characters.
Why is Frodo leaving the shire? What is he trying to achieve? Why? What is at stake? Life and death? Love? Ultimately, good stories have a clear purpose for the people they are about.
The stakes are high. A weak or unclear purpose is not something we rally behind. The combination of relatable characters and their clear motivation makes it a lot easier for your audience to empathise with the story and see themselves in it. This is really useful when discussing a problem space for a particular group of people.
Imagine you are trying to get a key stakeholder to sponsor a project idea. If they are able to see themselves in the shoes of the people it affects (and understand the problem), convincing them will be much easier. It is hard to invest in something we do not understand or see the value.
Good stories need to be informative. They need to be cohesive, interpretable and easy to follow. You need to express details and you want your audience to understand the message you are trying to convey. Where possible, keep things concise, focus on critical information and remove superfluous or complex details. Keeping it simple helps to ensure that your story is easy to follow and share with others.
In design, we often refer to a psychological principle of cognitive load. To break it down, we want to avoid clutter, stick with the familiar and offload tasks (this could be using an image instead of a complex explanation).
Applying this thinking to storytelling, question yourself if you could use a common example to help make a point (e.g. Frodo mentioned above to demonstrate the reluctant hero’s journey). What is the most fundamental version of your story and could you just tell that?
A few of you might be familiar with the term ‘elevator pitch’. This is an exercise I ask my film students to do to distil their story ideas into mini-pitches or lightning talks. Imagine you have an opportunity to pitch to a publisher or a movie producer, you need to get to the point but have enough detail around the people, their purpose and a story to create enough emotional resonance to provoke them to dive deeper. Appeal to the head but captivate the heart.
Details are often not the key. Sometimes what is the essence is how a story makes us feel. Ensuring that your story has emotional resonance is a surefire way to help it become more memorable for your audience, and ultimately more effective.
You want to move people to give them a reason to pause — whether for a moment for joy, to reflect or to spark passion. The best stories are the ones that tap into people’s feelings and pull at their heartstrings.
I am sure we can all recall a time when a story had us wiping our tears away or smiling from ear to ear — be it good books, great movies or plays. All of these things are fantastic emotional conductors. So are great speeches.
Great leaders through history have used storytelling to rouse people and garner support for war efforts or significant policy changes. You might be walking through a simple user story, but ask yourself how would Obama tell this person’s story?
The last ingredient on my list is definitely not least. Drama, conflict or confrontation. The challenges that the people in our stories are faced with. Obstacles in their way, preventing them from achieving their purpose.
Frodo can’t save Middle Earth from destruction because Saruman and Sauron (the antagonists) sent the Orcs and other scary beasts after him (obstacles). This drama makes the story memorable and engaging. If Frodo and his team made it all the way to the end and easily destroyed the ring, we would not have The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy in all their glory. The struggle and the conflict are what keeps us engaged.
The obstacles and the drama are what make the journey interesting. The people and their purpose are why we are invested in their journey — their success, their struggles, as well as their challenges, are great devices for creating emotional resonance for us.
The method
Now that we have the ingredients, we need a method, a framework or a structure. Here, I am borrowing from history and leveraging on a very old storytelling framework called the 3 Act Structure which is popular in many formats. Plays, films, books, even TV to a degree. It is based around the idea that your story can be broken into three distinct acts.
First, the setup, where we introduce the universe our story and where it takes place, in addition to the central characters — perhaps protagonist and antagonists. Followed up act two, conflict or confrontation — where we introduce obstacles and drama. And lastly, resolution, where we bring things to a close and wrap things up.
Usually, the story kicks off with what is called an inciting incident or a call to adventure/arms. This is particularly common in story types like the “hero’s journey or the reluctant heroes journey”. Think Frodo and his quest to destroy the ring… he does not want to do that, does he?
Throughout the story we can include key plot points, such as an inciting incident, obstacles, a ‘turn-around’ moment (when things go bad or start going well for example) and a climax (when things come to a head).
Using the Acts
Act 1 Setup: You develop the characters, establish the universe, get your audience invested in the story. We need to learn about our characters motivation, personality and what is at stake.
Act 2 Confrontation: You present the challenges, obstacles and create conflict. This is where you can deliver the meat of your story — if you have developed strong, relatable characters, your audience will be on the journey with them through this conflict.
Act 3 Resolution: You can talk about the future, this could be wrapping things up with a “happily ever after”. Your characters should have a sense of achievement or failure here too. Or you can add a twist, a ‘sting in the tail’ (like in the Sixth Sense). Sometimes you might choose to drop the audience of a cliff and keep them guessing with little to no resolution.
In practice, this structure or ‘method’ can be applied to a simple slide deck which is setup in this narrative format, even sub-headed in the aforementioned.
A loose interpretation could look like this;
- What is the problem? (setup)
- Who does it affect? (inciting incident + conflict)
- What is the solution? (climax)
- What do we do next? (resolution)
Everyday stories
Designers can use storytelling in their practice in many ways.
The creation of user stories and journey maps, basically demonstrating the lived experience of the people we are designing for. This helps us to build empathy for users but also to demonstrate their struggles to those who are trying to solve them.
Developers can be more invested in solving technical problems if designers help them to better understand the user’s challenge. Storytelling can be a fantastic way to convey this. This is part of the reason user stories or job stories have been adopted so widely.
For researchers, similarly to designers, storytelling and thinking of how we convey insights can be useful in your practice.
Understanding complex data is one part of the job, but an equally important part is analysing and synthesising data into actionable recommendations. The insights themselves can be powerful but how we express them and ensure that they are relatable besides memorable can have a big impact.
Tying an insight back to the people it affects. Demonstrating how a recommendation will help overcome an obstacle. Keep these in mind in your next research presentation or report.
Engineers and technically minded people are often the hardest converts to storytelling as a regular practice. Nonetheless, I hope you have come to realise that storytelling is a natural part of everyday life and can easily be incorporated into our daily practices.
For engineers, it might not be easily transferrable. Logic and rationale are the usual tools in the engineer’s kit-bag, while emotion and simplicity are likely to be left behind.
If there was anything that engineers could take away from storytelling is this: Are you conveying information in a way that is simple, memorable and/or relatable? Could you characterise a problem around who it affects and demonstrate how a solution might benefit them overcoming obstacles?
An obvious area where storytelling can play a key role is in leadership. This can be in the form of speeches, presentations or in building advocacy for a cause. Championing initiatives can be challenging and natural leaders tend to utilise good stories as a way to rally support.
Barack Obama has been one of the great leaders of our time and is often cited as one of the best orators too. His speeches are rousing, the content is well measured and delivered in that signature Obama style.
If you take a closer look at some of his most memorable speeches, you will see that he often includes the same ingredients here — relatable characters, conflict and motivation. He doubles down on emotional connection and is always keeps things simple, coming back to key points. Great leaders are often also great storytellers.
There are many ways that we can use storytelling in our lives, but most of all I hope you remember to have fun with it. To remove the barrier in your brain between those classic fables we all know and love, try it out during your daily work. Can your next journal entry be a bit more Harry Potter and a bit less automaton?
About the author: Sean is the joint Managing Director of Aleph-Labs in Australia and teaches short courses in filmmaking with Australian Film Base. He is a passionate photographer, artist and filmmaker and lovers a good story.
Instagram: @seangsmith85
LinkedIn: linked.in./seangsmith/
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