The Mysterious Power of Stories

“The principle vehicle of leadership is the story: The leader affects individual behavior, thought, and feelings through the stories that he and she tells.” -Howard Gardner, Harvard Professor and author of Changing Minds

“There can be few talents more important to managerial success than knowing how to tell a good story.” -Michael Hattersley, Harvard Management Updates

How do you keep your workers inspired, determined, and confident in the face of change, challenge and uncertainty?

One of the things you do—especially if you’re a business owner or senior level leader—is tell stories.

Not just any story.

You need to tell the kind of stories that leaders at great companies like Ritz Carlton, Southwest Airlines, Nordstrom, and FedEx tell. 

They tell stories about the great things their employees do. 

They tell stories about challenges they’ve overcome. 

They tell stories about the ways they—the company—and they—the employees—are making a difference in the world. 

How Could You NOT Get Inspired By This?

Here’s a classic example from FedEx lore that I just found in a great article by Dan Heath, co-author of Made To Stick, in his online article The Story Whisperer:

At FedEx, for instance, stories circulate about employees who’ve gone the extra mile for customers. One story concerns a driver in Manhattan whose truck broke down in the middle of her route. She called for a replacement van, but it was running late, so she started jogging around the city, trying to deliver the remaining packages on foot. Her progress was too slow, though — she wasn’t going to get her packages delivered on time. So she improvised. She flagged down a competitive firm’s delivery van and managed to persuade the driver to take her on her last few deliveries.

Doesn’t it just capture the “Can Do” attitude of FedEx employees? Imagine being a FedEx employee and hearing this story. Wouldn’t you feel just a little prouder to be part of such a group of winners? Wouldn’t you feel just a little more determined to be “that kind of person”?

This is the power of stories. They teach, they inspire, and they bring forth in others the very behaviors and attitudes they describe.

No PowerPoint presentation, pie chart, or business-speak laden pep talk captures the attention and enlivens the spirit like a story. 

The Mysterious Power of Stories

As someone who used story-telling as a healing modality in a previous career and taught others in the healing professions how to do so, I can attest to the transformational power of story. I find that they often stimulate perspective shifts—such as “There’s no way I could…” to “I bet I could figure out how to…”—when more direct challenges to limiting beliefs had only resulted in greater resistance. 

Stories are so powerful because—as Dan and Chip Heath note in their book Made to Stick—they offer both inspiration and simulation. I’m sure you get the “inspiration” part; the “simulation” component is not so self-evident.

It’s also part of the mysterious power of stories.

As therapeutic story-telling pioneer Dr. Milton Erickson taught, stories provide a non-threatening context for people to “try on” new ways of acting, responding, and viewing the world. Because they are “just a story” versus a direct confrontation or recommendation, listeners can temporarily suspend their “I could never do that” defenses. 

Stories as “New Behavior Flight Simulators”

Because of this, and the fact that when you listen to a story well told, you feel like you’re having the experience of the protagonist, stories act as “New Behavior Flight Simulators.” 

They consciously and subconsciously provide you with the chance to feel and see situations in the story as the protagonist does. Research with children, as well as curing phobias, shows that vicarious experience—i.e. watching someone else—is a powerful modality for learning new behaviors and developing new responses. 

When a story is told well, it gives the listener a powerful vicarious experience, hence the concept of “New Behavior Flight Simulator.” It also gives the listener the chance to literally see a situation in a new light.

Because of this, stories can create new neural patterns of response, just like Tiger Woods visualizing the golf ball flying perfectly “programs” his neurology to act in ways that make that happen in reality.

Thus, by having a collection of stories about your employees, or other people you know, acting in kind, generous, courageous, and innovative ways, it’s like walking around with a portable “Bring Out the Best in Employees Flight Simulator.” 

In Part II of this blog series, we’ll explore the use of story telling as a tool to make presentations come alive, and in Part III, we'll explore explore how to use analogies to make ideas more understandable and “sticky.”

David Lee is the founder of HumanNature@Work and an internationally recognized thought leader in the area of optimizing employee engagement and in onboarding. He has used storytelling as a teaching and transformation tool for over 20 years. He is the author of over 60 articles and book chapters that have been published in trade journals and books in the US, Europe, Australia, India, and China. For more of his articles, go to HumanNatureAtWork.com.

Photo credit: Guldfisken