I think emotion and the passion that comes from it is underestimated in business. However, it is something most of the great firms have in abundance. If you look at Apple’s advertising, it is always emotional and tells a compelling story. The same is true of Nike.

Communication skills are critical – but not necessarily storytelling. You can have all three phases above, but trying to tell a story can often stretch researchers too far, especially when there is no story in the data (which may be the story). Be clear, be logical, be amusing if you can while being clear and logical. Without going into detail, a lot of the research on the value of storytelling is fundamentally flawed. Happy to explain why offline.

Retail is evolving into the theater of all that is new and relevant in our daily lives. Experiential retail has become the latest industry trend, as its all-encompassing business model connects the physical, digital, creative, and art worlds.

However, for all for that to be effective, the challenge is for retail organizations to drive the shopping evolution from a transactional journey to one where a story is told to help drive the relationships between the product and the consumer. That requires significant organizational change, redefining what a store associate is and could ultimately be. Consumers want to enjoy new experiences, a place to connect with their local community, enjoy a curated story, and escape from all the digital connectedness.

I explored this trend in greater detail in this article.

I have always lived and believed in this statement: “If I can make you feel like I feel about my company, you’re going to do business with my company.” And that always is built out of emotion. So the litmus test is to ask yourself how you feel about your company, then translate that into a statement that controls how all customer communications are structured.

Absolutely correct Chris. Retailers and brands are using technology and the Internet to “pitch” their products and services to prospective customers. The real opportunity is to connect and communicate with your customers. Listen and learn and then use technology to share their story — it’s far more interesting, engaging, and believable than yours!

For business leaders and executives interpersonal communication is becoming ever more important. The ongoing barrage from new forms of media, old forms of media taking new value, and the ability to sift and sort information has exceeded any human being’s ability given the sheer volume. Over 2.5 Petabytes of data per hour coming out of Walmart’s data systems. Thousands of vendors pushing their wares. The master communicators will be able to simplify and make concepts easier to understand – using all of Aristotle’s persuasion tactics. Top execs will gravitate towards ideas they understand first, in line with their feelings, and coming from authenticated sources.

The golden goose in this age of evolving technology is someone who is smart enough to understand and develop the tech, but is even smarter where they are able to water it down and articulate it back out so that people who are not as close to the project or as technologically inclined can understand the crux of the matter and come out also feeling empowered and confident. These people are key for companies that have a unified vision that is technology driven.

The biggest tip I have for becoming a more persuasive communicator is to ask for feedback. Too often people think that taking this step will damage their ethos, but keeping one’s hubris (Greek is fun!) in check along the journey to persuasion will only strengthen future endeavors.

To many the entire notion of storytelling in our data-driven world may seem antiquated. This view couldn’t be further from reality. With the exception of machine-to-machine interactions, communications is crucial to any human interaction and decision-making. Storytelling is core to the human experience and stories are what ground us and provide a sense of purpose, identity, and continuity between the past, present and a future vision. Stories can take us to something bigger than we are, to tap into universal themes and issues. I also go back to Aristotle when looking at communications and storytelling. Mr. Gallo’s bringing forth of Ethos, Logos and Pathos are spot on to the overall effectiveness and believability of a speaker. However, I focus on the Pathos, or emotional dimension, through Aristotle’s formula for telling stories that focus on the audience through feelings of pity, fear and catharsis. The audience will feel pity for the character as the storyteller puts the character through some undeserved misfortune. The character gets into even more perilous situations as the emotional connection with the… Read more »

Business does NOT need more storytellers. After all, “storyteller” is inherently a creator of fiction. Some might call it “lying” but I don’t. Still, Malcolm Gladwell is a brilliant storyteller – but dig into the facts behind his writing and it turns out we shouldn’t rely on what he says.

Consumers know this in their guts and are quite cautious about those who tell slick stories that lack true reality. Employees also know this — having been fed an incredible range of stories promising to “fix everything” and delivering little.

What businesses need are better marketing communicators — those rare wise few who understand the entire range of communication that builds business while respecting consumers. Telling a story is only one narrow slice of communication.

Here’s how I see it — If storytelling was good enough for Jesus it’s good enough for me! But it’s not a matter of “underestimating” the value of a good, engaging, emotion-grabbing story. The problem is many business leaders are literally afraid of a good, engaging, emotion-grabbing story. Emotion scares them. And they have no clue as to how to tell one. Get rid of all the “fluff” one advisor told be in a review of a business plan I’d written. Supposedly if everything was in bullet points (using an instrument of destruction is an interesting way to communicate, isn’t it?) and spreadsheets, I’m sure he’d claim to be happy with it. Fear. It’s all about fear. When you’re afraid you resort to bullets. Now, admittedly, my business plans tend to start with “It was a dark and stormy night…” I asked him if the 20 page brochure describing the Maserati he just bought was filled with bullet points and detailed spreadsheets. Or was it filled with blurry pictures of the car screaming up a… Read more »