Chapter 6 of Made to
Stick is entitled “Stories,” a chapter that’s based on the appeal of
stories and how exactly they operate and succeed within our mind. On page 206
Heath and Heath write, “The story’s power, then, is twofold: It provides
simulation (knowledge about how to act) and inspiration (motivation to act).”
Shop Talk in the Xerox Lunchroom was particularly significant for
me as I describe in the next paragraph following this one. The excerpt they provide from the shop talk itself is humorous because it
demonstrates a very different atmosphere, a very specific one. The authors were
gracious enough to provide explanatory comments in brackets so we, a very
general audience, could follow the point of the story and why it was even a
story. The misleading E053 error is one that could have been sent out through
the company’s email system, notifying workers of this specific error but that
would have not have had the same effect as this transfer of information through
means of storytelling. Because the tellers had those around them that could
follow along easily, they chose to make it interesting and entertaining by
including the troublesome error and how they went about finding the problem and
eventually fixing it, “in other words, this story is party entertainment and
part instruction” (208).
What really struck me about the Shop Talk section is the statement
on page 207, “We want to talk to other people about the things that we have in
common.” I instantly thought of English majors at Clemson University. One thing
I like about this department is that it’s small enough to where you see the
same people throughout your four (ish) years here: classmates and professors! (Whether
that’s a good or bad thing is up to debate..!) I’ve talked to so many
classmates about professors at Clemson, and they know and can actually
visualize the professors and their mannerisms. This makes us a small community
in a large university.
There is a mental simulation that initiates in an audience
that is hearing the story. Heath and
Heath include a study done by researchers on UCLA students concerning stressful
times in their lives asking different groups to envision different time periods
pertaining to the stress. Those that looked back and simulated past events to
move forward, came out the most positive and the most prepared. Mental
simulation works in different ways: helps us manage emotions, helps with
problem-solving, and can also build skills. (213).
“The takeway is simple: Mental simulation is not as good as
actually doing something, but it’s the next best thing” (213).
What I took away from Jared’s story is that the success came
from these key aspects: Simple (eat
subs and lose weight), Unexpected (a
guy lost a ton of weight by eating fast food!), Concrete (think of the oversized pants..), Credible (same kind of antiauthority truthfulness that we saw with the Pam Laffin antismoking campaign, Emotional (we
care more about an individual than a mass), and it’s a story (our protagonist overcomes big odds to triumph). (222-223)
I, too, thought Jared's story was most important for it's demonstration of "SUCCESs" and why it became such a sensation. I focused my post on this because it seemed to me that the culmination of this chapter was in the illustration of "SUCCESs" in Jared's story and how it had all the components to be successful and it actually was. Almost everyone remembers Jared and his story, but why? Many people have lost tremendous amounts of weight or gotten themselves healthy through hard work, but Jared did it in a way that was "Unexpected," and that's part of what makes his story unique. No one ever thought someone could lose that much weight at a fast food restaurant, and thus the success. I think you touched on the importance of that well and ended on, what I took to be, the most important part of this chapter.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your take on Shop Talk. As an English major, it is comforting to be able to communicate with those who study the same material as you and usually have the same values. It's great that we are in such a small community in the English department because we are able to have our own "Shop Talk" and understand each other. I also like in the comments in the book so we know exactly what's going on, in case we don't understand the lingo. It reminds me of the engineering and computer science students. My roommate's boyfriend is a computer engineer and I never know what codes and programs he's talking about, so I ask him to "dumb it down" in a way I can understand it. It's good that stories use techniques to make sure they are understood.
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