The Power of Stories: How Narratives Shape Decisions, Movements, and Businesses in the 2020s
Stories shape the world—faster than ever. From politics to business, narratives don’t just explain reality; they shape it. Facts alone don’t drive decisions—emotions do. In a time of eroding trust, mastering the right story is key to inspiring action, building communities, and driving success.
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”
Stories matter.
Arguably, as we approach the mid-2020’s, they matter more than ever.
Wherever you look, over the last 10 years, the direct, sometimes immediate effect of stories on our lives can be felt.
Narratives have been formed, created, even invented, to justify courses of action, inspire change or build new, global companies. And seemingly at faster and faster speed.
Take these examples:
The UK’s Brexit from the EU as ‘a fight for independence’
Donald Trump’s 2024 election-winning story of an America that needs saving
ChatGPT and ‘the birth of AI’
Conspiracy theories and the Covid pandemic
‘The threat of the West posed by NATO and Ukraine’ to justify Russia’s invasion
Some of these narratives were created by individuals - by business or political leaders. Some developed organically - usually through social media - and then were developed, exploited even, to advance a cause or a business.
The point here is not to pass judgement on these campaigns or their factual accuracy, but simply to show what they tell us about the present moment:
That the link between ‘facts’ and the choices we make is weaker than we assumed
Stories are the best tools humanity has yet created to inspire action on a massive scale
Truth-telling in an age of mass information and alternative sources is getting harder
In some ways this is a longer way of expressing the rather fatalistic (actually wrong-headed) refrain that can be heard more and more frequently - that “people are stupid.”
While you might share the sentiment at times, it’s a misdirection. And not just because it implies all other people except ‘us’ :)
People aren’t stupid. But they (we) are emotional.
And also, despite an increasingly individualistic society, we are inspired and motivated by those around us (that is, by our community - in whatever form that takes).
Even if that community exists only virtually, online and is made up of a hyper-diverse mix of people and organisations spread randomly around the world.
So what?
Well firstly building, scaling and maintaining successful companies in today’s hyper-connected information age means that emotionality, not rationality is in the driving seat when it comes to customer, employee, and even investor behaviour.
Here’s Hollywood screenwriter Robert McKee writing in Harvard Business Review:
“There are two ways to persuade people. The first is by using conventional rhetoric…. It’s an intellectual process, and usually consists of a PowerPoint presentation in which you say, ‘Here is our company’s biggest challenge, and here is what we need to do to prosper.’ And you build your case by giving statistics and facts and quotes from authorities. But there are two problems with rhetoric. First, the people you’re talking to have their own set of authorities, statistics, and experiences. While you’re trying to persuade them, they are arguing with you in their heads. Second, if you do succeed in persuading them, you’ve done so only on an intellectual basis. That’s not good enough, because people are not inspired to act by reason alone.”
We shouldn’t be surprised by this.
The decline of trust in government, business and public life has been reported frequently.
The annual Trust Barometer published by Edelman, a global PR agency, even gives us a number that shows by how much, and how consistently, trust has declined over the last 20 years.
As leaders of fast-growing businesses, I’m certainly not asking you to ‘fix trust’.
But I am suggesting that finding the right emotional component for your story as a leader and that of your business is now an essential ingredient to getting customers, your staff and investors to back you.
And in the next editions of this column we’ll start to look at what that means in practice.
It’s not about refusing to tackle the facts. But how we use them to tell a story that connects, even builds, your community.
Glibly, in other words, it’s how we speak power to truth ;/
Simon Hardie is an author and founder of findexable - the digital analytics and insight platform. He co-hosts the Born to Disrupt podcast with Mingzulu and Disrupts
