TLDR: Our brains crave stories, which is what makes them so useful and so easy to misuse. Three questions to ask before you tell one in a meeting, presentation, or interview, so you can earn the trust of your audience and move people to reason.
Story is the oldest tool humans have for moving an idea from one mind into another. While we can train our brains to think analytically and reason abstractly, our brains crave simple, vivid stories because they're easy to understand. We eat it up like candy. That craving is what makes story so useful, and so easy to misuse.
For example, in 2015, a marine biologist filmed a sea turtle with a plastic straw lodged in its nose. The story went viral. A decade later, we groan when a restaurant hands us a paper straw. What most people don’t know is that plastic straws are only about 0.025% of the single-use plastics entering our oceans each year. Switching to paper doesn't solve the ocean pollution crisis. What’s the moral of this story? Greenwashing and performative consumerism.
So, did this story do more harm than good?
Participants in my workshop, Spotlight Storytelling, openly voice concerns about storytelling, especially climate scientists referencing this plastic straw story. They see how narrative can be used by people in power to manipulate or dupe. They see how simple stories distort truth yet remain easy to naively pass around. They also fear ruining their credibility as a trusted scientist, an engineer, or a business leader, so they argue for keeping communication strictly analytical.
The semanticist Alfred Korzybski named this dilemma in a simple statement: the map is not the territory. A good map is useful precisely because it represents reality without being reality itself. Storytelling is the same. It conveys a vast amount of information quickly because it selectively leaves things out.
Without story, your most important ideas might never see the light of day. In business, a story puts your numbers into context so you can get funding. In science, it explains your research so you can get grants. In politics, it keeps a policy from sounding like gibberish by showing its human impact.
Three seemingly obvious questions to ask yourself before you tell a story:
Do you truly need a story? If your audience already grasps the urgency and has the momentum to take a desired action, skip the story.
Does the story accurately represent reality? Speakers sometimes tell a sensationalized narrative to evoke pure emotion without underlying data. If there is no real data behind the emotion, skip the story.
Does your story oversimplify reality? The plastic straw narrative did exactly this. If you choose to simplify a complex topic, know the trade-offs you are accepting and be ready to account for them when challenged.
Storytelling works, but only when paired with intellectual integrity. Ask these three questions before you tell your work history in an interview, before you tell a customer success story in a meeting, or before you tell a story about your research in a presentation. Read my article here about how to craft a clear, concise story. Then tell the story to build trust with your audience and move them to act with reason.
If you want to help your team, org, or company to communicate more effectively with stories, reach out. I do 1:1/group coaching and workshop facilitation. Contact me at [email protected] and visit leadinstride.com to learn more.
