Stories amid the information clutter out there

Recently, I cleared up my desk of a huge stack of papers, reports, brochures and the like that had accumulated over time. Important papers of course got properly filed, but a lot of those I had to get rid of ended in the recyclable waste bin. Not surprisingly, a lot of the paper that ended up in the recyclable bin were unsolicited brochures from events, conferences, marketers, and the like.

From a sustainability perspective, this means that a lot of paper and a lot of expensive artwork and time spent failed to accomplish the main mission: to compete for your attention amid the cacophony of information out there.

Part of the reason is that people simply hand out these brochures and marketing material blindly, without even checking if you are the least bit interested. But a related question does pop up. How do you get people interested in what you are selling or pushing anyway? The question is important because a lot of people are trying to sell you something or get you to accept their point of view, which in a way is also selling.

Many think that the answer lies in using gimmicks. Go to any trade conference out there like a car show, and chances are you will see these scantily clad models whose motions seem choreographed. The last time they must have had a meal was probably several months ago, based on the lack of fat on their figures. And so they hand you these slick marketing brochures, with the car in front of you glistening under tons of properly buffed car wax.

There are many ways, but I still believe in the power of stories. Humans are hardwired for stories – very few of us have forgotten the fairy tales that our parents read aloud to us. But oftentimes we think that stories are only for children.

On the contrary, a well written narrative that explains the facts in a sequential and context filled manner can give even an uninterested person an appreciation of what is being pushed to him. While there is no guarantee that the reader will go beyond reading a brochure or an argumentative paper, at the very least the statistical probability that your argument will be read, and therefore thought of, is higher with a good narrative story. This should especially be of interest to nonprofit organizations who are trying to drum up attention for their cause.

Take for example a non-profit organization trying to raise funds for muscular dystrophy, breast cancer, or some other worthy cause. Framing an argument why someone should make a donation with a human story involved might work better than simply spewing off statistics and facts. This is why simply talking about world hunger doesn’t work, for example. While statistics and facts might work to convince someone about the logic of why a donation should be made, often decisions are made with both the heart and mind. In many cases, people make decisions based on the heart alone, without even a logical basis. As an example, a story of someone who is hungry or ill works better in convincing people to support your charity than a simple cold mention of facts.

Even Harvard Business School professors know this. A New York Times article described how John Kotter, HBS professor and author of serious management books, converted his 1996 bestseller, “Leading Change,” into a business fable. The fable version, “Our Iceberg is Melting,” also became a bestseller and was borne out of the need to communicate Kotter’s concepts from the boardroom into the minds of the regular rank and file employees.

A story well told, with both logical facts and some appropriate emotion in the narrative, might work better in getting your argument into someone’s head than all the expensive bells and whistles that conference organizers and ad agencies sometimes want you to pay for.

© Japan Today