For your reading entertainment, here is a collection of insightful, informative thoughts about the power of stories. Enjoy!
1. “ . . . I’ve learned from observing great leaders how often they tell stories. I don’t mean half-hour stories, but short ones about something that’s happened, either within the group, or historically. They integrate stories into everything . . . . It relates back to the question of how to engage people. These stories aren’t just intellectual stuff. It’s not just data. It’s hitting an emotional level. I’m seeing more and more and that emotional piece is huge.” John Kotter, professor of leadership emeritus at Harvard business School
2. Stories help us remember information because they are dynamic — they hold our attention.
• They inspire us
• They give us insight
• They help us focus our attention (when our attention is being pulled everywhere)
• They speak to relationships — they connect us as human beings, with common human experiences
• They bring what could be perceived as a complex situation down to its essence
3. • Stories fulfill a profound human need to grasp the patterns of living — not merely as an intellectual exercise, but within a very personal, emotional experience.
• A big part of a CEO’s (leader’s) job is to motivate people to reach goals. To do that, he or she must engage their emotions, and the key to their hearts is story. People are not inspired to act by reason alone.
• A story expresses how and why life changes.
• Stories are not about exaggeration and manipulation. Stories are about how you or others engage the struggle and come through it.
• The creative mind cuts to the truth of self and the humanity of others. Self-knowledge is the root of all great storytelling.
Robert McKee, award-winning writer, director, and screenwriting coach, in Harvard Business Review
4. “Telling a purposeful story in a business environment where vital information is embedded and grows organically in the narrative is singularly the best way to energize a product or service into a call to action.” Peter Gubar, author, Tell to Win in “Fables for Board Tables,” Financial Times
5. “If you think of all the great religious leaders, philosophers generals, (political) leaders, what do they have in common? They were all great storytellers.” Stephen Denning, author, in “Fables for Board Tables,” Financial Times
6. Four stories companies need to have:
• Who am I? How did we get started?
• Where are we going in the future?
• Apology and recovery — how you respond to a transgression.
• Personal story – focus on the people within the organization.
“The Power of Storytelling: What Nonprofits Can Teach the Private Sector about Social Media” Jennifer Aaker, Stanford University, and Andy Smith, marketing strategist, authors, The Dragonfly Effect, in McKinsey Quarterly Online Journal
7. “The more vivid the story – through narrative or through imagery – the more emotionally arousing. And emotions are what trigger the impetus to help. The more surprising finding is that showing statistics can actually blunt this emotional response by causing people to think in a more calculative, albeit uncaring, manner.” Deborah Small, Wharton marketing professor, Stanford Social Innovation Review
