Let’s start with a story.
I was once part of a sizable team working on what’s sometimes called a Phase Zero project — the type of project with a brief that begins “The Future of…” The team included a few designers, a historian, an account manager, me, and a crew of other advisors who came in and out as needed.
About halfway through the project, we reached a significant milestone and decided to treat ourselves to some wine to celebrate. We cracked a bottle from a case we’d bought, and sat there in our project room feeling accomplished, welcoming our hard-earned decompression.
Our project room was situated next to other project rooms in a huge loft-like space that was constantly abuzz with activity. It had three walls on which we leaned stacks of foam core boards filled with post-its. There was no door, and anyone could easily see the entire contents of the room just by passing by—which got us thinking: anyone could come by at anytime and help themselves to our wine! There wasn’t really a problem with theft, but we wanted to preserve our stash for future milestones.
As we sat there and sipped, the conversation drifted toward where we were going to hide our case of wine. The company kitchen was obviously a poor choice, so was the locker and bike rack area—way too much traffic. As we considered various options, the lead designer on the project suddenly stood up, grabbed one of the many Sharpies scattered around the space, walked over to the case, and scrawled the phrase USER VIDEOS on top of the box.
“There,” he said, “No one will ever touch it!”
As a relatively young researcher, I’m pretty sure I didn’t find his joke very humorous at the time. But in hindsight it was perfectly timed and well-delivered. And, he had a point. The reason video clips of interviews with participants can fall short is that all too often they aren’t situated within a compelling narrative. Talking heads aren’t a story, and simply sharing them as ‘the voice of the consumer’ risks random interpretations of their meaning among your stakeholders. The larger narrative we construct about participants’ experiences IS the insight. It should convey the interpretive value we bring through the positioning and sequencing of stories from ‘the field’ that help our message resonate.
“The difference between giving an example and telling a story is the addition of emotional content and added sensory details in the telling. A story weaves detail, character, and events into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.” —Annette Simmons, The Story Factor
With this in mind, I thought it useful to take a deep dive into storytelling from an anthropological perspective, with an emphasis on what gives it lasting value, as well as where AI fits within our long shared history of storytelling. So, let’s start with the basics.
Why we Tell Stories
“Our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.” — Mary Catherine Bateson
Anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, is recognized for having enriched the discipline in many ways, especially her contributions to intergenerational communication. And like many anthropologists, she leveraged the power of storytelling in two primary ways. First, she saw the value of storytelling among her participants as a means of understanding how they embodied and shared cultural norms in personal ways. Second, she deployed storytelling in her own work to help her audiences see how their experiences within their own culture are echoed in, or contrasted with, those of another. In both cases, the value of storytelling centered much less on conveying facts or convincing others of a particular position, than on sharing narratives that evoked, inspired, connected, and transported people beyond the current moment and their constrained spheres of concern.
“Information has value only for the moment it is new, but storytelling is capable of releasing information even when the story is very old…” —Anne Pellowski, The World of Storytelling
On a personal level, we tell stories for many different reasons: to seek emotional clarity, process feelings, connect with others, achieve affirmation, fill a void, or make sense of the unknown. But above all, we tell stories to share and; if the conditions are right, transform ourselves and others in some way. Social research into the dynamics of live storytelling demonstrates that the process is primarily a co-adaptive interaction where the storyteller offers up a personal narrative that they entrust with their audience. In return, invested audiences demonstrate empathy and engagement by showing that they care enough to take the time to listen and respond.
This creates a form of trust-building that’s critical to the shared meaning-making that storytelling provides. In short, good storytelling connects. It’s the medium that hosts shared experiences that build empathy through the dynamics between storyteller and audience.
“Stories provide the context to understand the awakening of transformation…This experience is at its most powerful when it occurs at the cusp of an era, a transitional turning point in a person’s life, or in current events, as we experience the world changing before our eyes.” — Bobette Buster, Author of Do/Story
On the biological level, neuroscientists have identified ‘mirror neurons’ that are triggered inside our brains when we watch the actions of others. These neurons, which are also associated with empathy, have been shown to activate when we immerse ourselves in stories. So, when a storyteller expresses an emotion, these neurons reflect those same emotions of brain of the listener.
Even more intriguing, neurologist Dr. Uri Hassan‘s experiments have revealed that not only do these neurons began to fire in the brains of the listener when triggered by a storyteller, but that listeners often begin to anticipate upcoming emotional stimulus, as though they knew what would happen next. Even with different stories and different listeners, the pattern persists. Whether or not this can be construed as evidence for storytelling as a hardwired, primal, trait remains up for debate. But clearly it is critical to how we interact with one another and navigate the world around us.
Storytelling Basics
Many social scientists, behaviorists, and even neuroscientists have long argued that all humans are inherent storytellers and that we are continually engaging different forms of narrative every day. This is evidenced by much of the research into storytelling in the field of human development.
If you’ve spent any time with kids, you know that they have very unique ways of telling stories. The plot (if there is one) often wanders; they tend to ramble on, end abruptly, suddenly shift topics, or connect unrelated ideas. Although the absurdity (and cuteness) of these stories can be entertaining, they can also be challenging to follow. What you’re witnessing in these tales are little experiments with language that eventually build toward full stories.
Human development researchers have identified five main stages of narrative development that map roughly to different age groups. These range from early ‘heaps’ of content that tend to form at around age two, through to ‘true narratives’ that emerge when children are five to seven years old. At each stage, narratives build greater context, reflect increasing awareness of cause and effect, and eventually delve into resolving a problem and connecting motivations of characters to a plot.
Below, listen to a 4 year old share a primitive narrative…
…and here Claire (advanced for her age) shares a focused chain.
Each of these stages are layers we all build upon as we grow; and any layer is accessible to us as we share stories in everyday settings. For example, early stages of brainstorming could be categorized as ‘heaps’ or ‘sequences.’ Some memes might be considered focused chains, where additional knowledge is required to interpret an ending — a story embedded within ‘wink’ shared among the like-minded. The same can be true of group conversations, where participants tell just enough to be understood by others, who then complete a story on their own based on shared views of a topic. In short, we’re all telling some sort of stories, all the time. They may not always be full-fledged ‘true’ narratives, but they tap different stages of how we learn to tell stories, depending on our audience and contexts.
Putting Storytelling into Practice
Hopefully by now I’ve convinced you of the value and underlying drivers of storytelling. But you may be thinking “I don’t have the time to master this skill.” Well, we don’t all have to be world class storytellers to leverage the connections that storytelling brings. In fact, it can sometimes be enough to engage one of the subsets of storytelling we all learned as children.
For example, if your audience consists of people with very similar shared experiences or close ties of some sort, it may be enough to offer focused chains, in which events follow a theme, but the additional knowledge of the audience is required to interpret an ending. You might enlist focused chains to reinforce bonds between the storyteller and people in the audience, as well as between audience members themselves.
Similarly, primitive narratives, in which events follow a theme and there is some indication of cause and effect, could be used as short cuts for storytellers to identify with their audience, without the necessity of constructing a logical sequence of events. Memes often function as very effective primitive narratives. Neither of these require developing full true narratives, but can be very effective ways of leveraging our shared storytelling integrants.
Regardless of your strategy for leveraging different storytelling stages, you’ll want to prioritize a few critical techniques that will always help you tell stories effectively: emotional connection, authenticity, interaction.
- EMOTIONAL CONNECTION: Expressing your emotions evokes empathy between you and your audience. Center your story on emotions that will trigger connections with each audience.
- AUTHENTICITY: Variation, imperfections, and vulnerability help stories feel real and accessible. You don’t need to “find” your storytelling voice, just speak as if you’re talking to one very understanding friend.
- INTERACTION: Good stories evolve and adapt based on exchanges between the storyteller and their audience. These interactions draw storytellers and audiences into a stimulating exchange that invites the audience into the creative process. Provide ways to help your audience become part of a co-constructed narrative.
In addition to these core techniques, Bobette Buster has written an invaluable guide that offers an enlightening set of ‘rules’ for impactful storytelling. Everything from making your story personal, to highlighting one gleaming detail, and emphasizing the senses, are all baked in to tiny book that serves as a critical foundation for constructing stories. She also shows us exactly how storytellers leverage metaphor and passion to move their story from personal to shared meaning. I won’t attempt to summarize her work here, mostly because it’s worth its weight in gold to any student of storytelling!
However, it’s worth thinking about how some of her rules map to the core techniques listed above. Below is a rough sketch of how you can use some of Buster’s rules to accomplish this.
Finally, I’d like to expand on a key component that Buster and other storytelling scholars emphasize. Nearly every storytelling expert argues that one of the most critical components of effective storytelling is letting go so that audiences have the space to identify personally with the content by engaging their own imagination and personal references.
Letting go often unfolds in stages as storytellers seek out new audiences in ever-widening circles of safety. This helps them adapt their narrative and find new ways to visualize more satisfactory alternatives. Experts describe the process as one of claiming ownership (comfort and confidence in telling the story), building trust (prioritizing honesty & transparency), and gaining permission (understanding when your audience is ready and willing to hear different parts of your story). They also emphasize that these techniques should be used only after the storyteller has fully processed the experience, and understands its meaning for themselves in order to usher others into it.
The Moth, a storytelling organization that hosts live events, does a great job of helping storytellers both actualize their stories and “let go” to make room for the audience. They not only encourage storytellers to “have some stakes,” in which the teller stands to gain or lose in the telling, but to also “…Play with the details. Enjoy yourself. Imagine you are at a dinner party, not a deposition.”
Storytelling in the Workplace
In workplace settings the goals of storytelling shift a bit. Instead of connecting with a broad audience, you often need to connect with — and influence — a wide variety of stakeholders. While this does make things more complex, tailoring your story to them and their circumstances will go a long way toward connecting with them on a personal level. Your mission, using the tools described above, is to get beyond convincing, so that you can change hearts and minds. In short, you want to evoke, inspire, and transport them (and maybe you); and to do that, it helps to start with an understanding of who they are and what motivates them.
Before heading into any room of stakeholders, remind yourself that each person there is coming from a different experience that day, and more importantly, few of them have likely considered the the role of research in their work. What’s more, many of your stakeholders likely exist in a world of continual context switching, which increases the importance of ‘meeting them where they are’ as you begin to share your stories. This means that the first minute or so of your story is incredibly important, since it sets the tone for the interactions that follow and provides an ‘on ramp’ for them to acclimate and immerse themselves in what you have to say.
Ask yourself where the team is within their development process. Are they early stage? Mid stream? Post-launch? Each of these will have bearing on the how they listen and the degree to which they can absorb additional cognitive load. You’ll often find greater receptivity for stories focused on foundational insight at early stages, or during a de-brief at the end of a project, when their appetite for expanding their thinking is greater. Take the time to assess what forms might work best at these stages as well. Are they looking for a North Star? Do they need a hero’s journey? A common enemy (aka competitive landscape)?
Shorter stories that emphasize action tend to resonate best when the team is fully immersed mid-stream in a project. These shorter stories may later add up to a larger POV, but ask yourself whether or not the team has the capacity or interest to soak in a ‘master’ narrative at this point. Consider collecting these shorter insights to pull together in a larger story that emphasizes sense making and reflection when the team is better situated to receive it.
Finally, ask yourself where else your POV might be useful. Pull your head up and look around, there may be multiple places to land your work. Are there groups who are in a better position to benefit from your insights right now? Are there people who are well-positioned to amplify the story you’d like to tell? Who could advance (and challenge) your thinking? To whom might you reach out for feedback? Where is there mutual benefit for others to champion your work?
AI and Storytelling
By now you might be thinking, “OMG, when is he going to get to AI?!” Your time has come, my friend.
It’s now common to hear that AI models can generate stories. While it is true that they can use predictive language modeling to manufacture texts that include the basic structures of stories, they are inherently limited to patterning narratives after the data on which they’ve been trained. Some have described these models’ attempts at constructing stories as a ‘race to mediocrity’ to describe the quality of the narratives they produce, since they’re inevitably constructed from content that’s been ‘averaged out’ across all of the stories they’ve been fed. They can iterate ad nauseam on a theme, but can’t produce unique or novel ideas (or any actual ideas at all). More importantly, they can’t offer the kinds of connections from one human to another that storytelling provides.
That’s because a huge part of storytelling’s value lies in how it’s experienced. Storytellers learn as they share by experimenting with, and building upon, layers and sequences of metaphor — discovering where they find resonance between their passion and their audience’s engagement each time they share. This interactive exchange between the storyteller and audience responses not only helps the storyteller evolve and refine the narrative, but also (and more importantly) builds the scaffolding for trust between them and their audience.
While large language models may iterate and refine their stories based on human feedback, their results are always already focused on pleasing the user. Real-time feedback in the form of an audience’s laughter, gasps of shock, tears, boos, poignant silences – none of these are inputs that large language models integrate in their process of refinement. And, even if they eventually do, it’s difficult to see how these models might find value in connecting with, and transforming alongside, their audiences.
You could imagine a scenario in which a human prompt engineer develops a storytelling system designed to connect and transform audiences. Maybe it’s a story that adapts itself each time it’s told to a different audience. Maybe it’s delivered by an animatronic robot. Even then, the relationship between the audience and the model is predicated upon the priorities and dispositions laid out by the prompt engineer, who is ultimately (presumably) driven to connect with the audience. The model itself doesn’t care. It isn’t passionate about sharing any story. But a storyteller does care; and, good storytellers are full of passion.
All this is not to say that AI isn’t a valuable tool for honing stories that storytellers craft. I’ve heard of storytellers that use AI to help them bring order random thoughts, to ‘interview’ them about an experience, or even to better express themselves in a voice they’ve established as a signature form of their unique expression. Perhaps we’ll see storytelling evolve over time as these tools are increasingly leveraged by storytellers. In the end, AI’s greatest value won’t come from taking the place of storytellers but to enrich the worlds storytellers co-imagine with their audiences.
Man…is the storytelling animal. Wherever he goes he wants to leave behind not a chaotic wake, not an empty space, but the comforting marker buoys and trail signs of stories. He has to keep on making them up. As long as there’s a story, it’s all right. Even in his last moments, it’s said, in the split second of a fatal fall—or when he’s about to drown—he sees, passing rapidly before him, the story of his whole life. — Graham Swift, Waterland
Sources
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- Buster, Bobette (2013) Do/Story: How to tell your story so the world listens. Chronical Books: San Francisco.
- Brouzos, Andreas, Stephanos Vassilopoulos, and Kalliopi Moschou (2016) Utilizing Storytelling to Promote Emotional Well-Being of Children With a Distinct Physical Appearance: The Case of Children Who Wear Eyeglasses. The European Journal of Counseling Psychology 4(1) 62-76.
- Carr, Alan (1998) Michael White’s Narrative Therapy. Contemporary Family Therapy: An International Journal, 20(4), 485-503.
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- Pennebaker, James W. and Janel D. Seagal (1999) Forming a Story: The Health Benefits of Narrative. Journal of Clinical Psychology 55(10) 1243-1254.
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- Simmons, Annette (2001) The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling. Basic Books: New York.
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