How
Storytelling Builds Next-Generation Leaders--Reflecting on Story’s Place in our
Lives / The Storytelling Project
This
text mainly talks about the relationship between storytelling and leadership. To
be specific, it draws upon the elements of effective stories told by leaders. The way of storytelling is highly associated with its purpose and
where it is applied to. There are 3 examples in the text:
1. In
the text, the author says that effective stories are context-specific. When
they are applied to leadership, it needs to be linked directly to a company’s strategic
and cultural context. For instance, the vice chairman of Group Management Committee
of RBC Financial Group coaches its senior managers by telling a story, which is
based on the reflection about RBC’s articulated leadership framework.
2. The
author also maintains that effective stories are level-appropriate. Storytelling
is supposed to associate with listeners’ experience. To be specific, a manager
of a small-town clothing store interested in improving operational efficiency
wouldn’t benchmark against Wal-Mart.
3. Effective
stories have drama, which might challenge the storyteller’ ethics or adherences
to the company’s values. For example, in mid-1990s, Continental AG, the world’s
fourth largest tire company, was a domestic powerhouse but a fledgling global
player. Hubertus von Grunberg, the CEO of Continental, set up a leadership team
for selected employers. He told them a story about Continental’s changing place
in an increasingly competitive industry instead of lecturing them on global
business strategy. He added a key element to the story that the company’s
heritage of pride, which gave an underlying message to the future leader that
adhering to the behaviors and mind-set that made Continental great in the past
might be the biggest obstacle to the company’s transformation.
Xiaodan, This is a great text, but it's not a good topic for a research project in literature. These topics are usually the literature itself (books, films, stories, etc.). This text seems to be ABOUT literature.
ReplyDeleteWhat you might do is look at some of the examples this text uses. Are any of these examples books/stories/films? You could focus on one of those texts and leaders/leadership within those stories.