How to use telling tales for corporate advantage

by Karen Alsfine 23 January 2007

From RalBusiness Network http://www.realbusiness.co.za/Article.aspx?articleID=3884&typeID=2

ONCE upon a time. Happily ever after. Comedy or drama. Telling tales is far more than an activity just for respite, so it seems.

Storytelling is the meaning of life, connecting the prosaic to the divine and constituting the most engaging way of communicating, says Peter Christie, Big Chief Talking Bull from Not the Bored Room.

An expert in storytelling for organisations, Christie, claims people need great stories. “All the religions know this, they have stories and they have rituals to reiterate those stories.”

Conversely, organisations generally do not have conscious stories and they have impoverished rituals that typically do not sustain themselves either, Christie explains. “Business often pays too much attention to business and not enough attention to the ‘show’ — which is the great story the business represents.”

Stories are important because meaning of the world takes form by telling them, agrees corporate storyteller and change consultant Steve Banhegyi.

“Organisations, cultures and societies are sustained through stories and our attempts to understand and negotiate the world are grounded in narrative. Storytelling translates bare facts and logical argument into a form with which people can engage both emotionally and intellectually.

“If you wish to transform how people approach issues or demonstrate the value of behavioural change, there is no better way than through a good story,” he says.

Why? Simply because ideas become stimulating and inspiring when presented as stories. And stories demand to be passed on, retold and embellished as part of an organisation’s oral culture.

Stories are also powerful mediums to articulate key business drivers such as brand, vision, mission, values, measures, purpose and the marketing message. Archetypal marketing, for example, looks for the yearning that is missing in people’s lives.

Think of the Marlboro man — the adventurer archetype or Harley Davidson — the rebel-archetype. “These stories will determine whether people buy, participate, invest in, work for or even believe in your offering,” says Banhegyi.

But, he cautions, to achieve this you need a story people can relate to. A just-can’t-put-it-down tale.

In his book, Telling Tales, Stephen Denning proposes that effective storytelling can accomplish something that logic and analysis fail to do in today’s business world. It “offers a route to the heart”.

And that’s where we must go if we are to motivate people not only to take action but to do so with energy and enthusiasm.

“At a time when corporate survival often requires disruptive change, leadership involves inspiring people to act in unfamiliar and often unwelcome ways. Mind-numbing cascades of numbers or powerpoint slides won’t achieve this goal. But effective storytelling often does. Storytelling can translate dry and abstract numbers into compelling pictures of leaders’ goals,” says Denning.

Storytelling can enhance an organisation’s performance, culture and creativity because an effective storytelling process forms a space where organisational participants articulate and “let go” of stories of the past. By so doing, it generates and embraces a more expansive vision of the future, says Banhegyi.

“These stories fashion a context in the organisation where it becomes safe to really live organisational values such as teamwork, innovation, and integrity.”

Storytelling therefore constitutes a powerful force for transforming organisations. “But this requires leaderships’ involvement. They need to acquire the skills of great storytelling and they need to tell authentic tales.”

So, what makes a good storyline?

In a Harvard Business Review article, What’s Your Story, the authors describe the key elements of a classic story as having: a protagonist whom the listener cares about; a catalyst compelling the protagonist to take action; trials and tribulations that reveal, test and shape the protagonist’s character; a turning point after which the protagonist can no longer see or do things the same way as before; and a resolution in which the protagonist either succeeds magnificently or falls tragically.

As an example, Christie refers to the North American Indian legend of Jumping Mouse, a hero archetype who embarks on a hero’s journey. The story recounts the tale of a mouse that jumps “above the grass to hear what other mice don’t hear … and then sets out on a path of discovery”.

The story is filled with twists and troubles and has characters who represent metaphors for life, like the racoon who acts as Jumping Mouse’s guide (a mentor).

Christie says: “The archetypes in these stories generate change because they stimulate thinking about what the story is saying about me, and story archetypes underlie every culture, like The Three Little Pigs (make sure you build solid foundations). When you tell such stories, people share at a deep level and engage emotionally.

“The element of being human is embedded in most stories. And this will always be relevant.”

Stories also have the hooks and therefore represent a compelling resource to maintain a consistent message. There are two distinct forms of organisational storytelling: the life stories of the individuals within the organisation and the organisational narrative, says Banhegyi. “It is important to engage both because the stories of individual employees are useful in understanding the unique organisational diversity mix, and the organisational story creates a context for day-to-day experience.

“The organisational narrative engages stories with themes such as: What is going on? Who are we? What do we sell? How do we do things here; Where are we coming from and where are we going?”

One of the first symptoms of an organisation in trouble is when its narrative collapses, says Banhegyi. Everyone has a different story about “what is really going on”.

So stories can capture the DNA of an organisation and the “memes” (genes) or deeply held beliefs within the corporate structure. “These stories are therefore profoundly significant and need to be deliberately controlled and told by leadership,” says Banhegyi.

“All forms of communication are ultimately stories that try to stimulate understanding, belief, a sense of identity and action. ”

For Banhegyi, stories constitute persuasive, action-oriented communications that change minds. A good story, as long as it is well formed and consistently told, has the power to change attitudes, perceptions, expectations and behaviours, because stories depict the world in terms of a complex, living dynamic rather than a linear cause-effect relationship.

And what is the “aha” factor in all this? “Stories intrinsically remind people of who they are and we should not spend our lives trying to forget this,” says Christie.

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