Here's how you can harness storytelling to boost creativity at work.

Your strategy is your story. When you have your strategy story clear, it means everyone is on board with the purpose and meaning of your organization's "reason for being", it's "mission", or the value that it's bringing to others and to society. Then you can have confidence that "unleashing" creativity, often associated with chaos and lack of focus, will actually be aligned to achieving your strategic goals. Ensuring everyone is clear on the strategy story is the job of every leader, starting at the top. When you know how your individual story, your team's story, and your organization's story all connect, you can let creativity loose and be sure you will reap the results.

Why we need stories. Part II As humans we need stores to understand ourselves and the world. Stories are the force that drives the organizational behaviour and if the stories are right the organization will develop the necessary skills and behave in the right way. As cutlure definition and nurturing is a key task of any leader in any level, Storytelling is probably the first must-have skill of any good executive. The message so far is that stories are far more than examples or tales, they can mean the difference between the success or failure of an entire organziation. But what makes a good story? How many stories do you need? How do you build them?

One of my favorite exercises to help boost creativity is to encourage people to examine a problem, develop ideas, or brainstorm solutions by inviting them to adopt a different perspective. This could include framing a problem as it would appear in a mystery novel. Thinking about what success looks like by coming up with a newspaper article headline. Approaching a problem from the perspective of a fictional character (Homer Simpson), a sports star (Serena Williams), or a type of character (the comic relief) or using a specific method (e.g. improv). Introducing a fun, hypothetical element can encourage people to let their guard down and give them permission to be outrageous.

Why we need stories, Part III Traits of good stories Instead of answering directly I will talk first about what are for me bad stories, or empty narratives as I call them. Customer First is one that I have seen often. Nothing against customers, from me, but rather against executives that preach this goal but then deploy incentives across the organization that go blatantly agains it. If you do this, no matter how good are the stories you tell in All Hand Calls, your organization will ignore you ;-) So I would say that the first trait of a good, and useful story is to be aligned with behaviour, incentives, and strategy from the very top. Stories made to fool employees are very short-lived and create a pernicious atmosphere.

Why we need stories. Part I Traditional companies foster bureaucracy and centralization, modern ones promote freedom of each team and creativity to solve problems. This makes sense as in the world where we live changes happen more often and our competitors react faster. A culture of creativity and problem-solving is strategically important and stories are the bricks and mortar that build and shape every company culture.

I have used the power of story telling by making the team members sit in a “ Learning Circle” . Then in pairs they think of a high point of experiencing success in the past & recall what enabled it to happen despite all constraints in the organisational environment. The interviewee then becomes the interviewer and the success story is revealed in full detail by the interviewer by saying “ That’s wonderful, Tell me in more details! “ The entire group then shares possible solutions that emerged which they can apply to change things for the better. This process brings out positive energy in the group and they are more likely to adopt some of the ideas as they emerged despite all the possible constraints in their institutional environment!