Before the change in circuitry, a shorted dicorotron would have fried the whole XER board. “Do you know what pretending is?” For what seemed a long while, I listened to the whir of a 5-year-old’s mind in motion.

Keep in mind, though, that humor can backfire. Several years earlier, as the program director of knowledge management at the World Bank, I had stumbled onto the power of storytelling. When I speak about a well-imagined story, I mean a good many things, but let me begin by listing a few things a well-imagined story is not. They include a description of the problem, the setting, and the solution. Order the hardback from Amazon.com or from your local bookstore, (ISBN: 978-1-2501-2276-6); Order the paperback edition from Amazon.com or from your local bookstore (ISBN: 978-1-2501-2277-3). Of course, narratives alone cannot establish values in an organization. A well-imagined story is not predictable, or at least not wholly predictable. So even though it’s common in business to favor the analytical over the anecdotal, leaders with the strength to push past some initial skepticism about the enterprise of storytelling will find that the creative effort pays off.In 1998, I made a pilgrimage to the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, Tennessee, seeking some enlightenment.

In desperation, I was ready to try almost anything.In June of 1995, a health worker in a tiny town in Zambia went to the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and got the answer to a question about the treatment for malaria.

Dozens of similar stories illustrate an array of company policies.Although these types of stories furthered leadership goals in a relatively predictable way, others I came across were more quirky—particularly ones used to communicate vision.

For example, a story might tell the sad fate of someone who failed to see the conflict of interest in not disclosing his or her financial interest in a company supplier.

It’s not a morbid thought, really—it’s almost joyful—but I’m aware that on some future morning like this one, my sons may awaken before dawn, brew up a pot of coffee, and sit dreaming at a kitchen table. This is the place for what I call a “springboard story,” one that enables listeners to visualize the transformation needed in their circumstances and then to act on that realization. In fact, in certain situations nothing else works. Fewer airports, more conversations like this one. Storytelling can translate those dry and abstract numbers into compelling pictures of a leader’s goals. Each year, on Beatriz’s birthday, Borges makes a pilgrimage to her house, honoring her memory, displaying his devotion to a woman who, alas, had plainly never returned his affection. “Paw-Paw” Pinkerton, and asked the master what he thought. Not much later in the story, Carlos informs Borges that as a child he had made a remarkable discovery in Beatriz’s house. It is also the labor we so rarely talk about, perhaps because we can think of so little to say beyond the exhortation: Do it! “I love you,” Jack says to Jill, which is action, and which leads Jill to say, “I love you, too,” which leads to an exchange of wedding vows, another bit of action, which leads to Jack and Jill’s sailing off on their honeymoon to the South Pacific aboard a rented yacht, which leads to a sudden leak, which leads to the yacht’s swift sinking, which leads to Jack’s appropriating for himself the only life jacket within reach, which leads to Jill’s fetching into her lungs more than a pail of water, which leads Jack to contemplate, as he floats in solitude upon the vast Pacific, the contours of his pitiful and cowardly life. For example, at an IBM manufacturing site for laptop computers in the United Kingdom, stories circulated among the blue-collar workers about the facility’s managers, who were accused of “not doing any real work,” “being overpaid,” and “having no idea what it’s like on the manufacturing line.” But an additional story was injected into the mix: One day, a new site director turned up in a white coat, unannounced and unaccompanied, and sat on the line making ThinkPads. Despite our know-how on all kinds of poverty-related issues, that knowledge isn’t available to the millions of people who could use it. Religious leaders have used them for thousands of years to communicate values. Although by temperament I’m disposed to what is called “magical realism,” I admire and love the fiction of Dubus and Chekhov and Munro and Cheever and Hemingway and Fitzgerald and many, many other masters of realism. I would later see that the well-told story is relevant in a modern organization. Find out when Telling Tales is on TV, including Josie Long. Odour of Chrysanthemums – DH Lawrence. No matter how much detail is offered to help me see and smell and hear Nigeria, if the story itself does not surprise and delight and enchant me in some way, all of that detail is mere information, which better belongs in a travelogue or an encyclopedia entry. DCI Vera Stanhope reinvestigates the case, but to find out who really killed Abigail, the detective must uncover the secrets of a close-knit community that is still coming to terms with the incident.The central character is Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope. It soars beyond a “nifty idea.” It lodges itself in our throats.

It is also desirable to have a plan ready so that the energy generated by the positive experience of sharing stories can be immediately channeled into action. But stories intended mainly to transfer knowledge must be more than true.