Stories aren’t just for kids, or storytime at daycare.

I love a good story.  In fact we all do.   Stories are the means that we entertain, learn, teach, explore and play out the adventures of our lives. 

In business we have the stories we tell ourselves in our heads, stories we tell investors, customers, employees and co-workers.

A great story can change the world, or the way you percieve it.

Stories are about change and the best ones affect the audience of the story, and create some meaningful impression. 

A leaders job is to create stories that are worth believing in.  A vision, a series of small successes that give confidence and a story that carries passion and is worth figthing for.  Passion is something you can’t pay for, it has to be something that is shared - and stories are the ways we have shared our passions since we grunted our way out of our painted caves.

What are the words of your organizations story? 

Do the words you use include fullfilling your brand promise to reward employees and shareholders.  Please, kill me quickly before your story bores me.  I’m tired of boring stories.  I’ve heard entrepreneurs pitching me who can’t tell their stories, candidates applying for jobs who can’t tell their story and surprisingly many CEO’s I know can’t tell their story.

Stories need adventure, good guys and bad guys, drama and danger.   Most of all they need hereos, they need some epic injustice being addressed or help being offered to the needy.

You have as much luck finding passion in many companies as you would find a hollywood blockbuster based on the story of a CEO who increased shareholder value by implementing six sigma management techniques lowering operating costs while increasing market share by double digits over a five year period.   If that’s your organizations story then you need a new storyteller.

As an entrepreneur if your story is about how you can use mashups and the wisdom of crowds with a new AJAX api for a relationship management tool that used web 2.0 techniques and user generated ……….. sorry - the story was borying me too.  You can guess the result this story gets with investors, media or even employees.

Most organizations have great stories, but lousy storytellers.  Every struggle, sacrifice, win with customers or change in direction is rife with drama and opportunities to create stories and legends that shape culture and build your organization. 

Every story in business needs to follow the hearts, minds, wallet rule. (My version is win the heart, challenge the mind, and the wallet will figure itself out easily).

Here is a great story from Kodak that made me laugh. It’s great marketing and has people sharing Kodak’s story.

 

The power of blogs and social media is being able to tell your story with employees, partners, customers, competitors and the whole world.  In fact the more people you share your story with and the better you tell your story, the more you succeed. 

With the dropping cost personal publishing I’m continually surprised had how few companies, employers or leaders take the time to tell stories to their market.  

Ask youserlf, is your organizations website still a corporate brochure or a tool for telling your companies story?  How often do you update it?  Who writes the content?  What story does it tell week by week, month by month.

Here are two of my favorite articles that I found on Google on the role of storytelling in leadership.  

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On Tue 17 Apr 2007.