Karen is publishing The Perfect Story: How to Tell Stories that Inform, Influence, and Inspire with HarperCollins in October 2023.

The only way that you shape organizational culture is when each person can think about: what does this mean to me? And what do I actually want to do?

Sharing values and talking about all of those things are helpful, but it doesn't necessarily create connection or inspire action. But when you use stories people think about: what type of leader am I? And what's important to me? And how do I actually want to lead? And storytelling has this compounding effect, it touches all of these people at scale.

The way you tell a story is going to make a difference in the way people experience it. And there's certain things that you can lean into that are going to have a big impact. When you are listening to information, maybe you're in a meeting or even back when you were in university, and you're listening to your professor talk, you're processing words through really small parts of your brain.

This is your Wernicke and Broca's area. And what they're doing is they're taking what comes to your ears, and they are processing that sound into words. And then those words are compared in an internal lexicon that's in your brain. When it matches, you have understanding and you know what is said, and its comprehension. When it doesn't match is when it's those words that you have no idea what it is. These two really small parts are the only thing that is engaged. And this could be listening to information or listening to data. There's not a lot of dynamic interaction happening.

But when you are listening to me talk about walking on the beach, and I'm walking along the shoreline and feeling the warm sand under my feet as I push it down, you start to see that in your head, start to think of moments when you've done that. And talking about the warm sand and maybe the granules of sand getting between my toes makes you touch outher areas of your brain. Your neurons start to activate, the feel of the sand as you're pushing, you can almost feel that pressure. The taste of the salt water on your lips can make you almost experience that and feel that. If I talk about the waves crashing on shore, almost like a cymbal crash, you can not only think of it and picture it in your mind, but you can almost hear it too.

We go from these two really small pieces of your brain that are activated that make words turn into comprehension, to now dynamically engaging your brain in a different way. We used to think that we had dedicated neurons and parts of our brain for vision and taste and smell, and all of our senses. But really, most neurons have multiple ways to be able to perceive this information. And so, at any given time, our brain is lining up with all of this information, because it wants to understand and make predictions for how it should respond and what it should do. When we're telling stories, we're already grabbing so much more real estate in the brain.

One of the things I love is this idea of neural coupling. When you're in the movie, and maybe you're in your living room or in someone's home, seated on a couch, or you're in a theater or watching a movie, you're not moving. You're sitting calmly, but your heart starts racing when the character is in a chase on screen. Or if it's a horror movie, when they jump out and surprise you. And it's because this idea of neural coupling is that the listener's brain actually mirrors the storyteller's brain activity. Even though you are not in the story, by listening to it, your brain will start to light up as though it is.

If I talk about that, I'm walking on the beach and I smell that coconut suntan lotion, and I am hearing those waves just pounding the shore like one cymbal crash after another, your brain starts to light up like you're there. And this neural coupling is what gives storytelling a fun artificial reality experience.

For more, view her Masterclass.