Storytelling is beneficial in far more situations than most leaders
realise. It can be used to inspire your organisation, develop a vision, teach
important lessons, define corporate culture and values, and can be used to depict
who you are and what you believe in. It can start a fire. Storytelling is
important because employee ‘engagement’ cannot be forced. The human brain does
not work that way. However, you can use a great story to help ‘guide’ them there.
Stories are far more effective than attempts to ‘command and control.’
The first challenge for leaders is to gather compelling stories – stories that
have the ability to engage employees. This can include stories from others that
reflect your own beliefs and messages, or your own stories based on your
experiences, memories or lessons learned.
The second challenge for leaders is to tell these stories effectively. Nowadays,
companies either hire great storytellers or teach storytelling skills to their
executives, as it is often not something they have learned at business school.
But it is also important to impart these skills to all of your employees, as
they also tell stories every day. People will tell stories about you and your
company whether you want them to or not. Fortunately, you can play a role in
choosing which stories they tell. How can you do that? Be the first to tell your
stories.
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