From the earliest beginnings of humanity, storytelling has been an integral tool in promoting learning. Designed to transfer knowledge from one party to another in an engaging way, you can feel the direct connection between using cave drawings to warn of predators to a modern financial manager spinning a rich story about the amazing team win that put their profits over target. This CPD article will explore the importance of storytelling, why storytelling is so effective in learning and development and how you can use it in education and business.
What is the importance of storytelling?
Telling stories is one of the most powerful means that you have at your disposal to influence, teach, and inspire no matter the target audience. Good storytelling engages the audience by involving them in the story and developing a connection with them. Humans learn by both hearing and telling stories and practicing through stories. In fact, studies by some psychologists have even suggested that facts are 20 times more likely to be remembered if they are part of a story. Let’s explore why storytelling is so effective in learning and development.
Why storytelling is so effective in learning and development?
Stories enduring use as a teaching tool are testament to their effectiveness. The best teachers have always based their lessons, knowingly or unknowingly, on storytelling. Utilize the right story for your type of content and learning for the maximum amount of impact and knowledge transfer.
Storytelling can simplify or contextualise complicated concepts, explain the relevance to the learner of the things they are being taught and will also gain and keep the attention more than just repetition of facts and figures. Good learning and development isn't about getting everyone to complete and pass the course, seminar, training etc. only for them to forget them later. The purpose is to effectively get people to embed the appropriate behaviours and knowledge so that they instinctively know how to act in any scenario and can take these skills into the world.
Like many other art forms, you can learn to become an impactful storyteller and use this skill for professional development and progress. While oral storytelling has been the oldest way to communicate, there are also other forms such as digital, visual, and written. This gives learners a variety of different types and several avenues from which to have their interest captures and information conveyed to them. Video storytelling, as an example, can make your brand more memorable as our brains find it much easier to recall the key points of a story than a list of features. An effective teacher or course leader, however, will make the most of all three in learning and development.