STORIES HELP RELATE

Hi,

I must say that this is a unique topic and interesting one too. I am not a great writer, in fact I am lazy in writing hence I wrote a little on the topic although I have some more thoughts on it. My HR and KM background and my love for the subject makes me connected to this topic even more. Here are my thoughts.

1. Looking at the first point of
1. Communication: I think story telling gives a good way of communicating with the audience. The communication is not only with the face of the people but one starts connecting to the PSYCHE of an individual and is directly hitting the sub conscious mind where the impact is more. STORIES HELP RELATE and thus acts as a great communication medium
2. Values : This is a way in which you can give some live cases and in fact nearer to the person more will be the 'connect'. The stories can be from the same organization – this will instill a faith and pride in the system and it can be a generic example i.e. some well known person acting on values, or it can best be near to the person – This is most effective in my opinion but this is difficult to find hence it is better to ask each one of them to bring about stories and examples near to them.
3. Vision: I think this can be treated very nicely with STORIES. The subject so vague and the importance of having a vision is not understood and thus needs a great testimonial and what better than to give some stories. Some good all round stories given in GOOD TO GREAT and other books can talk about this issue much nicely. The concept of BHAG can also be put in place using some good stories and example

As I write this I also gather some more thoughts as to what STORIES do to human mind I think they help to bring the concept near to us and thus also makes us believe that this is in reach hence STORIES HELP US RELATE. We relate the concept to the stories and thus remember that and also we find ourselves close and related to the concept and thus the concept is within reach.

2. The second point of "evaluating the effectiveness of the story in terms of change in human behavior" – I think each story has its uniqueness hence judging the effectiveness of story in terms of change in human behavior will be difficult and useless. Some stories will work for some people and some stories will relate to some people hence we can't gauge the effectiveness of a story.
   

However in order to get the effectiveness of story telling we can actually get the response from people who have been taught using stories and compare with the people who have been taught without stories

We can also try and get the amount the concept was

· remembered,

· believed and

· practiced

after some time interval as a measure of change in human behavior and judge the effectiveness of stories.

Hope this helps.

:)
http://blog.tatainteractive.com/2007/04/learners_are_bu.html

On 4/18/07 10:50 AM, wrote:

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Hi Nitin,

That's an interesting observation.

I was considering looking at the communication or values or vision using storytelling and evaluating the effectiveness of the story in terms of change in human behavior. What do you think of the approach?

On 4/16/07 11:00 PM, Nitin Agarwal wrote:

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Hi,

I have been using this technique on many forums and I can tell that Story telling is one of the most effective ways of passing on a business rule or a learning.

The most important thing about story telling is STORIES HELP RELATE. You can also relate this on the context of how people learn / remember things. We link, we relate the unknown to the known and thus learn new things.

Refer the Theory of Learning taught in psychology.

We can discuss this further.

Question Details:

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Which type of companies use storytelling as a communication tool and how effective is it?

Hello,

I'm doing a research project on 'Storytelling as a change management and human performance improvement tool.'

I'm looking to understand the merits of using stories to communicate strategy and vision internally and understand how the organizations such as Xerox and DHL, who have been successful, do it. So internal case studies would be a great way to start.

Does anyone know if Google uses storytelling, I'm particularly interested in their approach?

I'd appreciate any critical views that build toward my research.

Cheers

Also, if any of your organizations would be interested in participating in this study, do drop me an email at

Cheers