You have a story to tell: 4 tips for becoming a better storyteller at work

Fast Company

15 hours ago

Stories generate better context and deeper emotions. Here are four tips I would suggest all of us employ to become better storytellers.
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My wife's grandmother is 100 years old. She is healthy, smart, energetic, and fun to be around. Last year at Thanksgiving, I sat at a table with her for an hour-and-a-half with my wife and her two sisters as we listened to her tell stories about her life. We were all transfixed.
Experience may be life's best teacher, but stories come in a close second because they give us the benefit of someone else's experience. Stories give us context that yields understanding much deeper than memorizing facts. More importantly, stories can generate emotions that bury ideas deeply enough inside us to cause us to act.
Scientists have a name for the shared phenomenon that happens when storytellers connect with their audiences. It's called 'neural coupling,' and it refers to the way that our brains and emotions begin to synchronize with a speaker as their story unfolds.
WHY STORYTELLING MATTERS IN THE WORKPLACE
As I speak with leaders around the country about how to create intentional cultures, I encourage them to leverage the power of stories. As we onboard, train, or develop people on our teams, we can give them the advantage of the hard-won lessons we have learned from our experiences. More than just learning what to do, stories can help them understand the 'why' by equipping them with principles they can apply to future scenarios we can't predict.
I learned this many years ago when I met with two managers who had both started with us about 90 days prior. They were pretty important hires for our then-young company, so I was checking in to see how they were progressing. I asked each of them for feedback on their onboarding. The first told me that he felt like it had been fine and that he was starting to figure things out. The second manager gave me a very different answer.
'It's been incredible. I feel like I've been here forever.'
'Wow,' I responded. 'That's great, but I have to ask, why do you say that?'
'Well, every day, I have a meeting with my manager at 5:00, and in that meeting, she just tells me stories. She tells me about what happened when we signed a contract, or something that occurred with a client or associate. I just feel like I understand so much about why we do things the way we do them.'
This conversation caused me to be more intentional about telling stories to our people as often as I can. Because I don't like to leave important things to serendipity, storytelling has become a part of our practices.
Which makes the next story even more embarrassing.
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR STORYTELLING SKILLS
Recently, I gave an online seminar about culture with my usual encouragement for leaders to lean into storytelling. I took questions at the end, and someone asked me:
'How can I become a better storyteller?'
As someone telling people to tell stories, you would think I would have a good answer about how to become good at it. I didn't. I gave an answer that was vague and I'm certain pretty unhelpful.
Storytelling has always been a part of how I communicate. As a writer, speaker, and actor, it is just a natural part of what I do. I've never really thought about having to explain how to do it effectively.
So, with thanks to whoever asked that question, I would like to ask for another chance at the answer. Here are four tips I would suggest all of us employ to become better storytellers:
1. Read Great Stories
If you want to become good at telling stories, then you need to read great stories. Next time you find yourself engrossed in a story, ask yourself why it captured your attention. Learn about classic story development tools, like the Hero's J ourney, and look for how they are applied in storytelling to create engagement with an audience. To start, read a wide range of literature—novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, biographies, and other creative work—instead of mass-market fiction.
2. Lean Into Vulnerability
As storytellers, revealing our frailty helps break barriers with our audience because it allows them to connect with our humanity. We are suddenly off the pedestal of the stage and on common ground with our audience as they realize we have the same struggles they do. Tell the story that may be embarrassing. Paradoxically, instead of diminishing our credibility, vulnerability can connect you with people and make them more open to hearing what you have to say. Remember the science around neural coupling.
3. Talk About The Elephant
The most impactful stories are ones that make us a little uncomfortable. It makes us think about something we don't like to think about or admit to ourselves, or something we usually deny. Though these stories can be painful to discuss, they are usually the ones that create and can help us convey our most deeply held beliefs and passions.
4. Don't Worry About How Well You Do It
The best musicians in the world typically create an album with 10 songs, and inevitably, seven of them are forgettable. Likewise, authors create many stories that are never published. Don't worry about becoming good at storytelling, just start doing it. After all, experience is life's best teacher. The more you do it, the better you will get, and the more you will learn about which stories best engage your audience.
If something is important, don't leave it to chance. Take some time to examine areas in your life where you want to teach or pass on important information. Think about what happened to you that formed your views on that topic and how you can tell those stories to those you lead or love.
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