It all started with the disbelieving HR head cocking her eyebrows at the very thought of storytelling session. What! A storytelling session at the company’s annual conference? Isn’t it supposed to be those events where numbers are crunched with not only ambitions but with viciousness to outdo the competitors? Who mooted this idea, anyway?

‘Ah! I get it,’ the smart-aleck among the lot nodded with a Cheshire cat grin. “This is for the second day evening when everyone’s unwinding? So, it’s going to be a few stories to go down with the drinks and the other entertainment acts for us all to unwind? Right,” she said.

Well, right… and, wrong. Conversational scenario like above used to be a norm a few years back as the management worked hard to put the much-awaited annual conference itinerary in place. But it has been replaced with storytelling coming to the first days of the conferences and even having dedicated conferences only for storytelling.

It is not just the conferences that storytelling is restricted to. It’s coming to the offices to stay, with many slowly accepting it as a profession. Let’s look at the various aspects that students can explore to make career in storytelling.

So, what is the role of a storyteller? In simple terms, she or he narrates stories to a section of audience with manifold purposes in mind. Even though the objective could differ from organisation to organisation and from storyteller to storyteller, the storytelling domain can be broadly identified into three major segments: training, communication and simply narrating stories depending on the occasion. Let’s try and understand storytelling — more so, corporate storytelling — in detail.

WHY STORIES?

It’s important to ask this question. What can stories do that can’t be done by other forms? There are many reasons to it, some of which we’ll know from an expert’s opinion. But before that let’s try and figure out from our own experience.

If you try to recall a great lecture from your school or college, you’d invariably stumble upon one where the lecturer gave a powerful example or told a story related to it. That goes for all subjects; from examples in science to case studies in management, it’s the stories that invariably remain in our subconscious, making us understand the concepts better.

Another case for the importance of stories can be understood from the lives of great masters. Be it Jesus, Buddha or any master, all of them used parables and stories to showcase their philosophies.

So, when the most difficult of philosophies can be explained easily with the help of stories, won’t they help understand other principles and theories? This dawning of the use of stories is what most corporates are waking up to.

In her article ‘Corporate Storytelling Perspectives’, Hillary McLellan makes some strong case for stories:

• Stories show us patterns and they help us make connections
• Stories originate in problematic situations and they show a way out of these situations
• We tell stories to eliminate suspects: who did what, when or what caused this technical flameout?

Research has shown how stories have more impact on human brain than most other forms. The exhibits below clearly elucidate the point. There are hidden nuggets in narrative structures that shorter, crisper points can never accomplish. Just a few months ago, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, send a memo to his employees banning PowerPoint presentations during meetings; replacing it with “narrative structure” since he feels it is “so much better than the typical PowerPoint presentation for so many reasons.”

WHERE IS IT APPLIED?

Training: In nine cases out of ten, if you come across a corporate storyteller, she or he would be a trainer. Since corporate training is a great avenue and it’s taken more and more seriously with the day by most corporates, trainers are now branching into different sub categories and fine tuning into micro-level training even in their field of expertise.

So, even in sales training, you seldom see a general sales trainer, but one who specialises in a type of sales. This helps since sales training for those in direct sales will be completely different from those who do institutional sales or through a distribution channel. Even within that comes industry focus. Say, for example, insurance sales and white good direct sales. On the face of it, they look similar since both have direct interaction with the end customer/consumer. But anyone having dabbled in these two will vouch that they can be chalk and cheese in many matters; the need for insurance is completely different from the need for, say, a vacuum cleaner.

Now these training — like the sales training we briefly mentioned above —- can be tricky and cumbersome, especially for young executives, who need to identify with situations/ circumstances and have to be given solutions to solve their problems. That’s where stories come more than just handy.

To begin with stories break the monotony of any training session. Second, it had been found that philosophies and teaching through stories last longer in subconscious mind than simple explanations. Little wonder, more and more corporate trainings are getting interspersed with storytellers, who could be a gap-filler in the larger training session or the trainer herself/ himself.

Corporate Communication: Next in line are corporate communication professionals. This might be confounding at the outset, since they don’t come across as your standard ‘storyteller’ as you would imagine, but more and more brand and communication experts are branding themselves as ‘storytellers’ since they are creating a particular story or a set of stories about their brand.

Plain Storyteller: Finally, we come to someone who simply ‘narrates stories’. Why? Because she or he loves doing that and now since there’s an audience, they can start choosing this as a profession. But before we come to any conclusion, let’s understand a few things about stories, storytelling and then perhaps we’ll understand why corporate storytelling is fast gaining momentum.    

POSSIBLE SUB AVENUES
While stories can be of any hues, what works in corporate storytelling can be broadly classified into four categories.

• Case studies
  This is oft-repeated; that happens in every conference room, in almost every meeting. Since it’s easy to relate, many storytellers take this simple path of narrating case studies from the same industry and/or pertaining to the same issue which is the epicentre of troubleshooting during the conference/ meeting.

• Corporate stories
  There are little broader in perspective and take more macro view than case studies do. Here, different departments of a corporate’s story is analysed and problem understood viz a viz the problems that’s plaguing them.

• General stories related to business
  There are simple business practices that are commonly followed, but are not discussed in either business schools or even in corporate training. This not only gives a fresh perspective, but is extremely relatable to the audience, who might have seen these simple practices being followed by their neighbourhood vegetable vendors and/or the shops they frequent yet have never bothered to think much of it.

• Ancient tales which have takeaways for daily business:
  This segment has gained huge momentum in the recent past, especially in India. A spurt of mythology and history-related stories and their relevance to today’s business environment has opened up a vista of possibilities for storytellers. So, from Mahabharata to Chanakya to Panchatantra act as perfect base to storytelling sessions.

Do you need to be a trained story teller?

There are many institutes providing training courses, which include storytelling as a small part of the larger course, but there are just a few who use storytelling as the main idiom around which the course or courses are based.

Among the few is one in Bangalore called Kathalaya that not only conducts corporate storytelling workshops, but are engaged in training young storytellers to hone their skills. More details are available on their website.

WHERE TO BEGIN WITH?

There are many corporate training companies that conduct such training sessions, though I must strike a note of caution since most of them are single trainer-centric and not a group of trainers.

Another way for anyone who’s pursuing another field as the main line of profession and want to test the waters could be by organizing small storytelling sessions with smaller groups in their own offices by convincing the HR. Once it catches on, it can be taken on a bigger, more professional manner.

A few companies that are engaged in corporate storytelling in India are: Kathalaya, Storywallahs, Storyworks, among others.

You can also check upon the details of some business storytellers online on http://www.indianstorytellingnetwork.org/, which has a list of storytellers and other story experts.

HR PERSPECTIVE

Like mentioned earlier, the current scenario might have only a few opportunities for pure storytelling, but the recognition of story being the epicentre of a company and/or brand is gaining momentum. Sample this ‘requirement’ advertisement for a corporate communication position:

The Corporate Storyteller is a creative person and accomplished writer who can conceptualise content and help put the blocks in place to ensure quality prose for a corporate organisation. The person should be able to understand the company, industry, and the readers’ aspirations and help write content that will tell the story. The candidate needs to have a nose for news, develop key storylines and liaise closely with the client’s communication team, other stakeholders and Yorke Communications to develop the right content. Responsibilities include identifying story opportunities, writing crisp and engaging stories for the company; ensuring that communication flows effectively, attending calls, interviewing executives and developing storylines. Experience: 2-5 years with proven experience as a content writer, media expert or journalist.

FUTURE PERFECT?

The way storytelling is being adopted by various corporates, in the coming years, many companies will even have storytellers for internal communications, more in line with counsellors who can talk to employees and solve their problems through stories that they can narrate.

So, as you saw, stories aren’t mere entertainment. They serve bigger purposes. They can be problem solvers… besides earning you your bread and butter. The noted psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung said this about stories: “The reason for evil in the world is that people are not able to tell their stories.”

Let’s tell stories… all kinds of stories.