Storylistening in Unternehmen
People love stories. Always have been. They used to scribble their adventures on rock faces or tell them to each other around the campfire. Book, podcast, virtual reality, film – today we pour our stories into a wide variety of formats. At Mashup Communications, we firmly believe that every person is full of stories and so is every company. Storylistening is an excellent method for bringing these anecdotes and adventures of employees to light. Shared, authentic narratives go hand in hand with the sister discipline of storytelling to help strengthen cohesion within a company, communicate (new) values or support change management, for example.
Storylistening is a method that allows companies to discover their employees’ personal stories, experiences, and perspectives through active listening. Instead of dictating pre-written corporate messages, the focus is on open-ended questions, genuine interest, and curious inquiry. This brings experiences to light that make abstract corporate values tangible and can serve as the foundation for authentic stories.
While storytelling aims to craft and tell stories in a targeted way, storylistening begins one step earlier: it’s about finding the stories that already exist within the company. The two methods thus complement each other: storylistening uncovers the stories, and storytelling brings them to life.
This combination is particularly helpful in internal communication, employer branding, and change processes, as it helps engage employees, highlight the company culture, and bring people together.
Storylistening is an excellent method for teasing out the stories that lie dormant in your colleagues. Our weapon of choice: a whole bunch of questions. The motto of the hour: the courage to leave gaps. The method really puts the interviewers responsible to the test. They know in advance exactly 0.0 percent of what their colleagues are about to tell them, so they have to respond spontaneously to their counterparts. However, it’s worth taking the plunge into the deep end, because the most exciting stories reliably make their way through.
Your values play a very important role in the search for stories in your company. They are the starting point of every storylistening session and get the narrative ball rolling. Let’s take ourselves at Mashup and our value of flexibility as an example. We lay the foundation with the question “What specific moment can you think of when flexibility really came into its own for you personally?” The answer just shoots out of some of them. Others may think for a moment. But pretty much everyone at our agency can think of an example.
Unfortunately, this is where the storylistening script ends and the freestyle part begins. Defining a fixed catalog of further questions is of relatively little use, because you can’t possibly foresee what the answer will be. Your goal should be to learn as much as possible about the event itself, the feelings of your colleagues and the people involved in the story. Like a gold digger, you unearth the glittering details of the story by digging deeper in the right places. However, you will have to decide for yourself during the interview which ones are the right ones.
Storylistening doesn’t require a rigid script, but it does need a good starting point. These five steps will help you discover your employees’ stories:
Select a topic or company value: Think about which experiences you want to highlight—for example, flexibility, team spirit, courage, or change.
Start with an open-ended question: Instead of asking, “Do you think our company is flexible?” try asking, “When was the last time you experienced a situation where flexibility really made a difference here?”
Ask with curiosity: What exactly happened? Who was involved? How did the situation feel? What was surprising?
Identify the core of the story: What challenge, decision, or change makes this experience special? And what corporate value does it demonstrate?
Develop stories together: Discuss with employees how their experiences can be shared—for example, within their team, in the internal newsletter, or at a Corporate Campfire.
It’s important to remain open to unexpected answers. After all, the most fascinating stories often emerge right where the prepared list of questions ends.
It is always important that this be done voluntarily. Not everyone wants to share personal experiences with the entire team or even the public. Storylistening thrives on trust and openness, not pressure. That’s why employees should be able to decide for themselves which stories they want to share and whether—and under what conditions—those stories may be used further. After all, the best stories emerge when people feel safe sharing them.
A storylistening session rarely stands alone, because, after all, the goal of the method is to bring a company closer together. A particularly wonderful way to wrap up the one-on-one interviews is a Corporate Campfire: Regardless of whether they were interviewed or not, all colleagues come together for storytelling. Experience has shown that this is accompanied by lots of laughter, questions, and mutual support. Afterward, the employees go their separate ways with a strengthened team spirit.
The core of every company – and ideally of all employees – are the values it represents internally and externally. You use storylistening to make these abstract concepts tangible: You give the values the faces of your colleagues, who bring them to life with their personal experiences. Within the company, you can immortalize the stories in the form of a podcast or small eBook, for example. Outwardly, a newsletter or a landing page on your website, for example, are suitable. In this way, customers and interested parties can also immerse themselves in your world.
Storylistening can be particularly helpful in change processes for bringing different perspectives to light. What experiences have employees already had with change? What has helped them overcome challenges? And what concerns or hopes do they associate with the upcoming change? Such stories create space for dialogue and can help us better understand change and shape it together. It is crucial to listen to critical voices as well, rather than collecting only positive success stories.
Employees feel heard
Storylistening gives people the opportunity to share their own experiences and perspectives. It’s not just managers or particularly prominent team members who get a chance to speak—ideally, it includes people from all areas of the company. This can convey appreciation and foster a sense of involvement.
Personal stories create authenticity
Employees’ experiences reveal how corporate culture is actually put into practice. These stories may also include contradictions, difficulties, and unexpected twists. It is precisely these details that make the stories credible and relatable.
Stories promote mutual understanding
Those who are familiar with their colleagues’ experiences often discover new commonalities and perspectives. Personal stories can spark conversations, foster empathy, and encourage others to share their own experiences.
What happens to all the stories discovered during Storylistening? They take center stage at our Corporate Campfire. In this storytelling format, employees come together to share personal experiences, surprising anecdotes, and shared experiences with one another. In this way, the stories collected earlier become the starting point for dialogue, new perspectives, and a deeper mutual understanding. Because sometimes you don’t need a big team-building event—just someone who tells a good story—and people who listen.
Don’t be put off by the high proportion of freestyle in the storylistening! Even if every session is a very individual matter, your innate curiosity will point you in the right direction during the conversation. Once polished into shape, the glittering facets of the stories will also inspire the rest of your team.
What is storylistening, explained simply?
Storylistening means actively listening to people to discover their personal stories and experiences. In companies, this method helps uncover authentic employee stories, highlight the company culture, and strengthen internal communication.
What is the difference between storytelling and storylistening?
Storytelling involves crafting and telling stories. Storylistening, on the other hand, is about first discovering these stories through open-ended questions, active listening, and curious inquiry. The two methods complement each other: Storylistening provides the stories, while storytelling helps convey them effectively.
What kinds of questions are suitable for storylistening?
Open-ended questions about specific experiences are particularly effective: “When was the last time you felt especially proud of your team?”, “What challenge did you overcome together with your colleagues?”, or “When did you experience one of our company values most clearly?” Following up with questions about feelings, the people involved, and unexpected twists helps to deepen the story.
How can storylistening strengthen employer branding?
Storylistening helps companies bring their employees’ real experiences to light. This can lead to authentic stories for career pages, employee videos, social media, or recruiting campaigns. Instead of just talking about corporate culture, these stories show how people actually experience it.
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