Chapter 8. Tell Stories: Gain Longer Shelf Life
Storytelling isn't just for Hollywood anymore. It's slowly become part of successful business cultures. Even the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health now uses storytelling as part of its safety training. Major corporations like Intel, Nestlé, and Samsung apply storytelling techniques for innovation, planning, marketing, and product design.
Organizations are turning to new media to convey their stories in YouTube videos, the leading form of short-subject digital storytelling. Quick stories can inspire, inform, and advocate for change. They can demonstrate quantifiable enhancements and solve problems.
Stories Inspire and Inform
Stories can enhance productivity, reward performance, demonstrate values, capture lessons learned, and preserve corporate heritage to create understanding and change in organizations.
One of the world's richest men is not only a self-made billionaire, he's also a master storyteller. Coincidence, not a chance. Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, ditches dry facts and replaces them with aw-shucks stories.
Why does the greatest investor America has ever produced generate stories? For the same reason that you're learning how be a better conveyor—to create clarity, not confusion. Buffett purposefully chooses to help people understand what he's talking about via plain and simple stories so they'll "get it" and choose to take action. That's knowledge management.
Let's consider a story Buffett shared ...
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