Motivating Toward Change: The Power of Stories

What do we listen to? What motivates us to try a new way of working or to try a new technology?

For some of us, it might be the promise of new features, as we can hear the bells and whistles as we try a new product,and imagine its possibilities. But for many, hearing stories told by peers, is an effect way to open their eyes to new possibilities.

I recently gave a presentation, "Taking the Plunge into Virtual Meetings", at my department's retreat. I spoke about the pros and cons of virtual meetings, e.g. webinars, video conferences, video calls, vs. traveling to on-site meetings.

Afterwards, I received the most appreciation for the section where I called up four colleagues, who each spent a few minutes describing their use of various web conferencing tools for virtual meetings. Whether it was Skyping with colleagues in Ethiopia, working with remote teams, or giving a national-wide webinar for 500 participants, these stories made the most impact on the audience.

Hearing the stories of their peers, I believe broke through the typical resistance, and resulted in that feeling of "Hey I should try this". It humanized the machinery of technology. I suspect requests for the technology will follow.