How do you use the Five Critical Organizational stories

Use storytelling to make your organization better, stronger, faster.

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Thinkstory is the sole proprietorship of Laura Packer with assistance from other consultants with varied expertise.

Laura Packer is a world-renowned storyteller and trainer. She has won numerous awards for her performances, leadership and work with organizations, including the National Storytelling Network’s Oracle Award for Service and Leadership.

Laura has worked with technical organizations, non-profits, for-profits, advocacy groups, educational organizations, governmental organizations and more. In the course of this work, Laura has helped individual stakeholders become more confident and better team members, teams break out of ruts and solve problems, and organizations articulate their mission. Laura continues to perform ground breaking stories around the world, teaches young, old, professional and newcomers alive, and passionately believes that organizations and people have stories to tell.

Forward

Identifying and using the five critical organizational stories

If you were to ask anyone working at 1960s NASA why they were there, they all would tell you that they were there to put an American on the moon. It didn’t matter if you asked an engineer, a secretary, a janitor or a program director, they would all give you the same answer. What’s more, they would be able to tell you how their role mattered to the organization and why the mission mattered to them. They could even give you a pretty good status update.

Every organization needs to know where it came from, where it’s going, what it’s doing, why it matters and why each individual is invested in it. Whether your organization is a non-profit, a startup or an established firm with decades of history, you need to know your stories and how to tell them to different audiences.

History/Foundation: How the organization was formed; what problems were you originally solving; who were the founders.
Mission, vision and values in action: Specific examples of your mission, vision and values. Times when the organization did what it said it would do.
People and results, success and failure: Stories of individuals solving problems and exemplifying all that is best in the organization; stories of organizational success, the proof that you can do what you say; stories of organizational failure and how you learned/changed/grew.
Personal commitment: Why are you, the storyteller, with the organization. Why does it matter to you.
Manifesto: The future. Where is this organization going and why should anyone care?

Want to learn more? Check out the thinkstory blog for details on each kind of story, where to find it and what to do with it. To learn more about organizational storytelling and what thinkstory can do for you, go to our website. And if you want to talk about your organizational storytelling needs, please don’t hesitate to contact us.