The Importance of Stories

The Importance of Stories

Storytelling is a crucial component to effective public speaking. It creates relevance for the audience, providing additional detail and mental visuals that bring to life otherwise dull, remote, or complex topics. Stories give speakers the opportunity to tell personal stories that relate to the audiences' experiences, thought processes, or values. Moreover, including stories in both interpersonal communication and public speaking helps your audience remember your statements or speech for later recall.

According to Chip and Dan Heath, authors of Made to Stick, recounting stories is the sixth and final way to make an idea stick. It is one of the most important things that public speakers can do to make their presentations memorable . This is perhaps due to storytelling's role as one of the few human traits that is truly universal regardless of age, gender, culture, and language.

What's so Great About Stories?

The Heaths cite the work of psychologist Gary Klein. According to Klein, stories are effective teaching tools because they illustrate causal relationships that people might not have recognized before and they highlight resourceful ways in which people have solved problems.

Additionally, stories help to motivate our audiences to act.

The best stories captivate their audience, whose emotions can be inextricably tied to those of the story’s characters. Such immersion is a state psychologists call narrative transport.

Most scientists agree that stories have such a powerful and universal appeal that the neurological roots of both telling tales and enjoying them are probably tied to crucial parts of our social cognition.

A 2007 study found that a test audience responded more positively to advertisements in narrative form as compared with straightforward ads that encouraged viewers to think about the arguments for a product. Similarly, labeling information as fact increased critical analysis, whereas labeling information as fiction had the opposite effect.

Studies such as these suggest people accept ideas more readily when their minds are in story mode as opposed to when they are in an analytical mind-set.

But do People Really Remember Stories?

How well do we remember stories compared to other kinds of information? Well, Chip Heath teaches a class at Stanford University. For one exercise, he divides the students into groups of six to eight and gives them statistics on crime patterns in the United States. Half the students in the group must make a one-minute presentation in support of the proposition that non-violent crime is a serious problem. The other half must create a one-minute presentation arguing that non-violent crime is not a serious problem.

After everyone has presented, the students vote for the person in their group whom they thought was the best. Then, the exercise is over—or so they think. Chip moves on to something else and often shows a short video to distract the students. He then abruptly asks them to write down everything that they can remember about the speeches they heard. The Heaths note:

“The students are flabbergasted at how little they remember. Keep in mind that only ten minutes have elapsed since the speeches were given. Nor was there a huge amount of information to begin with – at most they’ve heard eight one-minute speeches. And yet the students are lucky to recall one or two ideas from each speaker’s presentation. Many draw a complete blank on some speeches – unable to remember a single concept.”

But here’s where it gets really interesting in terms of the power of stories:

“In the average one-minute speech, the typical student used 2.5 statistics. Only one student in ten tells a story. Those are the speaking statistics. The remembering statistics, on the other hand, are almost a mirror Image: When students are asked to recall the speeches, 63% remember the stories. Only 5% remember any individual s tatistic.”

This excerpt demonstrates just how powerful stories can be. And yet, many speakers shy away from stories, preferring instead to inundate their audiences with statistics and other bland details. By not telling stories, these speakers are foregoing the use of one of the most effective tools in a speaker’s arsenal.

Stories help us connect with our audiences in a way that charts, graphs, statistics, and bullet points cannot. They help us make our messages stick and our speeches memorable.