Last week one of my client's invited me to attend a two day exposition by one of the world's leading Management Consulting and Research conglomerates. The subject? Well let's just say it was about making it happen.

Content aside, what interested me the most was the language and style of the international consultants.

Every tribe, as Sir James Frazer eloquently observed in his Edwardian Classic "The Golden Bough", has a priesthood or a medicine man, a tribal oracle to be consulted on important matters. In this regard the modern Techno-Jungles are no different from the wild jungles of Africa.

Business leaders regularly call upon the modern tribal Medicine Men to consult the signs before embarking any new military undertaking (read: new product launch, take-over bid, strategic plan).

Nor should this come as a surprise. The medicine man is an essential part of the cultural fabric of any tribe.� Even in the modern context. Indeed it is their actions, their language and their symbols that provide us with the deep cultural insights we need to really understand the fundamental fears and goals that drive the tribe.

However it is the tools of language and communication the medicine men choose not to use that help us to understand their role within the tribe. For example; Have you noticed how management consultants don't tell stories? Some use case studies. But never stories. Storytelling is the most important communication tool we have to influence a mass audience. So why don't they use stories?

They do not use stories because they are not in business of communicating success or solutions.