Guides -- Storytelling
This Guide was developed as a springboard for the GPro workshop on storytelling as an effective leadership skill.
Why is storytelling an important leadership skill?
What are the key elements of a classic story?
Seven highest-value forms of organizational storytelling
Books@Emory Library
Articles, presentations & white papers
Want to read more?
Why is storytelling an important leadership skill?
According to Stephen Denning, effective storytelling can accomplish something that logic and analysis fail to do in today’s business world: It "offers a route to the heart. And that’s where we must go it we are to motivate people not only to take action but to do so with energy and enthusiasm. At a time when corporate survival often requires disruptive change, leadership involves inspiring people to act in unfamiliar, and often unwelcome, ways. Mind-numbing cascades of numbers or daze-inducing PowerPoint slides won’t achieve this goal. But effective storytelling often does...Storytelling can translate dry and abstract numbers into compelling pictures of leader’s goals.”
(Source: "Telling Tales," Stephen Denning, Harvard Business Review, May 2004, Vol. 82, Iss. 5, pp. 12-129.)
What are the key elements of a classic story?
Protagonist the listener care about. The story must be about a person or group whose struggles we can relate to.
Catalyst compelling the protagonist to take action. Somehow the world has changes so that something important is at stake. Typically, the first act of a play is devoted to establishing this fact. It’s up to the protagonist to put things right again.
Trials and tribulations. The story’s second act commences as obstacles product frustration, conflict, and drama, and often lead the protagonist to change in an essential way. The trials reveal, test, and shape the protagonist’s character.
Turning point. This represents a point of no return, which closes the second act. The protagonist can no longer see or do things the same way as before.
Resolution. This is the third act, in which the protagonist either succeeds magnificently or falls tragically.
(Source: "What’s Your Story?" Ibarra Herminia, Kent Lineback, Harvard Business Review, January 2005, Vo. 83, Iss. 1, pp. 64-71)
The seven highest-value forms of organizational storytelling
(Source: The Seven Most Valuable Forms of Organizational Storytelling. Steve Denning. Book preview, posted on The E-Business Executive, March 29, 2002. Click here to read a draft of the book’s first chapter, "The Importance of Organizational Storytelling".
Books@Emory Library
The following books are located in the Woodruff Library in the 7th floor stack tower:
Corporate legends and lore: the power of storytelling as a management tool
Peg Neuhauser, McGraw-Hill, 1993.
Storytelling in organizations: facts, fictions, and fantasies
Yiannis Gabriel, Oxford University Press, 2000.
Storytelling in organizations: why storytelling is transforming 21st century organizations and management
John Seely Brown et al, Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005.
The wisdom of storytelling in an information age: a collection of talks
Amy E. Spaulding, Scarecrow Press, 2004.
Articles
"What’s Your Story?" Herminia Ibarra and Kent Lineback, Harvard Business Review, January 2005, Vol. 83, Iss. 1, pp. 64-71
Locate using ejournals@emory.edu
"Telling Tales." Stephen Denning, Harvard Business Review, May 2004, Vol. 82, Iss. 5, pp. 12-129.
Locate using ejournals@emory.edu
Storytelling: Passport to Success in the 21st Century
Contains white papers and presentations by recognized leaders in storytelling and its power as a leadership tool.
The Six Stories You Need to Know How to Tell
Excerpt from: The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through Storytelling, Annette Simmons.
Story Poetry and Metaphor: Subjective Solutions for Subjective Problems
Every Leader Tells a Story (Barry Blitt, FastCompany, June 1998)
Forget bullet points and slide shows. The best leaders use stories to answer three simple questions: Who am I? Who are we? Where are we going?...So what's your story?
Storytelling in Organizations: The power and traps of using stories to share knowledge in organizations
Deborah Sole, Daniel Gray Wilson, LILA Harvard University.
This brief looks at the power of storytelling and compares it to other ways knowledge can be exchanged in organizations.
Storytelling in Organizations: Larry Prusak
What is the role of storytelling in organizations today? What role does storytelling play in the creation and sharing of knowledge?
Want to read more about storytelling?
Bibliography: Storytelling, Passport to the 21st Century
Organizational Learning and Leadership Bibliography Database
