Circle of the 9 Muses

Book excerpt: The action-based guide to powerful, influential organizationalstorytelling Circle of the 9 Muses captures the best practices of theworld's most influential story consultants and knowledge workers tohelp you find, tell, and draw value from your organizationalstories as impetus for action. This rich toolbox is loaded withfun, graphical instructions and dozens of unique, replicable, andfacilitated processes that require no special training orexpertise. You'll discover your organization's hidden narrativeassets, use different templates and frameworks to tell the storiesof your past, present, and future and then draw team members intorich meaning-making dialogue that translates into action. Theseactivities can be exercised in endless permutations, and expertadvice steers you toward the right activity for a specific purpose,including managing change, setting strategy, onboarding, definingthe brand, engaging supporters or customers, merging cultures,building trust, and much more. Organizational storytelling is a powerful managerial tool and anessential change management technique. This is about your influenceas a leader. Knowing the right story to tell and how to deliver iteffectively gives you and your organization enormous influence, andhelps connect employees to strategy by providing understanding,belief, and motivation in their personal contribution. This book isthe ultimate field guide to becoming an influential storyteller,with concrete, actionable guidance toward all the storytellingfundamentals. Identify your organization's "narrative assets" Craft an elegant, well-constructed organizational story Capture, bank, and share stories with extraordinaryengagement Facilitate a dialogue to draw out meaning and inducechange The growing interest surrounding organizational storytelling hasmany change agents focused on "trying to tell better stories," butgoals are useless without a plan of action. Circle of the 9Muses helps you weave narrative wisdom into organizationaldevelopment activities, engaging employees and driving change.