Story Telling: How A Bad Story Can Work Better

Humans have been telling stories since we have been humans.

We seldom change minds with logic, but we do change minds with emotions. That is why storytelling is such a powerful tool in your leadership arsenal.

There is a reason why the people at SouthPark have been making stories for over two decades, they are very good at telling stories.

Here is a video of them teaching some students a master class in storytelling, and it will instantly tell you why some of the modern films you see are boring.

It all comes down to And vs But/Therefore.

And stories are just a list, this happens, and this happens, and this happens. This is very boring.

But/Therefore stories have a cause-and-effect motion. They add emotion, action, and consequence to the story. It is a simple yet effective storytelling technique.

Sometimes Stories Should Be Boring

When trying to motivate people to see things from a different point of you, But/Therefore is amazing. However, sometimes stories shouldn’t be interesting, they should be boring.

When you are telling stories that you want to remove the emotion from, And stories are the way to go.

These can be about your own situation that you are struggling with or when someone else is having a hard time.

Compare these two stories.

You are a great employee, BUT your boss is not very good. You have team members come to you for support THEREFORE you are valuable to your team BUT you make your boss insecure. Your Boss shouldn’t have got the job BUT they don’t get any support from their management THEREFORE they dislike that team members like you.

This is full of emotion and makes it you versus them. Another way to tell the story is –

You are a great employee, AND your boss is not very good. You have team members come to you for support AND you are valuable to your team AND you make your boss insecure. Your Boss shouldn’t have got the job AND they don’t get any support from their management AND they dislike that team members like you.

The BUT/THEREFORE version is a better story if you had to tell it to someone, but the AND version is more accurate.

Life is full of AND situations more than BUT/THEREFORE situations but we want to be the stars of our lives and the latter is a more interesting story to tell.

We are quick to go into the binary bias of us vs them. Life is more of a continuum where more than one thing can be true at the same time.

When you need to lead with emotion and tell a great story, use but and therefore.

When you need to think more critically about a situation, use and.