We all love a good story! That‘s why we gossip, read trashy magazines and watch soap operas!
But deep down we’ve been taught that that’s a great way to learn and develop your values and morals.
What? EastEnders teaching my child how to behave. Never! Okay, so maybe not quite that literally but in fact all of us learned through stories as children to help us understand difficult concepts at a young age.
Remember these?
The Ugly Duckling – don’t be mean to those who are different.
Hansel & Gretel – don’t wander off and don’t takes sweets from strangers.
The Boy who cried Wolf – don’t tell lies or you won’t be believed when it is important?
So, we’ve established that our parents were secretly brainwashing us as children but what can we learn from it?
We need to remember that we are hardwired to learn through stories and to utilise that when we deliver training and learning.
Sadly, a lot of training is classed as a ‘data dump’. Tell them what they need to know and let them make sense of it themselves. Erm…no thanks!
So, to help you, we’ve pulled together some of the reasons you should be grabbing storytelling with both hands when it comes to helping anyone, learn anything.
It can switch on our emotions.
We have all had a secret cry at a film, or book or story. There’s no shame in it. But how does that happen? It’s when the story is cleverly constructed so it engages your emotions enough to resonate and feel like you are ‘there, or that you ‘feel’ it. Nearly every good story has an element of change in it, and that is super beneficial for training as with most life skills you are trying to get someone to change a thought process or behaviour. A match made in heaven!
When you feel something or truly engage with it and the story sticks this is what drives it to stay with you and propels you to make a change. We all know what we should probably be doing, but most of us don’t actually do it until we feel that it’s the right time. Storytelling can help you get learners to that point quicker by engaging their emotions.
Our brains come pre-wired for a great story!
The best way to make someone care enough to do something different isn’t through learning & development with everything thrown at it. Instead, if you can engage and hook them in by telling a great a story that resonates with them enough to make it stick.
The reason that stories have survived and provided us our history is because they allow us to learn from the experiences of others without ever having to be there, take a risk, put ourselves out there or even know anything about the topic. We are simply learning from others, and then sharing it onwards as advice of our own. Ever heard that guy in the pub telling ‘a guy I heard about apparently said this and then this happened….it’s passing on wisdom through a story.
Stories can help the uncertain become realistic.
A lot of time people don’t resist change because they are being difficult, or stubborn. They’re doing it because they’re nervous and they don’t know what to do next.
For example, most of us know that we should eat less sugar, or drink less alcohol, but that is a little too vague for many people. However, a tv diet show, following someone on a journey, learning about them, their hopes & dreams and seeing how they do it (especially if it has a happy ending) is a way to engage our emotions and then the information we had feels relevant, more relatable and therefore easier to do ourselves. A story of how one person manages their day while eating a healthy diet would be much more helpful in producing change.
Next time you’re asking people to start doing something different think about how you can make them understand it and relate to it more before you start.
They are an easy way to teach us cause and effect.
We don’t know about you but sometimes it’s easy to get lost in what you’re doing, and not always consider every implication of my own actions, especially when we’re super focused on a goal.
That can mean that while we’re on track, our actions might be affecting other people. When you are trying to get learners to make changes it can be really helpful to use storytelling so that they can understand the bigger effect that their actions are having or might have on others.
Imagine an IT Techy Guru’s face when you help them through a story to realise the simple change they make might disable remote users functionality. It has to resonate, and they have to feel the potential impact to spark a reaction.
Even better is to share stories of others who made decisions that what seemed like the right decisions to them but had negative consequences on the whole. When these are in the public eye these resonate even better. I’m pretty sure whoever came up with ‘Smart Motorways and no Hard Shoulders felt proud at the time but right now…?
Stories give you a clear way forward.
A brilliant story can provide clear examples of what to do and what not to do in multiple situations. Telling a story is a way for learners to listen with safety, cringe but know it’s okay, and most importantly, they get to mentally simulate analyse all the different possibilities in their heads without ever affecting anyone else!
A great example is learning about H&S procedures. For most people, the worst will never happen, and yet, we are all too aware of what happens if it does, we know what to do, what to say, where to go, where to stand and what will happen next. This is because we’ve learnt through what we see, hear and are told at work, on the news and from others experiences told to use via, you guessed it, storytelling.
If you think that storytelling is missing from your learning and you’d like to find a way to capitalise on this great tool, then get in touch and let us help you bring your learning to life.