The views expressed here are the personal views of the participants and are not necessarily the views of their organisations. The following people were present at this mindstretch®:

Bozena Benton, HR Director, RLF
Karen Drury, fe₃
Fiona Eldridge, Coaching and Communication Centre
Siegfried Marynissen, Janssen-Cilag
Mark Peterson, MHF
Paul Rudd, Hewitt
Gary Saunders, fe₃
Mike Smith, Chaucer Group
Adam Wynyard, Ministry of Justice

Our venue was kindly provided by Mike Smith, Chaucer Group.  Unusually, this session does not include notes of the discussion that was had, as Karen was alone on this occasion – and couldn’t present and write notes!

After welcoming everyone and running through the agenda   Slide3  Karen started the session with a story that she heard when she was in PR.   Slide4 

While this story has been told many times, what Peter Marsh actually said differs from teller to teller:

For example, Paul Russell Smith and Jonathan Taylor (Marketing Communications: An Integrated Approach Published, 2004) say that:
Peter Marsh, clad in full BR uniform (complete with cap, whistle and flag) burst in and said: “You don’t like it, why should your passengers?”

A website dedicated to Southern Railway publicity tell it that:
Marsh said cheekily: “Well chairman, that’s just what a lot of your passengers suffer every day!”

Slide5  Looking at what storytelling is, there appear to be a variety of definitions, depending on what stories are actually being used for.

Storytelling has a long history in academic research, but has only recently come to attention in the business world.  It crosses the fields of cognitive and behavioural studies, sociology and social psychology, anthropology, forklore and now, organisational behaviour and change consultants.

Slide6  The evidence from academia indicates that telling stories is an important part of construction of meaning – they are vehicles for making sense of one’s self and chaotic experiences; this is a social and cultural phenomenon.  Bowles in 1989 considered that the fact that all human societies create myth suggests it plays a vital role in the functioning of societies and indeed, when the “life supporting illusions” are destroyed, communities “go to pieces”.

Karl Weick, who is the father of sensemaking, believes that stories play a major role for people.  He thinks:

• Stories aid comprehension- integrating what’s know about an event with what’s conjectured
• That sequencing is a powerful tool to enable an individual to make sense of situations and because the essence of storytelling is sequencing, it’s not surprising that stories are powerful standalone contents for sensemaking. Without sequencing, facts become a “list” of events
• That stories link what’s not currently around (absent) with present things to make meaning
• That stories provide a mnemonic – helping people remember, regardless of how complex the information
• That stories guide action before routines are formulated and enrich them when they are
• That stories provide a database of experience – from which people can infer how things work

Some commentators consider that people think narratively, rather than what they call “Argumenatatively” or analytically. (Argumentation is concerned primarily with reaching conclusions through logical reasoning, that is, claims based on premises). As a result, noteworthy experiences become the empirical bases for rule of thumb, proverbs and guides to conduct.  According to Robinson, telling stories about remarkable experiences is one of the ways in which people try to make the unexpected, expectable and therefore, manageable. (Robinson 1981)

Slide7  But why is storytelling exciting so much attention? An experiment at Cornel University in 2005 compared responses to stories/narrative in two male adults with severe brain injuries and in seven healthy volunteers. In the case of the patient language-related tasks, auditory stimulation with personalized narratives elicited cortical activity in the superior and middle temporal gyrus. The healthy volunteers imaged during comparable passive language stimulation demonstrated responses similar to the patients’ responses, indicating that stories generate activity in the brain – even when that brain is damaged.

Boyce (1996) concluded that past research has shown that storytelling has a number of applications for organisational members, managers, and practitioners.

McCarthy (2003) considers that there are just two purposes for stories in organisations – grounding (clarifying key values) and instruction (demonstrating how things are done)

However, there are some scholars who, from their starting perspective that organisational culture cannot be changed, have a more critical view and consider that stories simply detail the experience of employees in organisations, and view stories as data, rather than anything that can be managed.

One potential use which does seem to have acceptance even among the critical commentators is that of learning, and of sharing learning.  Stories have been said to be intrinsic to the construction of new knowledge and the acquisition of felt meaning (knowing something to be true on a visceral level without need for exhaustive analysis).  Stories make information – especially large amounts of information – easy to understand.  Pennington and Hastie 1991 consider that “Narrative communicates a more meaningful sense of reality than the abstract and summative formations of most business plans”.

Swap et al say that stories promote elaborations and connections to the listener’s personal experience, evoke clear images, are more memorable and hence more effective carriers of knowledge than business speak.

According to Swap et al, stories can be used in three ways:

• Making the information and knowledge more available – “When an event is made more available from memory, there is a strong tendency to believe it is more likely to occur or be true” – fact is turned into something more memorable
• Elaboration of stories makes them more memorable – “The extent that people reflect upon and integrate information with what they already know, they will remember it better.” Facts can be attached to things people already know.
• Episodic memory which comes from memorable experiences – as stories are clearly episodic (beginning, middle, end) they again, aid memory, creating an experience which is easy to remember.

Slide8  Karen said that stories form just part of a whole range of symbolic activity, and suggested that we look at it in context.

Slide9  Rituals include breakfasts, recognition ceremonies, parties etc – this is where the organisational members are encouraged to think and feel specific things – events are also a demonstration of how employees are supposed to think, feel and act.

Karen noted that non-event rituals also serve to manage anxieties, express common identities and provide some sense of control (rituals in the preparation of operating theatre for example).

Rituals of all sorts can provide a sense of unity and perceived character and are sometimes among the most satisfying and rewarding events for members of an organisation.

Rituals provide – for those in charge of them – an opportunity to define as authoritative certain ways of seeing the world and offer managers a mode of exercising power along the cognitive and affective planes; to influence how other members are to think and feel.

Many other academics point to the importance of storytelling – Boje, one of the authorities on storytelling within organisations, argues that since organisations are populated by individuals, they are essentially storytelling systems.  Without the stories, organisational life is non-existent.

Slide10  A corporate story is a complete narrative about the whole organisation – its origins, vision, mission etc and its particular subject matter is human actions and events that affect other human beings

Credibility will improve if the corporate story is perceived by external and internal stakeholders as an illustration of the centrality (that is the main idea of the organisation) and continuity of the organisation – novelty expresses the distinctiveness of the organisation compared with others.

One subtle credibility technique consists of developing strategic narratives according to familiar plot lines, and Karen presented a typography by Christopher Booker to see what these plot lines might be.

Slide11  Booker’s 700 plus page treatise apparently took nearly four decade to complete, and while the reviews are by no means all favourable, Karen thought his thoughts would serve as a starter for ten.

1. Overcoming the Monster — Stories like Beowulf, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, Jaws, and many of the James Bond films, where a hero must defeat a monster and restore order to a world that has been threatened by the monster’s presence.
   
2. Rags to Riches — These stories feature modest, generally virtuous but downtrodden characters, who achieve a happy ending when their special talents or true beauty is revealed to the world at large. Includes any number of classics such as ‘Cinderella’, David Copperfield,
   
3. The Quest — A hero, often accompanied by sidekicks, travels in search of a priceless treasure and fights against evil and overpowering odds, and ends when he gets both the treasure and the girl. The Odyssey is a classic example of this kind of story.
   
4. Voyage and Return — Alice in Wonderland, Robinson Crusoe on his desert island, other stories of normal protagonists who are suddenly thrust into strange and alien worlds and must make their way back to normal life once more.
   
5. Comedy — Not always synonymous with humour. Instead, the plot of a comedy involves some kind of confusion that must be resolved before the hero and heroine can be united in love. Think of Shakespeare’s comedies, The Marriage of Figaro, the plays of Oscar Wilde and Gilbert and Sullivan, and even War and Peace.
   
6. Tragedy — As a rule, the terrible consequences of human overreaching and egotism. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Julius Caesar, Anna Karenina
   
7. Rebirth — The stories of Ebeneezer Scrooge and Mary Lennox (the Secret Garden) would fall into this basic plot type, which focuses on a threatening shadow that seems nearly victorious until a sequence of fortuitous (or even miraculous) events lead to redemption and rebirth, and the restoration of a happier world.

  Slide12  Turning to themes in organisational stories, according to Martin, Feldman, Hatch and Sitkin (1983) organisational stories told by employees tend to cluster within familiar archetypes. In their paper “The Uniqueness Paradox in Organisational Stories” they divided corporate stories into seven types that occur regularly across a variety of organisations.

These seven common stories are: 1) The rule-breaking story; 2) Is the big boss human?; 3) Can the little person rise to the top?; 4) Will I get fired?; 5) Will the organisation help me?; 6) How will the boss react to mistakes?; and 7) How will the organisation deal with obstacles?

Martin et. al. (1983) present three explanations why these seven types of organisational stories can be found in most organisations. These stories deal with issues of value conflicts, offer ways of taking credit for positive situations and laying blame for negative situations, as well as give an organisation the feeling of uniqueness with which its members can identify with. They are, therefore, all chief sense making and communication devices of organisational culture, enabling employees to share and understand organisational values.

  Slide13  Steve Denning is one of the US’ foremost authorities on storytelling. He was programme director for Knowledge Management at the World Bank from 1996 – 2000.  This is his summary of “how to” use stories, printed in HBR.

  Slide14  Karen wondered if it would be possible to match organisational story themes and Booker’s fictional themes – and while there are some overlaps, it’s by no means perfect.

  Slide15  Some examples of stories told in academic research projects on stories:

IBM

Martin et al (1983) document a story in which a female supervisor at IBM challenges Thomas Watson Jnr, the chairman of the Board.  The story is related as follows:

The supervisor was a 22 year old bride weighing 90 pounds whose husband had been sent overseas and who, in consequence, had been given a job until his return.  The young woman, Lucile Berger, was obliged to make certain that people entering security areas wore the correct identification.

Surrounded by his usual entourage of white-shirted men, Watson approached the doorway to an area where she was on guard, wearing an orange badge acceptable elsewhere in the plant, but not a green badge, which alone permitted entrance at her door. “I was trembling in my uniform, which was far too big,” she recalled.  “It hid my shakes, but not my voice. “I’m sorry,” I said to him. I knew who he was, alright.  “You cannot enter.  You admittance is not recognised.”  That’s what we were supposed to say.

The men accompanying Watson were stricken; the moment held unpredictable possibilities. “Don’t you know who he is?” some one hissed.  Watson raised his hand for silence, while one of the party strode off and returned with an appropriate badge.

Martin et al interpret the moral behind this story by suggesting that for higher status employees the message is “Even Watson obeys the rules, so you certainly should” while lower status employees should “uphold the rules no matter who is disobeying. The implication is that while other corporate heads may flout regulations, Watson sets an example for all his employees.

Revlon

Everyone was supposed to sign in in the morning.  Everyone
. Even Charles signed in.  One day, when Revlon was in the process of moving from 666 Fifth Avenue up to the General Motors Building in 1969, Charles sauntered in and began to look over the sign in sheet.  The receptionist, who was new, says “I’m sorry sir, you can’t do that.”  Charles says “Yes I can.” “No sir,” she says, “I have strict orders that no-one is to remove the list. You’ll have to put it back.”  This goes back and forth for a while with the receptionist being very courteous, as all Revlon receptionists are, and finally, Charles says, “Do you know who I am?” And she says, “No sir, I don’t.” “Well, when you pick up your final paycheck this afternoon, ask ‘em to tell ya.”

Virgin Brides
Ailsa Petchey, flight attendant on Virgin Atlantic, helping a friend organise her wedding.  She reasoned that it would be much easier if there was a one stop shop where you could organise and buy everything.  She took the idea to Branson and the result is Virgin Brides – Petchey became its European head of marketing.

As Gary Hamel, writing in Fortune says:  “Could this happen in your company? Could a twentysomething first-line employee buttonhole the chairman and get permission to start a new business?”  In the long term, Virgin Brides might or might not be a success, but the important aspects are that Virgin was prepared to take the risk and give its name to it.

Karen suggested that the force of the organisational story depends, at least in part, on its ability to evoke and encapsulate simultaneously the value system that implicitly underlies organisational practices.

  Slide16   Turning to the development of one’s own organisational story, this diagram is from Larson, 2000, who considers that an organisation’s ability to express itself through storytelling depends on the clarity and coherence of the company’s vision, mission and identity and on an accurate reflection of its reputation.

Organising as communication – when the number of people communicating the story of the organisation increases, as do the variety of stakeholders, organisational communication becomes more than mediating messages, it becomes the framework for combining strategy, organisation and marketing.  Effectively, the organisation needs to become the story it tells.
Setting the stage – the organisation itself becomes the platform from which the stories unfold – so buildings, offices, corporate symbols need to reflect the organisation and be consistent with the organisational story – examples? Volvo plant at Kalmar designed to try and do away with the production line.
Valuing human resources – what Larson refers to here is extending the remuneration criteria to include

• Communication of the corporate story to stakeholders
• Guiding the organisation in making a contribution to the corporate story
• Contribution to the perceived trustworthiness of the organisation through consistent display or organisational values and attitudes

Symbolic management – using individual managers as storytellers and symbols; and as storytelling needs dialogue so interpersonal skills are essential as well as communication skills

  Slide17  Attempting to evaluate the use of stories in organisations, Karen acknowledged much evidence that story telling is a good method of learning. It enables learning to move from explicit and abstract knowledge to learning experiences, which are more meaningful, as well as easier to recall.  If storytelling for learning is done with groups of people, they are contributors, and are included in the process.

• The process of stories should be very open – in storytelling workshops, narrators and listeners can retell a story and derive meanings from it that are relevant to their own context, and in constructing organisational stories, best practice is defined by the level of consultation and involvement of all levels of employees and other stakeholders. This should, in theory at least, produce a level of engagement to the process and the outcome.
• No special skills needed – just bring your own experience and reflections, and all viewpoints are valid.
• The telling of positive stories about organisations, or concurrence with the prevailing, dominant stories in organisations and the telling of organisational signifies a high degree of commitment, according to McCarthy (2008). This also echoes Wilkins and Martin (1997) who consider one the three functions for the organisational story to be generating commitment (other two are making sense of the organisation and control). McCarthy’s findings were that longer tenure employees exhibited richer and more storytelling; when stories were more positive, employees were more strongly committed to the organisation, that references to the values in stories were made by significantly more higher ranking respondents;

CONS

• No doubt that storytelling is attracting a lot of attention – but given the reliance of organisations on quantitative, analytical tools (BPR, TQM etc) rather than narrative tools, Karen’s view was that this would be perceived as more risky….?
• To have employees internalise corporate narrative requires a more direct involvement of them in the articulation (Christensen and Cheney 2000)
• Storytelling workshop participants enter into a dialogue – and essential characteristics of useful dialogue are “Respect, inclusion and engagement”, according to Greene (2001) – and this level of restraint may not always be present, especially in change situations
• The International Association of Business Communicators conducted one of the most comprehensive studies ever on storytelling in organisations. Less than half thought their CEOs were effective storytellers, and obstacles to using storytelling included the lack of skills at senior management level to tell and use stories.

  Slide18   Moving on to the merits of storytelling in change, Karen said that:

PROs

• Many commentators have noted (and we agree!) that the development of a rational argument for change is insufficient. Where there are losses of power, position, colleagues, even competence, people’s reactions are primarily emotional, not rational
• If storytelling promotes learning, then in situations where to develop new thinking and ways of working quickly is critical to success, stories may provide a method of doing this
• If employees are asked to share stories about their ideal organisation (where they’ve worked before, occasions when this organisation got it right) and then share stories of the actual organisation, this helps to clarify the problem and the dialogue encourages individuals to look at solutions
• Stories, especially if they are verbally used rather than written down, are fairly easy to “tweak” to reflect new realities

Cons

• As has been said, stories are open to multiple interpretations, where listeners and tellers derive meanings from it relevant to their own social context – as a result, story telling is hugely flexible and democratic. However, with multiple perceptions, it is impossible to be sure that there is just ONE story – and for some change efforts to succeed, this is needed, and everyone needs to be following the same line.  As Boje said in his study of Disney, “At one extreme, the storytelling organisation can oppress by subordinating everyone and collapsing everything into one grand narrative.”
• We have already heard from McCarthy (who was enthusiastic about stories as a management tool) that the nearer respondents were to the CEO, the richer and more value-laden their stories became.  But what about the workers?

Boyce (1995) believes that “the response of different occupational groups to management myths will depend on their position in the organisational hierarchy and the interests served by managerial initiatives.  Hence it can be expected that some occupational groups will align with the interests of management – but not others”.

Karen then gave two examples which perhaps show “changing the story” in a different light…

The first was about Disney, a journal article written in 1995 by David Boje.
Boje’s article began life as research which looked at Disney as a storytelling organisation, which gave him free access to the Disney archives. After looking at the data in a very narrow way (discovering that Walt Disney and Michael Eisner engaged in more storytelling than Ron Miller for example) he went on to deconstruct the stories in their historical context, allow him to look at how the stories evolved and changed over time and over accounts. So he compared the official accounts that he found in the archives with “unofficial” accounts such as biographies, histories and other studies (Van Maanen).  This way, he was able to look at the ambiguity in BOTH sets of accounts and then how Disney “discliplined” its storytelling.

• unskilled women employed to perform specialised inking tasks while male craftsmen and apprentices did the more skilled drawing; Taylorist control practices
• Paid lower wages than industry standard, fired at will
• 1941 strike 50% of Disney animators joined the Cartoonist Guild, but Walt refused to recognise the union; it was led by Art Babbitt and David Hilberman
• Walt Disney apparently threatened to fire anyone who attended outside union-organised meetings; pictures taken of strikers which were then taped to the walls of the offices

The reason Karen mentioned this study is that Art Babbitt was one of the highest paid Disney animators at the time of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, earning two hundred dollars a week, but after the 1941 strike, Walt Disney had the historical record altered by seeing to it that all references to Babbitt were purged from the Disney archive.  This is rewriting corporate history with a vengeance.

The second example was one from an interview with a female member of Chicago’s drugs squad.  She recounted her own disappearance from a story her colleague told.

“At the time, I was involved with another officer who was with me.  The operation went well and when he told the story, I played a key part, and he told everyone I had been brave, and had guts.  Then we broke up.  The next time I heard him telling the story, I seemed to be just along for the ride.  By the time I heard it the third time, I had disappeared altogether. Where’d I go? It’s only the guys who tell the stories, and only them that seem to figure.” (Snowden, 1999)

Despite storytelling looking to be an exciting development, Karen went on to give one final caveat and quoted words of caution from Karl Weick   Slide19 .

This has quite a lot to say about crisis, and identifying things which are beyond people’s current understanding (Weick talks in his book about Battered Child Syndrome).

Whatever stories you may think about developing in your organisation, it seems clear that those that develop without management intervention are more powerful in influencing people’s schema, or their ways of acting and thinking,

This seems to imply that all stories must be at least credible and realistic…..

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