Making Stories: A Practical Guide for Organizational Leaders and Human Resource Specialists

Not only do we communicate through stories, we also learn from them. Stories are efficient ways to store, retrieve, and convey information. They help us to understand business processes; create and modify corporate culture; manage change; facilitate the management of knowledge and its transfer. They also help develop, coach, and mentor others, improve training, and help us behave and interact with others in the organization proactively. Story making and story telling are skills that can be learned, and Gargiulo shows you how to do it. Clearly written and focused pragmatically on getting organizational results, his book is an innovative and welcome addition to the field of organizational development and management.

Gargiulo opens with a model of how stories are used and the effects they can have, and with vignettes and other examples, he identifies their common uses. Stories can facilitate the Human Resource function overall and Gargiulo provides trainers with specific story exercises and techniques to use in their day to day work. Stories can also be used to capture, analyze, and understand business processes. Gargiulo discusses the role of stories in the development of effective leadership, and how they can be used to create and manage corporate culture and to develop future executives. He then shows how stories help build rapport, teach, and help maintain relationships with employees in coaching and mentoring situations. Moving from the conceptual to the applied, Gargiulo presents a model of the story mind, and closes with a series of exercises to help build a large reservoir of stories for use throughout the organization, in various settings for different purposes. Clearly written and focused pragmatically on getting organizational results, his book is an innovative and welcome addition to the field of organizational development and management.