You Can Buy Attention. You Can’t Buy Trust.
Let’s examine how brand trust can be built through purposeful storytelling and systems thinking.
Stories assist the human brain in navigating the world.
Do you wonder, like us, if the stories we tell really move the audiences they are meant for. What makes a story influence the actions of the audience? What triggers a change in attitude, and what happens once that attitude has been changed?
We have grown up amidst a multitude of competing narratives that help shape how we see ourselves and others. Stories define the people who tell them; they are an expression of self. In a neurological sense, stories assist the human brain in navigating the world. Stories allow people to test out scenarios in a safe way before deciding how to act.
However storytelling in the business context has gotten more complex to navigate.
Over the last eighteen months we interacted with several business leaders, curious to understand how they went about storytelling. We observed many great leaders were eager to seek ideas and people (inputs), who resonated with their strategy and processes (system), to generate two important outputs - their actual product/service and more importantly the story or narrative of their business.
This inputs -> system -> output structure is the core tenet of systems thinking and great leaders apply it without even thinking about it.
System thinking is simply the analysis of the interaction between all the elements of a system.
Our research indicated that most business leaders do not think about their companies using a systems approach. This in many situations lead to missed opportunities for improved products, inefficiencies in supply and delivery and consequently lost revenue. Business executives inadequately think about their business through a basic systems lens, often resulting in plateaus in revenue and lack of growth.
Successful business executives on the other hand very carefully think about their companies through a systems lens and augment that with, what we think is the killer sauce, a compelling narrative that combines their personal stories with the business.
It is that compelling narrative that elevates the simple input, systems, output structure into an unforgettable part of a customer’s consciousness.
As the system evolves, the interactions and interrelations that emerge need to be managed, and the dynamism of narratives helps navigate this.
Purposeful Storytelling
In situations where we’re trying to persuade, one of the habits we fall into is only seeing the world through our lens. Whether we’re encouraging our kids to get dressed for school or convincing our customers to choose a product, we tend to begin with our own ends in mind.
Our communication strategy then mainly focusses on what we want the person on the receiving end of our message to do. So we work backwards from there, looking for the quick route to a resolution, reaction or sale.
This impatience leads us to tell the wrong story—we end up using tactics that feel inauthentic or desperate and that inevitably lose the people we hope to engage. We fall into unhelpful communication habits because we’re looking for a shortcut to the outcome we want. Like any habit these behaviour patterns are crutches we lean on—a default way of thinking and acting we repeat that might not serve us in the long run.
Storytelling suffers from being that thing you did as kids or something you do for fun, but isn’t widely considered a valid tool for exploring complex systems.
Why Do Our Brains Love A Good Story?
Imagine yourself in a theatre, dark and cold. James Bond jumps roofs as his enemy takes aim. If you looked around in the audience, heartbeats were in a frenzy and palms were sweating. If you could just watch yourself you will observe an amazing neural ballet in which, a storyline changes the activity of your brain.
Oxytocin is produced in our brain when we are trusted or shown kindness, and it motivates cooperation with others. It does this by enhancing the sense of empathy, our ability to experience others’ emotions. Empathy is an important marker for us social creatures. It allows us to understand how others might react to a situation, including those with whom we work.
Research shows that in order to motivate a desire to help others, a story must first sustain attention – a scarce resource in the brain – by developing tension during the narrative. If the story is able to create that tension then it is likely that attentive listeners will come to share the emotions of the characters in it, and after it ends, likely to continue mimicking the feelings and behaviours of those characters. This explains the feeling of dominance you have once James Bond has saved the world.
Neuroscience of Narratives In The Business Context.
When a business leader is able to present a character-driven story with emotional content, it results in better understanding of the key points also allowing for better recall weeks later as well.
Understanding what triggers the release of oxytocin, can make the information you wish to share persuasive and memorable.
If we can understand why should customers or a person on the street care about the project you are proposing, or how does it change the world or improve their lives, the chances of resonance are higher.
We know that people are substantially more motivated by their organisation’s transcendent purpose than by its transactional purpose.
Transcendent purpose is effectively communicated through stories making people empathise with the pain the customer experiences and they will also feel the pleasure of its resolution – all the more if some heroics went in to producing joy, or in reducing suffering or struggle.
New Social Conditions Have Given Birth To New Human Behaviours.
New ideas, behaviours and technology would usually take years, if not decades to reach critical mass. But during the pandemic, we are experiencing years of change, packed into a few short months. Everyone has become an early adopter. Brands, big and small, are scrambling to catch up with radical changes in consumer behaviour.
The below trends have created a stronger craving for transcendental stories;
Community First Model.
While online buying has been on the rise, the difference to note here is people are moving from buying some things online — books, clothes, repurchases — toward buying most things online. Today, your buyer can come from any corner of the world, limited by almost no barriers.
However, building a slick e-commerce site simply doesn’t cut it in anymore. To be truly successful, businesses need to build and sustain brand equity and affinity in the digital space. At the core of this strategy is building a community of brand advocates who truly care about the product or service.
Distributed Talent.
Fundamental changes in the nature of work has given rise to more distributed networks of specialists focused on tackling a specific challenge or project. The approach is likely to produce better results with less waste.
Remote working has levelled the playing field when it comes to access to job opportunities. To win the post-pandemic war for talent, businesses will need to actively encourage the creative and entrepreneurial pursuits of their people, not only at work but also outside of work.
New Neural Paths To Consumer Trust.
In a recent report by McKinsey & Co, 75% of consumers have tried new shopping behaviours and the majority intend to keep these new brands into their routine.
The most adaptable brands will be people-first, community-driven, mission-led companies built for the needs of the 21st century.
A senior executive at Unilever said “A brand without trust is just a product, and advertising without trust is just noise.
What stops us from telling the right story isn’t the soundness of our argument, the brilliance of our logic or the quality of the thing we’re selling.
It’s that we haven’t understood how best to communicate in a way that helps others to imagine a future they can’t yet see.
How can we communicate more purposefully when we are trying to influence people and create a change for the better?
Instigating Change.
It is time we accepted that it’s not possible to inspire people to act or to create change with just attention alone. There’s always a wide chasm between gaining awareness, enabling action and gaining traction. You can buy attention, but you can’t buy trust. Trust is earned. Trust takes time. Trust is the enabler of connection and persuasion.
The act of persuasion and connection gives people the opportunity to confirm whether what they believe is true.
Bottled water, ride-sharing services, reusable coffee cups, cloud services, co-working spaces, bean-to-bar chocolate, and meal kits are just a few examples of brands successfully traversing the trust chasm, by being purposeful storytellers.
Emotions don’t just persuade, they move us to act.
Stories that drive us to pay attention and also involve us emotionally are the narratives that move us to action. It is our very mindset, our behaviours, our physiology, that enables us to empathise and to be persuaded by stories. This physiological connection between head and heart is the reason stories work.
We fallaciously believe that changemaking and persuasion are only about getting someone’s attention by creating awareness of an issue or option, and then presenting people with logical arguments that will convince them to make desired choices. Research in the fields of behavioural sciences and psychology demonstrates that people make irrational decisions all the time.
We are not wired to be driven only by reason and logic. Emotions also play a big part in how we react, what we decide, and whether we choose to change.
When we attempt to persuade to the thinking person and his rational mind we fail. Messages that resonate deeply are those that connect with people’s feelings. Successful ideas that appeal to people’s hearts don’t just persuade people to act, they move them to act.
Elements of A Purposeful Story.
Storytelling provides an opportunity to cover a lot of ground and organise the information that we already know about a system into a manner that allows us some sense-making opportunity.
Sometimes there are large stories and grand narratives to which they belong, but often it is the small exchanges or micro-narratives that we work with.
Both provide much fodder for systems thinking, leading to the creation of immense value for a business.
Consider the following when you think of your story;
When we write out our story, notice what gets included and what does not.
What emotions are present (if any)?
Is there any reliance on past knowledge (or evidence)?
Are there characters that are more prominent and, if so, why?
What is the tension or unresolved conflict in the story?
Why was the setting chosen and what limits does it impose?
Are you avoiding parts of the system in storytelling intentionally? Or, are you choosing to tell the story in a manner that hides or obscures parts of it you feel uncomfortable with?
