Brain to brain: why stories work

Every conversation is one brain talking to another. Story is how they connect.

Picture two brains in jars, sitting on a table, trying to have a conversation.

Strip away everything on the outside. The job titles. The seniority. Front office or back office. The suit, the logo, the corner office. None of it matters to the brain on the other side of the table. All it has is what you say, and how you say it.

So the question every leader, adviser and team member should ask is simple: how do I connect my brain to theirs?

The answer is story.

What happens when you tell a story

At Princeton University, neuroscientist Uri Hasson and his colleagues recorded the brain activity of a speaker telling a real-life story, then recorded people listening to it. When the listeners understood the story, their brain activity began to mirror the speaker's. The researchers call this neural coupling.

Two findings matter for anyone who has to persuade, lead or advise:

• The closer the alignment, the better the communication. Listeners whose brains coupled most closely with the speaker understood the story best.

• It isn't about the words. In related work, the same patterns appeared when people heard the same story in different languages. What aligns is the meaning, not the vocabulary.

In other words, when a story lands, two brains briefly start working in step. That is what "connection" looks like from the inside.

Why facts alone don't do it

Most business communication is built on facts: data, features, process, credentials. Facts matter. But on their own they ask the listener to do all the work of making sense of them.

A story does that work for them. It gives the brain a sequence to follow, people to care about, a moment of tension and a point. It is the format our brains have been processing for as long as we have been human. If you want to influence someone, use the language their brain is built to understand.

Why this matters at work

Stories show up in the moments that decide things:

• When a client asks, "Why should I work with you?"

• When a sceptical senior leader asks, "Why should I listen to you?"

• When you need a team to own a strategy, not just hear it.

In each case, a list of facts tends to bounce off. A short, real story, told well, is remembered, repeated and acted on.

The good news: it's a skill

Storytelling is not a gift some people are born with. It is a skill you can practise on purpose, like any other. You can learn to spot the stories you already have, shape them so they make a point, and tell them in a minute or two in an ordinary conversation.

That is exactly what our storytelling workshop does. It starts here, with two brains on a table, and spends the day building the connection between them.

Next in the series: "Why should I listen to you?" Answer with a story.

Find out more about storytelling with Co-Lab People: [link to storytelling page]

Further viewing: Uri Hasson, This is your brain on communication, TED, 2016 (about 15 minutes).