The Leadership Sphere

A Good Way to Change a Corporate Culture

"I'd like to talk to you about a big project," the woman told me on the phone. "We need to change our culture."

She was a senior leader in a professional services firm, where people really are their most important asset. Only it turns out the people weren't so happy. Theirs was a very successful firm with high revenues, great clients, and hard working employees. But employee satisfaction was abysmally low and turnover rates were staggeringly high. Employees were performing, they just weren't staying. 

This firm had developed a reputation for being a terrible place to work. When I met with the head of the firm, he illustrated the problem with a personal example. Just recently, he told me, a client meeting had been scheduled on the day one of his employees was getting married. "I told her she needed to be there. That the meeting was early enough and she could still get to her wedding on time."

Stories, Storytelling, Story-Selling in Business

At this moment in our nations history, we are seeing two epic stories evolving in terms of our new President, and in the state of our economy.

The story of Obama many believe is epic, and certainly the story of our nation’s recession and economic downfall is also a burgeoning epic tale.  Stories move societies forward. They inspire, engage and initiate change through their telling and re-telling.

Basically, there are two types of stories: Truth Stories and True Stories.  The first type, Truth Stories, are those that convey timeless messages and universal truths. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were the first Truth Stories. These are the epic stories recounting the Trojan War and the journey of Ulysses. They were stories about heroes and their roles in epic events.