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It’s national storytelling week, so we thought we would share an example of how you can use the power of stories in your business. And you never know, it might just stop the big bad wolf from blowing your house down!

You may wonder what storytelling might have to do with the world of work.

Business storytelling is the art of using stories to communicate and connect with employees, customers, suppliers, learners, and anyone else involved with your organisation. The purpose of business stories isn’t entertainment. Rather, they have a specific goal or desired outcome.

Business storytelling could be communicating your own journey and purpose in a memorable way, using an emotionally engaging narrative that captivates your audience.

Another way to use storytelling in business is with well-known stories that people can immediately connect with, such as fairytales. These are powerful because the concepts are already familiar and help you to illustrate your point with little explanation.

Most of us will probably remember the story of the Three Little Pigs, who each built their houses with different materials with varying degrees of success. When the big bad wolf huffs and puffs at your door, would your house be strong enough to remain standing?

This is a great concept for assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses of an idea, project, team or even your whole business.

What are your solid foundations built of stone that you know you can rely on? These are areas of lowest risk.

What areas are built of sticks, that might need further support to stand up to scrutiny? These are areas of medium risk.

What are the weak points made of straw? These are high risk areas in your business that need attention.

It’s all too easy for a reflective meeting to descend into unhelpful huffing and puffing. Framing a discussion with a familiar lens, inspired by a childhood folktale, helps prioritise what problems need to be solved, whilst also celebrating what’s going well.

We hope you have fun with this! It certainly caused some giggles when I introduced this framework with our own team.