Six years ago when we founded our company specialising in storytelling there was no entry in wikipedia for organisational / business storytelling.  So we seized the mantle and put in this definition ‘Business storytelling is storytelling with a business purpose and for business results’. WHOA! While that entry has long since been added to, amended etc, we still find it’s the most practical definition for business storytelling that resonates with our clients. In this post let’s explore the purpose part of the definition.

Do you remember Alice in Wonderland where Alice asks the Cheshire cat “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” and the Cheshire cat replies “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” And Alice “I don’t much care where ” to which the Cheshire cat replied “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”  Unlike Alice, for you to be successful with your business storytelling you have to have a clear purpose in mind.

You as the storyteller have to always be able to answer the million dollar question ‘Why am I telling this story?’  ‘What is the purpose of this story?’  And unless you as the storyteller are able to answer this in a clear and compelling fashion, guess what your stories won’t work.  It’s as simple and as hard as that. 

Here are some examples of purposeful storytelling and in the next post we will look at the results part of this definition.

Only The Real thing will do

Nordstrom’s and a 100% service

Copper head snakes

it’s OK to be out of control sometimes

What do you think?, Please post a comment