Blog

Jesse Jacoby shares a post that illustrates the importance of story, and why the corporate story is the key to engaging employees.

We all love a good story, whether our preference is for fiction or nonfiction.

It doesn’t matter if you’re reading a book, watching a movie, or listening to the news, expanding your mind watching a TEDx talk or listening to a podcast. All these media use stories to communicate their messages.

Why?

One reason is because it makes the message more interesting. We may miss the importance of a fact if the information is presented in a boring way; but when it is woven into a story, it can reveal a message that we otherwise would have missed.

 The best storytellers make us feel that we are part of narrative. They make us laugh because of the circumstances or cry by getting us to experience the emotion that the characters do.

And it doesn’t matter if the characters are portrayed as human beings or animals, as George Orwell’s Animal Farm so aptly illustrates. Kids as well as adults identify with them because they recognize something of themselves in them, and often they desire to become more like them.

Another reason stories are told is because people will often take action as a result. It is why the authors of many non-fiction books create personas. They want their readers to be able to easily identify and personalize the principles that they describe.

Key points in this article include:

• The power of ‘why’
• Motivating behaviour
• Organizational stories

Read the full article, Why Stories Matter to Your Organization, on EmergentConsultants.com.