It’s the story, stupid!

In his New York Times Op Ed column (October 31, 2009), Thomas Friedman poses the following question “… How is it that a president who has taken on so many big issues, with very specific policies — and has even been awarded a Nobel Prize for all the hopes he has kindled — still has so many people asking what he really believes?”

Friedman follows with “I don’t think that President Obama has a communications problem, per se.…  Rather, he has a “narrative” problem. He has not tied all his programs into a single narrative that shows the links between his health care, banking, economic, climate, energy, education and foreign policies…. the president’s eloquence, his unique ability to inspire people to get out of their seats and work for him, has been muted or lost in a thicket of technocratic details. His daring but discrete policies are starting to feel like a work plan that we have to slog through, and endlessly compromise over, just to finish for finishing’s sake — not because they are all building blocks of a great national project. What is that project? What is that narrative?”

In other words, “what’s the story?”

While Friedman might say that “People have to have a gut feel for why an initiative, with all its varied nuance and complexity, is so important — why it’s worth the effort,” in their book, Made to Stick, the Heath brothers provide a prescription. That is if you want your story to be memorable, you need to create a narrative that is simple, unexpected, concrete, credible and emotional. And the story needs to be a good one.

It’s the story, stupid

Our brains are programmed much more for stories than for abstract ideas. If you want to sell a product or vision, or move a country, as one, into the 21^st century, if you want to be effective, you must create and communicate a relevant, compelling narrative – a story.

Are your presentation stories and messaging compelling? Are your narratives simple, unexpected, concrete, credible and emotional? Have you tumbled to the conclusion that when you get in front of a customer or client that “it’s the story, stupid?”