In this fifth blog in my series on The Art of Influence in the Age of AI, I’m exploring the power of stories.
(For a brief overview of my Pathfinder Model, see Finding Your Pathway to Influence in the Age of AI.)
As I wrote in the first blog in this series, AI lacks the ability to detect emotion and understand it in context. Our ability to ‘read’ various cues, such as facial expressions, voice tone and tempo and body language, and combine them with our knowledge of the current situation and past experiences enables us to gain an understanding of how others are feeling, and why. This can help a leader gauge whether team members are truly behind a strategy, are coping under pressure, and positively or negatively influencing others – and it can also help them influence key decision makers. Understanding how others are feeling is a valuable ability as emotions can impact team performance, from decision making to strategy execution.
Our human emotions are why the ability to communicate in stories is a must-have skill for leaders and advisers in the age of AI.When you communicate in stories you can connect your audience emotionally to the decision you believe they should be taking, because logic alone often won’t work for you.
AI can rapidly generate information, options and arguments. What it cannot do is sit inside the politics, fears, ambitions and trade-offs shaping the room. That is where you, the human adviser, earns your keep!
If you haven’t grabbed a copy of my book Persuasive Advising, Chapter 5 is all about telling stories with tips to follow for identifying and crafting stories that matter. Once you are across the ‘tell’ principles, here are some questions for you to ask that should lead you to identifying a story with impact that you could use in an upcoming influencing conversation:
1. What outcome are they trying to create or protect?
2. What might they be emotionally attached to around this decision?
3. What would they have to admit if they accepted my advice?
My tip: Again, go deep with these questions and choose one of your stories and try it with a work friend. Take on their feedback and then work on your delivery for the upcoming influencing conversation.
My Focus: I’m still on holiday overseas. So, it’s people, culture, scenery and more! No AI in sight (well almost none)!