For more than twenty years I’ve studied, interviewed, and spoken with business and political leaders who have mastered the art of rhetoric to capture the imagination of their stakeholders. I’ve met with CEOs and billionaires, entrepreneurs and scientists, presidential candidates and politicians from both major parties.
My role is not to take sides. My role is to give leaders the tools to make the most persuasive argument they possibly can—and let the stakeholders decide.
When I meet with leaders I tell them that there’s one fundamental rhetorical technique that stands the test of time. It’s a skill that marked a major milestone in human development. It sparked the American Revolution. It’s made many people rich and powerful. It’s won wars and won elections. The skill is storytelling and those who master it stand out.
Storytelling is one reason behind the sudden rise of Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Mayor Pete, as he’s known, is now on the rise in the 2020 presidential race.
“Mr. Buttigieg’s distinctive political passion appears to be storytelling,” according to a recent article in the New York Times. Buttigieg is quoted as saying: “The story that we tell, not just about government but about ourselves, and the story we tell people about themselves and how they fit in really ground our politics.”
One look at Buttigieg’s campaign kick-off speech shows his skillful use of narrative.
Without making his identity a core feature of his speech, he immediately acknowledges his husband in the audience.
“I grew up here in South Bend — in the same neighborhood where Chasten and I live today with our two dogs, Buddy and Truman.”
Buttigieg then begins act one, his origin story. He provides just enough information to give his audience a glimpse into his family’s story without getting bogged down in irrelevant details.
“My father immigrated to this country because he knew it was the best place in the world to get an advanced education. He became an American citizen and he met my mother, a young professor who was the daughter of an Army colonel and a piano teacher. They moved here for work, settled into a house on the West Side, and pretty soon after that, I came on the scene.”
Buttigieg launches into parallel sentence structure, a hallmark of good storytelling. I bolded the parallel phrases.
“Think of the forces that built the building we’re standing in now, and countless others like it now long gone. Think of the wealth created here. Think of the thousands of workers who came here every day, and the thousands of families they provided for. And think of what it must have been like in 1963 when the great Studebaker auto company collapsed and the shock brought this city to its knees.”
Buttigieg recalls that the population shrank as young people left. But some came back. to change things.
Buttigieg only devotes three short paragraphs to his work as mayor of South Bend. He knows his limited experience might be seen as a liability. Instead, he turns his personal story into a grand narrative of where he sees the next chapter in America’s story.
“If America today feels like a confusing place to be, it’s because we’re on one of those blank pages in between chapters…The forces of change in our country today are tectonic. Forces that help to explain what made this current presidency even possible. That’s why, this time, it’s not just about winning an election — it’s about winning an era.”
Buttigieg knows that good storytelling conveys complex concepts in simple form. He also instinctively understands that the rule of three is a powerful storytelling technique. According to Buttigieg, “The principles that will guide my campaign are simple enough to fit on a bumper sticker: freedom, security, and democracy.”
According to the New York Times, “this is a core part of Mr. Buttigieg’s theory of politics: that simple arguments and sweeping themes matter more than the specifics of policy.”
In one part of the speech, a highly personal moment, he connects with people who feel different, left out, or anxious about the future. And once again, he uses parallel structure to drive home his point.
“If I could go back into the past, it wouldn’t be out of a desire to live there. No, if I went into the past, it would be just twenty years back, to find a teenage boy in the basement of his parents’ brick house…wondering how he could belong in this world. Wondering if his intellectual curiosity means he’ll never fit in. Wondering if his last name will be a stumbling block for the rest of his life. Wondering what it means when he sometimes feels a certain way about young men he sees in the hall at school — if it means he’ll never wear the uniform, never be accepted, never know love.”
While Buttigieg is setting himself up for criticism by wrapping his vision in a grand narrative instead of offering specific policy initiatives at this stage in his campaign, he knows that there’s no chance of changing policies if people don’t connect with him first. Story is the vehicle of human connection.