Why Storytelling?

29th Apr 2005 @ 3.41pm

Picture the scene…

We’re sitting in the Cinderella Bar of the London Palladium at 10am on a wet Tuesday morning. Martin Clarkson, Director of Brands at Marks & Spencer and part time impresario has brought us together. And the subject is storytelling in business.

We’ve come from a wide range of backgrounds, from running public companies to making videos for pop bands. But one phrase has continually cropped up during each of our working lives: ‘what’s the story?’ It seems that stories and storytelling has been quietly influencing us, yet few of us seem to have recognised it.

I blame my mother. Our experience of storytelling starts on our mother’s knee, and in the macho, adult world of business there’s no place for parental mollycoddling. It’s all about bullet points on Powerpoint presentations, cascade briefings on strategy and tactics.

Yet when you walk from the boardroom to the water cooler, and listen to what’s really going on in the organisation, we’re back to stories. Stories about colleagues. Stories about customers. Stories that create the myths and legends that shape how people act and behave.

Why? It’s the ‘H’ factor. Underneath our sharp-suited business exterior we’re just human beings. The trials and tribulations of other human beings are what interest and influence us. When we hear a story we recognise and relate to the hero, in a way that a million bullet points can’t. And secretly we all want to be recognised as the hero in the next story? it’s the great motivator.

That Cinderella Bar has been host to both Kings and commoners, both united in their desire to hear to good human story. It was no accident that Martin brought us there.

posted by Marcus Hayes
filed under Organisations