The stories employees and executives tell internally are leading indicators of organizational health and marketplace effectiveness. Ignore them at your own risk!
As a marketer and storyteller, I am glad that storytelling has made a comeback. All great marketing IS storytelling, and it’s the essence of a great brand and content strategy. While marketing tends to focus mostly on external storytelling in the age of new media for good reasons, not enough focus today has been placed on internal storytelling and on how important that is for internal marketing and organizational and cultural leadership.
Why do executives and marketers spend so much more time influencing outsiders than they do on influencing the “insiders” – the people who are tasked with delivering the best customer experience? Who tell stories to the outside world about the heart and soul of a company and what it’s really like? Employees are among an organization’s greatest brand champions. If employees aren’t happy, customers won’t be, either.
As Tony Hsieh can tell you, a company can’t give happiness, inspiration and greatness to the outside world when the culture and tone inside is in shambles. Sooner or later, those internal stories get told outside the company. And in today’s world, new media amplifies everything – good, bad, and really ugly.
What are the stories that employees tell? What stories define your culture?
Continues @ http://www.keepingithuman.com
