Storytelling that sticks

By Nishwa Ashraf, Editorial Assistant, Melcrum

Looking at a steep uphill climb, Justine pedals on, despite the 40-degree heat burning into her neck. She knows it’ll be worth it in the end. That feeling of pride, the knowledge that she’s making a difference to one person through a sincere gesture. She’s on her way from Melcrum’s Sydney office to hand deliver one of our reports to a customer to save them waiting two days in delivery time and $30 in courier charges.

Or, how about…

Melcrum employees make it their personal responsibility to deliver on what they promise.

Now which version did you prefer?

The first is an anecdote familiar to Melcrum staff both old and new. Encapsulating our organization’s value for going “above and beyond”, it reminds us as employees what we should be doing and why; what’s important to our company and our clients.

The second is a standard description of what it means to go that extra mile. Both examples are valid, but only one is likely to stick out in an employee’s mind.

When change is happening, storytelling can form a critical component of organizational transformation. And although many understand this, it’s curious why change communication is, in most part, delivered closer to the second example.

Next time you’re considering using storytelling as part of your communication strategy, ask yourself three questions:

1. Would you remember it tomorrow?
2. Could you repeat it in six months’ time?

And more importantly…

    3.  Did you understand the core message?

If your planning on using storytelling as part of your internal communication strategy, check out these expert tips on introducing storytelling, on the Internal Comms Hub.

Would storytelling work in your organization? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Comments

[Abiye Opuamah]

Hi Nishwa, great article! I must say that as an aspiring storyteller, I found the article to be quite refreshing and informative. I'm hoping to introduce the concept of storytelling within my department and perhaps extend it to the organisation in the near future. The questions you posed in the article seem quite pertinent and relevant. I'd like to keep in touch around this particular topic and hopefully glean some more information from you in the near future.