From its humble beginnings in oral tradition to the digital productions of today, storytelling has always been an important part of the human experience. Stories reflect the way our minds process the world around us and give us a sense of purpose. When it comes to getting complex messages across, there is nothing better than a compelling story to get people’s attention.The business world understands the power of stories as well. We’re all familiar with the advertising campaigns where companies spend billions creating brilliant stories for their consumers. But what is our experience with the way organizations tell stories internally?
The article “The irrational side of change” published in the latest McKinsey Quarterly mentions two kinds of stories that often emerge within organizations undergoing change. The first is the “Good to great” story, where a company looks to regain a lost leadership role, and the second describes an under-performing organization that must make dramatic changes to survive, the classic “comeback” story. These kinds of stories share a lot of familiar features. Generally, they aim to persuade by making rational arguments supported by facts and statistics that show how results will meet expectations. In doing so, they tend to ignore internal struggles and challenges and try to paint a positive picture of the current situation. On the surface, the rational approach seems to be the obvious way to go, that is, until you look at another familiar feature of these stories: they tend to be universally ignored. As a Change Agency, storytelling is an important part of what we do, which is getting people to act to bring about change. In our experience, people are rarely inspired to do so by reason alone; you cannot ignore the irrational, emotional component of change.
Our team recently had the pleasure of attending a workshop by Robert McKee, a world class screenwriter and storytelling expert. Describing his work as a consultant on Wall Street, McKee argues that reaching people is about “engaging their emotions…the key to their hearts is a story”. In his view, the rational approach, with its bullet-point facts and Power Point slides simply won’t work on employees who “have their own set of authorities, statistics and experience. While you are trying to persuade them, they are arguing with you in their heads.” He goes on to suggest that the familiar approach of framing an overly optimistic, positive outlook for the future creates similar problems. This kind of story weakens your arguments’ credibility and fails to impress people smart enough to know that nothing is ever as simple as it seems.
The screenwriter’s view corresponds well with our experience of managing change. If you want people to listen to and embrace your change message it needs to portray the human drama that happens when real people face real challenges and obstacles. Our reaction to any kind of change is never a totally rational process, and it doesn’t involve an idealized path from expectation to goal. As McKee says: “Your story should display the struggle between expectation and reality in all its nastiness”. A good story creates a sense of urgency by putting the intended audience in the central role, where they must ask themselves “what would I do in that situation?”, and it creates an emotional connection by framing the struggle in a way that speaks to them on a personal level.
When done correctly, storytelling has the power to unite people under a common sense of purpose and fuel the kind of collective action that gets your best strategies off the ground. As you think about your own organization’s story, ask yourself an unusual question…Is our story irrational enough?
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