Academics often make a big mistake when they begin to work in policy: they think that data changes minds.

Don’t get me wrong; data plays a critical role in change-making. If the data doesn’t support your case, not only will you be limited in how many minds you can change, but you’re putting your reputation on the line, and the fallout might not be pretty.

But data just doesn’t compare to storytelling in how it packs a punch. Good stories turn numbers into people and statistics into reality. They engage not just our intellectual side, but our emotional one. They bring people together, connecting them, in ways that data alone just… can’t. 

And when it comes to policy, few things matter more than connecting to each other. You need people to care enough about your issue to do something about it, and caring about something is a feeling, an emotional response. After all, policy is about people – those complicated, messy, emotionally beings who lie to themselves about how logical they are. 

The fact is that if you want to change policy, you need both data and storytelling. Let’s break them down.

First, let’s talk about data. You can think of data as the bedrock of policymaking. Like underlying rock, data shapes how things appear on the surface, even if we don’t see the hidden detail beneath. Furthermore, how solid and reliable that bedrock is will affect the ability of what comes after. You want to make policy that’s backed by solid data as much as you want to make sure that you aren’t building a parking garage over a sinkhole. 

When you meet with policymakers, there are some specific advantages to having a position backed by data.

1. Credibility. Policymakers are bombarded with information constantly. Their decision-making isn’t hampered by access to information; the difficulty lies in knowing what data they can trust. If you’re coming to the table with data behind you, that’s automatically bringing points in your favor.
2. Specificity. It’s one thing to say that graduate students are experiencing a mental health crisis. It’s another to say that the rate of depression in grad school is six times that of the general population. Or that 1 in 10 are suicidal. Being specific gives your argument an edge that’s hard to ignore.
3. Comparison. When you are trying to convince someone to support a specific position, numbers not only gives weight to the problem, but also to the choices: “Option A is estimated to reduce rates of depression in students by 10%, whereas Option B reduces is by 20%”. Believe it or not, (most) policymakers (usually) feel the weight of their decisions and care (to some degree) about the outcome. And if you can help them see the different outcomes of their choice, that greatly reduces the burden that decision carries.
4. Accountability. Policies are regularly evaluated for effectiveness (now, whether the government or the people care about that evaluation is another story, but I digress). But this means that when you have a policy proposal, bringing data on both (1) current policy effectiveness and (2) potential policy effectiveness helps to narrow the degree of uncertainty – the risk – that comes from supporting a policy. Policymakers can feel more confident that they’ll have made fewer bad decisions overall if you can help them figure out the right decision first. 
5. Clarity. Numbers bring clarity; if you are having guests over, knowing how many people will be there, what their dietary preferences are, and how long they plan to stay, will make it a lot easier for you to decide to make hand-crafted pasta or a big pot of chili. Help your policymakers see the issue for what it is, and the more you can break a complicated issue down into simpler, quantifiable elements, the more effective you will be.

So yes, data is crucial to policymaking. But it has limitations. Not only do a lot of people get overwhelmed when confronted with a bunch of numbers, but numbers lack the emotional, human component that allows them to connect easily in the first place. Data can isolate just as easily. 

Thankfully, that’s where storytelling shines.

Ahem. Allow me to indulge just a bit. My area of expertise is human evolution, and that means I could talk for way longer than I should ever be allowed to on the power of storytelling. So I’ll be brief and just say that being able to tell stories has been a key driver of human cognition. Specifically, it has given us the ability to have incredibly complex social dynamics, to take the perspective of other beings, and to share information in ways that no other species (that we’ve seen) has managed. Whether you like it or not, storytelling is an intimate component of the human identity, and that means that we connect to stories in a way that we just cannot do to data. And that means that you need to use stories on your advocacy efforts i you want to make a difference.

There are some specific advantages of storytelling, and most of them have to do with how successful they are at helping a policymaker care. After all, if you want a policymaker to take your position, you have to make them care about it first.

1. Emotional Connection. Helping policymakers connect emotionally is a very powerful way to help them care. I mean, have you ever seen an ad for pet rescue and have to forcibly remind yourself of all the very, very good reasons you just cannot adopt another animal?? Emotions drive us; rationalization comes after.
2. Relatability. Another way to help a policymaker care about an issue is to help them see how it relates to them or someone they care about. If they can imagine their child being a grad student, facing the kind of issues that you are presenting to them, it’ll be a lot harder for them to dismiss the very real struggles that they – and we – are facing.
3. Memorable. Let’s face it: our brains didn’t evolve in an environment where remembering facts and statistics was key to our survival. Instead, we used stories to pass along learned lessons. After all, it didn’t matter to our survival exactly how many of our ancestors died from eating a particular berry, but being able to remember the tragic tale of Jimmy and the Purple Vine Berries could keep us safe.
4. Accessibility. I’m going to lay it out straight: academics have earned their reputation for elitism. Academics speak using a kind of dialect that most people don’t understand, creating a barrier between them and their audience and not connection. And even though a lot of academics are comfortable dealing with data, most people do not spend a lot of time engaging with it. This means that if you are hoping that your complex and nuanced statistical analysis of a situation is going to resonate with the policymaker sitting across the table from you, I’ve got bad news for you. And let me be clear: this is not something they need to fix. You have the information; you have the responsibility to communicate that in a way that ensures understanding. There’s a famous story of Richard Feynman getting frustrated at his efforts to break a complicated physics concept down to a level that his freshmen could understand. He said that he knew it meant that he didn’t really understand it himself.

If you want to be truly compelling and persuasive, you’ve got to bring together accurate data and evocative storytelling. But this can be easier said than done. If you’re struggling to marry the two effectively, here are a few approaches you could try:

1. Illustrate the Data. Try to turn the numbers into a narrative. Instead of describing the statistics on grad school matriculation, student work expectations, and our drop-out rates (hint: they’re bad), tell the story of Kaylynne, a mom who moved across the country with her husband and 3-year-old and how her education and work environment was so toxic that she developed multiple disabilities so severe that, by the tine she graduated 7 years later, she was disabled and unable to work. (Hi, that’s me, I’m Kaylynne – you can read more of my story here). And then you can say, “If you think this is bad, just remember: she’s not the exception. Half of all doctoral students drop out because of the stress.”
2. Humanize the Data. Put a face on the data. After telling my story above, you can follow that up with: “How many of those with me here today have a similar story? How many personally know someone who has one? Kaylynne’s story is also my story, and his, and hers. Do you know anyone who has gone to earn a PhD? Have you talked to them about their experiences? Maybe you should.”
3. Contextualize the Data. Saying that half of doctoral students drop out is, on its own, a powerful statistic. But the obvious counter is that there could be many reasons for someone dropping out of school: maybe they got a great job offer, or their parents needed them home, or maybe, as a lot of faculty will say, the students just “weren’t cut out” for the rigor of a PhD program. So when you can provide context for the data – when you can explain that, when asked, the vast majority of the students left because of high stress, low pay, and a poor work-life balance. How they were having to rely on food banks to feed their kids while working 50-hour weeks stuck at a computer with no HR to protect them from neglect, abuse, and exploitation.
4. Garner Attention. Yes, yes, I’ll admit it. Stories get people’s attention. And this is not a bad thing. Yeah, you heard me: Getting attention is not a bad thing. All it does is allow the Thinking Human Being now listening to you to give you, and your position, their due consideration. Don’t cheapen their decision by presuming that they are incapable of analyzing what they hear. Once you’ve got their attention, then you can show them that they can trust you because you have the facts that back it up. If you can’t draw them in enough to convince them to listen to you, then that’s on you, not them.

As you craft your message to your policymakers, try to think of ways to incorporate both data and storytelling. Perhaps start by thinking on the stories that you’ve heard from fellow students. Which ones have resonated with you? Which ones have inspired you to take action? To care? Once you’ve picked out a few stories, think about how they fit into the data. Where do they overlap? Where can the latter illustrate the former. Then, craft your message, helping them see how the story at the surface connects the data that lies beneath. And what they can do now that they understand.

FAARM Co-Founder
Kaylynne M. Glover, PhD