Storytelling: Tell Your Stories to Show Your Engagement and Results

“I like to say, the only times we stop telling stories, for some reason, is when we show up at work. And that’s really to the detriment of whatever our work is, but particularly development when outcomes are the difference between life and death,” explained Eric Schnure

Mr Schnure, a former White House speechwriter for Vice-President Al Gore, currently advises organisations on how to communicate more effectively by making their messages more memorable. In the following video interview, he looks at the importance of storytelling, which he believes comes down to three things:

1. identity
2. memory
3. story compels us to act

Mr Schnure elaborated this further explaining what makes a story interesting.

“This person was hungry now they have food. This person didn’t have clean water now they do. That’s important but without the detail of the journey, it’s not interesting. It doesn’t compel people, a good story demands engagement.”

In order to make a story interesting, Mr Schnure explained, it needs to have conflict that the main protagonist can overcome. That’s what people relate to. Are you pulling for somebody to beat the odds and succeed? He compared it to the classic three-act play: with a beginning, a middle with conflict, and a resolution. 

“My advice to people running a campaign is to use storytelling because it’s what engages people and part of doing that is understanding that a case study and a story are very different,” concluded Mr Schnure. He explained that while case studies can be very relevant, they present the facts and they don’t compel people to act. Story does.