Storytelling In Organisations

"Storytelling gets inside the minds of the individuals who collectively make up the organisation and affects how they think, worry, wonder, agonize, and dream about themselves and in the process create - and re-create - their organisation." Stephen Denning, The Springboard, 2001.

We heard a story about Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Before he designed the Clifton suspension bridge, he had himself hauled across the Clifton gorge in a barrel. He experienced the gap for himself before putting his mind to how it might be bridged. With this experience of the gorge, he was able to create the bridge in his imagination. Everything begins in the imagination.

This website is about how the imagination, and especially the art of storytelling, can be at the service of organisations.

We take a broad view of what is an organisation. There are storytellers working in businesses, large and small. In government. In nature centres and garden centres. In prisons. In religious organisations; religious texts abound with stories and parables. Let us know about your work with stories in organisations, and if you are willing we can include it on the site.

Wherever you are on the site, the menu options in the left hand column remain the same. Click on any of these options.

Benefits and Applications sets out the benefits of storytelling in an organisational context and the different ways they are used.

Springboard Stories introduces the concept of a 'springboard story' and gives you examples of how stories 'ignite action' both in organisations and individuals. Please, email us with your own stories, and we will publish them here.

Well chosen Traditional Stories can also be of immense value in communicating ideas. We give you some examples. Please, email us about traditional stories you have used, so we can include this on the page.

The Help Available option tells you of the help which SfS can offer to support your storytelling projects. There are book reviews and also a book list.

The Papers option provides some (hopefully!) light reading about storytelling in an organisational context. If you submit a relevant paper, we will publish it here.

There is information about the SfS Storytelling in Organisations Special Interest Group. You can join.

We have no wish to reproduce what is already available elsewhere; Windows on the World tells you of some important websites about storytelling in organisations.

The final item on the menu connects you to the main Society for Storytelling website.