‘Just give me the story!’
‘Tell me the facts and I'll learn. Tell me the truth and I'll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.’
If this Native American proverb is true, then why in business do we have such a bias towards facts? Why do we communicate and influence with data points, graphs, bullet points and all the boring stuff, and largely ignore stories?
Why is it that we've heard ‘Just give me the facts’ many times in our career and have probably never heard ‘Just give me the story’?
Don't get me wrong: data is important in business, and logic and facts are critical for credibility and judgement, but, as the previous chapter demonstrates, they don't inspire or influence in the same way stories do.
The reality is we need both. Yet we have a misguided bias towards facts. An example of this is if you look at the ‘About Us’ section on a company's website, annual report or sometimes even in the foyer of their head office. It's usually a list of dates and significant events about how and when the company was formed.1 But these efforts in documenting and communicating this history are often misguided. While this history could be interesting to some, it rarely helps us connect and engage our employees and customers. Unlike our heritage.
HERITAGE AND HISTORY ARE BOTH IMPORTANT, BUT WHILE HISTORY TENDS TO EDUCATE AND INFORM, HERITAGE HAS THE POWER TO CONNECT AND INFLUENCE.
Heritage over history
To help explain what I mean here, I'd like you to introduce ...
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