As part of our rebranding process over the last few months I have had to review all my white papers. One particular publication I wrote a couple of years ago was on the evolution of organisational change. This looked at how organisations have typically ‘rolled out’ company values over the last 20 to 30 years.

In this white paper I explore how we have moved from communicating values, strategy and vision in the ’80s and ’90s with mouse pads and coffee mugs through to the ’90s and ’00s where roadshows and town hall meetings were all the rage.

Improvements in Organisational Change

As I only wrote the paper two years ago, I expected the review process to be simple with no notable changes. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that there have been some significant improvements to the implementation of organisational change over the last two years. In particular, I have noticed an increase in the number of companies approaching me to train their leaders on how to use stories to communicate their company values and strategy.

An Example of Storytelling in Action

In March, I worked with a company that took this to a new level by investing in 3 full days of training for their entire leadership group. The training commenced with skilling their leaders in storytelling. I then facilitated different types of story harvesting sessions. During these workshops we found personal stories they could use to communicate their company values. These stories demonstrated how their employees were living the values.

Over the three days it was not only pleasing to see the quality of their delivery improve but also the innovative ways they came up with when sharing their stories both internally and externally.

Storytelling Training for Leaders

It gives me great satisfaction to observe the growing number of companies investing in storytelling training for their leaders. This ensures that they can communicate company values more effectively. Not only in a way people understand but in a way that guides decisions and behaviours. Making them truly values in action and not just words on a wall …or mouse pad.

If you are interested in reading the white paper then you can download it here.