Tell Me a Story: Storytelling Strategies for Organizational Capacity
Building
Workbook Manual
Leadership Paradigms, Inc.
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Email: info@leadershipparadigms.com
Website: www.leadershipparadigms.com
© Copyright 2006
© Copyright 2006 – Leadership Paradigms, Inc. – www.leadershipparadigms.com
Identifying your Personal Stories
Think about your first day with your current organization or one you worked for in the past. Typically
your boss or a co-worker gave you an orientation to the company, its mission, its programs and services.
Most likely you met your co-workers and got a tour of office facilities. Perhaps you met and talked with
co-workers to get a sense of how your job related to their work. Maybe you spent time reading company
materials, reviewing your department files, or talking with your supervisor about the details of your job
responsibilities. Perhaps you had lunch with other staff members and were told about some parts of the
organization such as, “Jane Doe should be fired but is still working here,” “The CEO has control issues,”
or “the fax machine breaks down three times a day.” Whatever you did in those first hours or days of
orientation and training, you created an image of how you would fit into the company. In that moment,
you’ve told yourself a story of how you would work with the company and how it would work with you.
This moment is so powerful that it will shape your experiences, including your thoughts, actions,
behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes for the rest of your time with the company. If you lead an organization,
department, or employees you have the ability to shape how others will see the organization and their
relationship to you. This is why it is important that you recognize your own stories, how you come to
create them, and how you use them to help you make sense of your work and your relationship to others.
The following reflection exercise will help you to understand how you tell stories to yourself and to
others. The objective is to gain a deeper understanding of your storytelling techniques.
Exercise 2: Tell Me Your Story
Think of a story you recently told to someone. Maybe it was a story about the car that tailgated you, or a
story about a family member’s 80th birthday party, or the boss that continues to belittle your work, or the
pile of projects that keep piling up on your office desk. Take a few minutes to reflect on how you told this
story. See yourself telling this story and note the details of the situation. In your reflection, answer the
following questions and write your responses down in the space provided.
1. When you told your story what emotions were you feeling at that time?
2. Did you make any facial expressions when telling your story? If so, what expressions did you make
and how did that impact your storytelling?
3. List five adjectives that would describe your tone of voice when you told your story. Then write how
you think this may have added to the essence of the story.
© Copyright 2006 – Leadership Paradigms, Inc. – www.leadershipparadigms.com
4. Did you use lots of descriptions, details, or anecdotes in your story? Why or why not?
5. Was your story short or long? Did you keep telling your story even though the story needed to end?
6. How did you begin your story and how did you end the story? What was the purpose of the story?
7. How did the person you told the story to respond to you? Note any facial expressions, body language,
non-verbal cues, or verbal responses of the person.
8. Would you describe your story as memorable? Would the person you told it to say the same thing?
After completing this exercise, would you tell stories differently? What would you pay attention to or
emphasize more of in your stories? This exercise is a great way for you to assess some of the key aspects
of storytelling such as: voice, body language, descriptions and timing.
© Copyright 2006 – Leadership Paradigms, Inc. – www.leadershipparadigms.com
Storytelling as Socializing
Storytelling is a wonderful way to socialize members into your organization and to get them to abide by
cultural norms and values. This technique is especially helpful to guide new organizational members to
understand company values and beliefs. New employees will have assumptions about what to expect in
their first day(s) on the job. They often create their own realities, through their own stories, of what the
organization is to them based on behavior, actions, and attitudes seen, heard, or felt during this initial
phase.
For current employees, storytelling emphasizes the important aspects of an organization that you want
them to value and demonstrate in their work. Perhaps these aspects have been missing and by using
storytelling techniques, you automatically bring people together by creating and sharing a common story.
As leaders, it’s important to cultivate stories that have meaning for employees and to guide members back
to core values of the organization. For example, a principal of an elementary school may tell the story of a
student who emulates her teacher in order to reveal how much impact teachers have on children. An
executive director of a non-profit will tell a story of the organization’s founder by describing the
founder’s personality, character, and vision to motivate current employees in their work. The choice of
the stories, the characters they choose, the timing of the story, and the details they emphasize will create
memorable stories that stay within the minds of organizational members. By doing this, leaders create
organizational stories that can and will be passed on throughout the life cycle of their organizations.
Exercise 3: Socializing Employees through Storytelling
The exercise below will help you to create shared stories for your company. The objective is to create
positive organizational stories that will bring members back to the core values and principles of your
organization.
1. Select your core value. Choose one core value of your organization that you feel organizational
members need to understand or demonstrate. You will tell a story to organizational members using this
core value as the “theme” or foundation. For example, if one of your core values is unity and your staff is
having problems with working together, you want to tell a story that illustrates unity.
2. Choose a character. Think about the best character (fictional or real) that illustrates your core value.
Organizational members must feel something for this character. They need to have a connection to or feel
that this character has something to offer them. Describe this character’s personality, their hopes and
dreams, anything that will help members to relate to the character. For example, in a high school football
game, a coach might use an example of a physically disabled player that scored the winning point for the
team. Don’t be afraid to create a hero out of your character. Create a character that emulates the value(s)
you want your members to embrace.
3. Describe the plot. How will you set up your character? Think about a situation with your character that
best illustrates the concept of the value you want to talk about. For example, if your core value is spirit
and faith maybe your character is an orphaned child that lived in the depression era, and as she grew
older she helped build a national organization that provides food to the hungry. You can tell this story by
illustrating aspects of spirit and faith that your character has. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned from
your story. If so, weave it into your plot.
4. Choose a time, place, and audience for your story. Storytelling is an art. This art form requires a
delicate balance of time, place, and audience. You need to know the best time to tell your story, where
© Copyright 2006 – Leadership Paradigms, Inc. – www.leadershipparadigms.com
you will tell it, and who will be listening. Ask yourself the following: Where will this story take place?
When will I tell the story? Who will listen to this story? Don’t plan on telling your story if only half the
people you want to hear it will be absent. Also, create a space that is appropriate for the story you want to
tell even if that means carving time outside of work hours to tell your story.
5. Write your story down and rehearse your story often. It’s always good to write your story down
and memorize the parts of your story. Tell your story to others before telling it to the group you want to
share it with. This will help you to refine your story. Maybe you will find that you need to add more
emphasis in one area and less in another. Perhaps your story makes no sense at all and doesn’t convey the
message you want to share. This is the time to revisit, revise, and recreate it so that it will create the
impact you want when you share it with your audience.
6. This is your story. Remember, this story is yours. You’ve created this story because there is a need for
it in your work and your organization. Your story has a value. Your story will shape your organizational
culture. Create a story that you and your organization can be proud of. Don’t be afraid to bring your own
personality into the story. Stories are be powerful because of the storyteller. Own your story.
© Copyright 2006 – Leadership Paradigms, Inc. – www.leadershipparadigms.com