People were often fascinated by my career in the gaming industry and the people I encountered: I was too. We used to sit and listen to the ‘older guys’ (that’s what we called the men and women who’d been in the business a long time by the time many of us started) telling stories, explaining how things worked, and explaining about how they dealt with people. They liked talking about the old days and we liked hearing about them. Every business has people like that who employees can learn from. Story telling is such a powerful way to communicate and create and support a culture, passing down information about how and why things are as they are, what’s special or not, and what’s behind their traditions. Companies need to identify these influencers and story tellers, create situations where they can talk and others can listen and learn, and find ways to celebrate them and the story telling process. Just imagine the kind of stories people will tell years from now about how work and life were during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. Whether it’s around a campfire or a round table, storytelling is a great way to promote and preserve a company’s history. Don’t worry that this might bore your employees: there’s no better way to encounter the people and tales that make work-life interesting and worth living today.
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (1850 – 1893): 19th-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form
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