What we think...
Articles like this one from Australia’s The Age are valuable endorsements for our approach. We agree wholeheartedly that storytelling is a critical and valuable component of change.
However, they give little insight as to how to actually go about storytelling in organisations. Experience tells us that there are many who yearn to develop a storytelling culture (because it makes total sense), but when you have an organisation of 50,000 people, perhaps dispersed all over the world, that yearning turns into a great big bear of an issue.
The answer is to make storytelling practical. Create tangibility around it, with a clear process, with creative tools that make it easy to implement and sustain. Everyone has a talent for storytelling, so you have a captive audience ready and waiting, but like any business you need a plan to make it work. You need a clear structure and process.
You may think I’m deviating here into a big ramble but what I’m about to say about structure is relevant. I don’t watch Big Brother (am I the only one in the country that loathes it?) but I found to my surprise that I was watching it with my 15 year old son the other evening. From yet another evening of drifting, nothing-to-do mindlessness in the House, one of the older ladies (Lesley?) took it upon herself to lead a meeting where they passed a banana round as a symbol to represent ‘my turn to speak’ and discussed the chores and gripes that each one had. Sudden structure. A meeting place (sofas) was agreed, Lesley the Leader facilitated the discussion, hands went up, the banana circulated. An agenda was formed. Actions were negotiated and agreed (even if they did go to pot later – I’ll never know and don’t really care). The discussion was opened up to include everyone – they all had a chance to make their voice heard.
So structure and tangibility (even if it is via a banana) can help make things easy. You’re on our website so if you can’t find another company that does storytelling in structured and tangible way, point your cursor to the top of the screen and have a look!
Shawn Callahan
June 13, 2007
6:02 am
Hi Alison, I had the same feeling when I read the article in the Age and wondered how they do their work. I sense, however, a similar reluctance from your post about how The Storytellers go about their work.
At Anecdote we provide the structure through a process we call the Three Journeys (http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2007/05/knowledge_strat_3.html). While the process is described in terms of knowledge strategy, it has also been used for branding and change management.
I’m probably breaking some tacit rule about companies who work in a similar space sharing ideas but frankly I think we can learn a lot from one another.
Alison Esse
June 13, 2007
7:12 am
Hi Shawn,
You’re right in that I didn’t use the post to talk specifically about our programme, but now you mention it….
One of the biggest attributes of our programme – and it was something we set out to achieve from day one of its development – is the fact that it provides a structure and tangibility (through the interventions and tools that we have created in our seven-step process) to help foster a culture of storytelling. I feel there is a lot of academia out there, which is all very interesting and makes a lot of sense but gives no real clues as to how to make it happen – and how to sustain it.
Many of our clients have had remarkable success in developing and sustaining a culture of storytelling using our programme, but telling stories has to be a means to an end….. to help facilitate change, create lasting engagement and to improve performance improvement. It’s all about HOW you channel and use those stories, how you share them as a KM tool, how you extract learning in order to shape actions and behaviours.
Sharing ideas is how we learn and progress – I’m all for it! Good to hear from you again.
Terry Bogg
June 18, 2007
8:03 pm
Hi Allison,
As a director of a service that uses narrative and storytelling as a powerful tool in eliciting sustainable behavioural change in addicted people I was delighted to stumble accross your site. (Directed really but not such a good story).
We encourage storytelling in our clients initially as a way explaining actions without guilt thus enabling that client to construct an identity as a step off point. As understanding is applied to the narrative so it changes to reflect altered personal belief systems.
At some point in the process the client will start to challenge their own belief systems, a far more powerful tool than direct confontational challenge, and again the story changes to reflect that movement.
By using Socratic questioning and Motivational Enhancement Therapy we can support the client as they engage in their own narrative and to a point where through increased understanding they construct an identity underpinned by self esteem and achievement that serves as a step off point from the treatment process.
I would love to explore this further.
Kind regards
Alison Esse
June 26, 2007
3:42 pm
Very interesting. One of the things about storytelling is that a story can also be told without implicating oneself and therefore not forcing an individual to shoulder the consequences. What we find is that the most reticent of people are able to contribute, without the fear of being ‘under the spotlight’ themselves. Stories are indeed powerful tools to create belief systems. We use positive stories to demonstrate best practice, to reinforce the fact that organisations are already adopting the desired behaviours required from their people, and to build a sense of pride from the outset that can be built on. It is very important for an organisation to build credibility and belief if it wants its employees to contribute willingly and with true commitment. Without belief that the journey is achievable, people will simply ‘do’ out of compliance. Cynics understand, but they don’t necessarily believe.