- Quick, holistic communications: Stories communicate ideas holistically. As a result, listeners can quickly understand and acquire complicated ideas.
- Natural Communications: We all learn about the world through stories. Whatever it is we know has either been communicated to us via a story or it is encompassed in a story that we have created. We learn story as soon as we acquire language; and we actually think and feel in stories.
- Persuasive, action-oriented Communication that changes minds: After listening to a story, the listener is compelled to invent a parallel story appropriate for their environment. The result is a story that is ‘owned’ by the listener who is stimulated to co-create and ‘own’ key ideas and associated attitudes. A good story – as long as it is well and consistently told – has the power to change attitudes, perceptions and ultimately expectations and behaviours.
- Clear Communication: Storytelling helps us make sense of a chaotic world by collapsing time, space and a sequence of events that make sense.
- Entertaining, Interactive, Collaborative Communication: Stories enliven and entertain by inviting us to both physically and emotionally participate in the story. This is in stark contrast to abstract communications. Powerpoint slides and lists are dull because they are populated with things and ‘text blobs’ rather than people. Communication through bullet points has the disadvantage of painting the world in terms of linear cause-effect relationships rather than a complex, living dynamic which is more like what the world actually is. Storytelling is both entertaining and interactive because listeners co-create in their own minds.
- Focused Communication: Storytelling creates the context within which knowledge arises, and hence it is the fastest, most accurate means for knowledge creation and sharing.
- Expanded Emotional Communication:. Tacit knowledge is incredibly valuable for organisations. By telling a story with feeling, we communicate more than we explicitly know. While we know much more than we can tell, storytelling communicates more than we explicitly know. Storytelling also enables the discussion of emotions in culturally acceptable ways and is useful in indirectly talking about feelings that many listeners might find embarrassing or not have the appropriate language for.
Read more about Organizational Storytelling https://storytelling.co.za/about-organisational-stories/
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