For anyone that caught the special tribute aired recently on 60 Minutes to the late Don Hewitt, the show’s creator, you will recognize the four words, “Tell me a story,” as Hewitt’s self-described secret to success for this now 40-something year old news magazine.
In case you missed the episode or are not familiar with Hewitt, he was the founder of 60 Minutes way back in 1968, coming up with the idea for this program when he was pushed out of his role running the CBS Evening News, reportedly for being too much of a pain in the ass for management to deal with any longer.
He was given what’s known in the corporate world as the “special projects” assignment, something that is usually a code phrase for your career here is over. The episode offered a fascinating character study of this driven-man, and his four words are still resonating with me days after viewing the episode.
In support of his “tell me a story” mantra, one of Hewitt’s fascinating insights and in his opinion, a secret to the show’s remarkable success was (I paraphrase) that people don’t want to hear about issues, they want to hear the stories of individuals impacted by the issues. There’s a subtle but profound lesson for all of us in life and in business in his messages.
The Power of Stories and Storytelling:
Humans love stories. See also human history for supporting evidence. This is a timeless issue and reflected in our culture from cave paintings to oral narratives (think Odyssey and Illiad) to the development of the written word and all forms of entertainment and art.
Stories educate. It’s much easier to make a point with a great supporting story than it is to make your point naked…with no context for how it might impact a person.
Stories engage. We get caught up in the characters and their travails. As Dickens disembarked on his American tour, the shouts from the harbor workers were reportedly, “Did Little Nell survive?”
Stories motivate. The best advertising tells a story of someone solving a problem or overcoming adversity or improving life experience with a product or service.
Stories make us think about the possible. Steve Jobs has this one down cold.
Stories inspire. We love examples of success in spite of overwhelming odds, whether in battle, love or athletics.
Six Ideas to Use Stories to Improve Your Career and Your Business
1. Rewrite your firm’s core message to tell powerful stories. Right after reading this post, click over to your website and ask yourself whether your message is about you or about your customers. Many (OK, most) websites are collections of self-serving, ego-centric messages with passing or superficial references to customers. Your goal must be to know your customers well enough so that when they visit your site, they immediately see themselves solving a problem with your offering. You do that with relevant, engaging stories.
2. Develop business plans and proposals around people and stories. I’ve listened for too many years as well-intentioned professionals, including many talented product and marketing managers regaled executives with exotic descriptions of why their “must finance” business plan would vault firms to the top of the market on the back of a revolutionary approach to a new seamlessly integrated, distributed architecture that deploys in the cloud. Oh, and don’t forget scalability and real-time virtualization. (OK, I made that up, but it sounded something like that.)
Give me a break. Tell me how your product is going to make someone’s dreams come true and better yet, let me hear some stories about/from some real people and your batting average on gaining support will go way up.
3. Entrepreneurs pitching business plans…see the point above. Tell your prospective financiers stories that allow them to easily imagine the use of your product and the size of the market and you will be miles ahead of your powerpoint-toting, scalable and seamless integration spewing counterparts.
4. Want a job? You best show up to interviews prepared to back your claims of greatness with some compelling stories that showcase you ability to present yourself and substantiate your membership in the club of competent people. Of course, don’t make the common messaging mistake that firms make on their websites. Your carefully crafted stories need to be based on serving someone, helping teams and people solve real problems and ultimately about creating value through working effectively with others. The best answers to the tough interview questions involve carefully crafted, genuine stories.
5. Want to sell something? Don’t tell me about your features and great prices. Tell me how people like me are improving their lives and businesses with your offering. Too much sales-speak reflects it’s close cousin, marketing speak, and emphasizes content guaranteed to make prospects wonder why they agreed to talk with you.
6. Need to motivate someone or some team? I’m willing to bet that coaches aren’t whipping out their powerpoint slides at halftime and running through the “Ten Reasons Why We Need to Win this Game,” presentation. The most inspirational tales and motivating speeches are steeped in stories.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Tell me a story and you’ll capture my attention. Become great at telling stories in your work and you might just capture the attention of a great number of people. Thanks, Don Hewitt for telling your story so well for all of these years and entertaining and educating us along the way.
Great post, Art. What I also took away from that episode was the power of a simple, yet highly effective guiding principle. Many of us (and the smarter we are, the worse offenders we tend to be), tend to over-complicate matters, leading to a great degree of angst among those affected by us. Then, we wonder why chaos ensues.
You want to be successful? Know who you are and what you will (or won’t) stand for. Then, communicate that message clearly, effectively and consistently (in Hewitt’s case, for 40 years).
Kurt, well stated! Hewitt most definitely knew who he was and what he stood for, even as he freely admitted that he was surrounded by people much smarter and better read. Thanks for reading and commenting! -Art
Great article Art,
The story telling way of advocating philosophy, and selling ideas and products is as old as language itself and still the best way to present a point. It can also personalized the content and give the listener the sense that you are talking directly to them.
Well done.
Thanks Bob. It’s amazing how many people don’t use this approach. Hewitt’s story is a good reminder for all of us. -Art
Art,
I really like your point on the importance of stories. Many people in the work place think stories are pointless and have no place in a workplace. As you pointed out, stories really help to bring things into context. It is very important to state a point and explain the how-to and then bring it to the people with a story so they understand how it is relevant. Another point you made is that humans love stories. I’ve sat through hundreds of speeches and presentations; the ones that are most memorable always have a story. The story teaches how to put into practice the message the speaker is trying to get across. In addition, it also engages the listener and causes them to think about what they would do in the given circumstance.
What nice and short article Art! and highly important factor to incorporate in today’s dynamic and changing business world. As I read your article I recalled a professor from the University of Guadalajara’s business school who would say: the success of a company relies on two key issues: knowing how to sell the product and knowing how to charge for it, therefore if we want to be successful in our business affairs definitely we must know how to tell stories to capture our customers attention.
Love the post Art,
My family has always been brought together by stories. Whether it was sitting around the Christmas tree listening to Grandpa or my mother telling me stories about growing up on a farm with 8 siblings, I have always been inspired with stories. Reflecting on your article, I can see listening and telling stories in today’s society it is even more prominent with online profiles, blogging, and tweeting. With everything being digitalized, people need to personify and distinguish themselves with stories others can relate to. Thank you for sharing the story of Don Hewitt as presented by CBS news.
Brandon, Javier and Gene, I am grateful for your comments. Thanks!
Brandon, you are so right. The speeches and speakers that I remember told me a story. The words and concepts disappear, but the stories stick with us long after the event!
Javier, the best salespeople I know are great tellers of stories. Instead of focusing on features and functions, they share how others have benefitted and that resonates with us.
Gene, you are spot on. I need to do a better job myself of telling stories versus passing along concepts. Thanks for the reminder!
-Art
People tend to tune others out when they want to talk about issues. I agree that people want to hear real detailed stories. People need to relate to issues from story telling. I enjoy listening to people much more when they have a story to relate the topic they are discussing. Later in the article it talks about stories educating and motivating. As long as the story is detailed I would agree.
[…] about issues, they want to hear the stories of individuals impacted by the issues.” Click here for an interesting article on storytelling. It’s written from the perspective of a business […]