Leadership Through Storytelling
August 2013
Written by Bill Baker, BB&Co Strategic Storytelling
The Timeless Power of
Storytelling
Key Messages
•
Storytelling is an exchange
of meaning shared from
one person to another for a
purpose.
•
Strategic storytelling is
about telling the right story
at the right time and can
be used to lead and create
change.
•
Great stories tap into
emotion, enlighten and
entertain, are universal,
are relevant and are never
completely told.
•
The best storytellers listen,
engage their audience,
empower others and are
about giving something
meaningful to someone
else.
The author Isak Dinesen once said,
“To be human is to have a story.”
Indeed, our identity, our persona,
our very lives are shaped by the
stories we tell, the stories we hear
and the stories others tells about us.
As dietitians and other health
professionals and educators, you can
use this same power of storytelling
to connect with your clients in a
more compelling and transformative
way. The right story shared with
your clients at the right time has a
way of going beyond all the health
facts and nutritional information
they receive to resonate with them
on a deeply personal level. It can
give those facts meaning and
relevance, helping your clients see
the information you share in a new
and crystalizing way and be much
more likely to act on it.
Storytelling to Lead and
Create Change
Stories have always been the
way we most readily and
naturally communicate as human
beings. And today, more and
more organizations—and more
specifically, their leaders—are
harnessing the timeless power of
storytelling to reach through and
connect with their most important
asset: their people. They are using
storytelling to engage their staff,
partners and suppliers in ways that
the typical mission statement or
directive just can’t, aligning them
around a shared sense of purpose
and getting them to collectively
work together towards a common
goal.
Leadership takes many forms
and can be applied in all sorts of
different situations. However,
whether you’re a CEO in charge of
20,000 people or a dietitian working
with a single client, leadership is
most often about affecting and
managing people through change.
One way to try to make change
happen is to simply tell people
what you need them to do and hope
that they will do it; but this rarely
works, as we all know. Instead, to
truly inspire change a leader needs
to take people from where they
are to where they need to be. If
they can take them there mentally
and emotionally first, chances are
a physical change with follow.
entail. Certainly a story can be
a traditional narrative based on
your own history, or a narrative
from someone else’s history (e.g.
a past client, a celebrity, etc.). But
storytelling can also be as simple
as a quote from a respected
leader, an arresting image, a
clever cartoon, an infographic or a
video. All of these, when shared,
are able to exchange meaning.
Storytelling when used properly
can help make this happen.
Stories work because as humans
we are already hard-wired to
tell, hear and comprehend them.
When important information is
embedded into the context of
a story, it helps us process that
information better. Rather than
hitting one part of your brain in
one direction with information,
stories use different stimuli and
appeal to many different parts of
your brain at once, getting more
of your brain to fire and making
it more like a sponge: opening
up to absorb the information
included in the story and then
lock down around it. Dr. Howard
Gardner, a professor of cognition
and education at the Harvard
School of Education, has done a
lot of work to connect leadership
to the way we cognitively process
information. He says, “The single
most effective tool a leader has to
persuade and influence others is a
story.”
Thinking Strategically About
the Stories You Tell
We define storytelling as an
exchange of meaning shared
from one person to another for
a purpose. When you consider
this concept, it expands your
view on what storytelling can
No matter what form storytelling
takes, to be most effective, you
need to think strategically about
the stories you tell. While the craft
of storytelling is about telling
any story at any time, strategic
storytelling is about telling the
right story at the right time, to
compel a client to think, feel
and act in a specific way. To
accomplish this, it is often best to
“reverse engineer” the selection of
the stories you tell.
Looking at the situation
strategically, you should…
• First think of what action you
want your client to take: what
do you literally want them to
stop doing, start doing or keep
doing.
facilitate and add context to all
of the above.
If you consider the first three
points before you identify or
develop your stories, you will
ensure your stories are more
relevant to the situation and to
your clients.
“Storytelling = An exchange of
meaning shared from one person
to another for a purpose.”
Tackling Storytelling from
Three Angles
Being a great storyteller is a
combination of the person,
their level of understanding
and their material. The greatest
communicator in the world
cannot become a great storyteller
unless he or she first has great
stories to tell as well as full
knowledge of the ingredients
of great storytelling. As such, to
develop the proficient storyteller,
we need to look at core truths of
great storytelling, building blocks
of great stories and characteristics
of great storytellers.
• Consider what you need them
to think and/or feel to compel
them to take that action. What
new thoughts or feelings do
you need to instill? What
mental or emotional barriers
do you need to help them
overcome?
• Determine what message
and/or information you can
provide to get them to think
or feel that way.
• And then, and only then,
should you consider whether
you have a story to help foster,
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The Core Truths of Great
Storytelling
Great storytelling—or more
specifically, great stories—
accomplish the following. Great
stories…
• Tap into emotion – They
break down our hardened
shells of cynicism and make
us feel; for when we feel
something with a story, we are
infinitely more likely to recall
those feelings and act on them.
• Are universal – Great stories
are viral, with an ability to
transcend cultures, cross
generations and speak to
many different groups
simultaneously.
• Are relevant – They provide
answers to questions that
people have always wanted to
ask, and they take us to places
that we’ve always wanted to
be.
• Enlighten and entertain
– When stories entertain
us, they bust through our
defenses and connect with us
in a human way, making us
more receptive to whatever
lessons and morals those
stories convey.
• Are never completely told –
There is an openness to them
that allows them to evolve,
becoming richer and more
personal with each soul who
touches and tells it.
The Building Blocks of Great
Stories
Part and parcel of great
storytelling is first building great
stories to be told. And while every
story is different and unique,
the majority of great stories are
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composed of three, essential
elements.
• Premise – This is the
environment, situation or
framework in which the story
exists: the “backdrop” for your
story. It links your story to the
world around you, establishing
context and relevance in the
process.
• Plot – Plot is the series of
events unfolding in your story,
depicting what is happening
today, has happened in the past
or will happen in the future.
Plot could involve your clients’
past or current struggles with
their diet or your own with
yours. Or it might envision a
healthier future for your client
that is achievable and worth
achieving.
• Person – These are the people
(the personalities) involved
in the premise and affected
by the plot. Importantly, the
“person” aspect of your story
also includes you, the speaker
and the audience you’re
addressing. Great storytellers
make themselves part of the
story. Better still, they make the
audience a part of it.
Characteristics of a Great
Storyteller
Truly great storytellers are each
as unique as the stories they tell.
And while the strengths of one
will most certainly be different
than the strengths of another,
great storytellers do share some
common characteristics.
between people; an exchange of
meaning; a shared experience
among equals in which the
audience is just as active a
participant as the storyteller
even if the storyteller is doing
most or all of the talking.
• They empower others – Great
storytellers facilitate the way
people think versus trying
to force it. They lead people
down a path towards a desired
conclusion, but importantly,
allow people to draw their
own conclusions from what
they have heard rather than
imposing the storyteller’s
conclusions upon them.
• They are generous in spirit
– They understand that
storytelling is not about
personal acknowledgement
or grandeur. Rather, it’s about
giving something special,
something meaningful to
someone else.
• They are human, vulnerable,
truthful and trustworthy –
Great storytellers are authentic
and genuine, readily admitting
doubts, struggles or mistakes.
They invite people in and
reveal parts of themselves in
telling their stories, and the
audience feels closer to them as
a result.
• They do not hide behind
PowerPoint — Great
storytellers use PowerPoint
to enhance and support their
communications, versus letting
it do the communicating for
them.
• They listen, engage and
interact with their audience
– They understand that
storytelling is really a dialogue
for Health Educators
To be Human is to have a
Story
As you continue to collaborate
with your clients, helping
them work towards a brighter
and healthier future, consider
how you can use storytelling
more strategically to get them
to envision the opportunities
inherent in that future and
understand the challenges that
could get in its way. When you
start telling more stories in all
their different forms, never forget
that storytelling is, above all, an
exchange of meaning between
people. Find your message; make
it clear; but also make it human.
Take off your armour, let down
your defenses and open yourself
up to your clients, revealing
the genuine human behind the
message and meaning you’re
sharing.
The fact is, storytelling is not new
to you. As a social, communicative
human being you already know
it, though as a professional you
might not…at least not yet.
Archived issues of our newsletter can be
found on our website.
About the Author
Bill Baker is the principal and
founder of global strategy firm
BB&Co Strategic Storytelling.
BB&Co works with companies
and organizations worldwide,
strategically leveraging the power
of storytelling to bring more
meaning, humanity and focus to
their work and, therefore, their
workforce. To gain more insight
from Bill, visit and sign up to his
blog at www.billbakerandco.com/
blog or follow him on Twitter: @
StorytellerBill.
The team of Alberta Milk registered dietitians are:
Jaclyn Chute, RD
Lee Finell, MHSA, RD
Colinda Hunter, RD
Cindy Thorvaldson, MSc, RD
Nutrition File TM is a free quarterly research newsletter for health educators,
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