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Storytelling in a large organisation
Storytelling is a skill often boasted by video companies and HR consultants. But do they really know what it means, or are they just flashing around a sexy buzzword? The harder you look at storytelling, the more elusive its meaning. Is it a sensible management tool, or is it about as useful as astrology?
I thought I’d take a run at making sense of story in a single short article. I love a bit of high-level abstraction.
Queens of the Stone Age
As they rose to become the world’s dominant species, the brains of primates grew to allow them to deal with the complex thinking needed to live in large social groups. The bigger the group, the more dominant that form of hominid became—the power of the many, not the few.
Increased brainpower facilitated the theory-of-mind-style thinking needed to manage complex social relationships. But brainpower wasn’t enough; grooming was the other necessary ingredient to grow group size. Grooming, which involves a lot of intimate touch, releases endorphins that keep primates chemically bound together. You might say we’re addicted to one another.
The bigger the group, the greater the proportion of the day used in grooming. But that time is expensive. It displaces the other essential behaviours of hunting, gathering, and building shelter. Eventually, evolution and primate group size reached a plateau at which any more time spent grooming would be detrimental to survival.
Beyond the physical
That wasn’t the end of it. Some primates developed substitutes for grooming. First came laughter, then singing and dancing and finally, after language development, the rituals of religion came. (Early religion, of course, being animistic and different in form to modern religions).
Each was a new, shared experience that bound the group together. Each activity released endorphins more efficiently than grooming, using less time and energy. These hominids could now live in still larger groups, making them an even more powerful species. And we know that the eventual winner, the dominant species, was homo sapiens.
From laughter, music & dance and religion, we have developed everything from Seinfeld to Macbeth, Baa Baa Blacksheep to the Brandenburg Concertos, cracker jokes to The Odyssey, musical birthday cards to tweets about Megan Markle. Each and every one of these is a manifestation of an evolved behaviour to keep our species alive at the expense of others.
Inside story
“How’s the water?” asks the older fish as he swims past a pair of tiddlers. One tiddler turns to the other and says, “What the hell is water?” Story is the water our minds are swimming in. Story, which began in religion, is how we make sense of the world.
And story feels good in the same way that food and sex do – because it’s essential to our existence. And, because, just like grooming, it brings us endorphins, we’re addicted! What more powerful a way can there be to appeal to a group of people you wish to influence?
The two-story elements
To use story effectively, you need to be aware of its two elements. Posited artefacts and the discussion that arises. Like a political speech and what is discussed in the papers and the pub, on Twitter and TikTok. The speech doesn’t control the social conversation, but the politician will interact with it.
I’m tempted to go on, but I aimed to give the highest-level explanation. Not a story at all, just a load of facts. So, I hope it’s been persuasive.
As many will have spotted, most of these ideas come from our great British genius, the evolutionary psychologist Professor Robin Dunbar. The fish story came from David Foster Wallace’s book This is Water, and, as I’ve just finished reading it, I’ve got a feeling something crept in from the brilliant Story or Die by Lisa Cron.
There’s a lot in here and so many alleyways one might explore. Any areas of story you’d like to hear more about?
