The Power of Corporate History
Personal stories enrich, strengthen and add depth to the business culture. New interpretations provide new meaning. The result? Fully emotionally engaged employees.
Make an appointmentUnity of story
Storytelling People & NPN unites past, present and future in a single story. Our own story begins in 1986 with the establishment of the first commercial historical research agency in the Netherlands. It focuses on the history of organisations and companies. With boldness and courage, just two years after our foundation, we take the plunge with our first major client: Heineken. Over the years, we develop to become a purely storytelling organisation. We go further than we did before for companies; we make the core of their identity visible and then transform it into a captivating corporate (hi)story. We develop into a specialist at the cutting edge of history, communication, identity and reputation.
Connecting people
Bringing unity to organisations’ stories and connecting people increasingly becomes the mission of Storytelling People & NPN. Strengthening employee engagement through storytelling becomes an increasingly important objective from 2012 onwards. Among other things, this leads to the establishment in 2017 of Storytelling People International (storytellingpeople.com), which focuses exclusively on employee engagement. A business identity is not something you invent, it is something you must find within the company itself. An original identity comes from within and requires careful articulation and imagination.
A good company history consists of more than the sum of neatly formulated facts, values, mission, vision and ambitions. If all goes well, you can also feel the emotion that drives the company. Speaking to people from all levels of a company not only brings to light values that are genuinely felt, it also gives us an insight into what enthuses people. As Storytelling People & NPN, we search for and find the story that connects people. A story that inspires, enthuses and creates connectedness and engagement internally. And that creates recognition, appreciation and sympathy externally. We therefore work from the inside out. Based on research, business documentation, interviews and workshops, we first search for the DNA of the company. Just as you can characterise a person and give them personality, we do exactly the same thing for companies. We do not invent the business story; we search for it, dig it out, hold it up to the light and weigh up its authenticity.
Experience the business story
People love stories and stories are as old as the human race itself. Once told only around the camp fire, later spread thanks to the printing press and now shared in seconds with literally the whole world. Stories are able to put seemingly impossibly difficult things into simple words. Thanks to stories, a large organisation’s complex business plan can be visualised and brought to life for all concerned. Once under way, new stories keep the enthusiasm alive, like putting fresh logs onto the fire.
Our story is that we light the fire of the corporate story in companies. A fire to which everyone feels attracted, around which they can gather and with which they can warm themselves. The fire of shared passion and inspiration. The fire of shared enterprise and courage. The fire of the shared dream. The best corporate stories feel like coming home: familiar, warm, authentic. Such stories evoke familiarity and pride. A story that is shared by everyone creates solidarity. Storytelling ensures that a business history develops into a vibrant corporate story. Whatever else it is, it is about the fire lit by the story being felt by everyone in the organisation and being spread further by them, directly or indirectly. The ultimate experience of unity within an organisation is the feeling: we are our story.
As Storytelling People & NPN, we see ourselves as the fire starters of the business world and of organisations that want to uncover their corporate story as fuel for stories that people take with them into the future.
Our question to you is: whatʼs your story? Tell us your story and we will pass it on. It’s easy to make an appointment, there are no obligations to meeting each other and experience has shown that it can be very informative. Start a fire.