Fables and Parables: Internal Hacks for Storytelling Alignment

In our previous blog, I talked about how business leaders and marketers can use “the Aristotle approach” to communicate the importance of storytelling to their internal team and get them on board with the strategy.?To recap, this approach involves establishing credibility, stating the logic, and perhaps most importantly, connecting to emotion with an authentic story.

When you successfully connect your audience with your brand through an authentic story, the dopamine and oxytocin released in your audiences’ brains together draw you and your audience together — connecting your company and your audience, whether it’s an individual or a group(more on this later).

But what if you don’t have an authentic story from your real-life experience? That’s OK – a metaphor, fable, or parable can be just as effective and ultimately serve as an internal “hack” for aligning your team on a storytelling strategy. If stories trigger the release of the hormones like dopamine and oxytocin, fables and parables can do the heavy lifting for you to start that “triggering” process.

Here are a few concrete examples of these storytelling devices that you can apply to your own internal communications to inspire you.

Storytelling devices to use as internal ‘hacks’ for team understanding

Metaphor

Definition: A comparison in which one thing is said to be another. Metaphors are the most accessible and valuable “hacks” to connect your message with something familiar to your audience.

Example:?

Stories are like the air we breathe and the water we drink.?

Interpretation for your team: Stories and storytelling is invaluable to us and our audience. Not only is it a necessity, but we also crave it to survive.

Fable

Definition: A short story that conveys a moral, usually with animals as the main characters.

Fables can be a bit abstract, so it’s essential to be very intentional and authentic when using them. Depending on the context, you can tell a classic, familiar fable, like The Tortoise and the Hare, or put your spin on a classic to make it more relevant to your business (as we’ve done below).

When finding (or creating) your fable, prepare by thinking through your core message to ensure it is crystal-clear and makes sense to your audience. It needs to be “tortoise and hare” simple – nothing too complex! Be warned, this can take some time and effort, but it’s a worthwhile investment for a story that people just “get.”

Example: Based on?The Ant and the Chrysalis

?A sales rep was scouring the internet searching for leads when he came across the social media account of a competitor that wasn’t running any active campaigns. He happened to know a sales rep at that company and decided to reach out.

?“Poor, pitiable sales rep!” the first sales rep messaged the other. “What a sad fate is yours! While I can post and email and call, at my pleasure, and, if I wish, reach the C-suite leaders of any company, you lie imprisoned here in your stagnant, inactive account, with power only to ‘like’ other people’s content.”

The second sales rep saw this message but did not reply. When the first sales rep revisited the other rep’s company profile a few days later, he felt himself suddenly shaded by an impressive new marketing campaign and the powerful messaging he saw there.

The second sales rep finally replied to the message, saying, “Behold in me, your much-pitied friend! Boast now of your powers to run and climb, as long as you can get me to listen.”

The second sales rep went on to share effective story-driven content from the new campaign and attracted countless leads the first sales rep hadn’t been able to secure.

Interpretation for your team: Appearances are deceptive. While storytelling might look like something merely for entertainment, and you may wish to focus on “traditional” sales and marketing methods, you can, in fact, soar much higher with storytelling.

Example: Based on The Hart and the Hunter

A CEO was once perusing her company’s website, admiring the zippy user interface and appealing visual assets.?

“Ah,” she said, “where can you see such a well-designed website! I wish I had brand messaging that was more worthy of appearing on such a beautiful page; it is a pity our content is so slim and slight.”?

Later that day, a competitor posted about a new product offering similar to the CEO’s company. The CEO quickly replied with some pre-written marketing content to show her product’s superiority. She had nearly swayed a few commenters on the fence. Still, not noticing what she was typing, she accidentally copied and pasted a snippet of an old marketing campaign that was no longer relevant to their current offerings. The competitor quickly pointed out the error, sharing its own story-driven content to persuade potential customers successfully.

?The strategy was so obvious, and the CEO wondered how she hadn’t thought of it herself: This competitor was telling real, authentic stories that all tied into an overarching brand narrative that was present in every single piece of content they published. The CEO had authentic stories to tell, too, and telling them could have won over those customers. Instead, she chose canned marketing responses that had no emotion behind them.

“Alas! alas!” cried the CEO. “We often despise what is most useful to us.”

Interpretation for your team: Storytelling might seem useless when you look at it through the lens of mere entertainment, but it is the foundation for how we communicate and even how we navigate the world. A well-told, authentic, emotional story will win out over generic, rote “corporate speak” every time. Ignore storytelling at your own peril.?

P.S. - Here are some business fable books you may be interested in as well.

Parable

Definition: A short story that conveys a moral or spiritual lesson.

Example:?The Butler and the Bees

The dust settled from his latest attempt. Pieces were everywhere. He could see all seven major components crumpled and broken on the ground. A few smaller pieces continued to fall out of the sky, making little puffs in the dust as they came to rest.

The inventor peered out of the narrow slit in the protective concrete — head in hands. He had been working on the machine for as long as he could remember.

“Another failure, Sir?”

The tall, withered old butler stood behind the inventor at the entry to the room. The inventor nodded. He cursed the heavens again and shook his head.

“You’re going to tell me the bees story again, Alfred, aren’t you?”?

“Well, sir…” said the butler before the inventor cut in.

“It’s OK, Alfred. I get it now.”

“Good, Sir. The bees cannot do it alone. And neither can you, Sir. Next time you go to town, don’t simply tell them about the mechanics of what you are doing. Tell the story of your children.?When they understand why you are trying to build the machine, they will be inspired to help. Together, you will get it built faster. Together you will see your children again sooner.”?

Interpretation for your team: This parable shares the importance of storytelling. We don’t know all the context. But it starts with a bang. We can feel for our hero.? We meet a guide with good advice. We hear of a story within the story, the bees. And of another story, that of the inventor’s authentic sad tale, which has the power to motivate support. Maybe it’s even why Alfred sticks around. The parable also speaks to the failure of focusing only on “mechanics,” details, and data.

Example: The Two Wolves

An old man was teaching his grandson about life.?

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego. The other is good — he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you — and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old man replied, “The one you feed.”

Interpretation for your team: This parable can be applied in a few different ways. First, the wolves can signify competing values in the marketplace for audiences. Which value will you feed into as a company with your messaging? The parable can also be taken at face value and examined as to how to live life — either feeding into negativity and becoming miserable or searching for and rejoicing in positivity.?Finally, the two wolves can serve as an analogy for using storytelling and not using storytelling: Lean into it and reap the positive benefits of authentic, story-driven marketing, or ignore it and continue to see lackluster results.

Why authentic storytelling works to engage customers

The majority of our storytelling here at Go Narrative draws upon authentic stories from customers or our clients’ industries.?

Before each project, we research the stories, anecdotes, and tales from that industry. We weave our stories in — often one about the company itself — from the very beginning for a presentation that clearly shows our understanding of where the company is trying to go and the challenge it’s seeking to overcome by improving its storytelling in each piece of content it produces.?

Sometimes the story is incredibly brief. “How a fisherman became the highest-paid programmer in Silicon Valley” is a personal favorite of mine. It packs so much in, engages listeners, and begs them to take action after hearing that tale.

When I share the fisherman story, I always ask, “Do you want your messaging to be as engaging as this?”

The answer is always a resounding yes!

Another positive indicator we have seen in the importance of storytelling for companies in their content is post-event or post-workshop survey results. When Carmine Gallow analyzed 500 Ted talks, he discovered the number one shared attribute remained storytelling. In fact, 65% of all the content was story.

Wouldn’t you like to connect with your audience, or even your manager, with the level of engagement of a Ted Talk?

Remember, as David JP Phillips tells us in his own Ted Talk, “The magical science of storytelling,” stories release powerful neurotransmitters – hormones that trigger connections and retention in the brain. Dopamine helps with memory and retention. You can induce this with cliffhangers that don’t answer everything immediately. This will both keep the audience’s attention and help them retain the details of the story. To release oxytocin, create empathy with your stories, and your audience will bond to you.

You will create energy and interest for your program, your campaign, or your storytelling initiative itself. You will build alignment and get people on board. It’s on that energy that you can engineer large-scale, meaningful narratives and campaigns that convert.?

We understand that bringing people together to a common shared goal is possible through storytelling. If you’re ready to start leveraging the power of storytelling for your marketing campaigns and internal communications, book a complimentary consultation with Go Narrative today. Let’s chat about how we can help you.

Go Narrative is a Seattle Based firm that helps business leaders challenge the status quo to find a better way to clarity through storytelling. Get attention. Be heard. Sell more.

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