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The learning history is designed to describe the coming about of best practices, with their reproduction in mind. This paper seeks to discuss the implications of this instrument and presents a modified version.

The paper uses a so‐called discursive learning history to zoom in on the interaction between a convergent, official, organisational narrative on the one hand, and people acting according to their own stories on the other.

Narrative structures help to create an inner logic that helps people to make sense of their organisation. An example is the battlefield metaphor identified in an academic business school.

It is not easy to create a comprehensive whole out of a multitude of small, often ill‐aligned contributions. To tackle this problem, the author adjusts the method of the learning history for it to allow analysis of discursive practices.

With this instrument, managers can identify patterns in the complexity of their organisations and understand what seems irrational at first sight.

In organisations there is a continuous tendency to create one line into this complexity. This can be disciplining and therewith can provoke all kinds of undesired behaviours.

It is often assumed that one can learn from history. Looking at the past and reconstructing what happened during a significant event seems an ideal way to create the coherent plot one feels comfortable with and learn from for the future. A discursive learning history shows there is more to organisations then meets the eye.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the manner in which storytelling has become an increasingly common part of management development, and to highlight some of the use and abuse of storytelling as a management development tool.

The paper adopts an initial warning about the way storytelling is being used, particularly by management and leadership coaches, questioning whether the term “storytelling” is an appropriate term to use for what is occurring. The notion of “storyselling” is introduced in such a context and, in so doing, stimulates critical reflection about storytelling. A summary of key ideas of other papers is also presented to assist the reader in better understanding the broader trajectories contained in the papers as a whole.

Many are now starting to question practical guidance that is emerging from organization and management literature. Multiple paradigms have yielded not complementary perspectives on management problems, but less than unambiguous voices and guidance. Storytelling has become increasingly popular because it fills a void left by the current state of the organization and management literature. The practical guidance that “preaches” how an approach worked for others in similar situations makes storytelling a big business. Often wrapped up in the rhetoric of management and leadership coaching, storytelling becomes a core educative tool – a tool that this paper, and volume, suggests needs to be carefully examined.

The paper, and the volume as a whole, represents an opportunity for readers to join with the authors in a reflexive consideration of storytelling. The paper and volume also represent a cautionary note to those who rely upon what is dubbed “storytelling” as a core educative tool.