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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about storytelling. No, not lying or making up stuff, silly! I mean telling stories as a means of conveying things, like values or knowledge.

Now, storytelling isn’t exactly new, but in the business world it does seem to be gaining ground as something of a specialty area. Anecdote, a consulting business in Australia focused almost entirely on storytelling and sensemaking, provides us with a couple of excellent illustrations of powerful storytelling in this post. I am particularly taken by the stained glass window concept (thanks, Shawn, for the vivid image!)

I love telling stories. When I speak, teach or write, I try to make my word pictures clear enough so my audience can easily visualize what I’m trying to get across. Real life stories are the best, because there’s a certain innate truthfulness in them listeners pick up on when a story teller relates things that actually happened to them. But I’ll come back to that in a minute.

John Koestier at Bizhack wrote a post a few days ago that also intrigued me. His idea that blogs (at least personal blogs) can serve as a “songline” (or, for the musically-challenged, a story line) made me realize what I enjoy so much about reading certain blogs. It’s that “first person” experience, in which I’m able to empathize with the writer. That’s what makes it (at least for me) somewhat compelling. Pretty cool thought, John. I like it!

This morning, though, Shawn’s mention of Al Gore in another Anecdote post about what makes good storytellers made me think of another aspect of storytelling that may have a great impact on the value of the stories being told.

Storytelling has its dark side, too, mainly because people are so easily swayed by stories. The fact is if you tell a compelling story that prescribes a course of action, people will jump on board. One reason stories are so powerful is that they have the ability to “draw in” their audience. Put a guy at a podium and have him spout figures and facts, and you’ll see eyes glazing over in no time. But, if the facts are incorporated into a story form, the audience is immediately more engaged and willing to listen. It’s just the way we are.

But what about the storyteller? Why should we listen to the stories they tell? Why should we believe them? Here is the crux of the matter, to my mind, and can be summed up in one word:

Reputation.

Yup, that’s right; it comes down to just one thing, really. If the person telling the story is believable, then people will more likely listen and believe their stories. That’s why advertising, TV news and politics are filled with characters that practically exude (yuck!) “believable-ness” (is that a word? It is now!)

When a person relates a “true” story with the purpose of swaying people to their views, but later the story turns out to be false, what does that mean? What if that person did it multiple times? Would you have a tendency to dismiss any further stories from that person? Why or why not?

So the real issue, for me at least, is REPUTATION. In other words, why SHOULD I believe your stories?

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