1129: Flow

Business storytelling techniques: 2/30 FLOW Season 1, Episode 2 of The West Wing is titled "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc". After this, therefore because of this. The episode opens with President Bartlet complaining that his staff are falling for this logical fallacy – assuming that one thing led to another just because it came first... Humans seem especially vulnerable to this mistake: She's angry because I said that thing. The vaccine caused my illness. I scored because of my lucky shirt. The critical insight for storytellers and persuaders is this... We are drawn to simple stories powered by cause and effect. Good stories FLOW. This > led to this > led to this > led to this. When we leverage causation, we create persuasive chains that are hard to resist. Here's Yoda: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” See how that feels? Powerful, right? Whether we are building an argument or a story, we want to build it brick upon brick. It's not just better persuasion, it's better thinking. In 2004, Jeff Bezos banned PowerPoint... "... The reason writing a 4 page memo is harder than 'writing' a 20 page powerpoint is because the narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what's more important than what, and how things are related." This is Business Storytelling Technique 3/30. Follow me to get the daily series. Challenge: Try a chain of persuasion for your business. Here's my example. "Story skills build better stories, stories build persuasion, persuasion builds success." ------------------- The Stories Mean Business podcast with Nick Warren. One Idea A Day, Every Day. Get deeper into business storytelling: https://storiesmeanbusiness.com/storybusiness/ https://storiesmeanbusiness.com/podcast