CorpComms Magazine

Telling stories is no longer just for children's bedtimes. Storytelling can be a useful tool in branding your company, motivating staff and creating an image that can draw in would-be customers.

And it's a method used by some of the world's most famous businesses, which have created stories that help identify themselves strongly with the public - and their employees.

Take the tale that Microsoft founder Bill Gates started his business from the family garage. It's a folksy story of the nice chap in questionable jumpers and Harry Potter glasses who created a computer programme for his school. Just imagine how differently the external perception of Microsoft might be if Gates had been a suit-wearing businessman.

On this side of the pond - and on a smaller scale - is the story of Innocent Drinks. Ten years ago, three friends bought £500 of fruit, took a stall at a music festival and sold pure fruit smoothies. They had two dustbins by the stall for customers to dump their empty cups. There was a sign above the bins that read: ‘Should we give up our day jobs to make these smoothies?' Customers answered them by putting their empty cups in either the ‘Yes' bin or the ‘No' bin. By the end of the day, the ‘Yes' bin was overflowing - and that marked the start of Innocent Drinks, which last year had a turnover in excess of £100m.

Once upon a time

There are plenty of other companies which use storytelling to identify their brands. Ben & Jerry's was founded by school friends who hated the gym but liked food and who failed at nine to five jobs and college. But, following a $5 correspondence course, they opened their first ice cream parlour at an old gas station. It's a script good enough for a Hollywood movie.

But while all these stories are true, they did not just arrive in our consciousness by word of mouth. They have been captured - nurtured - by professionals. And more companies are now turning to professional storytellers to help their businesses.

That's what The Storytellers does - and it has figures to prove its approach can help businesses. It has worked with blue chip companies including Lloyds TSB, Parcelforce and Unilever - and for each, a narrative has been created that has helped the business either in particular projects or to boost the brand.

Founder Alison Esse explains: ‘We use storytelling as a way of helping staff make an emotional commitment to their company. It has been proved that employees who engage in the journey of storytelling become more productive and are more likely to stay in their jobs.'

The rationale is that employees are shown the way the company wants to move forward and how they can help that process - by relaying their own personal experiences and becoming part of the story.

So, for example, if a company wanted to change the means of providing a service, it would explain through its story how this would happen - and employees would be encouraged to relate their part in the story. Generally these are going to be positive stories; producing a horror story, for example, would be counterproductive.

Because the workforce come together in making the story, it is seen to be more effective than a middle-manager offering a lecture to staff. ‘It's not about telling staff what to do,' says Esse. ‘It's about harnessing the power of all their ideas through storytelling. It's not death by PowerPoint. We bring together the brand, the values, the vision.'

A story map is created which, through a series of chapters, covers the key messages of the journey that the business is on and highlights how it will get to its destination.

The Storytellers recently worked with the Currys supply chain. They were called in following a round of redundancies that had left staff feeling demotivated. The Storytellers role was to help them understand why the changes had happened and how Currys supply chain was going to move forward - and what they could do to help.

A story map was created which used the theme of superheroes, showing where Currys was now, how it got there and how it wanted to move forward.

Superheroes were used because they made the story colourful, vibrant and accessible to its mainly blue collar workforce. The story map starts as the framework and the story is embellished with tales from the workforce which make it come to life.

A story that soon attached itself to the map was relayed by one of the electrical store's delivery drivers. He was meant to deliver a fridge to a house, but the garden gate was too narrow. Rather than give up and return to the depot, the resourceful driver noticed there was a building site down the road - and asked the crane driver if he would do him a favour and pick the fridge up and drop it over the garden gate. ‘That was a great story,' says Esse. ‘It demonstrated that man would go the extra mile - it was a really positive story'.

Chapter one

But as well as the heartwarming stories, the creation of the narrative that all Currys supply chain staff could share in worked wonders on the figures. Staff turnover fell from 38 per cent to eight per cent while sickness levels fell from eight per cent of the workforce to 4.2 per cent. Productivity rose substantially and while before the story telling started, 33 per cent of the staff said they understood how they could contribute to their company's success that understanding rose to 87 per cent afterwards.

It is the emotional commitment which is important, and that is why it is important to use employees' own stories. A poignant story came up when Pizza Express got involved in storytelling. A manager told how an old man had visited his restaurant every day on the way back from visiting his wife at a hospice. Staff then noticed he hadn't been in for a couple of days, which, they realised, meant his wife had died. So they arranged to send a pizza every day to his home, just to make sure he always had something to eat.

Michael O'Keeffe, better known as Mok, of innovation company ?WhatIf! is a fan of storytelling. He runs the Top Dog programme, which brings together chief executives to meet their peers and share their stories and thus learn from each other's tales. His former role was at the European franchise business of Pizza Hut and KFC - which, with its tale of Colonel Sanders and his closely guarded fried chicken recipe, is a prime example of storytelling.

‘Look at brands like Dyson. The whole image of the company is based around James Dyson as this rather eccentric, very British inventor. And Virgin is seen as a maverick company because that is the personality projected by Sir Richard Branson,' says O'Keefe. ‘Storytelling is a way of getting the consumer, employee and management emotionally involved in the brand. We have too much choice today, so it is more important than ever to make sure your company stands out and you can use stories for that.'

Recently, O'Keefe took a group of chief executives on a trip to visit Shipstead, a regional newspaper group in Norway. Regional newspapers across the world are having a tough time in the current gloomy economic climate, but by using storytelling Shipstead had managed to keep its workforce, management and brand focussed.

‘They'd gone through massive changes but by talking about it together, they'd moved forward. One of the things which really resonated with the group I went with was the theme their story took that Change makes us safe. That is such a strong storyline in these doom and gloom times,' he explains.

Tall tales

Storytelling can also be used to revive ‘zombie' brands that have lost their way - but without losing their heritage. O'Keefe points to an American coffee brand, Brim, which in the 1950s was a decaffeinated instant coffee brand that traded on the slogan Fill it to the rim with Brim.

It has not forgotten the story of its heritage, but has reinvented itself as a vitamin enriched coffee. And another storytelling device is what O'Keefe calls ‘future truths' - the idea of including something in a company story that may not be true today - but if the company relates its happy ending, it will be in the future. ‘It is all about Once upon a time,' he says. ‘No-one responds well to columns of figures but from an early age, we're conditioned to like stories. Somehow, when we get past the age of 14 we stop that. But in today's business environment, it's time to learn to listen and create tales again.'

share me: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Tweet