You can become a better storyteller
But you have to know who you are
👋 Hey, it’s Andrés. Welcome to my weekly newsletter on growing your influence at work. I write for managers, senior individual contributors, and business owners. I do have a weak spot for Latinos in the US.
Today: Why the fuss around storytelling… and how to build a personal narrative that works.
Read time: 9 minutes
Here are three insights I want to share with you today:
Using storytelling is a way of coming across as less abstract
Share both negative and positive stories
Dig deeper to craft a better personal narrative
I’m using two recently published books as inspiration for this post: Say it Well, by Terry Szuplat, and Magic Words, by Jonah Berger.
Insight #1: Stories make you less abstract
Terry Szuplat was one of Barack Obama’s speechwriters. Last month, he published Say it Well, which I’m enjoying enormously. Terry’s style is almost 100% narrative, with most of his points and insights preceded or illustrated by stories.
Here’s a passage that I enjoyed about Barack’s storytelling transformation: Obama ran for congress in 2000, the only election he ever lost, writes Szuplat. Quoting Obama, Szuplat continues:
When I first started running for congress, I had a tendency in some settings, including debates and impromptu remarks, of not telling stories, but rather listing off talking points, factoids and policy. I was too abstract, too wonkish, and, as a consequence, too long-winded. I just didn’t have enough reps.
So what happened later? Barack decided to keep his talking points, but started using stories to show what does points meant.
Four years later, continues Szuplat: and with a lot more reps under his belt, he drew an all the lessons he learned as he prepared what would be, to that point, the highest pressure moment of his life.
What was that moment? His 2004 keynote speech at the Democratic Convention in Boston.
Barack Obama took the stage, smiling, clapping, waving to the crowd, adjusted the mic, and began to speak, introducing himself to those of us in the hall and millions watching at home.
As you probably remember, that speech put him on the map, was named the speech that made Obama by the NyTimes, and jumpstarted his political career that eventually led him to become the first Black President of the USA in 2008.
Now, before sharing some of the things Barack said that night, let’s pause for a minute to think about your current role.
What’s your go-to strategy to communicate an idea, a request or an insight?
Are you using stories to connect with others, to communicate with clarity and/or to inspire action?
If you’re reading this newsletter, there’s a big chance that you’ve already decided to start using personal stories, examples and experiences at work. Here’s what to figure out next:
Which type of stories should you share?
Insight #2: There’s a winning combination of stories
Stories are an integral part of everyday life, writes Berger in Magic Words.
We tell stories about how a meeting went, what we did this weekend, or why we think we’re perfect for a particular job. We tell stories to make a point, sell an idea, or just connect with friends.
Look how Berger uses the word in plural: stories. That’s because in a typical encounter with other people —say, a meeting, a presentation, a conversation—, you’ll rarely have the opportunity to tell just one story.
If a typical story takes between thirty to ninety seconds —what I’ve understood is the average of the stories we tell in a social setting—, then you’ll have the opportunity to tell many stories.
Now think about collaborating with other people over long periods of time—say, the time you spend working for an organization, for a specific team, or with a long term client—. You have the chance to share dozens, even hundreds of stories with these audiences.
Could you connect your stories somehow?
How might you get better at sharing a narrative that sticks with others, and helps you increase your status?
The answer, according to Berger and a group of colleagues, is that you should share contrasting stories.
Berger and other researchers analyzed words used in movies to understand what made a movie, great. They broke different movie scripts —Jaws, Argo, The Hunger Games, The Matrix, Star Wars, Forrest Gump, among many others—into scenes composed of hundreds of words, and gave positive or negative scores according to the words used in every scene.
Then, Berger continues,
we used these scores to plot each movie’s emotional trajectory
They and plotted graphs like this:
Berger and his colleagues found that movies that mixed
highly positive moments with strongly negative ones were more successful. Movies that repeatedly traversed from the lowest of emotional lows to the highest of emotional highs, and back again, were liked more.
Now, you probably don’t need to share those extreme stories about a fist fight with your dad (!), or about the time you got arrested (!!!) in an 9 AM Tuesday sales results call, but you can share less extreme stories yet still emotional in moments where everyone is a little bit more relaxed.
Last set of questions to answer:
Where should you look for stories to share?
Could your stories be connected, beyond being negative and positive?
Insight #3: Dig deeper
Let’s get back to Barack’s 2004 speech. We left him just about to start talking:
My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats.
He then talked about his mother, and about why they decided to name him Barack, which means blessed.
In a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.
The crowd roared.
I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible.
By the end of his speech, he’s borrowing on his experience listening to preachers, and addressing crowds in his community organizing career. If you watch the YouTube video of his speech, you’ll notice that the most replayed part is the following phrase, which he said riding a high:
The hope of a skinny kid, with a funny name, who believes that America has a place for him too.
By then, he has to stop talking. The crowd won’t let him continue.
Years later, Szuplat had a conversation with David Axelrod, Obama’s adviser, about this speech. Here’s Axelrod:
There’s no question that Obama couldn’t have given that speech if he hadn’t thought deeply about his own identity over many years. He knew who he was, and he understood how his story shaped him.
He was an effective speaker because he knew who he was, finishes Szuplat.
If you’re looking to craft a personal narrative that helps you build a reputation, status and trust, there’s no way out:
You have to dig deep
You have to understand the context in which you’re living your life
You have to find (or construct) meaning in your past, present and future
Do this, and you’ll notice how your stories start to resonate better, and not only with others: They’ll start to ignite things, ideas and purpose in yourself.
Here’s Obama’s 2004 speech, by the way:
Ps. As a Latino in America, this post —including Obama’s speech— could have special significance for you and for others that you know. This other post could also resonate with you.
Thanks for being here! I’ll see you next Thursday.
Andrés
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