Cory Fossum, of Fossum Creative, recently discovered storytelling. Or he thought he did after he created a video about the power of storytelling in marketing. But then:

… you know how when you’re shopping for a car and you suddenly notice every single car on the street? Or when you’re in the market for a new computer and you suddenly pay more attention to what that random girl in the coffee shop is using? Or when Apple releases a new iPhone and suddenly everyone seems to have it but you? (OK, maybe I’m projecting a little.) … it became apparent to me that I was not alone. There were other storytellers out there. Everywhere. Suddenly, everyone that had anything to do with marketing was a storyteller. At some point when I wasn’t looking, “the story” had become the term du-jour of the marketing world. And now that I was looking, it seemed that everyone had become a storyteller.

Those of us who are immersed in story know that the first National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN, in 1973 is often cited as the beginning of the modern movement (see Seth Kahan’s chronology). That means we’re going on 40 years for this “fad.”

The ubiquitousness of storytelling is, in part, a good thing, Fossum notes. After all, his “worldview of connecting through emotion is finally becoming accepted by the marketing community. People are constantly looking for new ways to incorporate storytelling into their marketing message,” he writes.

But Fossum is concerned:

There is a problem in all of this storytelling business. The term itself is running the risk of overexposure. It is on the brink of jargon status and I fear that it will soon need to be placed on a shelf next to other buzzwords. I worry that the title is about to become a marketing cliche. Which would not bode well for a lot of us in this field.

Fossum is talking specifically about storytelling in marketing, but it seems inevitable to me that in business and organizational settings, storytelling as a tool could eventually go the way of Theory X, Theory Y, Total Quality Management, and any number of management approaches.

Kendall Haven, with whom I recently did a Q&A, attributes the faddishness of the current storytelling emphasis to proponents without the proper training or understanding of story:

Few of the people now claiming to be organizational storytellers are pedigreed with detailed backgrounds in, and accredited study of, story architecture or storytelling. Most have emerged from PR and corporate-communications departments. That lack of understanding makes the current bulge of storytelling activity (if there is one) more of a fad than a solid advancement.

Storyteller Sean Buvala expresses a similar viewpoint about a lack of understanding among story fans:

Backlash is to be expected at the moment. Sadly, we have gobs of storybiz philosophers out there right now that can comment eloquently about the “why” of story but few comment well about the “how” of story. What we are left with is a pile of people who are energetic about the concept but have no way to really make it go.

We who cherish storytelling have reason to be concerned. I see some hopeful signs, however, that storytelling as a business/organizational methodology will last, though it will require education and solid principles to flourish:

• It is hard to imagine that a practice as ancient and as fundamental to the way our brains function will fade away.
• Storytelling is an important component in what Steve Denning calls Radical Management.
• I am seeing Peter Guber’s almost-released book, Tell to Win, advertised, promoted, and tweeted everywhere. Perhaps it will become a bestseller, and applied story will become mainstream (or would that be the kiss of death?).
• Lori Silverman and Karen Dietz have long argued for storytelling as a core business competency. To that end, business schools need to teach it — and teach it well, with the sound foundation in psychology, neurobiology, and the other scientific disciplines that Kendall Haven cites. We also need more research both within and outside academia and across disciplines.

Of course, the faddishness of applied storytelling may be specific to the discipline to which it’s applied.