If you are lucky, your employees may believe the facts in your business presentations. However, the likelihood that they will remember them is low.
Neanderthals may be extinct, but their genes live on in each of us. Nevertheless, the highest percentage of Neanderthal genes ever found in a living human is only 4 %. So their genes have not prevailed, even though the Neanderthal was stronger and more cold-resistant. According to Noah Harari, the most confirmed explanation for this development is the gossip theory:
Only sapiens can talk about something that doesn't exist and believe six impossible things before breakfast ¹.
We can not only imagine these things, but - and this is the point - imagine them together. Sapiens prevailed over the other apes because they were able to lead masses of people through their storytelling. The Neanderthal was capable of leading only small groups. This does not mean serving up false facts, but telling the desired facts in stories. Because storytelling formats differ from dry business presentations in one essential point: Excitement. In contrast to listed facts, stories literally awaken larger parts of our brain, which in turn enables us to remember them much better. To be more precise: by a factor of 22 ². Employees should follow those who lead, not because they have to, but because they want to. In his work on successful organisations, Ray Dalio focuses on the culture in the company:
An organisation is a machine that consists mainly of two parts: people and culture .
To get the culture right, you need to create an environment where everyone understands what makes sense and where the journey is going. People don't mind something new. They want a story, they want to be part of a story, part of something bigger, part of something special. That gives them meaning, that creates belonging. At a lower level, managers make sure that assignments are distributed to the right teams. At a higher level, managers tell stories, preferably ones based on facts. As management guru Peter Drucker already knew "Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast " ⁴. Culture not only eats strategy for breakfast, but also agility for lunch and innovation for dinner. Any strategy that does'nt take the culture into account is likely to fail.
Literature sources:
(²) Storytelling for businesses, by Miriam Rupp
(⁴) What is Management, by Peter Drucker
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