You Aren’t Hardwired
We are no more hardwired for stories than data. It isn’t the underlying neurology that makes a great story. It is how we use it.
I cringe every time I hear someone say, “We are hardwired for stories.”
I’ve even been guilty of saying it.
Once.
I love storytelling, and this sentence is meaningless.
What do we even mean by hardwired?
It isn’t like there are neural circuits in our brain with a “storytelling” label on them.
Great stories tap into senses and emotions, connect us to detail, build empathy, and even increase trust.
They leverage more neural activity real estate in the brain than data.
But it isn’t because we are hardwired.
It is from how the stories are told.
Technically, I am hardwired to escape from a dangerous animal chasing me.
But I won’t be successful if I don’t practice my sense of awareness and sprinting.
Saying we are hardwired for anything neglects our development and effort required.
It’s making this assumption that the underlying parts are there and that is enough.
It isn’t about the underlying parts, it’s what you do with them.
The Flight of the Buffalo
I was facilitating a team session on leadership and conflict.
Dan, the CEO, told a story from the book “Flight of the Buffalo,” by James Belasco and Ralph Stayer.
It described a herd of buffalo that followed their leader everywhere.
They depend on their leader for everything – food, shelter, even when to move.
If the “head buffalo” dies or is killed, the rest of the herd stands frozen – their lives at risk because they lost their leader.
I watched Dan tell the story.
He didn’t notice everyone in the room avoided looking at him, their eyes glazing over.
He told a story he clearly loved.
Employees silently mouthed portions of the story, having heard it so many times before.
When he finished, an awkward silence filled the room.
Dan exhaled a huff of frustration that no one seemed to like this story.
It didn’t occur to him that the story made him a hero and insulted the team.
He kept telling the same story in different settings, thinking each time, “This will be the time it clicks.”
Hardwiring isn’t enough.
If we are hardwired for stories, why didn’t the story work?
It’s not enough to tell a story.
The way you tell a story makes a difference.
Stories start with the audience, not the topic of the story.
Dan told the story he wanted to tell, but it wasn’t the right one for his audience.
His goal was to help his team feel empowered.
This story had the opposite effect.
The only emotion engaged was annoyance.
It’s hard to empathize with a buffalo.
There was nothing to connect with.
All that hard wiring was wasted.
The bias of sharing data and telling Real-time stories
I had two interesting discussions about storytelling this week.
The first came up on a podcast recording.
The host said, “Some people don’t want to use stories because data can be shared quickly, stories can’t.”
To which I responded:
“Just because data is shared quickly doesn’t mean it is understood or remembered. The audience isn’t as intimately familiar with the data as the presenter. The ‘data dump’ often doesn’t translate to the same common understanding by the audience. We may think that it is faster to share data, but faster doesn’t necessarily lead to increased understanding, connection, or recall.
Presenters often don’t think through what the audience needs to hear and what they will say. They spend hours creating a PowerPoint quilt of random slides from various presentations. Each packed with too much data. Maybe five minutes are spent thinking through what will be said. Including phrases like “I’m not going to go over everything here” as they flip through slides. The audience is left with more questions than understanding.
There is this bias that preparing to tell a story is a lengthy process. Or it takes too much time to tell a story in a meeting. But the time it takes to prepare and tell a story shouldn’t be any different than the time it takes to properly prepare to present and share data.”
The second was a question I get all the time: “Can I learn to tell stories on the fly in real-time?”
Absolutely. I do it all the time.
The difference between prepared and on-the-fly stories are the tweaks I can make to improve the effectiveness for the listener.
you can’t create and edit at the same time.
When I have time, there are more things to play with.
I can incorporate details, build, and release tension, slowing the ability of the audience to make assumptions, engage senses and create a dynamic connection to the story.
When telling stories real-time, I can’t do each of those.
I try to do three things when telling stories on-the-fly:
Before interactions, I spend a few minutes thinking through the people and what I want them to come away knowing, thinking, or doing. Sometimes this happens five minutes before the meeting, at the start of my day or week.
When I can work a story into the conversation, I tell it through my four-part story structure:
What is the context - why should the audience care?
What is the conflict – the moment where something happens?
What is the outcome of the conflict?
What is the takeaway of the story – connecting it to what I want the audience to know, think, or do.
As I tell the story, I try to add at least two specific details and engage at least one sense.
While there is much more to storytelling, it can also be that simple.
Storytelling is a compounding skill.
The more you practice, the faster and easier you can tell stories.
Start leveraging these three steps to tell stories in real time, and you will tap into that hard wiring just waiting for a great story.
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When you are ready, there are three ways I can help you with storytelling:
Keynotes: Edutainment - these sessions entertain and educate, building your awareness on the science of storytelling and how to begin building your toolkit of stories for any settings.
Workshops: Interactive virtual and in person experiences to help your organization learn how to scientifically hack the art of storytelling.
Coaching: Are you a member of the C-suite or Head of a Business Unite? Do you have a significant meeting or presentation coming up and need help developing your stories? Individual sessions to help you learn to tell stories that inform, influence and inspire.
