What are the potential benefits of storytelling?

Communicate quickly: Storytelling communicates ideas holistically. As a result, listeners can get complicated ideas not laboriously, dimension by dimension, but all at once with a new gestalt, which is transferred with a snap. Communicate naturally: Storytelling is our native language which we know how to do at the age of two. Abstract language by contrast is something that we learn at the age of eight or later and becomes a kind of foreign language that we rarely feel as comfortable in as our native language, storytelling. Communicate clearly: By drawing on this natural age-old method of communication, storytelling helps us make sense of a chaotic world by connecting us with time and space and human purpose of a sequence of events so as to make sense. Communicate truthfully: Stories can communicate deep holistic truths, while abstract language tends to slice off fragments. Communicate collaboratively: In abstract discussions, ideas come at us like missiles, invading our space and directing us to adopt a mental framework established by another being, and our options boil down to accepting or rejecting it, with all the baggage of yes-no winner-loser confrontations. Narrative by contrast comes at us collaboratively inviting us gently to follow the story arm-in-arm with the listener. It is more like a dance than a battle. Communicate persuasively: When the listener follows a story, there is the possibility of getting the listener to invent a parallel story in the listeners own environment. Since we all love our own babies, the story so co-created becomes our own, and something we love and are prepared to fight for. Communicate accurately: Before the advent of instant global communications, there was les awareness of the context in which knowledge arises. When communications were among people from the same village, or district, or city, one could often assume that the context was the same. With global communications, the assumption of similar context becomes obviously and frequently just plain wrong. Storytelling provides the context in which knowledge arises, and hence becomes the normal vehicle for accurate knowledge transfer. Communicate intuitively: We know more than we realize. The role of tacit knowledge has become a major preoccupation because it is often the tacit knowledge that is most valuable. Yet if we do not know it, how can we communicate it? Storytelling provides an answer since by telling a story with feeling, we are able to communicate more than we explicitly know. Our body takes over and does it for us, without consciousness. Thus although we know more than we can tell, we can, through storytelling, tell more than we (explicitly) know. Communicate entertainingly: Abstract communications are dull and dry because they are not populated with people but with things. As living beings we are attracted to what is living, and repelled by inert things such as concepts. Stories enliven and entertain. Communicate movingly so as to get action: Storytelling doesnt just close the knowing-doing gap. It eliminates the gap by stimulating the listener to co-create the idea. In the process of co-creation, the listener starts the process of implementation in such a way that there is no gap. Communicate feelingly: For all the talk about emotional intelligence, explicit talk about feelings can be cloying. Storytelling enables discussion of emotions in culturally acceptable and elegant way.

Communicate interactively: Unlike abstract talk, storytelling is inherently interactive. The storyteller sparks the story that the listeners co-create in their own minds.

:Rehearsing The Future

Introduction: People have told and listened to stories for as long as we have lived together in groups. Stories fit the way the brain works so well, they have always been .used to teach the fundamental truths of the community, and to pass on wisdom .They are entertaining and create cohesion among people They told us who we are, and how we are different from others. How were special our shared values, our shared purposes. As people shared these ideas together they .developed a powerful collective identity .A collection of individuals became transformed into a cohesive group, an Us Since were capable of imagining events that havent occurred yet, stories are also a vehicle for rehearsing the future and becoming prepared ahead of time for an .eventuality. For example, we teach our children what to do in case of a fire By telling stories, we enact how to handle such events. Stories also enable us to prepare people to respond to our leadership in times of stress, without having to waste .precious time convincing them of the wisdom of our choices In a situation in which the group as a whole may need to pull a rope to be successful, not having to convince people that pulling, rather than pushing the rope, is the better .strategy may make a lot of difference to the groups survival In a sense, when a group of people listens to the same stories over time, they develop a shared memory of the future. They know how to behave in such an event because, .through the use of stories, we have mentally rehearsed what to do In this sense, stories can give people guidelines for how to work together and how .not to Stories also serve to help people understand events from a big picture perspective, instead of seeing events only from their own intimate perspective. The storyteller can .help a person get a birds eye overview of an event or set of circumstances Stories can help people to relate their own predicaments to the perspective of the .enterprise Stories can be used to achieve these same outcomes in the business world, as well. .They tell your employees who you are as a group, and how you differ from others They communicate your business idea, from the game plan perspective of how we function as a team, and why, to the perspective of your brand promise---what you .offer, and how that makes you different from your competition

People come to know and expect the integrity of your business idea, and trust that .your decisions are made within a well though out context Then, in times when you are forced by circumstances to make decisions that may not be obviously aligned with your business idea, your history of integrity, which has been communicated through your stories, can help your people to accept the unusual .without undue resistance In times of crisis, having been prepared by your stories, they will be primed to follow your leadership without question. Stories can help customers, partners, and allies, as well as your own workforce, to connect with your vision and understand your .purpose If you look at the things that stories can do for people, youll find that they are .perfectly aligned with what it takes to develop the warrior spirit (link) within yourself Stories are the perfect tool for building these critical components into the heart of .your company, too This is why this learning system is peppered with stories from Main Street. Stories help you envision yourself in the situations described throughout this work. They help .you develop memories of the future, preparing you for whats to come

:Telling Stories
Its amazing the number of stories that family business people have to tell about their business adventures. Their stories run the gamut of human experience. Talk with family business people and you can always count on hearing great stories laugh .together, scratch your heads, or cluck in awe at some of the things youll hear Its equally amazing how little storytelling occurs on a day-to-day level in family businesses. People are told what to do, are informed of plans or priorities, are taught in off-sites, but seldom through the vehicle of your mental library of the stories .unique to your particular experience in your particular business

:Everyones A Storyteller
All people tell stories. They tell them everyday. They often think in terms of stories. Our daydreams are often snatches of stories, if not complete stories, of what wed like to have happen. How good you are at storytelling has a lot to do with how much .interest you have in doing it well Like everything else, you wont be a good storyteller until you begin to see yourself as a storyteller. After that, it depends on the time and effort you commit to learning how to do it well. You can use your stories to create the future you want for yourself,

.your people and your enterprise