I don’t come from the Corporate world. I come from a performing arts background and that’s where I’ve spent most of my career. Then one day, someone suggested I teach what I do at the company they worked for. Coming in from the outside, I had no idea what to expect.

From the outside, these big historic names can seem monolithic, each one an impenetrable wall. But when I got on the other side of those walls, what I found was surprising. All of these enormous and iconic brands, these institutions, are made up of people. People who believe that the work they are doing every day contributes something of value to the world. They get up every morning and they head into their office believing that the work they will do there will be a good for their community, their colleagues, and the world they want to live in.

When I got these people talking about what they do, over and over again, it wasn’t their salary or their career track they talked about. They talked about the lives and communities they had positively impacted, they talked about the progress they felt like they were a part of.

In the modern world, large corporations cannot be impenetrable walls anymore. In the modern era of 24 hour news coverage and an ever-evolving social media landscape that gives everyone innumerable points of contact with a business, corporations and the people that make them up can no longer afford to leave people guessing at their intentions.

You believe the work you do has value. You believe you contribute something good and important to the community you live in. Storytelling can help you communicate that to the world in a personal, human way. It can help the people inside your company connect with the people outside, be they clients, investors, potential partners, or even critics.

So, what’s your story?