Closing the Gap Between What You Say and What People Hear

Tell me a story

My 4-year-old, Peter, took part in a study at the University of Minnesota yesterday having to do with delayed gratification in children. Apparently, there is some evidence that children with the ability to delay gratification at a young age tend to be more successful later in life. So, in this particular study, they were looking to see if they could somehow influence that ability, to improve it.

In the basic exercise, the researcher would say something along the lines of, “You can have one piece of candy now, or, if you wait, you can have four,” and see which the child picked. They did this various times, using candy, stickers, and toy cars for different scenarios. (Peter cleaned up, by the way, thank you very much.)

In trying to influence the child’s choice, they tried two different methods: one was to tell the child directly (“I think you should wait so you can get all four pieces of candy.”); the other was to tell them a story in which it was clear that waiting was better. The results? In what will surely be no surprise to any parent, telling the child directly doesn’t work. Telling stories, on the other hand, does.

Now, this study had to do with particular aspects of childhood development, so I can’t say if it applies to adults or not, from a scientific perspective. But, from a communication coaching perspective, it definitely does. The fact is, stories can communicate ideas in ways that direct suggestions simply can’t. Here’s an excerpt from Don’t Just Talk on the subject:

“Imagine for a moment that you’d like your team to take ownership, have integrity, and be committed to service. Which of these approaches do you think would be the more effective way to get that message across?

A) Tell them. “You need to take ownership, have integrity, be focused on service.”

B) Show them, with a story. “I was talking to Barbara the other day and she told me a great story about a customer . . . [ insert story here ] . . . and I thought that was so perfect, because it showed such ownership, integrity, and commitment to service on her part. But the best of all was I could tell how good she felt about how it worked out!”

At the risk of stating the obvious, B is the better way.”

If there’s an important point you want to get across to your people, especially if it has to do with attitudes and behaviors, don’t just tell them. Tell them a story instead.

Tags: Communication, communication coach, communication training, david levin, leadership development, leadership training

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 4:34 pm and is filed under Communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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