The Art and Science
ofBetterStorytelling
Joe is a journalist, editorial strategist,
and writer. He began his career as a
political reporter before moving into
business and technology. Today, he
is the Middle Easts first director of
content for Memac Ogilvy & Mather,
based in Dubai, UAE. He specializes
in content marketing strategies for
government entities, Fortune 500
companies, country branding, and
other major global brands. He has
a keen interest in the science of
storytelling, and is team qualitative,
not quantitative.
Business Expert Press 978-1-63157-755-0 (2017)
www.businessexpertpress.com
And How Itll Make You Better at Your Job
Joe Lipscombe
Abstract: Through my years as a feature journalist, delv-
ing into the marketing, advertising, and public relations
world, Ive relied upon the power of storytelling. Despite
the changing mediums, the fundamentals have stayed
the same. What this has taught me is that storytelling
is a truly universal tool, with value for any kind of pro-
fessional. Studying storytelling allows people to better
understand emotion, empathy, connection, speech,
delivery, and effective impact. All of these are critical
business tools.
Keywords: empathy, language, presenting, storytelling,
writing
Introduction
Imagine a tool that is powerful enough to connect the
minds and bodies of a million people at the same time.
A tool that could bring people together, equalize their
feelings, and control their emotions. A tool that spans
cultures, divides opinions, and forces action. A tool that
thrills, excites, engages, and informs in one single execu-
tion. This is the power of storytelling.
Since the dawning of man, stories have played a ma-
jor role in our development as a speciesand we love
them for it. From ancient cave paintings to Shakespear-
ean tragedies, to the most abstract science fiction to the
brutal realities of historical dramas, we crave stories. We
cling to our heroes, unite in their adversities, and revel
in their victories.
Throughout history, some of the greatest minds have
been expert storytellers, from Winston Churchill to
Nelson Mandela, to Steve Jobs to Barack Obama. In their
own unique ways, these people have told their stories,
and sold their stories, to millions of people around the
world. They have made us hysterical with laugher, hys-
terical with tears, tremble with fear, beam with pride,
glimmer with hope, and gasp in awe. Great stories have
the ability to take a hold of our feelings, and live inside of
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 The Art and Science ofBetterStorytelling
us forever. They teach us about fear, hope,
challenge, opportunity, right, wrong, good,
and bad. They influence our decisions,
shape our beliefs, and visualize what we
feel inside. Without them, we would be lost.
Most importantly, stories help us con-
nect with the people that matter most. Ive
been involved in storytelling for a long
time, from writing stories for business
publications as a journalist, to creating
mega-narratives for Fortune 500 compa-
nies in the communications field. To me, a
good story has always been the difference
between success and failure. A good story
is being relevant, being engaging, and be-
ing remembered. Your ideas, intentions,
and motives are useless if you havent got
the story to match.
Throughout this article, I will be explor-
ing the science behind why stories have
such a lasting impact on us, and how they
have the power to change the world. Ill dis-
cuss how an ancient art form is more rel-
evant today than it ever has been. Thanks
to the growth of technology, everyone can
now share a story with the world. This has
brought storytelling into the foreground of
strategic business planning. In this new age
of consumer experience, how you make
someone feel is critical to winning. The
wants and needs of the people we serve
have dramatically changed over the course
of the last two decades, and so too then
must the methods we use to address them.
In the beginning it was quantity, then
it became about quality, and finally, now,
it has become about experience. Today,
people have all the choice in the world, on
all the channels they could possibly dream
of. The only remaining uncertainty is how
they feel. With that in mind, emotional en-
gagement is crucial to success. As we will
discuss, decisions have always been made
with the heart, despite what the facts are
saying. Powerful narratives have the ability
to win elections, topple empires, and spark
technological revolutionsunderestimate
them at your peril. So how do we turn
reads into leads?
2 Business Expert Press 978-1-63157-755-0 (2017)
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Let us begin...
***
Can You Feel It?
Fact: The brain is genetically wired to build
information into narrativethis helps us
better understand the world we live in.
In early 2014, I was on an assignment to
tell the stories of a number of families af-
fected by the war in Syria. I flew over-
night to Jordan, landing in the ancient city
of Amman around 2 am, before meeting
with a group from Save The Children and
UNICEF around 6 am. At the time, I was
working for the Bloomberg Businessweek
magazine in the Middle East, but it wasnt
safe for a journalist to travel alone to the
Syrian border. I would be travelling across
the desert with a communications special-
ist called Toby Fricker. Id never met Toby,
but he was an instantly likeable character.
A former-journalist, he had worked on hu-
manitarian crises in countries all over the
world, and had likely shepherded plenty of
overly curious city journalists like myself
through volatile places before. Regardless,
he was friendly and patient with me. He
talked me through the day ahead, and an-
swered personal questions about his time
in Jordan, working with refugees, and
meeting distraught and vulnerable families
from war-stricken countries, like Syria.
Having flown through the night, on
very little sleep, I ended up in a minivan
dodging Middle Eastern traffic at six in the
morning, en route to the Syrian border. I
was a little apprehensivebut Toby calmed
me right down. He bought me falafel from
an isolated gas station (a pump and a shed)
in the middle of the desert for the equiva-
lent of about 25 US cents, and we happily
chatted away while driving north toward Al
Mafraq, a town that sits about 20 km away
from the Jaber Border Crossing into Syria.
Upon arriving into Marfraq, we took a
steep right turn and headed east toward
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 The Art and Science ofBetterStorytelling
Zaatari Refugee Camp. Today, the camp is
all but a permanent settlement for the ma-
jority of its residentspeople who believed
they would be there a week, maybe a month
at best. Its been almost 5 years since the
camp was opened to house citizens fleeing
the conflict in Syria. Some families exited
their front door with all they could carry,
and literally walked to the camp, some
were delivered by car, some dont even re-
member how their situation came to be.
Regardless, more than 80,000 people now
reside in the camp, lawyers, bankers, build-
ers, teachers, mothers, fathers, wives, chil-
dren, and babies.
At the time of my visit, Zaatari was a
site to behold, and its only grown in size,
industry, and population since. The facts
surrounding the camp are mind-blowing.
At its peak, Zaatari was welcoming 1,800
refugees, and 4.2 million liters of water
through its gates per day. The daily cost to
run the camp was an astonishing $500,000.
The strain on Jordans resources weighed
heavily on the countryits already one
of the most water-scarce countries in the
world. As we were pulling up to the camp
I was being fed more and more numbers
from which to build my story. But despite
the obvious impact of the statistics, I was
still lacking one vital ingredient before I
could truly understand the weight of the
situation I was reporting on: empathy.
It wasnt until I found myself deep inside
the camp, inside a desperately small tent,
with two mattresses, two blankets, and a
family of ten staring at me that I felt the
burden of war.
Mohammeds Story
Toby had walked me through the main
street of the camp, and into District 8
where I met Mohammed (name changed).
Mohammed was a successful man, a hus-
band, and father of eight beautiful chil-
dren, all of whom were sat around him and
his wife while they told me their story.
I was making 24,000 Syrian pounds
($167,000) a year, he said. The kids had a
Business Expert Press 978-1-63157-755-0 (2017)
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great life. Now we live in a tent. We share
a blanket. Its humiliating. I have to rely
on my two sons to work. Sometimes they
bring back three or five Jordan Dinar ($7).
Sometimes we can buy food, sometimes
we cant.
Mohammed worked for the govern-
ment in Damascus, no more than 156 km
away from the very spot we were sat in.
His family didnt want to flee Syriait was
his homebut due to increased violence in
Daraa, they were left with little choice.
After spending the night huddled together
in their bathroom while the streets outside
were bombed, they made the decision to
head to the border and seek refuge. Moham-
med stayed to fight, but not long after, he was
shot in the leg and forced to join his family
in Zaatari. Now he depends on the success of
his two eldest sons to bring money home so
the rest of the family can eat.
I met a number of people with similar sto-
ries to Mohammeds that day: some harder
to hear, some more tragic, some more un-
believable. They were all examples of the
numbers I was given in the minivan hours
before. Mohammeds family was part of the
80,000 population in the camp. His food ra-
tions were part of the daily cost borne by
international aid, and his tent was one of
the thousands of mobile living spaces do-
nated by countries around the world. But
none of that meant anything to me until Id
met Mohammedthat was when the num-
bers became alive, when the information
became a narrative, and I suddenly felt em-
pathy for the 4.8 million Syrians that had
been displaced. Once Id met Mohammed,
I knew how I was going to tell my story.
***
Trumping Facts
Quote: From the minute we wake up to the
minute we close our eyes, were governed
by facts. Facts are black and white. They
are certainties. Certainties are useful in an
uncertain world. Stories, on the other hand,
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