The Organizational Network Fieldbook: Best Practices, Techniques, and Exercises to Drive Organizational Innovation and Performance

9.4. Where to Start

As leaders grapple with increasingly complex business and organizational issues—and the change initiatives that ensue—the need for clear, compelling, energizing communication has become urgent. That is why storytelling—with its emphasis on simple, inspiring accounts—is now a mainstream business management practice. We have seen organizations institute narrative training workshops first with the CEO and the senior leadership team and then with the rest of the organization. We have seen other organizations take a more targeted approach, selecting for such workshops only the people involved with an intractable, high-stakes business challenge. The approach we've presented here is somewhere in between. By using the insights that ...