Tell Your Tale: The Connection Between Company Stories and Culture

When you think about stories, what comes to mind? Maybe cozying up on the couch with a good fiction novel or watching your favorite show. 

But storytelling isn’t just a pleasant past-time—it’s an essential piece of building a strong company culture in your business. 

In today’s competitive professional market, businesses have to prioritize culture, cohesiveness, and employee engagement. 

This is done, in large part, by tapping into their team’s desire to be part of something bigger. 

And that’s done through storytelling. 

Here we’ll explore why it’s important for leaders of any size business to intentionally weave storytelling into their company culture plus four tips on how to do it. 

What’s in a Story? 

Storytelling is an essential piece of our human DNA and evolution. Before there was writing, there was storytelling. 

Throughout the entire history of humankind, storytelling existed—and still exists—to entertain us, inform and spread knowledge, and to share cultural traditions or values. Many people groups, such as Native American tribes or Native Hawaiians, rely on storytelling to keep their histories alive and pass them down to the next generation. 

And while many of us don’t participate in ancient cultural storytelling traditions, it’s still a big part of our lives. 

Just consider why we love reading a good fiction novel or watching live theatre. Or, even more, why we enjoy connecting with other people at the end of the work day to debrief everything that’s happened. 

This is all storytelling—the act of sharing, informing, and entertaining. These are all reasons why storytelling is powerful in company cultures, too. Since we’ve evolved to communicate through stories, they’re important and valuable in every aspect of our lives, including work. The stories new employees hear help them understand what’s important, valued, shunned, celebrated, or despised in the workplace. Those stories and messages define culture and expectations. 

Let’s dig a bit deeper. Why are stories so influential in shaping culture? A few reasons: 

• Stories engage and inspire: Stories grab attention and engage employees in a way that spreadsheets and data never can. They share the feelings and motivations of something instead of just the facts. Because they elicit emotion, people will remember how they felt—encouraged, motivated, excited, moved, etc. This turns into further engagement and motivation toward their work and the organization. 
• Stories capture the imagination: Hearing stories of other people doing great work or overcoming obstacles with ideas capture people’s imaginations. It encourages people to dream bigger and allows them to get outside of their day-to-day routine. 
• Stories break down barriers: Sharing stories is a way we express our common humanity and tell others about our personal experiences. This can build trust between people and break down barriers between people who are different. 
• Stories get repeated: We’ve all seen it before—gossip can run rampant in a workplace. And that’s because people like to repeat the stories they hear. So, if you’re concerned about creating a positive work culture, start sharing stories that are positive and aligned with your vision and values. As it spreads, it will impact the culture in a positive way. 

Stories are meaningful in our lives and workplaces. As a leader or manager, you need to be aware of the stories that are already being told and intentionally shift the narrative to align with your mission, vision, and values. 

Key Stories to Build Company Culture

Okay, so stories are important to company culture. But what stories should you be telling? 

There are four key areas to focus on: 

• Identity stories: These are your origin stories—who you are as a company and how you came to be. This might revolve around the founder and their mission or relate to the early days of struggle and hustle. 
• Success stories: What are you proud of? What are some major accomplishments of your business over the years?
• Growth stories: With every success comes more “failures.” What were some of these in your company? What did you learn collectively from them? 
• Vision stories: These are future-oriented and cast a vision for where you want to go as a company. They’re aligned with the identity, success, and growth stories that came before. 

Within each of these, you’re providing information to your employees about their place in your organization. 

For example, with identity stories, employees will stop and think—does this align with my identity? Are the company’s values my values? 

With success and failure stories, you’re demonstrating how those things are handled in the organization. What does it take to succeed? How are mistakes handled? Are people safe to “fail” in this organization?

And finally, with vision stories, the question employees will ask is—do I want to be here when this all unfolds? 

These questions are powerful in creating a deep alignment and engagement between the company and employees. 

4 Tips for How to Include Storytelling in Your Business

1. Document Your Story 

While there are a million ways to share a story, the most important thing is that you simply do it. So choose a medium and formally document your story—how you started, who you are, what you believe in, and where you’re going. 

Creating a tangible asset around your story is a powerful way to establish the legacy of your company. It can be used to share with and inspire others, too. 

There’s no one way to do this, but here are a few ideas: 

• Record a podcast: This could be your own produced podcast or sharing as a guest, but this audio format is a great way to detail your story at length. 
• Decorate the walls: If you have an office location you can decorate, and put some photos, timelines, and information right up on the walls for everyone to see. 
• Make a photobook: Pull out some pictures from the early days of your business and publish them in a book for people to flip through. 

You can read our own origin story here: The Story of the Post: How Tucson’s Premier Coworking Space Came to Be. 

2. Build Storytelling Into Your Onboarding Process

Building a strong company culture starts with new hires. You want people coming into your organization to clearly understand who you are as a company so they can align with your mission, vision, and values early on. 

Storytelling should be part of the onboarding process, then. Here are a few ways to do it: 

• Prioritize mentorship: Pair all new employees with someone who’s more senior. This will naturally lend itself to sharing stories and experiences during their mentorship time together. 
• Share resources: Make sure your new hire has access to the aforementioned documented story of your company or any other resources that help them understand who you are. 
• Host an AMA: Particularly helpful if you have multiple new hires, this option creates an open dialogue between leadership and employees. Create a space where employees can ask questions about the company, roles, successes, or anything else that comes to mind. This can be formatted like a panel conversation or hosted roundtables. 

3. Spend Time Sharing Stories at Meetings

Meetings are an excellent opportunity to share stories with each other. In particular, create space to share those success and failure stories so employees can learn from each other. 

This doesn’t have to be complicated—simply set aside 5-10 minutes at the beginning of the meeting and ask if anyone wants to share a win or growth opportunity they recently experienced. You could also approach employees in advance of the meeting to ask them to share if you know they have a meaningful experience. 

Remote and hybrid teams need to be even more intentional about doing this. Make sure you’re still prioritizing in-person gatherings to foster community and connection. You can use bookable meeting rooms at a coworking space to host effective and engaging meetings that help build morale. 

4. Strengthen Your Internal Communications

The last way to prioritize storytelling in your company is by strengthening your internal communications. Are team members regularly hearing from you? Are you using your communication to inspire and engage? 

Here are two things to try: 

• Employee profiles: Share “get-to-know-you” employee profiles in your newsletters, emails, or company intranet. This gives everyone the chance to learn more about their colleagues and understand what motivates them. This builds a strong company culture around shared values and goals. 
• Weekly emails: Keep employees in the loop with a weekly email. Short and sweet, this type of communication highlights wins and challenges of the week as well as casting a vision for where you’re going. 

No matter what your regular internal communication strategy looks like, the key is to infuse stories into it so your team members are engaged and motivated by what’s happening in the company.

It’s simple—stories resonate with people. And because they’re so meaningful, they shape culture. By focusing on stories of identity, success, growth, and vision in the four ways we shared, you can make a more positive impact in your workplace today. 

If you’re in search of a positive professional workspace that surrounds you with supportive, like-minded professionals, you’ll find it at The Post. Book a tour of The Post today.