Your company story is compelling, at least to the leadership team. However, are your employees as invested in this story as you are?
As the saying goes: “It is hard to read the label when you are inside the bottle.”
You sit at the helm of a large, 100-year old company. Or, you are part of the leadership team for a small business. Either way, how you tell your story to employees is just as important as the time and effort put into telling the story to acquire new business and/or stockholders.
When employees invest in your company story, they understand how their professional purpose drives company growth, expansion and sustainability.
Regardless of their job titles, pay grades, levels of education or generation, each employee is invested in the role they play. With each other, and for each other, on behalf of serving your company’s customers.
Otherwise, without purpose and context, employees simply feel like they are along for the ride. In someone else’s story, not theirs.
Do employees arrive at work each morning anxious to, once again, become part of the bigger story of your organization? Or, just to collect another paycheck?
When employees are encouraged to add to your company story, they build their futures. And yours, as well.
Rich company lore often tells multiple stories, depending on where employees sit within the organization. And whether, or not, these employees also are invited to sit around your company’s decision-making table.
First, from a leadership team perspective, the story you tell is an invitation for employees to become part of a special club of tenured employees. Becoming part of this story becomes the magnet for employee loyalty.
Alternatively, from an employee perspective, the story focuses on an exclusive subset of employees. And, for some employees, the goal of becoming part of this special group is daunting or unattainable, for any number of reasons.
Then, do marketing materials tell a different story than what employees experience in the daily workplace? Because marketing materials often are focused on customer acquisition and stockholders, rather than attracting and retaining of internal employee stakeholders. Are these marketing materials too good to be true?
How do you tell your story to your employees? Take these next steps to catalyze employee co-investment in continuing your company story.
- Planning your next corporate or association meeting? Engage me to present one of my Storytelling for STEM Professionals and Left Brain Thinkers speaking programs. Contact me here.
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Babette Ten Haken‘s One Millimeter Mindset™ Storytelling for STEM Professionals and Left Brain Thinkers speaking programs are created for organizations and associations who want to catalyze stakeholder success and customer retention. There is no better way than storytelling to bridge communication disconnects between professional disciplines, paygrades, generations and levels of education. Babette’s programs are forged from her own background leading teams simultaneously requiring left-brain mindset for clinical research and e-commerce, as well as right-brain thinking for new product development, market research and sales. Find out more right here.
Babette is a member of SME, ASQ, SHRM and the National Speakers Association. Her playbook of communication hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Babette’s speaker profile is on the espeakers platform. Contact her here.
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