Last week we talked about external storytelling; talking about your organization to clients and prospects. I received an interesting question from the Is It Worth Your T.E.A.M.? community: “Yeah, but what about the stories we tell each other inside the organization?” Great question!
Outside In
The way you share stories inside your company shapes culture. Just like you use stories to communicate trust, loyalty, and momentum to those outside your organization, use them to communicate those things inside it too.
For example, think about the difference between telling your team, “We hit Q3 revenue goals” versus “Because we hit Q3 revenue goals, we’re funding more professional development courses next year.” Same data, very different story.
Remind the team they are humans striving for a common goal. Inside your company, that could mean telling the story of how a developer solved a sticky bug that was holding up a release, not just announcing, “The app update is live.”
How to Frame the Work
Last week we talked about how every good story has a beginning, middle, and end. Here’s how this could look internally:
- Beginning (Context): Your product team was preparing for a major feature release hyped in the last all-hands call. Everyone knew why the date was circled on the calendar.
- Middle (Challenge): Two weeks before launch, quality assurance testing flagged serious bugs. Developers were already maxed out, designers were juggling other requests, and morale dipped as the deadline slipped further out of reach.
- End (Resolution): Instead of finger-pointing, leadership organized a cross-functional sprint. Marketing paused nonessential campaigns, IT freed up resources, and a few late nights later, the bugs were squashed. The launch landed just one week late, with lessons learned about testing earlier and collaborating faster.
This story acknowledges the inevitable bumps. People respect honesty more than spin. The best stories make people feel something: relief, pride, humor. But be careful. Forced emotion backfires. If you exaggerate or fabricate, your audience can sense it. Instead, lean on authentic anecdotes. Maybe your customer support team celebrated hitting a 95% satisfaction rate by baking cookies shaped like happy faces. Or maybe an employee quietly mentored a new hire through their first chaotic sales cycle. Those details connect because they’re real.
Show AND Tell
Stories stick when they’re tangible. Saying, “Our team is collaborative” is one thing. Sharing how three departments rallied to fix a client issue overnight shows it. Saying, “We value growth” is fine. Pointing to the analyst who became a manager because of your training program proves it. Whenever possible, support your points with case studies, testimonials, or direct experiences. Proof beats platitudes every time. Also, ending your story with a call to action like,“Here’s how you can get involved in the new initiative” sets you up to gather more stories to tell.
Here’s your call to action: Pick one story your organization could tell better, and refine it. Can you make it more human? More honest? More audience-focused? Then please share in the comments what you did.