Storytelling for Business Leaders
Storytelling is a powerful approach for leadership, innovation, and design thinking. Sharing stories can be a “superpower” that can help you to have a more positive impact in your work with others. Storytelling can help you to share a vision or connect with others on a more purposeful or emotional level which leads to understanding why we do what we do. In an era of accelerating change, storytelling has become a popular approach to make and share meaning.We customize our story training workshop programs but typically offer three ways to hone your storytelling skills as part of a group:
- A live leadership or storytelling-for-business training workshop held at your site.
- A live virtual storytelling training workshop held over Zoom, Teams, etc.
- A pre-recorded online course on storytelling for facilitators, innovators and leaders that can be done asynchronously. People can do this either individually or licensed for a group from your organization.
Please contact us to learn more about how a storytelling training might be customized for your needs.
Corporate Storytelling Training for Leaders and Teams
Our corporate storytelling training is built for the moments when a message has to land: a leadership summit, a team offsite, a conference session, a strategy kickoff, or a change the organization needs people to believe in. Rather than a lecture about storytelling, participants spend the session finding, building, and telling their own stories, then leave with material they can use the next day.
Who it is for: executives and leadership teams, managers and team leads, innovation and product teams pitching new ideas, sales and client-facing teams, and learning and development groups who want storytelling inside a larger leadership program.
What participants leave with:
- At least one story they have already told out loud and improved with feedback
- A simple story structure, our Challenge, Idea, Action model, they can reuse for updates, pitches, and presentations
- The Story Toolkit worksheets to build their next story on their own
Bring storytelling training to your team
Storytelling Workshops Designed for Your Purpose
We design each storytelling workshop around the kind of story your group needs to find, develop, and tell. The core process stays the same (find story ideas, storyboard them, tell them, and improve them with feedback), while the prompts, examples, and Story Toolkit worksheets are tailored to the purpose. A few focuses we design for often:
- Transformation and change stories: leaders and teams look back at turning points in how their work has changed and tell the story of where they are headed next. See our storytelling for transformation workshop.
- Project and innovation pitch stories: teams turn a project or new idea into a story that earns support, using our Challenge, Idea, Action model.
- Leadership journey stories: emerging and experienced leaders find and tell the story of why they lead and what shaped them.
- Gratitude stories: groups reflect on the people who changed their lives and share those stories in gratitude workshops and retreats.
We can also teach the storytelling model that fits your group best, from Challenge, Idea, Action to Context, Action, Result, the Hero’s Journey, or a classic three-act structure.
From participants in a recent storytelling for transformation workshop:
“Can be simple, not intimidating to try.”
“Sharing our stories = increased empathy and awareness.”
“More stories = more impact.”
“Think big, start small.”
Tell us the story your group needs to tell
Business Storytelling Workshop Options
Pick the focus that fits your group. Each option can run as a half-day or full-day workshop, in person or virtually, and most can be combined.
Storytelling Workshops for Leaders
Leadership Storytelling Workshop
Find, build, and tell the stories that share a vision and help people understand why the work matters.
Origin and Why Story Workshop
Develop your origin story and your why story so colleagues, clients, and partners connect with you and your cause.
Storytelling for Transformation and Change
Use story to lead people through change and help them see themselves in the future you are building. See our storytelling for transformation workshop.
Storytelling for Teams and Business Communication
Corporate Storytelling Workshop for Teams
Help a team build a shared story about who they are, who they serve, and the difference they make, using storyboarding and story circles.
Storytelling to Pitch Innovation and New Ideas
Turn a new idea or project into a story that earns buy-in, often as part of an innovation workshop.
Data Storytelling
Turn numbers into a narrative decision makers remember. See our data storytelling training guide.
Storytelling for Individuals
Storytelling Coaching
Work one-to-one on the stories for an important talk, pitch, or leadership moment. See storytelling coaching.
Online Storytelling Courses
Self-paced courses on storytelling for leaders, innovators, facilitators, and trainers and venture storytelling for entrepreneurs and innovators, $97 each, for individuals or licensed for a group.
Why Learning Storytelling Matters for Businesses and Leaders
A business storytelling training workshop can help you to learn this craft and develop your communication skills. Using storytelling in the important work of organizations and leadership can help you to relate and connect to others at an emotional level – and help others empathize with the journey you or your organization has been on and inspire a future vision. When you have a new idea, innovation, or vision to share, you can help others understand it and connect with it on a more human level through a story. We’ve been telling stories for thousands of years (and giving PowerPoint presentations for just a slight fraction of that). As humans are wired to tell stories and to listen to stories. Neuroscience fMRI studies of the brain show that our brain “lights up” when we are sharing a story or listening to one, and the storyteller and receiver syncs. This “lighting up” probably didn’t happen for you at the meeting last week with the status quo boring power point presentation.
Here’s our origin story so you can learn why we design and facilitate leadership workshops and programs on important topics like business storytelling.
Business Storytelling Techniques, Templates, & Guides
There are many workshops designed to help leaders at all levels in organizations communicate and innovate with greater impact through story. (See our storytelling for leaders workshop as an example where the focus is on transformation.) In our workshops, we will lead you through activities and exercises to help you find, create, make, and share your own stories. This is a hands-on experience. By being a better story finder, story maker, and story teller…the work of leadership, innovation, and change becomes easier and more impacting. Here are a number of the models, templates, and techniques our programs can engage you in using to create and tell better stories. Some are best practice approaches and others we have designed for specific purposes.
- Storyboarding
- Story building blocks
- 3 Act Storytelling model
- SAM V (Stories-Activities-Metaphors-Visuals)
- The Hero’s Journey
- The origin story-what catalyzed you for this cause? What happened?
- How you got into doing this. +1 to share the roots and the DIRT (vulnerability).
- The why story-why do you do what you do? What is a real problem?
- Naming names. Tell a real example of a person or organization you helped.
- The success story…so we know you can help us too.
- The here and now story. Why are you here in this moment?
- First storyline
- First question
- From this to that
- Story circle
Our business storytelling training workshops are highly interactive and engaging. We utilize as many methods as we can for creating the story and telling it. We focus on developing this innovative leadership skill in you. Some activities people will do individually. Others they will do with a partner or in a triad. Some of our most powerful “innovating through story” activities guide teams through a design thinking process to develop a story collaboratively or as a learning community. This is one key difference – the activities in our training include time to reflect and iterate to build and improve the stories that are created during the workshop.
Storytelling Leadership Training Workshops
We customize our business storytelling training workshops for our clients and the unique audience needs they have. One of our favorite examples is our storytelling for transformation workshop. We can do our workshop on-site and in-person or remotely and virtually. Your leadership program could benefit from a workshop or module of another form zeroing in on cultivating this communication skill. An innovation workshop or design thinking session will also benefit from the addition of storytelling activities to help you to communicate your innovation through story. We can design the workshop with a storytelling framework or model you prefer or connect you to other expert trainers or facilitators who have various specialties in different mediums. Here is a video showing some of the storyboard models we could teach or use in your story workshop. Which one captures your interest?
Storytelling Online Training Courses
We have a short online course on storytelling for trainers and leaders. This virtual course is designed for trainers, leaders, managers, and innovators who need to relate, connect, inspire and advance new ideas or a vision for the future. The course is focused on helping you to create your own stories and start sharing them for impact. The online workshop course can be done individually or with a group from your organization. We also have an online storytelling course designed for innovators to communicate their venture through story. We can also include these online courses with our live, custom designed workshops so participants can dive deeper after our interactive experience together.
What Participants Say About Our Storytelling Workshops
“Wow! This is how my morning started…a power-packed 1-hour workshop to learn how to shift our minds into storytelling mode to relay our business ideas, recap projects, convey technical ideas, share personal journeys, and so much more! Darin Eich, Ph.D. was fantastic leading us through this session. This is why this organization is outstanding…you don’t need to be a techie to learn how to tell a story and connect with your audience.”
– Storytelling for leaders workshop participant
“Darin helped us realize the value of a story and, with his “Story Toolkit”, how quickly you can create and apply a story to create deeper connections. We shared powerful stories that exposed vulnerability and learned how to leverage those stories to communicate ideas to support a purpose or transformation. I walked out inspired and ready to use what I learned, starting this afternoon with my current project. This memorable experience was a great way to learn how to better support my work and clients!”
– Storytelling for leaders workshop participant
“We had a packed house today and feel inspired by all the connections the storytelling workshop fostered. Thanks to Darin for the incredible workshop and to everyone who could join us.”
– Storytelling for leaders workshop participant
“I would 100% recommend Darin Eich! He is the best facilitator I have ever witnessed! … The only thing you will regret about hiring Darin for your 3 hour workshop is that you wished you had booked him for more time!”
– Chris, American Family Insurance
“Darin makes you think differently than you ever have before, which is necessary to inspire innovation. I recommend Darin Eich with the highest regard.”
– Zach, Founder & CEO, CultureCon
In Their Own Words: Reflections from Recent Storytelling Workshops
From participants’ closing reflections in our live virtual storytelling workshops for corporate teams, university programs, and professional communities.
“Share your story even if not fully formed! Other people’s questions help build!”
“I didn’t realize how helpful a storytelling framework could be until I tried it in the breakout rooms. It made a big difference.”
“Find the hook that resonates with you. It is likely to resonate with others.”
“Keeping a list of professional stories is vital to personal success.”
“I will remember some of these stories better than I might remember ‘information.’”
“How you tell your stories determines how they are received.”
“Story is far more important than facts.”
“Stories can sell!”
Executive Storytelling Training and Storytelling at Events
Many of our storytelling sessions happen inside a bigger moment rather than as a stand-alone class. Common formats include:
- Conference or summit session (60 to 90 minutes): the full find, build, and tell cycle on one short story, run at tables for groups of any size.
- Offsite or retreat workshop (half day): more reflection time and rounds of telling, often paired with an innovation workshop or a leadership offsite.
- Executive team session: a small group working on the stories behind a strategy, a transformation, or the next big announcement.
- Leadership program module: one or more live virtual sessions inside an existing development program.
Plan a storytelling session for your event
Frequently Asked Questions About Business Storytelling Training
How long is a business storytelling workshop?
Sessions run from 60 minutes at a conference to a half day or full day. Longer formats allow more rounds of telling and feedback, which is where most of the improvement happens.
Is the training in person or virtual?
Both. In person works especially well at summits and offsites. Virtual sessions use breakout rooms and a shared whiteboard so every participant gets a real turn to tell and be heard.
How many people can attend?
From small executive teams to rooms of several hundred people working in small groups at tables.
Is the workshop customized?
Yes. We design each session around the stories your group needs to tell, whether that is a strategy, a change, a new idea, or the story of your team’s work.
How is this different from presentation skills training?
Presentation training focuses on delivery. Our storytelling training starts earlier: finding material worth telling and giving it a shape. See our storytelling for leaders workshop for more on the approach.
Business Storytelling Training
Storytelling is for anyone with something to communicate! Email [email protected] about bringing our design thinking or innovative facilitation, speaking, workshops, or program development to your organization or conference. Let’s create a culture of innovation and collaboration through storytelling. Our business storytelling training can help get things started!
