• Every chapter has something new and different from what is gone before. This is a how-to book, so every chapter has practical instructions on how to put each type of story together, including helpful templates, and packed with real-life examples, including from his own practice as a senior manager in an international organization.
• The Foreword discusses how Steve came to write the book, living as he did in two very different worlds that didn't speak to each other  the world of management and leadership on the one hand and the world of storytelling on the other.
• Chapter 1 recaps Steve's HBR article of May 2004, but also answers the question: what's the ROI of storytelling? What studies have been done the quantitative benefits of storytelling?
• Chapter 2 gives a number of business examples of springboard storytelling, such as from British Telecom and a global consulting firm. It also explains how Carly Fiorina screwed up the communication of the HP/Compaq merger.
• Chapter 3 shows how to perform the story right. Using as an example a speech by Lou Gerstner of IBM, the chapter shows how to sound like a guru, both in terms of content and form.
• Chapter 4 discusses how to communicate who you are. This is one area where Steve's thinking has evolved considerably. In Squirrel Inc, he implied that the personal identity story had to be quite long. He's discovered over the past year that you could actually tell this kind of story very succinctly. Which is good news in the fast-paced world of business. Examples include Michael Dell, Anita Roddick, Quest Diagnostics, Nelson Mandela, John F. Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, John Kerry, John Edwards and and Amos Oz.
• Chapter 5 on branding and marketing is completely new. It shows provocatively why digital storytelling isn't what it is usually cracked up to be, and why most branding and advertising is a waste of money. It argues that the road to successful marketing and branding is to build your brand authentically from within the organization, and then the products and services wow the clients, who in turn tell your story. Examples include Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Coca-Cola, Southwest Airlines, Medtronic, Nike, Levi Straus, The Body Shop, Starbucks, Google, Dasani, Harley Davidson, Miller Lite, Hallmark, Apple, and IBM.
• Chapter 6 presents a new way to understand values, distinguishing the values of robber barons, hardball strategists, pragmatists and genuinely ethical values. It unlocks the secret of the Biblical parables and shows how you can use this to embed values in an organization. Examples include Vince Lombardi, Costco, Tom 's of Maine, Microsoft, IBM, Tyco, Shell, Nike, AccountAbility, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, Ben & Jerry 's, 3M, Calvin Klein, IBM, as well as his own experience as a manager.
• Chapter 7 presents a recent discovery that Steve made: high performance teams have much in common with communities they both run on passion and they are both nurtured and sustained by the same narrative techniques. Examples include the World Bank, the Golden Fleece group, IBM, a storytelling listserv, a consulting firm, Jim Collins, Richard Hackman, Southwest Airlines, and cardiologists.
• Chapter 8 shows why knowledge-sharing stories are generally negative and gives some wonderful and funny examples from Xerox, Car Talk, hospitals, conferences, Peter Senge, the 9/11 Commission, the World Bank, Dave Snowden, and Martine Haas.
• Chapter 9 gives what a lot of readers of have been asking me for many more examples of stories that tame the grapevine, including the World Bank, IBM, Procter & Gamble, American Airlines, a UK computer firm, GE, Bill Clinton, Karl Kraus, Nancy Reagan, an IT organization and his own practice as a manager.
• Chapter 10 explores in depth why Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King are among the few leaders who have told compelling future stories, and gives a number of good and bad examples of the genre from IBM, Disney, Steven Covey, Noel Tichy, Shell, a car company, the Apollo space program, GE, Bristol Myers Squibb, Y2K, a microchip manufacturer, Apple Computer, Mahatma Gandhi, Chrysler Corporation, US military, Mao Tse Tung, Sir Thomas More, Le Corbusier.
• Chapter 11 presents a new theory of innovation (reflecting Steve's peer-reviewed articles in Strategy & Leadership.) It explains why the conventional wisdom (from Christensen, Hamel, Senge, Schrage, et al) on innovation doesn't work and shows what is involved transformational innovation, giving examples from IBM, GE, Xerox, A&P, Laura Ashley, Firestone, Eli Lilly, DuPont, Merck, AT&T, Mattel, Amazon, Charles Schwab, Microsoft, Quaker Oats, General Motors, Amgen, GlaxoSmithKline, Motorola, Shell, McDonald 's, Whitbread and Wayne Gretsky.
• Chapter 12 shows the implications for leaders. It explains why this isn't just about using a new set of communication tools while remaining the same kind of person that you were before. It entails becoming a different kind of leader. The chapter spells out what is involved in this different kind of leadership. It suggests that narrative is the missing element in most of the existing literature about transformational leadership.

Here's another way of looking at the new book. In a sense, Squirrel Inc was for right-brainers people who like to learn through a story. It is fun. It is light. It is not a text book or standard business book that spells out a methodology. Many people loved it. But others said: how about something more serious. Well, for them, The Leader is Guide to Storytelling is a book for left-brainers those who want to detailed instructions on what to do, when to do it, how to do it and why to do it. Yet it is entertaining as well as educational. As usual, it has Steve's brand of dry humor, with a lot of very funny stories.

At $24.95, Steve thinks it is good value for money. If any reader doesn't think so, Steve will be happy to give you a money-back guarantee.