Not just for kids: How stories improve business communication

Natalie Powell, Coach at Bladonmore, explores how storytelling helps people understand, remember, and act on business messages.

Picture this: my three year old has been asking to watch something on TV for the last hour. We’ve had a busy day of activities, so I’m finally relenting, and I’ve agreed she can watch a program called Alphablocks. And yes, while the guilt about screen time niggles away at me, I comfort myself (slightly) in the knowledge that at least this TV program is educational.

For those of you blissfully unaware of the CBeebies and pre-school TV landscape, Alphablocks is a BAFTA award-winning cartoon series focused on phonics. If, like me until recently, the last time you came into contact with primary school education was a long, long time ago, phonics won’t mean much to you – but it’s now the way that children are taught reading and writing skills, and has much more of a focus on the sounds that make up words.

Alphablocks is the story of 26 friends – each of them a different letter of the alphabet. When these characters come together and hold hands, they spell out words that magically come to life. So, if letters C, A and R hold hands a bright red racing car will burst onto the screen and the three letters will jump in and speed away into the sunset.

What I find really clever is that each letter has its own personality. Take the letter M: he wears a chef’s hat and has quite the appetite, running around making ‘mmm’ noises as he enjoys eating everything in sight. R is depicted as a pirate, complete with ‘rrr me hearties’, and then there is S, an inflatable ball that makes a ‘sss’ sound, as if she’s constantly deflating.

Giving letters of the alphabet their own personalities has been a deliberate move by Joe Elliot, the creator of Alphablocks, who explains on his LinkedIn page: ‘My work centres around the idea that children learn best when they play with concepts, when characters spark understanding and when stories do the heavy lifting of pedagogy. I ensure that the content is academically sound while retaining a strong emotional and narrative pull.’

Why stories work

The concept of stories doing the heavy lifting and the focus on a strong emotional and narrative pull is what resonates with children. It makes an abstract concept – the alphabet – more relatable. When children connect to these personalities and characters, they find it easier to identify letters and the sounds they make.

Now, I’ll let you into a secret: it doesn’t just work on pre-schoolers. Adults also forge connections through stories. Scientific studies show that stories impact our brain chemistry and help us to remember. So, if business communications are built on facts, data and bullet points, they go against how our brains naturally work and encode information.

A recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience takes this one step further, showing that ‘conceptual stories’ – narratives that focus on meaning (why something matters), emotion (how it felt) and interpretation (what that means), rather than just describing what happened – created deeper, more meaningful memories and people found them easier to recall.

What this means for business communication

A story helps to get your message across because it aligns with how the brain naturally processes the world. But if people don’t see meaning, it is harder for them to remember information and act upon it.

Tapping into emotion is also a key to getting a message across. Well-documented research from neuroscientist Paul Zak shows that stories trigger emotional responses and increase engagement, but only when they focus on people, not metrics. That’s why facts alone in business communications fall short. For the best results, turn data into insight, make the message meaningful and focus on people.

Making stories work for you

This is exactly what Alphablocks does: it turns letters of the alphabet into ‘people’ and uses them to tell a story. As a result, my daughter has an emotional connection to these 26 characters, she remembers their names (their letter) and the sounds they make – helping her learn to read, without her even realizing.

Stories are more than just a creative device, they can be a practical tool for making your communication clearer, more memorable and more effective.

If you’d like to explore how storytelling can strengthen your business communications, get in touch.