Corporate Storytelling: Sounds Good, But...

My first blogs are going to be about storytelling in management. Business narrative. Strategic storytelling. Looking at business and leadership through the lens of storytelling, I asked 30 senior managers of large, international companies in 90-minute interviews about their communication practices. Storytelling, too. There's been so much talk about storytelling in the leadership and management press recently. A few good books have come out by Steven Denning (http://www.stevedenning.com/) and other less-known storytelling expert. But I wanted to ask people who get paid to manage others and get stuff done in the hurly-burly of international business. Stories in International Companies? Hardly The managers in my research report that strategic stories are scarcely used in large international companies. We're talking about companies like Nestle, Dell, Pepsico, Dow Chemical, Cisco and UBS. Virtually all the managers described their companies as contexts of logical argumentation. You get your credibility from functional expertise and logical persuasion. You risk your credibility if you get a name as the storytelling guy. They all admit to wearing their corporate armor to work. They keep their emotions behind their helmets. The wide majority fear that their stories will be misunderstood by many of the various cultures in their audiences. The German VP worries that his Indian, Japanese, American and Costa Rican IT techies won't be engaged by his story, but rather put off. Storytelling in Large, International Companies is Risky! Managers see storytelling as easy to do badly, and very hard to get right. It requires time and effort, and the returns are seen as marginal. What do the managers fear? Loss of personal and professional credibility. Failure to tell a story that is relevant to everybody in the audience. Organizational resistance to storytelling. Anti- or counter-stories. Nevertheless, the managers admit that storytelling is: Attractive. Potentially valuable, if done well. In some situations (change, new CEO, rallying the troops) more effectivel than the usual email, Power Point or other kinds of argumentation. A good complement to other, more widely used tools, like powerpoint and speeches. A good way to engage the audience emotionally. Stories for Influence? Sure, But Be Careful Managers see influence (persuading people to act), energy and diagnosis as key skills in large international companies. All the managers I interviewed agreed that stories could be used for influence. But gaining influence and generating energy over people you either never see or over whom you have no direct power is seen as difficult in large, widely dispersed and highly networked organizations. Managers believe that a well-told, story can engage audience members emotionally. This engagement can build your credibility. Increased credibility means more influence. Spark Your Listeners' Imaginations with Stories Strategic stories are also seen as powerful ways to: Build metaphors Spark visualization Engage the imagination on many levels Make abstract information more concrete. They can thus: Generate action Make pedagogical points Enable indirect messaging Boost persuasive power Entertain But these communication purposes are subjugated to the overarching goal of gaining and wielding influence. Can you learn to tell stories? Not sure The majority managers I interviewed belileve that all managers can learn to tell passable strategic stories, so long as the teller accepts some basic rules: Strategic storytelling is a performance. A strategic story needs a clear, well-articulated purpose. The teller needs to be invested personally in the story, should believe it and be passionate about it. The teller has to be prepared, but not overly prepared. Practice is vital. Simple, clear storytelling instructions, training, a guidebook or framework, and multi-media examples of effective and ineffective storytelling can help managers learn strategic storytelling. Stories should best be drawn from the world of large international companies, culled from personal experience of the teller or audience. Strategic stories do not need a traditional plot. They do need a loose structure that orders events.  Has at least one character (which may the company) experiencing events and acting on them. Stories must tap into the emotions, be extremely short, build the teller's credibility, have a built-in business or management lesson and be highly relevant to the audience in the given context. What's your experience?


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