When Sree Sreenivasan was Chief Digital Officer at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, he told a writer for the Huffington Post that the future of all business is about storytelling. It’s telling (pun intended) that the man charged with bringing his venerable institution into the technology-driven 21st century would point to something as old-fashioned as storytelling when envisioning the future of business. Telling, yes, but hardly surprising.

If storytelling isn’t new (it’s not), it has certainly come centerstage in this age of content marketing, the humanization of business, and the drive for differentiation as technology strips away both barriers to entry and points of analog interaction. Stories have always played an important role in changing beliefs and behaviors, and now as just about every organization embarks on a transformation journey (digital or otherwise), it’s more important than ever that leaders employ the right tools to change the beliefs and behaviors of the key stakeholders—customers, partners, employees, shareholders, boards, etc.—throughout their business ecosystem. Storytelling fits the bill.

Transformation is vital to those organizations that want to win in the world of business today. Stories are vital to those who want to win at transformation. Indeed, “Those who tell the stories rule the world.” (a Hopi proverb or Plato quotable, depending on which sources you choose to believe).

Here are just five ways in which stories can play a strategic role in business transformation:

Stories Stick

They answer: What Must I Know?

This is hardly new news for anyone who remembers the now-classic business book Made To Stick or knows that Carnegie Mellon research once proved that stories are not only more memorable than data, but that stories alone are more memorable than stories plus data. Clearly, when a business message is so important that you want recipients (either inside or outside your organization) to remember it and repeat it, it makes sense to put stories to work. And as far as important messages go, the message that you are taking your company on a transformation journey ranks among the most important messages you’re likely to deliver as a leader.

Stories Add Emotional Weight

They answer: Why Should I Care?

While facts can sometimes speak for themselves, even the most hardened business person has an intuitive, emotional side that must be engaged by leaders looking to inspire (key word there) new beliefs and behaviors. Stories that engage the emotions instead of the intellect do a better job of creating buy-in among the very people that carry the weight of responsibility for delivering change at all levels of the business. Or, as author Simon Sinek might say, stories give people their why.

Stories Help Us Make Sense

They answer: What’s In It For Me?

Exponential change and our companies’ efforts to transform to meet new marketplace demands create significant gaps between knowledge and understanding. Artificial intelligence and robotics will automate a significant number of jobs—but what does that mean for me? We are shifting toward a gig economy in which the nature of work is more dynamic than ever before—how will that effect my career? My company is making a shift from product to service, from pipeline to platform, from analog to digital—why is this important and what will it look like? Stories are a powerful way to provide the context people need in order for them to understand not only the methods of change but also the meaning.

Stories Show the Way

They answer: Where Are We Going? How Will We Get There?

Stories—with their basic beginning-middle-end structure—are a highly effective way to bring a transformation journey to life, dramatize the ideal end-state, and highlight all the steps along the way. This is why futurists often use stories to make theoretical scenarios feel plausible, practical, and concrete. Transformation stories ground your stakeholders in the current state, help them envision the future state, and ‘take them with you’ as you navigate the road from one to the other. And they do this in a way that feels more real and more relevant than any data-driven business presentation can.

Stories Are Shared

They answer: What Part Can I Play?

People certainly love to tell stories to others. Memorable stories make the rounds. These things are true, but I’m actually talking about something else too. Done right, strategic stories involve listeners as participants in the plot, are truly shared in the sense that everyone plays a part in advancing the action and feels ownership over the outcomes. By laying out an open and inclusive business narrative, leaders provide others in the organization with an effective model for telling their own stories in support of that narrative.

Tell me, what’s your transformation story? Better yet, don’t tell me. Tell your team and take them on the journey with you.

April 25, 2016