StoryTelling for Leader

Article by Diego Ingrassia – “StoryTelling for Leaders” – FEBRUARY 2019 LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT

Storytelling has very ancient origins, in the search for its first written evidence we can go as far back as 2,500 years before the Christian era. This is in fact the dating of the Epopea of Gilgameš, the Babylonian epic poem narrating the exploits of the ruler of Uruk. If we were to look for its origin in oral tradition, its traces would be lost in the mists of time, because the development of human civilisation has always been accompanied by the telling of stories. We should not forget that the transmission of knowledge, through oral storytelling, was of fundamental importance to most human beings until very recent times: in fact, until the spread of the first mass media.

For some years now we have been witnessing a rediscovery of this powerful tool through a variety of forms: from the classic speech by a speaker, to commercials, to more recent realisations, such as the Instagram stories, which we can consider the digital transposition of the old comic strips found in newspapers since the end of the 19th century. In terms of the environments and contexts in which it is used, storytelling has long since transcended the more traditional sectors to spread to the worlds of politics, education, sport and within companies, not only with regard to advertising, but also as a powerful internal communication tool. The most interesting aspect is that, although these examples are very different, some basic rules do not change, and they are the same rules that have accompanied the effectiveness and fortune of these ‘memorable stories’ since the beginning of time.

What are these rules:

• An objective: the story must have a purpose, a moral, a meaning.
• Simplicity: through example, analogy, metaphor.
• Bypassing the critical filter: (cognitive – rational) through the lever of emotion and the indirect approach.
• Produce an effect: motivate, persuade, push to act, produce change.

A few examples can help us better understand these characteristics.

There is a rule, usually attributed to the tradition of Anglo-Saxon literature, which is summed up in the phrase: “Show, don’t tell”, the sense of this phrase is clear: if you want to be effective, to evoke, to induce an emotion, to generate the mechanism of identification in the reader, or in the listener, don’t explain things to me, show them to me. And if you can, do it suggestively. But to have attributed this concept to Anglo-Saxon literature alone is reductive, we need only quote the Russian writer Anton Checov, who is even more explanatory when he says: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glow of its light on broken glass”. This example contains the power of the image, and explains very well the effectiveness of the indirect approach: you do not have to show me the subject directly, but something that evokes it. In August 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans, newspapers all over the world published many images documenting the appalling damage to city structures, but nothing could convey the violence of that hurricane to me like the photograph of a bird’s feather, stuck like a dart, by the violence of the wind, on the wood of a door.

We can draw on the literary tradition with another beautiful example from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of one of the masterpieces of world literature: The Little Prince.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t toil to gather the men, divide the tasks, give the orders. If you want to build a ship, awaken in your men nostalgia for the vast and infinite sea’. .

As can be seen, this sentence encapsulates all the rules we have previously identified:

• An objective:to pursue an important and difficult result, it is good to start by motivating the people involved.
• Simplicity: is an example that even a child can understand.
• Bypassing the rational filter:through powerful metaphor, the primordial fascination of the voyage and the sea.
• To produce an effect:to induce a change do not give orders but create suggestions and emotions.

Today’s managers want to be effective leaders, recognised as well as recognisable, i.e. they want to be able to influence others through their communication, without the need to appeal to hierarchical rank in order to be followed. But charisma or the intuition of the moment are not always enough to achieve this. Instead, the solution often lies in the skilful and strategic use of communication: knowing how to say the right thing at the right time in order to succeed in removing obstacles and resistance.

However, a fine line divides those who use narratives in an appropriate manner and those who, despite knowing some communication techniques, appear less than spontaneous and contrived when expounding. This happens because when people use anecdotes or examples to try to be persuasive, they often overdo it: they dwell on highly sophisticated and detailed plots, they make use of unfamiliar voice modulation techniques, with the risk of producing grotesque results. We must always remember that in communication, simplicity pays.