Telling stories with impact

A study conducted at Princeton by Professor Hasson (and recent TED talk) demonstrated that when one person listens to another's story, the activity in the two brains synchronises. So if you are listening to me (or in this case reading) it is likely that the activity in your brain is looking a lot like the activity in mine, albeit delayed a little bit. However, Dr Hasson also found that after a while the brain of the listener (reader) started proceeding the brain of the storyteller because the brain of the listener is predicting what the storyteller would say. In this way, the researchers were able to predict what listeners brains activity would look like. 

Cool right? But a bit freaky also.

But why is the synchronisation of a group around a story so important to “influence”? Because the synchronisation proves true not only in regions of language and learning but also for emotions and regions that are important for our ability to think and understand what other people are thinking.  Moreover, we also synchronise the region that is important for associations that change our perceptions and ultimately our decisions.

So what is the most important thing in all the stories, speeches, films, novels,… that drives “influence”? Researchers discovered that it is emotion. If the storyteller can elicit a synchronised emotion in the other person, then they are having some control on that person’s state of mind.

Think about it like this, if you are very sad and I am telling you a joke then well you’re sad… so you will not perceive the joke as I do. However, if I am first able to make you happy then tell you the joke you will most likely perceive it more from my point of view. So what you are able to do, in this case by first making the person happy, is change the perception of all the information that comes after [ie. changed emotion] to correspond with the person who is delivering the story.

So how does this reflect back to us? It means that to make sure our stories resonate (i.e. synchronise) we must first move our listeners by emotion. Great speakers know this. That is why they start with different stories to first set the “mood” of the audience because without it the overarching story will never effectively convince or rather synchronise their publics.    

Think about in the framework of the great teachers, coaches or great managers you have had and how they pulled you along giving hope and eliciting an emotional response to bring the whole team into synchronisation and engagement. 

This is our challenge as communicators, putting people at the heart of our stories and then telling these stories with emotion to set the mood for our employees and our customers.