Anecdotal Evidence

When planning your next presentation to an important group, think about including anecdotes to illustrate your point. Why? Statistics connect us to the audience intellectually, but not emotionally like stories do. And most of the time—even at work—we make decisions as much with our hearts as with our heads.

Anecdotes also make our arguments easier to understand and remember. And the easier a piece of information is to recall, the more likely we are to draw on it when we make decisions. Stories also don't intimidate us the way that statistics sometimes can.

What significance does this have for school librarians? It means your presentation will likely be less convincing if you skimp on stories and stress operational or budgetary statistics. You'll need to weave those stats into your stories to resonate with your audience.

Unfortunately, there's no magic formula for selecting the best stories to use—it's a judgment call from beginning to end. Similarly, there is no guarantee that you'll discover the best way to present a story once you've chosen it. Fortunately, research offers some guidelines. Annette Simmons's little book, The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling (Perseus, 2002), is a good place to start. Simmons, an organizational consultant and author, offers the following advice:

Be respectful. Treat your listeners as intellectual equals whose commitment to schools and students is every bit as strong as yours. It's delicate work to get people to change how they think about things while remaining respectful of the decisions they've made so far. Never allow self-righteousness to create a breach between you and your audience.

Don't bore. It's the greatest sin. A story's chief purpose is to breathe life into boring numbers. One that's too long or goes nowhere is deadly. If you sense that you're boring your audience, stop. Get out of the story as quickly as possible and on to something that recaptures their interest. It doesn't hurt to remember singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer's observation from the 1960s: if a person can't communicate, the least he can do is shut up.

Don't scare or shame. Stories that stir up fear, guilt, or shame have an immediate emotional impact, but they're usually counterproductive in the long run. You don't want to be perceived as blaming anyone for the current situation. A quick way to get people to deny any responsibility is to heap blame on them.

Don't be too emotional. You must show your own personal commitment to whatever cause you're advocating, but people will doubt your clearheadedness if you're too emotional.

Make a human connection. The fundamental connection between you and your audience is that you're both human. The secondary connection is that you share the exclusive experience of somehow being associated with your school—and schools are human enterprises. Tap into that.

Leave your audience feeling hopeful. The purpose of using anecdotes to help illustrate numbers and arguments is to show that your ideas are both achievable and worthwhile.

Storytelling is easy. We all do it, nearly all the time—but most of our anecdotes are presented naturally, with little effort. When we consciously set out to craft a story that will persuade powerful adults to support our library programs, storytelling takes on the semblance of work. But it's good work, and it pays high dividends. And here's the irony: there are statistics that prove it.