People in quantitative and scientific fields too often undervalue the importance of soft skills, including storytelling. Now the longstanding message from communications experts is increasingly backed by quantifiable findings. Speaker Carmine Gallo writes: “Thanks to advances in neuroscience, brain scans, and data-driven studies, we’ve learned more about persuasion in the past decade than we had ever known previously.” Neuroscientists can map our brain activity during stories. Data scientists have analyzed the content of TED talks and other speeches to conclude that “messages including apt, well-crafted stories are 35% more persuasive.” In The Leading Brain, the authors cite research showing “that people are more receptive to ideas when their minds are in story mode as opposed to when they are in a more analytical mind-set.”
For all of us quants, it would be ironic if it took the growing body of hard evidence to finally convince us of the importance of using stories to make our points.
JP Snow 