Stories are powerful ways to communicate important information about any organization. Too often organizational leaders believe that quantitative, concrete descriptions of an organization are the best way to characterize the enterprise. Concrete date are extremely useful for planning and decision-making, but stories rich in metaphor and meaning are perhaps a more powerful way to tell people about the company and its business. Author Frederick Buechner said, "…storytelling is itself immensely important. Storytelling matters because it is a story … which stands at the heart of our faith and which more perhaps than any other form of discourse speaks to our hearts and illumines our stories."

Stories, when told with adequate forethought and flair, can educate, inform, motivate, and inspire people. They have high value in an increasingly technological and impersonal world. We may have a lot of communication hardware at our disposal, but whether we can communicate ideas with others as well as in decades past is an open question. Telling stories to heighten people's interest is as old a communication device as man ever invented. Visualize early man, huddled around a fire in a cave, absorbing the nuanced wisdom from a story-telling leader.

Storytelling works because people learn from the story itself. But more realistically, it is because the listeners can relate it to their own stories (incidents, events, and experiences). They thus personalize the message and internalize its significance. The storyteller's aim, then, is to help listeners reflect on and apply meaning to their own life events.

My company informs organizational leaders in the art and skill of storytelling. This information is provided through seminars, workshops, and executive coaching. Your employees deserve to receive the rich stories that have made your organization what it is today - both the successes and the failures. Don't you agree?

Storytelling enjoys a rich heritage in our culture. Please extend that heritage by sharing some or all of your story with me. You will help me better understand my own story.

If you would like to share part of your journey with me by telling your story, you may do so by filling in the box below. Click the SEND button when you are finished to send me your story. If you would like me to be in touch with you, please provide your contact information.

You may also send me a hard copy of your story by mailing it to:

   Ed Poole
   Lessons for Your Journey, Inc.
   1095 E. King Street
   Suite 9
   Boone, NC 28607

Organizations also have stories to tell. We need to create opportunities that allow the members of the organization to tell its story. The same two questions posed above apply to organizations as well as individuals. As organizations share their stories, they help insure the corporate culture is passed along from one generation of employees to the next.

Employees need to know the history of the organization, and one of the best ways to share this important history is by telling stories. There are organizational applications for each of my twenty-two lessons, and I have created workshop/seminar formats to introduce you and your company to those applications. I will also custom design workshops and seminars to meet the specific needs of your organization.

If you would like to speak with me about these workshops or seminars for your company, please fill in the form below and click the SEND button when you are finished. Don't forget to tell me how to contact you.