The Power to Persuade: Stories v Data Dumps

In my book, Legendary Leadership, I wrote about how the most powerful communicators are great storytellers.

Broadcasting facts and data will often alienate people, making them feel as if they are being lectured to or preached at while becoming increasingly uninterested in whatever it is we are “selling.”  But stories of how your ideas, ideals, or beliefs change people’s lives, of how your vision is already making a difference for good in the lives of specific people—this form of communication will grab and hold your listener’s hearts.

When seeking to persuade others, statistics, and philosophical or theological assertions have their place, but there also needs to be more than this. Consider Frederick Douglass’ comment regarding the songs of Stephen Foster and what they did for Douglass’, a former slave, black brothers and sisters who were still in shackles.

They are heart songs, and the finest feelings of human nature are expressed in them. [Songs] can make the heart sad as well as merry, and can call forth a tear as well as a smile. They awaken the sympathies for the slave, in which anti-slavery principles take root and flourish.

When we read the Old Testament what do we hear? There are stories after stories (and songs!) of patriarchs, prophets, and kings. It is no stretch to say that God revealed himself in stories. In the New Testament, Jesus, primarily, communicated his message through stories.  (WWJD!!) As for us, however, we usually gravitate toward the assertion of theological, philosophical, or historical bullet points. Which is fine, as far as it goes, but that’s the thing: information dumps don’t go far enough, as they don’t touch hearts. And if we don’t grab hearts, minds will wander away.

Go back to Douglass’ line about Foster’s songs: “They awaken the sympathies for the slave…” Stories (songs are stories put to music) put a face on the information we wish to convey. Stories put flesh-and-bone to theological assertions and philosophical arguments. Yes, share, for example, the information you have on poverty and its causes, but where’s the story where such facts will go deeper than our listener’s brains? Speaking of brains -

Quite often our audience’s brains are guarded by radar that points out any incoming information that has already been deemed bogus. Splat. (That’s the sound of your data hitting the ground.) This is true in school classrooms, churches, and boardrooms. Your arguments driven by data are pretty much useless in such cases where there are already built-in defense mechanisms that guard against your “bias,”  “phony information,” or “fake news.” But with stories: stories get around radars, pique the interest of our audience, and moves hearts to listen more intently.

Don’t tell me that God loves me. Tell me a story that demonstrates His love, as it relates to me.

Hold off on the data dump regarding, say, poverty and tell me about a specific broken and poverty-stricken family, and the generational losses of fathers, self-respect, and hope, and how, when proper solutions were applied, people flourished.

One of the reasons we lean toward using statistics without stories, is that many of us believe that we cannot tell a good and useful story. If this is you, the way to learn is to listen to and read well-told stories. You will also want to search for stories that put flesh-and-bone on your beliefs, vision, and issues that concern you. If you intend to persuade others in mind and heart, then storytelling is not merely an option: it is a critical skill-set.  

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2018

Political Saviors and Their Communicants

A man who “cannot win” beats out Hillary to become our 45^th President. Many of her supporters go into psychotic meltdown and begin crowding mental health facilities? Why?

People criticize President Trump and, without a single moment of reflection and consideration, are mindlessly obliterated by many of his defenders. Why?

Lord Acton wrote, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Being elected to political office doesn’t sanctify the office holder. On the contrary: the office tends to corrupt the official. However, and this is more to my point, it also tends to corrupt us.  One of the ways it does so is by an admiration that morphs into personality-worship where people make politicians out to be saviors.

I saw this with Reagan. While I believe he was a great President, I was appalled with those who sat back and relaxed, because “Ronnie has saved us.” How did that work out? It didn’t. Why? Because there are, ultimately, no political saviors: there are no politicians, laws, regulations, policies, or executive orders that will change our culture, in the long run. Anyone who thinks otherwise is in for severe disillusionment.

Sure. Support whomever you think has some solutions to our nation’s problems. Be politically active. However, exalting Hillary, Trump, or any other politician to the status of a messiah is shortsighted and nothing short of idolatry.  

Tellingly, many of the political savior’s communicants, as with those who thought Ronnie saved us, opt out of any sense of responsibility for actually doing the hard work of engaging others in thoughtful debate.

Not me, Wilson. I continue the Good Fight! Right: on Facebook, where, just as you do, those who disagree with you either hide or ignore your posts.

For the most part, changing minds only takes place relationally. This requires humility, patience, empathy, and even – horror of horrors - the willingness to be wrong. It also requires intelligence, not talking points, logic, historical analysis, and so forth. I am not suggesting you need to be Socrates, but it would help if you have actually studied the best arguments on the other side of the issues you advocate. But there is something else even more important.

It is not simply minds we need to be concerned with: it is with souls.

For Christians, our primary mission in life is to declare and demonstrate the love of God as incarnated in Jesus Christ, and to make disciples of all nations. Again, this is something that takes place on a relational basis, and also takes patience, empathy, and wisdom.

The question for my Christian readers is this:  how many people are in your relational world with whom you argue over politicians and politics but with whom you have yet to share your faith?

What does it tell us about where our “faith” is focused when we are more passionate about politics than we are about our love for God and others? When I am willing to go all Tongue Fu for my political stands but not for my faith and Christ appointed mission, it tells me that my heart and head still need some major work.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2018

The Eloquence of Character

He (Custennin) was a king ever mindful of the respect of his people and sought to win it daily. - Merlin, Stephen R Lawhead      

As I have often written here, words properly chosen, ordered, and timed, are a necessary component of effective communication, especially in regard to leadership. (Here, here, here, here, and here.) It’s more than words, however, but also how the words are expressed: the tonality and spirit behind the words. As Lawhead wrote of Merlin’s voice:

It was his (Merlin’s) voice that fascinated me. Infinitely expressive, it served him in any manner he wished. When he lashed, it could raise welts on a stone. When he soothed, it could have shamed nightingales into silence. And when he commanded, mountains and valleys exchanged places. “Arthur,” Stephen R Lawhead

Wilson: Crikey, Lord. I want that gift!

Question: Had Merlin been a man of low character, a man whose spirit was muddied and tarnished, what would be the effect of his words, then?

A Man of Impeccable Character

Back in the 70s, I heard a man speaking who was raising money for a mission in South America. He couldn’t put a cogent sentence together, his grammar was atrocious, and his voice grating. The astounding thing, for me, was watching the audience. People were captivated and moved to give far more than his target amount. (I knew the host and asked him how much was raised.)

It took me a few days to process what I had witnessed. Gradually, it dawned on me that it was his authenticity and, even more critically, the respect he commanded. In speaking with the host, I found out that he stayed in constant contact with his donors as to how the money was being spent and the results being achieved … or not. Yes, if it was “bad news,” he let them know.

But it was even more than this. He had a reputation for impeccable integrity.

If he made a promise, he kept it.

He was over-the-top conscientious with the money that was donated.

In listening to others speak of him the description that came up most often was “Respectful toward others.”

While he was not eloquent, his “Yes” was “Yes” and his “No” was “No.” “He never exaggerates”; “he never equivocates.”

We all know people whose skills we respect, while not feeling the same way about their character. While this tension between the two exists for us, it doesn’t always lead to a breach in the relationship. Yet, the reality is that the tension causes us to keep a bit of distance. And when conflict arises? When we are in a situation where their words matter? We have our doubts. Or worse.

What I learned from this missionary was that character has its own efficaciousness and eloquence.

St. Luke wrote that sinners heard Jesus “gladly.” Why? Certainly he was eloquent. However, it was his character that opened their hearts to his words, as it did with this “ineloquent” gentleman.  

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2018