20 Years of Storytelling

This month marks the 20th anniversary of my decision to leave my corporate leadership role at National Australia Bank and embark on a professional adventure. I wanted to see if I could teach business people how to communicate more effectively by sharing stories.

A lot has happened over the past 20 years and not just with storytelling.

Key Moments

Here are some key moments of 2004.

• Facebook launched
• Desperate Housewives debuted
• Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were still Hollywood’s golden couple
• Donald Trump’s The Apprentice launched
• Green Day released their album American Idiot

Back in 2004, storytelling in business was a new concept. As a result, leaders would constantly question the need for storytelling at all.

When I was brought in to run storytelling training, many clients suggested we call it Communication or Influencing Skills. This was so that their leaders would turn up for the training. I didn’t have a problem with this because storytelling is a communication and influencing skill.

I knew my role way back then was to educate people on the power of storytelling. There were some early pioneers who were also doing this, including Annette Simmons, Steven Denning and Lori Silverman.

The Evolution

Gradually we saw storytelling evolve from,

“Why the hell do we need it?”

to

“How do we get better at it?”

It is now rightly seen as a critical leadership skill, sales technique, change management strategy as well as a better way to communicate and influence.

The Last 20 Years

In the last 20 years, I have worked with approximately 200 companies and trained well over 200,000 professionals in storytelling.

I have been able to spread the word on the power of storytelling through seven published books, plus over 250 podcast, radio and TV appearances. And I am not even going to attempt to estimate how many articles, blogs and posts I have written.

I have worked across most industries and had the opportunity to run my workshops across the world including the UK, US, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, New Zealand and of course throughout Australia.

It would be fair to say it has been quite a ride with some amazing highs such as meeting Barack Obama while running training for the Obama Foundation and some significant lows of keeping the business going through the Global Financial Crisis and then during the height of the COVID pandemic.

It's Not a Fad

Storytelling has evolved so much in business that I hear some people calling it a fad.

It’s not a fad.

As humans we have been sharing stories forever. The business world was just a bit slow to catch on.

I truly believe that in the age of AI, using authentic storytelling to genuinely connect and engage with people is needed now more than ever.

So, if storytelling is a skill you want to invest in, let’s chat about some training for you and your team next year.

If you want to get better at telling stories then check out my free 7-Day Storytelling Starter Kit. You can also find out more about the work I do at gabrielledolan.com or send me an email to set up a time to chat.

Tune in to my new podcast, Keeping it real with Jac & Ral on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music and YouTube.