Becoming an Effective Mentoring Leader: Proven Strategies for Building Excellence in Your Organization

CHAPTER 8THE STORYTELLING MENTOR

“Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.”

—Robert McAfee Brown

Storytelling at the Workplace: A Brief Introduction

Interest in workplace storytelling, both oral and written, has surged over the past 15 years or so. A large number of books and articles are devoted to the subject and targeted at academics and practitioners. The fact that Reader’s Digest would run a story on storytelling (i.e., Clark, 2007) is a crude but accurate barometer of just how mainstream the practice has become.

We can also gain insight from knowing who is practicing storytelling. Here is a partial list of organizations that are doing so:

• 3M (Shaw, Brown, and Bromiley, 1998)

• Eli Lilly (Harris and Barnes, ...