“A picture is worth a thousand words.” No doubt, you’ve heard this maxim countless times. But perhaps it deserves a corollary: “A story is worth a million stats.”
In his 1995 book, Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, Howard Gardner brought his theories to life with minibiographies of 20th-century leaders—from Margaret Mead to Mahatma Gandhi. By his example, he illustrated just how compelling stories can be. In fact, the relationship between the stories leaders tell and the traits they embody is one of four essential factors of effective leadership, said Gardner. He added that leaders are “persons who, by word and/or personal example, markedly influence the behaviors, thoughts, and/or feelings of a significant number of their fellow human beings.”1
Founding director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies in Claremont, CA, Paul J. Zak found that stories produce a brain chemical called oxytocin, which motivates cooperation. Zak’s subsequent research revealed that stories do this by developing tension and sustaining interest during character-driven narratives. Two other brain chemicals play a role in this: Cortisol focuses attention and dopamine rewards us for becoming immersed. Some researchers have even found that novels may enhance empathy by engaging us in ways like these.2,3,4
The moral of the story? Any journalist worth their salt knows it well—show, don’t tell. If you can’t dispense with the pervasive PowerPoint’s bar graphs and numbers, at least begin with a compelling narrative. By setting the right scene and choosing the right anecdote, you increase the chance that your communication will both be remembered and embraced. This may enable you to convey deeper insights about your key initiatives or strategies such as:
Don’t forget your organization’s brand story or founding myth. Bring the founder’s passion alive by the retelling of that tale—connecting it to a larger purpose. If you make that emotional connection with an authentic story—especially if you reflect challenges your audience also faces—you’ll go a long way toward changing attitudes and behaviors and making your ideas stick. Involve your customers in your story, and the “spinoffs” might yield more than you could ever imagine.
Everyone loves a story of human struggle and triumph—even (especially?) in an age of abstractions, analysis, and artificial intelligence. Though suppressed in business for generations, storytelling remains central to who we are as humans, indispensable for innovation, and critical for effective leadership. It turns out that storytelling isn’t just for fire pits. It’s absolutely essential and here to stay.5
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