Business legends use storytelling to
inspire, educate and motivate
By Carmine Gallo
Ideas that catch on are wrapped in story. Stories inform, illuminate and inspire. Storytelling is something we do naturally. In fact, it’s part of our DNA. We are hardwired for story and we can prove it scientifically.
Some studies show that at least 400,000 years ago humans gained control of fire. It’s an important milestone in human development. Sitting around the campfire, people began telling stories instead of hunting and gathering like they did during the day. Stories informed others about potential threats, educated them and ignited their imaginations. Stories do the same today.
British entrepreneur Richard Branson, best known as the founder of Virgin Group, which comprises more than 400 companies, gathers his team to share stories around a campfire at his home on Necker Island, British Virgin Islands. “Storytelling can be used to drive change,” says Branson. “Telling a story is one of the best ways we have of coming up with new ideas.”
Branson also plays host to a group of young entrepreneurs who have been invited to the island for a few days of fun, food and pitching ideas. The 10 entrepreneurs are the finalists for a competition called the Extreme Tech Challenge, which Branson has judged for a couple of years. The winner receives Branson’s funding and support. Speakers who grab Branson’s attention are concise (winning presentations are no more than 10 minutes long), they speak from the heart, and they use the language of narrative to spark Branson’s imagination with a villain (problem) and a hero (solution). Winning presentations end with a picture of a better world. Branson loves ideas that are pitched in the form of story because, like all of us, Branson is hardwired to love story.
Branson is one of 50 entrepreneurs, business legends and TED speakers I interviewed or featured in The Storyteller’s Secret, a book I’ve researched for two years to help business leaders understand the language of narrative and the role it plays in their success. I discovered that business leaders who are storytellers fall into one of five categories: those who inspire, educate, simplify, motivate or launch movements.
Storytellers Who Inspire
Storytellers who inspire embrace their own story of triumph over adversity and by doing so, they challenge us to dream bigger. For example, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz often tells the story of
growing up in a Brooklyn housing project and watching his family struggle after his father was injured on the job. They had no health insurance and found it difficult to make ends meet. The story underpins Schultz’ initiatives such as offering health insurance for all employees. Schultz, one of the great storytellers in business today, once said, “The more uninspiring your origins, the more likely you are to use your imagination and invent worlds where everything seems possible.”
If you’ve overcome adversity in your life, in your career or in your business, it’s important to share that story because we are hardwired to love rags-to-riches stories. And we love them because we need to hear them. We find meaning in struggle.
Storytellers Who Educate
These are the men and women who offer a new way of looking at the world, and they do that through the power of narrative. Human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson has won cases he’s argued at the U.S. Supreme Court. He also received TED’s longest standing ovation for his “We need to talk about an injustice” speech at TED2012 in Long Beach, California. Personal stories made up 65 per-cent of Stevenson’s now famous TED Talk.
As another popular TED speaker, Brené Brown, once said, “Stories are just data with soul.” She’s on to something. Scientists have found that humans are essentially storytellers, which means we relate better to stories than to mountains of data. Effective educators use data to support their ideas, but they rely on stories to move people to action.
Storytellers Who Simplify
Storytellers who simplify are often entrepreneurs, like Richard Branson, who once said, “If your pitch can’t fit on the back of an envelope, it’s rubbish,” or Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who explains complex ideas simply, clearly and concisely.
In one presentation Musk introduced a home battery that stores sunlight and converts it to energy. The entire presentation lasted less than 20 minutes and Musk used short, simple words to describe the problem and the solution. The words were so simple, in fact, that his presentation could be read by a grade school student. Musk reads obscure Soviet-era rocket manuals for fun, yet he speaks to the general public in language the average third-grader might understand.
When Musk introduced the Tesla Powerwall in April 2015, he explained that…”
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Watch the video below to hear Richard Branson speak about how he heard about Necker Island when he was 27 years old and fell in love with it.
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