Outcomes in healthcare can be assessed using measures, meters and monitors. The art of healthcare is to ‘sell’ health because most of what promotes health are the choices of autonomous individuals. Healthcare can choose to present facts and figures:

Your BMI is 27, your blood pressure is 150/95mmHg, your lipids are in the higher range, your K score ( measure of depression) is 26

So if this is you you’ll be advised to lose weight, exercise more, eat less and relax. Even as you hear these numbers you will glaze over. In other industries they use stories to avoid ‘push-back’. The typical story has a setting, a hero, a complication a turning point and a resolution. Story teller’s say:

He must enter the hearts of his listeners, where their emotions live, even as the information he seeks to convey rents space in their brains. Our minds are relatively open, but we guard our hearts with zeal, knowing their power to move us. So although the mind may be part of your target, the heart is the bull’s-eye. To reach it, the visionary manager crafting his story must first display his own open heart. Peter Guber

The story might be:

You know you remind me of another 45 year old chap I knew. He was a very successful and worked long hours. While he loved his job he also wanted to retire early so he didn’t pay much attention to his lifestyle. Then one night he went to the Emergency department because he had terrible chest pain. He was due to go to an important meeting in the morning but that evening he was sweating, vomiting and clutching his chest. He was lucky because it turned out he didn’t have any serious illness but he needed to change his habits. Two years later people didn’t recognize him, he put all of his skills to reinvent himself, lost weight, started exercising and having regular breaks. So although he, or should I say I, won’t retire soon I plan to live long enough to enjoy it when it does happen.

Bernadette Jiwa’s new book the Right Story might help.

Picture by MorkiRo