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Business communicators inherently understand the importance of telling a story, whether it be for branding, public relations or internal communications. So do many business leaders, who often use stories in presentations to staff, customers, even investors. A story is an act of communication that provides people with packets of sensory material that allow the listener to quickly and easily internalize the material, understand it and create meaning from it. This approach broadens the definition of what a story is to encompass the overall meaning your organization has for its employees and customers. Here are five practices surrounding the use of stories that influence results: how to find stories, how to dig into them to uncover hidden patterns and themes, how to select those stories that need to be reinforced, how to craft memorable stories, and how to embody stories to positively affect attitudes, thoughts and behaviors. While these five practices emerged from the interviews that were conducted, no single organization used all five of them.

Business communicators inherently understand the importance of telling a story, whether it be for branding, public relations or internal communications. So do many business leaders, who often use stories in presentations to staff, customers, even investors.

But there's more to a story than just the telling of it. Karen Dietz, of the National Storytelling Network, defines a story as "an act of communication that provides people with packets of sensory material that allow the listener to quickly and easily internalize the material, understand it and create meaning from it." This approach broadens the definition of what a story is to encompass the overall meaning your organization has for its employees and customers.

In-depth interviews conducted with more than 170 business leaders in 80-plus organizations throughout the world suggest that stories have strategic importance far beyond mere entertainment value. In the aggregate, the responses from these executives revealed five practices surrounding the use of stories that influence results: how to find stories, how to dig into them to uncover hidden patterns and themes, how to select those stories that need to be reinforced, how to craft memorable stories, and how to embody stories to positively affect attitudes, thoughts and behaviors.

Finding stories

There's an implicit assumption behind finding stories: that stories already exist in abundance within your organization. So, how can you bring them to the surface, and why would you want to?

For a story to exist, there needs to be a listener who behaves in an appreciative, rather than an active, manner. Appreciative listening implies giving your undivided attention and demonstrating sincere interest. It also means immersing yourself in the story without interrupting to ask questions, and forgoing judgment of the teller and the story's content. Ultimately, the listener wants to hear the details about a situation rather than interesting sound bites or a sanitized report.

You can evoke stories by using prompts that begin with the words "Tell me about...." This approach can be used when talking with an employee about an issue or problem, for coaching someone or relaying performance feedback, in employee orientation programs, and so on. Narrative generated this way is typically richer in detail and more contextually based than that gathered through such fact-based questions as "How did you handle that situation?" and "What happened next?" Gayle Shaw-Hones, associate director of learning and performance for Global Medical Affairs at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, found she had to add the word "story" to prompts when speaking with highly technical staff. Only with openers such as "Tell me a story about..." was she able to move them beyond bulleted responses.

By evoking employees' personal stories, the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi reinforces and links staff to its core purpose. Every quarter, 20 employees from around the world come together for a full-day session where prompts are used to bring forth inspirational stories-either about how they were inspired by a colleague or work event or about when they inspired somebody at work. Saatchi & Saatchi connects this idea of individual inspiration to the concept of inspiration itself, which is one of its key values.

By finding stories in these ways, you'll forge deeper, more meaningful connections with employees, customers and shareholders, and gain information to help make better decisions. If you're trusted in the organization, you'll be able to take the pulse of the corporate culture and quickly learn which stories are being brought to the surface or kept from view. More important, you'll discover which stories aren't being told at all.

Digging into stories

Every story provides both surface content and deeper meaning. How can this help you? Imagine collecting stories, rather than specific answers, from focus group participants in response to branding questions, and identifying meaningful hidden themes within and across them. Imagine audiotaping employee stories about a process and realizing afterward that they've each provided the knowledge necessary to do the work that has never been described before. Imagine reviewing videotaped stories from organizational leaders and realizing that they collectively pinpoint ways to address long-standing problems.

Hidden below the surface narrative of stories are the assumptions, models, expectations and beliefs that guide people's decisions and behaviors. These elements don't reveal themselves on surveys, and rarely do they come out in response to specific questions. Yet stories about real or imagined situations (such as those that flesh out the vision for a project or the organization) and those that interpret the meaning behind tangible objects or images tend to capture these underlying assumptions.

Consider digging into specific stones or across groups of them to ascertain employee and customer satisfaction levels and unmet needs. You might bring up unknown issues, concerns or problems, as well as tacit knowledge. You may also identify a dominant story narrative, which can help you understand why organizational changes are not working, for example, or how a brand is being perceived in the marketplace.

Selecting the stories

In workshops, I frequently ask business leaders to list the criteria they use to determine what stories to reinforce inside and outside their organizations. Responses include:

* They support our vision, mission, strategy and goals.

* They define and demonstrate our core values.

* They communicate our successes-and our failures.

* They connect us to our history and our legacy.

* They highlight both good and bad customer feedback.

Overall, what these leaders are identifying are stories that characterize the essence of the organization, what it's trying to accomplish and what it values. They're also aware that stories that lurk in the shadows-those that draw attention to problems and failures-need to be acknowledged and given airtime.

Before you select stories, you first have to capture them (with permission, of course, if they are not your own). Collect them in a journal or on note cards (that makes them easy to sort later on). Within the organization, stories may be housed in print or online publications, on audiotapes or videotapes, or on CDs or DVDs.

For example, City Year, a citizen service corps in the U.S., created a booklet of 21 universal stories from around the world that link it to its origins, represent its civic values and engagement strategy, and serve as a foundation for its future work Called Founding Stories, the compilation marks the organization's 15th anniversary and describes its international expansion plans. Another example is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Leadership Legacy initiative; through it, the agency has captured lessons learned and best practices in various environmental areas in one-on-one, professionally facilitated, videotaped interviews with 60 executives who are slated to retire and who have worked over the course of the agency's 35-year history.

Stories captured digitally or electronically should be systematically coded for retrieval. The Kentucky League of Cities, for example, attaches keywords to stories it plans to use internally and with the media that aid in searching a database of several hundred stories.

As you assist your organization with selecting specific stories to reinforce key messages, find ways to help leaders choose them in a deliberate manner. Be open to all the stories that come your way. While some may not be fit for external use, they might have important roles to play with staff.

Crafting stories

Stories have a pattern. They have a beginning that establishes the context and hooks the listener, a middle that showcases the conflict, and an ending that brings resolution to the situation and provides a lesson-a moral or key point.

From a communication perspective, there are several things to consider when crafting stories, whether your own or others'. First, meaning cannot be superimposed on a story. It needs to come from those most closely involved with it. Second, even with this identified meaning, listeners will still draw their own conclusions. To this end, be conscious of both the stated and the unintended consequence meanings associated with the story. Finally, while you always want to be true to the essence of a real story, it's OK to embellish some of the details to make it more memorable in peoples minds and to bring its key point alive-as long as ethical guidelines of truth telling are upheld.

It can be beneficial to have different lengths of the same story to address various audiences. A longer version may be told in a presentation, while a shorter one may fit perfectly within a print publication.

Embodying the stories

Telling a story in person is one way of embodying it. It is, in fact, preferable to video, audio and print due to the power of nonverbal communication and the interaction between the speaker and the listener. But these are not the only means of sharing stones.

For several years at the annual conference of the National Speakers Association, an empty chair was placed in the front row at general sessions. At my first conference, I asked people at my table why the video camera operators panned the empty chair when a main-stage speaker would make a comment and look in its direction. The answer was that the chair was a visual reminder of the organizations founder, Cavett Roberts, who had passed away. I came to learn about his passion and the values he brought to the organization through stories passed on by longtime members.

Symbolism-in the form of an empty chair, photographs, paintings, a skit, relics and other tangible objects-provides a vehicle by which a story can travel and self-perpetuate. You know the power associated with this form of communication. What symbols represent stories in your organization? The shoes worn by the nursing staff? The first check received in payment for services rendered? The first item to roll off an assembly line? Your real challenge becomes finding ways to capitalize on this power in a positive fashion, with employees and customers or clients, and perhaps even shareholders.

Proceeding strategically

While these five practices emerged from the interviews that were conducted, no single organization used all five of them. This leaves a significant opportunity for you and your organization. How can you employ these five practices at a strategic level within your enterprise? How could they be applied to the work processes in your department? How could they be used within a special project that you lead? And what can you do to use them in your own work? The applications for stories are as vast as your imagination.

acknowledgment

The material for this article was taken from Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over: How Organizations Use Stories to Drive Performance (Jossey-Bass, 2006). Used with permission.