The ability to tell a convincing story about your company's purpose and the social good you generate is essential to recruiting the next generation of top talent to your organisation
Storytelling is a crucial skill that leaders use in a variety of business situations. Accomplished leaders employ storytelling to improve interpersonal relationships, communicate strategy and build culture. From an operations perspective, storytelling is a skill that empowers leaders to create common ground among teams, unleash the drive and passion of their people and share a vision for the future.
Likewise, storytelling plays a vital role in engaging external stakeholders. To raise capital and acquire investors, you need to tell a compelling story about how your company will create value and why your strategy will be a winning one. If you want the media and other influencers to spread positive news about your products and services, you must articulate a story detailing the unique benefits you provide. The ability to tell a convincing story about your company’s purpose and the social good you generate is essential to recruiting the next generation of top talent to your organization.
How to create engaging stories? Consider the following tactics:
Your purpose should determine your content. First, define the impact you seek by telling your story. Then share an early draft with a friend or colleague. Their feedback will help you decide if your account provides too much detail or too little. Did your main message come through to your listener? Which part of your story had the most significant cognitive or emotional impact? You may learn that rearranging or removing story elements will improve understanding or enhance the emotional impact.
Stanford Business School’s JD Schramm asserts that “every good story charts a change — even a subtle one — in the conditions, attitudes, actions or feelings of the characters.â€1 Typically, the more details you provide to describe the change experienced by your story’s protagonist, the wider the window you create for your listener to connect with your story.
[This article has been reproduced with permission from University Of Virginia's Darden School Of Business. This piece originally appeared on Darden Ideas to Action.]