It’s a great pleasure to present the seventh installment in this series of interviews with some of the gurus of both performance and applied storytelling. This interview is with Gabrielle Dolan. I first encountered Gabrielle through the Australian consulting firm, onethoudandandone, that she runs with her partner, Yamini Naidu, because I quoted the firm in my dissertation. Read more about by going to the links by her photo. I have broken her interview down into five parts, with one to appear each of the next five days.

To learn more about Gabrielle, go to this page, to the right side of the page, and click on the top left circle. It will turn purple and say Gabrielle Dolan when you put your mouse over it. Her photo will then come up, and you can click on her profile.

Q&A with Gabrielle Dolan (Question 1)

Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/narrative? What attracted you to this field? What do you love about it?

A: I initially came into the field of organisational storytelling when my yet-to-be business partner Yamini Naidu showed me a digital story she had created. While everyone else in the class had created a digital story for personal use, she applied the skill for a business issue. At the time I was a senior manager at the National Australia Bank, and I immediately say how it could be applied. I had experienced the day-to-day frustration in the corporate world of trying to get employees engaged and motivated. I also been in too many boring presentations and roadshows that just did not make sense. Both situations are extremely frustrating.

Both Yamini and I realised that the power was not in the technology of a digital story but in the story itself. The more we researched, we discovered the whole field of organisational storytelling that was coming out of the USA, but no one was working specifically in the “organisational storytelling” space in Australia. We spoke to many Australian business leaders and the response was pretty much the same. “I knew that what we were doing was not working but didn’t know what else to do.” Organisational storytelling gives leaders a way to better communicate and engage with their employees. Not being able to do this is extremely time consuming and frustrating for them and their people.

What I really love about organisational storytelling is the sheer excitement and almost relief from leaders that now have a tangible way to better communicate and engage with their people. And when we hear the successes some of our clients have had with story when every other attempt has failed….that is priceless.