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This week I discovered two interesting posts about using stories in business. Here they are, along with some comment and book recommendations.

From Beth High at Leadership Challenge: Stories: Seeds for the leader's garden
"Stories help create cultures, and then sustain them. Telling a great story is an art form. As leaders, we rely on stories to inspire and encourage others. But stories also help us define who we are as leaders. The stories we chose to relay help define our individual leadership style."

Wally's Comment: Beth High is interested in using stories as a leadership tool for communicating. A few years back, Annette Simmons wrote a great book on that subject titled The Story Factor. It's the best work I've come across about how and when to use stories to influence behavior.

If you're a leader, you'll do better if you develop your ability to choose relevant stories and tell them well.

From Shop Talk: What in hell do stories have to do with innovation?
"Most business applications of storytelling focus on communicating outward--developing a story that helps communicate the essence or benefits of your product or company. Steve Denning, in his recent book "The Secret Language of Leadership" calls these indirect stories--stories that inspire stories in the mind of the reader or listener. Indirect stories are necessarily incomplete--they are not meant to immerse the listener in an experience (like, say, Harry Potter does). They are meant to create empathy and consensus. What I'm talking about (as are Shawn Callahan & Mark Schenck of Anecdote, Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge and others) is inverting that model."

Wally's Comment: This idea that we relate the stories we hear to things that we know and that stories are an essential way of learning is central in the work of Dr. Roger Schank. My favorite book of his is Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence.

Schank is a cognitive psychologist and artificial intelligence researcher. He began looking at stories with the idea that we can create true artificial intelligence if we can teach computers to think and learn using stories. Along the way Schank has applied what he's learned to the field of education and to improving the way that humans learn.

If you're a leader you'll do better if you develop the consultant's trick of listening to the stories that are told around you. Those stories give you insight into the group and its concerns that no amount of briefing material can match.

Stories are the way that human beings remember and make sense of complex material. We have done that since we first began using language.

In a couple of weeks I'll be giving a speech about an integrated approach to dealing with the Boomer Brain Drain. I can tell you something about how people in the audience will react.

They will write down the statistics and the bullet points. But they will remember the stories. That's because stories are more powerful than statistics and bullet points. They're the most powerful communication tool you have.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

Request your free copy of "Meeting the Challenges of the Boomer Brain Drain: An integrated approach."

Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.

Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.

Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.