Here’s an excerpt from the book ‘Leadership Presence’ by Kathy Lubar and Belle Linda Halpern:

“At a meeting where Kathy Lubar (Co-founder of The Ariel Group), once attended in Boston, where the audience was at least 75 percent Republican, the first speaker was a leading Democrat, (the late) Senator Edward Kennedy.

I looked around the room as Kennedy began speaking, and the expression on most of the faces seemed to say, “Oh God, do I have to listen to him one more time?” But Kennedy started his speech with a story and immediately you could feel the energy in the room change. For twenty minutes he told story after story, each with a clear point. He had the audience laughing and rapt at the same time. At the end he received an enthusiastic ovation and left the audience excited and energized. The next speaker was a Republican congressman who opened his talk with a graph and proceeded to show one chart after another and spoke of nothing bur dry facts and figures. After a few minutes of that, many attendees began reading their manuals and others went looking for coffee. Some even did the dreaded F-to-F (forehead to Formica). Only a few-clearly diehard Republicans visibly tried to pay attention. The energy and enthusiasm in the room had completely evaporated.”

This was the moment when Kathy realized the power of storytelling.