Storytelling in Organizations: Why Storytelling Is Transforming 21st Century Organizations and Management

This book is the story of how four busy executives, from different backgrounds and different perspectives, were surprised to find themselves converging on the idea of narrative as an extraordinarily valuable lens for understanding and managing organizations in the twenty-first century. The idea that narrative and storytelling could be so powerful a tool in the world of organizations was initially counter-intuitive. But in their own words, John Seely Brown, Steve Denning, Katalina Groh, and Larry Prusak describe how they came to see the power of narrative and storytelling in their own experience working on knowledge management, change management, and innovation strategies in organizations such as Xerox, the World Bank, and IBM.

Storytelling in Organizations lays out for the first time why narrative and storytelling should be part of the mainstream of organizational and management thinking. This case has not been made before. The tone of the book is also unique. The engagingly personal and idiosyncratic tone comes from a set of presentations made at a Smithsonian symposium on storytelling in April 2001. Reading it is as stimulating as spending an evening with Larry Prusak or John Seely Brown. The prose is probing, playful, provocative, insightful and sometime profound. It combines the liveliness and freshness of spoken English with the legibility of a ready-friendly text. Interviews will all the authors done in 2004 add a new dimension to the material, allowing the authors to reflect on their ideas and clarify points or highlight ideas that may have changed or deepened over time.

• Brings together well-known thought leaders on the importance of narrative and storytelling for organizational success
• The book's easy to read, engaging style of storytelling makes you feel part of the conversation
• Only book that includes personal stories and perspectives from Larry Prusak and John Seely Brown

About the Authors

John Seely Brown was the chief scientist of Xerox Corporation and director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Since then he has pursued a variety of interests. He writes and speaks extensively. He serves on the board of directors of several public companies. He is a visiting scholar on digital media and digital culture at USC. He also advises high-tech startups. His personal interests are still related to finding ways to use digital infrastructure to create powerful learning environments and to foster innovation ecologies.

Stephen Denning was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He studied law and psychology at Sydney University and worked as a lawyer in Sydney for several years. He then did a postgraduate degree in law at Oxford University in the U.K.

In 1969, he joined the World Bank, where he held various management positions, including Director of the Southern Africa Department from 1990 to 1994 and Director of the Africa Region from 1994 to 1996. From 1996 to 2000, he was the Program Director, Knowledge Management, at the World Bank, where he spearheaded the organizational knowledge-sharing program.

Since 2000, he has been working with organizations in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia on organizational storytelling and knowledge management.

Katalina Groh was raised in Chicago and studied finance and economics at Northwestern University before becoming a commodities trader at The Chicago Board of Trade. Soon after beginning to work on independent feature films and documentaries, she was hired to help launch New World Entertainment’s educational division, New World Knowledge, where she co-wrote and produced award-winning films.

In 1997, she founded Groh Productions, Inc., which produces and internationally distributes its learning programs, documentaries, animated films, feature films, and live learning experiences. In 2000, she launched a new educational series, Katalina Groh Presents Real People, Real Stories, specifically designed to focus on the power and practice of storytelling and its potential to teach, transform, and inspire. Her film series is now in more than 82 countries.

Laurence Prusak is a researcher and consultant who has taught in several leading universities on the topic of knowledge management. He is also a Distinguished Scholar at Babson College. Prusak is a co-author of What’s the Big Idea? Creating and Capitalizing on the Best Management Thinking (2003—with Thomas Davenport) and In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work (2001—with Donald J. Cohen) and is the editor of Knowledge in Organizations. He has also been published in several journals including the Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review, and California Management Review.