In the following interview, David Hutchens, author of the Learning Fables series published by Pegasus Communications, shares why he thinks storytelling is such a powerful medium to communicate ideas and create collective meaning. He also illustrates how managers can use his four books to create new awareness and initiate a rich discussion of organizational learning principles with their staff.

Leverage Points: Why do stories appeal to such a wide cross- section of readers?

David Hutchens: Cognitive science explains that most people think relationally, that is, they grasp information by how it relates to other information—in the same way that stories are structured. A story's plot illustrates how theory looks when practiced in real life. For instance, rather than trying to convey the concept of mental models by abstractly walking you through the Ladder of Inference tool, Shadows of the Neanderthal shows how two fictional clans of cave people developed different assumptions about how the world works.

Often in business contexts, people converse in ways theywould never do in more natural social environments. For instance, at home, my wife and I tell stories to each other about our day; it's our default mode of communication. I'm the same person when I go to work the next morning, yet it's hard to respond spontaneously to the jargon-filled business communications that come across my desk. How many of us really think in bullet points?

LP: Why are stories so powerful in creating shared meaning and generating organizational change?

DH: I really like how Stephen Denning explains this in his book The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000). A former executive with the World Bank, Denning was instrumental in making knowledge management a key initiative there, back when KM was a new and emerging concept. In the book, he shares how he'd promoted KM for a long time, but nobody really got what he was talking about. Then one day at a large meeting, he said, "Let me tell you a story about a small health clinic in Zambia, one of the world's most underdeveloped countries." He described how doctors had cured malaria in their village by using their computer to get treatment information from the U.S. Center for Disease Control's web site. "That's knowledge management," he concluded, and for the first time, everyone got excited. They recognized how urgently their organization needed that capability, and many even acted as if KM was their idea.

People can own the ideas from a story quickly because a story connects us with our unique set of perceptions and emotions, validating and enriching what we already know. Denning describes this process as lighting a fuse—and you don't know how it's going to go off in each person. I call it opening "the black box of meaning" inside of us. A story helps me lift the lid off that box and connect to my own inner experiences at a very deep level.

Storytelling triggers the mind to ask questions and explore what's going on. When we communicate with bullet points and models, people usually become evaluative and critical, asking questions such as "Is this true?" or "How does this apply to me?" With stories, they're more receptive. Why? Because they can't say, "Oh, that didn't happen." Of course it did, it's my story. So they open up and their judging goes away. They become engaged with the narrative and make connections. When reading The Lemming Dilemma, people don't think, well, technically, our organization is not going through the same situation as the lemmings, that is, we're not all jumping off cliffs and dying. But they relate to the concept of taking irrational actions without thinking about the consequences.

LP: Would you recommend that all leaders use storytelling when training their staff?

DH: Yes, but with the awareness that storytelling can be dangerous, because you can't control what people do with a story. Stories might not be effective when managers need their employees to accurately understand specific data, for example, how to use a software program. In that instance, it makes sense to communicate in a straightforward, linear style. But sharing information through stories is messier, because the message is not as direct and people make connections that you might not have intended. This process can be powerful when you want to generate innovation and creativity; even better, people become personally invested in the communication so you don't have to convince them to embrace it.

With the Learning Fables, trainers have options for how they choose to present the material. Depending on their objectives, they can use the end matter to help staff connect the story's metaphors to the body of business theory they're trying to convey. Or they might want people to associate freely and develop divergent points of view, so they ask participants not to read the end matter, just the story. Many people find that the new terminology and models stemming from the plot help them make sense of their learning experience. The Tip of the Iceberg end matter, for instance, helps you understand why the penguin-walrus collaboration represents a limits-to-growth cycle. By connecting experiences with new tools and language, you can be much more purposeful about thinking and acting systemically.

LP: How have readers responded to the Learning Fables?

DH: When I first began writing the series, I wasn't sure what people would think about talking animals, cartoon illustrations, and absurd humor. But readers enjoy the game-like element of the stories as they try to grasp abstract organizational theory. For example, in my first book, Outlearning the Wolves, the disappearance of the main character, Otto the sheep, early in the story is handled ambiguously. When I'm in sessions with work groups, having serious conversations about how an organization learns, somebody often asks, "Is Otto really dead?" A colleague will add, "Well, the story never really says. I think he's still alive," and the group starts musing about Otto's fate. So in response, in each of my subsequent books, Otto mysteriously appears in an illustration, and people look for him. It's another example of how people personally invest themselves in the narrative.