See Gabrielle’s photo, links to her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A.
See Part 2 of this Q&A.
See Part 3 of this Q&A.
See Part 4 of this Q&A.
Q&A with Gabrielle Dolan (Question 5):
Q: An article that quotes your partner notes that your consultancy “help[s] embed storytelling into an organisation’s culture.” Can you talk briefly about you accomplish that embedding with clients?
A: We normally work with clients on two levels. Firstly we normally skill the leaders in organisational storytelling through workshops and then help them embed this skill. What we mean by that is finding ways that they can continually find and share stories and apply their new skill of not only storytelling but story listening.
This may be as simple as at the start of each team meeting asking everyone to share a good customer service experience and then ensuring that the very good ones are communicated broader. Also, actively going out and listening to customers, their team and other stakeholders. We also work with clients to show them how they can start to use stories in their formal communications such as newsletters, websites and annual reports. Turning case studies into stories is another example. Some have even developed a technical database that is used to collect and share stories. Sometimes it is working with them so that their next leadership forum or conference is all designed with the underpinning methodology of storytelling so more knowledge is shared. Working with the learning and development people to ensure training is more engaging via stories is another good example. Believe it or not, we have helped take compliance training from boring to brilliant.
How businesses are starting to use story is amazing and innovative and we learn just as much off our clients as they do off us, which is the really exciting bit.