The Power of Story

When was the last time you used a story to land an idea? To motivate a team? To close a sale?

The widespread availability of information, the abundance of data, and the emphasis on objectivity in the modern era drive many of us to rely on factual evidence to communicate ideas or persuade an audience. During his early days as Chairman & CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, Steve Jobs once said that "the most powerful person in the world is a storyteller" - a sentiment he demonstrated in practice as a master storyteller himself. His legendary One More Thing comes to mind...

I recently participated in a preview of the Stanford LEAD program, and spent a week exploring the hidden power and utility of storytelling. This wasn't about improving your skills as an entertainer among friends, food, and wine - though that's important too! - but instead focused on the natural home stories can and should have in a professional setting. With incredible support from Emilie White , Doctor Jennifer Aaker , the Stanford Graduate School of Business General Atlantic Professor, a renowned behavioral scientist, and many-times-over author, led us through the poignancy of leveraging a story to communicate a concept with incredible efficiency, personal vulnerability, and poise.

I'll continue with an anecdote:

I love making breakfast for our kids - it's the highlight of my morning and sets the tone for the day ahead. Our kids get to choose the breakfast they're most interested in - within reasonable bounds - and one morning my eldest son, a six-year-old, asked for a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. In our house, Cocoa Puffs and it's brethren fall into the "sugar cereal" category, a box that only made it's way into our home via the generous donation of that relative who thrives on ensuring your child's sugar intake consistently sits at birthday party levels.

This request was a hard "no" for a weekday cereal choice, and I went on to explain that the sugar content in Cocoa Puffs is more akin to a dessert food. He wasn't buying it, so I got visual. We got out granulated sugar, the food scale, and measured out the grams of sugar per serving in a clear glass to illustrate what he'd be putting in his body with each delicious bite. No buy-in, but at least I got some raised eyebrows.

I then reached for the Honey Nut Cheerios, my preferred "healthier" choice, confidently pouring him a bowl and expounding on the benefits of making these wise dietary choices to start the day. As I continued, I flipped the cereal box to its Nutrition Facts to land my final, evidence based point to discover: Honey Nut Cheerios and Cocoa Puffs carry the same sugar content per serving.

Elated, though perhaps annoyed with my pontificating, my son enjoyed his bowl of Cocoa Puffs while I considered the danger of my unfounded bias and the assumption that I was making the best choice for him without having done the necessary research.

It's critical to evaluate and pressure test our assumptions carefully, certainly for large decisions or execution plans but, perhaps even more importantly, for smaller decisions we make without pause or deeper consideration of the foundations of our decision making.

The above was my short story submission and final assignment for the LEAD preview, an attempt to synthesize what we'd quickly learned in the prior week. Admittedly, before experiencing the course, I'd not thought of stories for their function, particularly in a work environment. I walked away energized by the readiness and appeal of stories to bring ideas to an audience that might otherwise get lost in a fog of talking points and slide-ware.

What are your favorite stories? The ones you wait your turn to tell at family gatherings, drinks with friends, coffee with colleagues? Have you considered why you tell these stories? Do they say something about you? About your values? About what motivates you? The story with my son is a signal to explore critically that which we may have lazily accepted as fact. Ask more questions, probe deeper, retain curiosity - exhibit shoshin, the beginner's mind.

I've taken Professor Aakar's advice and have already begun building my story bank, exploring new ways to incorporate stories as tooling in critical communications both inside and outside of my professional life. Stories can fill volumes, they can require a handful of words - Hemingway famously wrote the six-word short story: "Baby Shoes. For Sale. Never Worn."

Share a six-word story of your own in the comments. And as you do, a fitting epilogue to my cereal story:

The next morning, an early start to my meetings meant my wife was in charge of serving breakfast for the kiddos. Having no former knowledge of our sugar research project the morning before, my wife asked the kids what they'd like for breakfast. Once again, my eldest son piped in with "Cocoa Puffs!". As if on queue, my wife responded with the same rote script about sugar content and blood sugar levels and - she was interrupted by the six-year-old: "But Mom, did you know that Honey Nut Cheerios have the same grams of sugar per serving as Cocoa Puffs?"

Our son began a second consecutive day with his cereal of choice.

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