A similar topicality in the blogosphere has been triggered in Germany because of the way with which my country´s Defence Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg lost not only his doctorate title but also much of his reputation.  He actually resigned today. And while Colonel Ghadaffi is still fighting a battle he cannot win, I was inclined to add my two cents to this discussion in the public domain, focusing on how revolutions and change processes can be triggered through social media once a tipping point has been reached.

Would the changes in Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya happened without social media, I was asking myself? And while scrolling down FT’s online version to get a nice angle to start my blogpost with, a headline on an FT section drew my attention: “More Stories”. And this headline diverted my thoughts a little bit.

More Stories

Yes, journalists are interested in stories, on behalf of their readers. A truism since the first paper was printed. And when journalists think of stories, they mean facts embedded – not hidden – in attention grabbing, entertaining life stories that are close to the heart and minds of their readers. Scheherazade told 1001 wonderful stories just for the amusement of the Khalif and to keep his attention. Well, for her storytelling was actually a matter of life or death.

Today every leader, be it in politics, civil society or the corporate world face the challenge to reach fragmented target audiences via scattered, 24/7 communications channels to get their story across. I would not go that far to say that “story telling” is a matter of survival for corporate leaders. But for sure leaders will be more successful in sustainably managing their organisation’s reputation if they get the (corporate) story across well.

In theory it is dead simple: you need to determine what to say when, to whom and how. Well, it is not that simple though, if you think about the complexity of organizations, topics, stakeholders, target audiences and media and – today more than ever – competing (news) stories. So you always need a solid strategy as the foundation for communications. But not every leader is as gifted as Scheherazade was in using language and speech. That’s why leaders need to train and practice story telling regularly. But please, stories and not fairy tales. If you compromise on facts and trust in your corporate storytelling, yes, then it will become a question of survival.

By the way, those leaders that have been blown away in the storm of change within days in North Africa compromised massively on the truth. The truth was unearthed while millions of witnesses could watch, comment and protest – online at the same time as it was unfolding in real life.  Social media have irreversibly changed the way with which leaders have to communicate and tell their stories – not fairy-tales.