The value of storytelling and employee stories

In this blog, we present 3 storytelling arguments for employees to eventually become ambassadors of their organisation.

Stories create connection

The real power of storytelling is that it can increase engagement. According to the successful author Harari in his book Sapiens, 'the sharing of stories' is the most important reason why mankind has been able to develop. Groups of people - organisations - live from stories. Added to this is the fact that storytelling is a two-way process, where listening and telling go hand in hand. As a storyteller, you often first want to have a good idea of what your listeners are thinking. In our circle of family, friends and acquaintances, we do not do otherwise. The success of an evening with friends or a birthday party depends on the stories that are told. Cool stories, funny stories, holiday stories, you name it. Surely no one would get it into his head to describe an impressive journey to a faraway destination in the form of bullets? Admittedly, telling more businesslike stories is a bit more involved, because...

1. Organisations are complex

An organisation chart is a very good way to show how an organisation is structured. The line, the staff services, project groups, everything can be drawn in a very transparent manner. An organisational culture, on the other hand, is more difficult to capture. Newcomers by definition bring along different and new ideas and customs. What influence do they have on the prevailing culture? Will they be able to mix or will they lead to a culture clash with all its consequences? Storytelling cannot determine what the right culture should or must be. But storytelling can help create mutual understanding, on the basis of which you can move forward together. Because a story always arrives differently than an opinion or a 'fact'. And organisations are a rich source of stories and storytellers. For example, by telling stories about where the organisation comes from (founder stories). By letting first time employees tell what they experienced in those first years. Or by telling about vision and the future. Great stories are also where passion and successes come to the fore, or shared experiences.

2. No one makes a decision on rational grounds

We like to tell ourselves - no one excepted - that we make rational decisions. We have thought about it carefully, we have weighed all the 'pros' and 'cons' and voilà! The truth is different. Because it tells us that we make our decisions based on a complex set of cognitive patterns. These patterns ensure, for example, that we weaken some of the 'cons' and strengthen some of the 'pros'. In order to arrive at the decision that actually suits us best. The fact is that you can use storytelling to influence these cognitive patterns. For example, by appealing in stories to values such as trust, sympathy, authenticity, you name it. If we apply this to the employees of an organisation, who doesn't want to work for a company that gives you full confidence in the performance of your job? Who wouldn't want to work for a company that sponsors your children's sports club? And who wouldn't want to work for a company where you are listened to and where you can make a difference? Values that are told and experienced in personal stories of employees.

3. Missions and visions are hard to remember

Very few employees can reproduce the mission and vision of the organisation where they work. And to be honest, they are often quite complicated or uninspiring. More important than the fact that employees know the mission and vision by heart is the experience they have with them. That they have an image, understanding and meaning for those values. Stories help with that. Properly told, stories give personal meaning to those values, which makes them more trustworthy, easier to remember and easier to live by.

Getting Started

Do you want to start storytelling right now? You can start by taking a look at our websites storytellingpeople.nl, storytellingpeople.com or corporatehistory.com.

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For more than 30 years Storytelling People has been recording corporate stories and bringing them to life with storytelling and community building.

Storytelling makes the abstract corporate story accessible in stories by and for people.

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