Stephen Denning, the author of the article “Telling Tales,” is renowned for advocating the application of tales in organizational management. He recommends that having the aptitude to tell the right tale at the right condition and time is a fundamental leadership skill that can aid managers in handling the organizational pressures of the 21st century. Therefore, according to the author, the most important thing is to understand the story-telling strategies that suit various situations.
Denning goes ahead to explain that to get optimal influence in an organization, procedure should follow the practice. As opposed to the thoughts and feelings of expert storytellers such as Pinkerton, he argues that it is not practical to tell an epic that contains several characters placed in key locations that require change. For a leader with the intentions of instigating people to take action in instances where they are not persuaded to act, Denning feels that it is best if one takes a tactic that is not heavy on detail. Stories that are Jam-packed with complex and multifaceted details, which are emotionally moving will move recipients down, hence obstruct them from getting the intended information.
Basing on his involvements and experiences at the World Bank as well as information gathered from other areas, Denning offers a wide range of dos and don’ts on storytellers with the intentions of motivating workers within an organization. He also portrays various tales, their implications, and the outcomes they obtain. Therefore, to serve as an example to leaders, he presents seven different types of tales and the conditions under which they should be narrated as well as the guidelines on how they should be told. In essence, the question on how to understand the kind of narrative strategy that should be applied in distinct organizational situations should be explored further.