I believe people respond best to narratives, not statistics, and that is important for leaders to remember. Effective narratives often include stories and have a message that pushes people to act. Statistics by themselves, while interesting to people like me, rarely push us into action.
Columbus Day. I still wonder why Columbus Day is a federal holiday and not recognized by many businesses and organizations like ours. Heck, Columbus never actually set foot in what is now the United States yet we have a holiday for him. According to Wikipedia this is how Columbus Day was created, “In April 1934, as a result of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus and New York City Italian leader Generoso Pope, Congress and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made October 12 a federal holiday under the name Columbus Day.”
Roosevelt knew we could not have a holiday that recognized one minority group because then we would need a holiday for every group and that would never end. But choosing Columbus, which had a great narrative most everyone could support, would work.
While Italian-Americans certainly developed a great “narrative” story about Columbus at that time, current knowledge undermines that narrative. For example, you don’t have to be a historian to know that America existed long before 1492. For example, we know Cahokia, a 10,000 inhabitant settlement, existed across the Mississippi River from St. Louis over 500 years before Columbus.
Also, as was published in Simon Winchester’s Atlantic, Leif Eriksson likely travelled to the Atlantic Provinces and perhaps New England shortly after 1000 AD. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson even signed a proclamation that declared October 9 to be Leif Eriksson Day in honor of the Viking explorer, his crew and the country’s Nordic-American heritage. Winchester also notes that Irish-Scottish missionaries allegedly travelled to the Maritime Provinces in the 550s.
I doubt this holiday or its name will ever be changed unless a more compelling October narrative emerges. Maybe we should “discover” one.
Political Ads. As always, there are hundreds of political ads running on television this month. There has been a great deal of research into what makes an effective political ad and that is likely why we see a wide use of narratives – stories about the good or bad things candidates have done. Successful candidates use different stories to reach different demographics.
And, wise candidates, use statistics as part of the narrative. For example, this morning for the first time I saw a very clever narrative ad using a young girl competing in a spelling bee. She was asked to spell “Shaheen.” She asked familiar questions of the judges – “Can you give me the definition? Can you use it in a sentence?” To which the adult judges could provide opposing or negative information about Senator Shaheen including the statistic, “Shaheen voted with Obama 99% of the time.”
I like to always challenge myself to create effective narratives. So next time you are trying to inspire a group of people to take action, think about your narrative.
