Every Leader Tells a Story

Back in 1989, when HP celebrated its 50th anniversary, it hired Karen Lewis, formerly an archivist at Harvard University, to create a corporate archive. Lewis has collected documents and blueprints. But she's also gathered more than 100 oral histories - from people on the front lines as well as in the executive suite. "Stories are leadership tools," Lewis says. "They're about our culture, our common roots."

Pat Kelly doesn't need an archivist to preserve the stories of life at PSS (now called PSS/World Medical Inc.). That's his job: "We've never had a policy manual. The way we pass along our values is to sit around the campfire and share stories." These days, the fast-growing company has annual revenues of $1.3 billion and employs nearly 4,000 people around the world. Kelly spends much of his time visiting company locations and "stoking the campfire." And he's just published a book that tells the PSS story in fascinating detail.

Faster Company (John Wiley & Sons, 1998) is an entertaining, instructive account of PSS's 15-year rise to prominence and prosperity. Kelly hopes it sells lots of copies. But that's not why he wrote it: "Now I have something to put in the hands of all my employees and say, 'This is the way we treat each other. This is the way we treat our customers. If you understand this, you'll make it here, and we'll all be extraordinarily successful. This is our story.' "

Elizabeth Weil lweil@ix.netcom.com , a regular contributor to Fast Company, has begun a new chapter in her life story. She is writing a book about the race to build cheap, reusable commercial rockets. It will be published by Bantam.