4 Reasons why you should build a narrative organization

The Stanford Social Innovation Review has done a nice job showing why the value of narrative in your organization extends well beyond telling stories in your nonprofit marketing materials. Integrating narrative throughout your work has four advantages, according to this article by Thaler Pekar:

Brand: Story makes what you stand for both clear and appealing.  “Stories help to make seemingly indefinable and intangible organizational values and attributes (such as unity and sustainability) concrete and tangible.” 

Engagement: Stories humanize your organization, which is important because people engage with people, not with concepts or organizations.

Smart leadership: Stories build credibility and trust, as well as deepen relationships, start conversations and catalyze action.  “Stories also help smart leaders introduce the meaning of new projects and products. In a narrative organization, leaders are skilled in linking current projects and challenges to the narrative of the organization’s past, present, and future,” note the article.

Knowledge sharing: Stories work well for sharing knowledge and putting useful frameworks around information. They help us grasp data, learn and surface tacit knowledge. They help us make sense of ourselves and what we do.

Via Junta42 content marketing blog, comes this nice visualization of the art of story by Fathom.  I like it as an accompaniment to this posts’s reflections on narrative:

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