The Art of Storytelling
Stories have greased the wheels of humanity for thousands of years. Since the early days of homo sapiens, stories have been used as a means of divulging tactical knowledge, and legends of the storyteller’s ancestors. The communal fireplace set the stage for this human interaction, and the flow of knowledge, thus conceiving an important milestone in the history of humans.
While today, we may not feel as connected by stories as our ancestors of yesteryear, thanks to the wealth of information flowing through our smartphones and Google’s search engine. Stories remain integral to constructing an identity, particularly for companies. The rest of this article will be dedicated to constructing an understanding of the aspects of, strategies to, and use cases for telling a story. Take your story, from good to great.
ELEMENTS TO A STORY
Taking one step away from bedtime stories, we abandon the childhood “once upon a time” phrase, and focus upon the internal elements of any story: (1) a character, (2) a problem/predicament which leads to (3) a solution. Of course, merely having the elements to a story does not mean people will listen to your story (unless you blast if from the rooftops of every house in your area). A good storyteller will draw you in, she’ll pique your interest with commonalities, leaving you wanting to hear more. A better storyteller puts you in the shoes of her character. You reminisce with the experiences of the character, even when you haven’t yourself, been through them. You understand the hardships, and begin to feel them yourself. A great storyteller is magical in their words. They make you feel every pain the character is clambering across, while filling you with a hope of redemption. Each twist and turn of the story tackles you, as the story drags your emotions along for the ride. Once engaged, a storyteller has you at their whim.
WHY TELL A STORY?
Stories are a transfer of education, and a developer of culture. They’re a way of introducing emotion into a situation. Though the traditional fire-side story may not be as essential to the development of human life as it once was — the age of the internet has altered the way in which humans can access information — it has its place in progressing culture through a conscious and informative directive. Stories remain a way in which the storyteller can create a culture, or an identity around their message. They’re the storytellers’ own style of behaviour and thought put into words, in which the audience can relate with, made all the more easier to disperse for the storyteller, through the hierarchical storytelling structure.
The structure puts storytellers in a unique position of influence. Despite not having any enforceable power, the emotional connection their stories can develop with their audience, generates a platform from which the storyteller can spread their message, or in some cases, can stimulate action. In fact, stories bring us to a higher state of consciousness, concurrently to a high state of receptiveness. They open us to suggestibility, making it easier for the storyteller to make an impression on us, or change our views. [To sidetrack briefly, even post-story, frequent readers are found to be more open-minded about matters than non-readers (or those confined to their Facebook newsfeed)]. As briefly mentioned, they insert emotion in matters. A story takes previously mundane topics, or so called rational situations, and initiates influence by appealing to the interest and emotion of the receiver (this will be developed further under use cases).
The art of the story is an integral part of establishing a relationship of trust between the storyteller, and their audience. Though, up until now we have not discussed important use-cases for stories (other than putting your kid to sleep).
USE CASES
Inside the organisation
For thousands of years, religious stories have been used as a motivator for controlling the actions of large masses of people. Similarly, companies have begun developing their own stories from the top down, for control reasons among many others. By formulating a story, the founders create an identity through the hardships and the origins of the product, or the origin of the company holistically, which aligns and inspires the interests of everyone within the firm, from the janitor to the summer interns to the CEO. Alignment improves, or more appropriately, focuses the efforts of the team toward a predetermined set of organisational goals. The story merely acts as a recipe for maintaining alignment.
The road to cooperative company culture is not effortless. Storytellers have an imperative to retain consistency of message throughout every step of the journey. Consistency reinforces the message of the story, and creates believability. This is especially important when the story of the firm is being told to employees within; you need to convince, or win over the employees, so everyone knows the mission, and everyone knows what the company is trying to achieve. Additionally, your employees act as a sales force. If lower level employees love the story, they’ll be telling each and every person they know at weekend BBQ’s. This can only be achieved through integration of one consistent story throughout all levels of the firm. Of course, the story also has to be interesting and engaging for it to have spill over effects into the personal lives of the employees. People want to tell others. Give them something inspiring.
Outside the organisation — IPO’s
We mentioned selling the story to employees, but come capital raising, the focus shifts to selling the story to venture capitalists, investment bankers and investors.
Let us apply examples to explain the following. Uber. Selling yourself in an IPO, is a lot like selling your product on the shelves. You could use the rational approach and have faith in the fundamentals of your product to outsell your competitors, but you don’t. Instead, you’ve got a marketing team that to your accountants seem more like an excessive expense account, that enjoys drawing far more than any adult should. This marketing team has attacked every which way they could possibly conceive to pique your customers emotional interest, making them bang on the door and demand your product, paying far juicier margins for a phone than anyone could rationally justify.
Uber was effectively forced into undertaking the emotional sale. Being a loss-making company, their fundamentals would fail to arouse interest on the face of it. However, overlay those large losses with a story of ‘car-sharing for all’, ‘rid the world of individual ownership,’ ‘over-congestion’ and suddenly you’re selling shares at $45 a piece, rather than a more rational $5. Of course, the story itself must still be eloquently sold, and the storyteller can improve their selling price by articulating themselves, and everyone else in their organisation (retain consistency) as a great storyteller.
Valuations
As the founder would sell investors and investment banks on the organisations story for an IPO, the investor must construct their own story of the firm when conducting a valuation.
This story differs from the organisations one, as it is not intended to inspire or align values of those who hear it. Instead, it’s the investors hypothesis for the growth of the firm. This story formulates and tracks a potential pathway to growth for the business, so the investor has a guide for estimating growth rates for the company. Each individual has their own story for the firm in a valuation case, resulting in numerous valuations for any given firm. What the story helps with, is picturing where the investor expects the company to be in x years time, since raw numbers are infrequently pragmatic for creating a hypothesis. The typical elements of a story are less important in a valuation scenario, however the storyteller must construct their hypothesis upon a basis of facts and goals, which they can derive from the organisation’s story.
CONCLUSION
Stories are far more than a before-bed activity for some. Their historical roots established an important culture of knowledge transfer many thousand years ago, and even in the modern age when the traditional form story seemingly fell out of favour, we still see a requirement for convincing storytelling in day-to-day life.
A great story has a purpose behind it. Be that entertainment, informative, inspirational or alignment of goals. Either way, stories have their purpose in modern society, and those telling the story find themselves in a position of undue power, that should not be abused.
Whatever your need for storytelling, I hope this article has incited some interest in the elements involved, in the art of storytelling. Good luck!
