For managers, storytelling has become an indispensable management tool. More and more enterprises realize that "storytelling" can effectively spread corporate culture, enhance corporate cohesion and make corporate values deeply rooted in people's hearts.
Management scientist John. P Kurt once said, "Entrepreneurs who can't tell stories can't manage." Howard gardner, a professor at Harvard University, said: "Storytelling is the simplest and most cohesive tool." Professor Yang Peiting, the editor-in-chief of this journal, put forward the aim of "telling a story and a truth" when 199 1 was founded.
Some people think that managers should talk about the great truth, grand strategy, the most fashionable management theory and the freshest management cases. And those cases that are far away from employees' ideas and incompatible with management practices can only make employees more alienated from managers and more vague and unfamiliar with the company's culture.
When writing management story books such as Management Story and Philosophy and Epiphany of the King, we found that almost all successful entrepreneurs can casually tell one or two touching stories that happened in their own enterprises. Employees are always deeply inspired by these simple and true stories around them. However, entrepreneurs' own management achievements are often reflected in one story after another and become textbooks for spreading corporate culture and spirit.
Story is power! An enterprise with a story can be a successful enterprise; Managers who can tell stories are successful managers.
Talking about "storytelling" with entrepreneurs
"People die of ignorance" and "knowledge is power".
The most effective way to spread humanistic knowledge is to tell stories.
When it comes to entrepreneurs telling stories, we must ask: isn't storytelling a matter for children's mothers and kindergarten teachers? How do business managers learn this pediatrics? Isn't this crazy? -this is the first problem to be solved when talking about "storytelling", and it is also the first level that enterprise leaders need to pass when they make up their minds to learn to manage their enterprises through storytelling. If this understanding does not pass, leaders may not spend time educating and leading employees through stories, and it is impossible to truly master leadership that meets contemporary needs.
"Communication is management" is a universally recognized truth, which emphasizes the importance of communication. The most effective way of communication between people is actually "telling stories" to show their views. "Storytelling" has become the basic way and method of communication and knowledge dissemination between people.
Why do entrepreneurs tell stories?
Why should entrepreneurs be "storytellers"?
First of all, I would like to mention the inscription of the book "The Story and Philosophy of Management" published by Yuan, the predecessor of China's economic management, the first president of China Entrepreneurs Association and the host of drafting the Enterprise Law. He advocated: "entrepreneurs should learn to tell stories and convey their business ideas to employees, so as to achieve the goal of' winning with one heart and one mind'." This sentence brilliantly points out the basic methods for entrepreneurs to manage enterprises in the new era.
International mainstream sociologists generally believe that 2 1 century is the century of professional consultants, the century of spreading knowledge and ideas through storytelling, and the century of "storytellers". Although this kind of foresight is an inferential judgment, everyone is convinced because the facts have been constantly confirmed. If a professor who talks about business management and business operation doesn't spread theoretical knowledge by telling stories, and if a successful entrepreneur can't effectively spread the management concept and development direction of his own business by telling real business stories, it means that he has fallen behind the times, which will inevitably cause a gap between himself and his audience, and then he will fail.
/kloc-taught the mayor's class for 0/3 years. During an investigation in Kunming, my thoughts changed greatly. I deeply realized that compared with other social organizations, China enterprises need to explain the new concept of enterprise management by telling stories, and enterprises urgently need to manage "cases" (telling stories) to train employees. Therefore, business schools now teach by telling stories.
In recent years, this magazine has published many supplements and books about business stories and philosophy, which are very popular with readers. On the day Welch came to China to talk about management, Haier CEO Zhang Ruimin asked me to talk about management. In his speech, he expounded his views on enterprise management through stories he heard and witnessed. He once thought, "I often wonder why the Bible is deeply rooted in the hearts of western countries." By telling stories. "This shows that storytelling is a way to change and deepen people's values and thoughts. Every enterprise wants its employees to believe in their own culture as much as they believe in religion, so every enterprise should write a "corporate bible" for its own culture and ideas.
When I said goodbye, I gave him our newly edited Management Story and Philosophy. On the second day after returning to Beijing, Director Su of Haier Corporate Culture Center and his party arrived late, especially for the "story" ... So half a year later, a best-selling book co-edited by Haier and us was born: Haier's Story and Philosophy.
All the stories described in the book are true stories that happened in Helen. It has not only become an effective tool for Haier to spread corporate culture and train employees, but also a window for them to introduce enterprises to the outside world and establish corporate image, and soon became a communicative reading of Haier's management thought today.
While establishing an external image, vivid stories can also increase the cohesion of internal employees. When employees see that they have become the protagonist in the boss's mouth, the sense of pride must be incomparable with no amount of bonuses; Seeing my colleagues around me become the benchmark of enterprise spirit, I can't help but envy: if only I could become the protagonist of the story! This naturally forms the internal driving force of the enterprise's "up and down concentric".
How entrepreneurs tell stories
After understanding why we tell stories, let's talk about how entrepreneurs tell stories.
When President Chen Jinhua of China Entrepreneurs Association wrote an inscription for Haier's Story and Philosophy, he talked about the "methodology" of concrete storytelling, and he clearly pointed out that "there is philosophy in the story".
Sometimes entrepreneurs don't have to say "I think" and "I think", but only tell the facts and the story itself, thus giving everyone room to think. As the saying goes, "cited but not sent". To be a good storyteller, the most important thing is to make the listener think deeply about the truth in the story. Entrepreneurs tell stories to make employees think: what can I learn from them? Can I do this, or can I avoid the same mistake?
So I often say to my colleagues in magazines: "We run a magazine to tell a story, explain a truth and convey a useful concept and value for management."
My work in Japan also inspired me. They make "picture books" suitable for all ages in Xian Yi by telling stories and matching cartoons, and sell them in buses and subway stations, so that readers can relieve the loneliness of their journey and learn a lot. Based on this idea, in the third year of my publication (1993), I edited a set of cartoons about the business strategies of 100 entrepreneurs in the world, with the first print of 80,000 sets and sold out at one time.
In the book, we don't talk too much about the truth, but present the story to readers, draw it into cartoons, which are vivid and clear at a glance, but contain many profound philosophies. Readers can draw a lot of thoughts from their own experiences and perspectives.
What kind of story should I tell?
Vivid stories can move people, and real stories can convince people. There is a simple reason. Spreading one's own ideas and establishing one's own corporate culture depend on real and touching stories, not dogmatic reasoning. Only by expounding philosophy with "enterprise's own story" can we leave a deeper impression on employees and cadres.
Haier's Story and Philosophy, written for Haier as mentioned above, tells Haier's management experience through real stories that happened in Haier. These stories are more convincing than slogans and figures.
Today's excellent enterprises all know the importance of corporate culture. The culture we talk about usually consists of five parts: first, knowledge; The second is habit; The third is values; The fourth is the system; The fifth is public morality. The core of these five parts is values.
The acceptance of knowledge is determined by the value orientation; Habit is formed after getting used to the existing values; Values are refined and solidified into systems and laws; As for public morality, it is self-management and restraint in public activities and social interaction, and it is also the embodiment of values. It can be seen that the core of corporate culture construction is the continuous refining and optimization of values.
And what does optimization depend on? Rely on business leaders to publicize their own ideas and implement relevant systems. It can be said that corporate culture is also a kind of leadership culture. The process of leadership preaching and implementation is the casting process of corporate culture. This process should not be a feeble reasoning and writing, but a real, vivid and credible story spreading process, so as to achieve the goal of corporate values deeply rooted in people's hearts. At the same time, the true stories in these enterprises can become advertisements to spread corporate values to users, partners, government officials and people from all walks of life.
Therefore, an excellent entrepreneur must be a master storyteller.