Storytelling - Getting the Message Across

research C O R P O R AT E R E S E A R C H F O R U M

September 2014

Storytelling – Getting the Message Across

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”Whereas storytelling in organisations was considered fresh and radical just a few years ago, it has recently become more mainstream. It is an undeniably important and useful tool, with the potential to enhance communications across organisations at all levels.”

Gillian Pillans, Report author.

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Storytelling – Getting the Message Across No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Corporate Research Forum One Heddon Street Mayfair London W1B 4BD United Kingdom ISBN: 978-0-9564488-6-6

research C O R P O R AT E R E S E A R C H F O R U M

September 2014

Storytelling – Getting the Message Across Gillian Pillans

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CORPORATE RESEARCH FORUM

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Gillian Pillans

About the author

Acknowledgements

Gillian Pillans

The author would like to thank all the research participants, who generously gave their time and shared their insights. Thanks also to Jane Simms for editing the report.

Gillian Pillans has worked as a senior HR practitioner and OD specialist for several organisations including Swiss Re, Vodafone and BAA. Prior to her HR career, she was a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting and is also a qualified solicitor.

Gillian has written various CRF reports on subjects including HR strategy, organisation design and development, leadership development, coaching and diversity.

About CRF Founded in 1994, Corporate Research Forum (CRF) is a membership organisation whose international focus is on research, discussion and the practical application of contemporary topics arising from people management, learning and organisation development. CRF has become a highly influential focal point and network for over 145 members representing a cross-section of private and public sector organisations.

• Its annual programme of research, events and publications fully reflects members’ interests, in addition to the annual international conference. Side meetings and interest groups are also initiated to meet challenges that members might have.

• Contributors are acknowledged experts in their field with a worldwide reputation as leaders and innovators in management thinking and practice.

• Sharing and collaboration among members is a key feature of CRF’s activities. We actively encourage networking at all events, and especially through member lunches and HR director dinners.

• CRF is led and managed by highly-regarded former HR professionals who have a passion for delivering excellence in the leadership and development of organisations and people.

CRF’s goal is to be valued for excellence, rigour, relationship building and providing an independent view which, together, lead to measurable improvement in members’ people and organisation performance.

For more details on how your organisation can benefit from membership to CRF please contact Richard Hargreaves, Commercial Director, on +44 (0) 20 7470 7104 or at richard@crforum.co.uk. Alternatively, please visit our website at www.crforum.co.uk.

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CONTENTS

Contents Executive Summary

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1 Once upon a time‌

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2 How and why does storytelling work?

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3 The elements of a good story

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4 Storytelling in practice

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5 Conclusion and recommendations

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6 References and further reading

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Executive Summary “There’s something profoundly counter-intuitive about … narrative intelligence. We would all like to believe that it’s substance that convinces, that analytic understanding must surely be more effective than any mere story.… It’s hard to accept that something as primitive and old-fashioned as… narrative can be more powerful than analysis in the sophisticated business world of the 21st century.”

Stephen Denning, author of The Secret Language of Leadership

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• stories are more memorable and easier to recall than data

Storytelling in the context of organisation development and internal communications has become big business in recent years. This report considers:

• it allows people to add their own perspective to the story, and engage with the story in a way that’s unique to them

• what we mean by ‘stories’ in the organisational context • what organisations can achieve through storytelling

• stories reflects the ambiguity of real life and allow complex ideas to be presented in a way that’s easy to digest

• the evidence that storytelling is more effective than other forms of communication

• it can spur commitment to action far more effectively than logical analysis.

• what makes a good story 5 • how organisations are using stories in practice.

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• It appears to be a natural human trait to use stories to make sense of situations.

Stories have been around almost as long as human beings. They appear to play a key role in developing cohesive societies and in helping us to understand why we act as we do.

The use of storytelling in organisations has become much more common. Leaders are increasingly realising that sharing information based on logic and rational analysis alone has only limited value, and that for employees to commit to action they need to be engaged at both an emotional and intellectual level.

Cognitive psychology provides clues to why storytelling is effective.

• People are significantly more likely to remember information that is presented in the form of a story.

• Active involvement in a story facilitates learning.

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The elements of what makes a good story are rooted in the concept of 'rhetoric' first developed by Aristotle in Ancient Greece. Effective stories combine each of the following three elements:

Storytelling appears to work because: • 'logos' – reasoned discourse or argument

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• it helps people make sense of their environment and the challenges they face

• 'pathos' – awakening emotions to achieve a desired outcome

• it is rooted in emotion and can therefore touch people in ways that more rational forms of communication can't

• 'ethos' – the aspects of the character, beliefs and values of the storyteller that make them credible to their audience.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

“Stories provide a window on the soul of our organisation. The stories people tell instruct us about how they feel about the business.” Geoff Lloyd, Group HR Director, Serco

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The structure, plot and characters in the story are also important, and storytellers need to pay attention to content and style in order to make stories compelling. Stories can also be crafted to suit different organisational requirements, such as sparking action, sharing values and leading people into the future.

10 We consider the role of leaders as storytellers. Our research found that organisations are encouraging their leaders to develop storytelling as a core leadership capability. Some organisations are making significant investments in helping leaders develop storytelling skills.

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We review the ‘universal’ stories that recur throughout history and in disparate societies, and ask whether they have resonance in today’s organisations. We also consider the relevance of Carl Jung’s concept of ‘archetypes’ – the idea that certain innate characteristics inform all human experience and behaviour.

11 In conclusion, we find that storytelling can be a powerful business tool if it is used well and with care. We recommend that organisations consider whether there are opportunities to expand their use of storytelling and further develop their internal capability.

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The report shares insights into how organisations have used storytelling to achieve a variety of business objectives, including: • engaging people in the organisation’s history and sense of purpose • developing and sustaining culture and values • developing business strategy and gaining employee commitment to strategy execution • setting an agenda for change and making change happen • handling conflict and sensitive situations • celebrating success and rewarding and recognising employee contributions.

However, we found little, if any, direct evaluation of the effectiveness of storytelling as a management technique.

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ONCE UPON A TIME‌

Topics covered

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Introduction

1.1

The power of telling a story

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1.2

Storytelling – a fad in the making?

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In this chapter we introduce the concept of storytelling and trace its history and the role it has played in society. We also consider what organisations can achieve through storytelling.

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ONCE UPON A TIME…

“[Stories] … are far and away one of the most important features of our everyday existence.”

Christopher Booker, author of The Seven Basic Plots

What is a story?

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a wise young prince. He had recently inherited his father’s lands, but the luscious, verdant landscape had been neglected, and the country was heavily in debt.

He gathered together his advisers, who set out the sorry details of the country’s plight.

“The coffers are nearly empty, sire. We will soon no longer be able to pay our debts,” said one. “The tourists who used to visit our castles, mountains and beaches now choose to go elsewhere,” said another. “Our agricultural yields have fallen by 40% in five years,” said a third.

The prince knew that radical action was required, and that he needed his subjects’ help to turn the situation around. But how?

He spent many days and nights gathering together statistics, graphs and charts detailing the country’s predicament. He prepared slides setting out a new strategy, with detailed action plans and implementation schedules. He invited his subjects to a meeting in the biggest hall in his castle, and talked through his plans with the help of 50 PowerPoint slides. But when he reviewed the accounts a month later, nothing had changed. In fact, the situation had grown even worse. Why was no-one heeding his cry for action?

A second time he gathered his people together. He eloquently and rationally explained the situation the country was in, why it had got there and what he thought should be done. But again nothing changed.

One day, the prince’s oldest, wisest adviser found the prince alone in his office, his head bowed in despair. The prince outlined the situation. “What shall I do?” he wailed.

How is a story different from any other form of communication? Annette Simmons, an expert in corporate storytelling, defines a story as: “an imagined (or re-imagined) experience narrated with enough detail and feeling to cause your listener’s imagination to experience it as real.”

In their book The Elements of Persuasion, Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman define a story as “a fact, wrapped in an emotion, that compels us to take an action."

We believe that the key elements of stories in a business context are as follows.

• They can be based on real or imagined events.

• They have a narrative and characters.

• They engage the emotions, not just the logical, rational brain.

• The experience of the listener or reader makes the story seem real to them.

“Tell them a story!” was the adviser’s immediate reply. “Draw a word picture of how this land will look in a year’s time. Describe how it will feel to live here. Engage your people’s imagination in what is possible.”

So that is exactly what the prince did. This time he didn't lecture his people; he didn't bore them with endless slides and statistics. He told them a story of the land he was proud to call his own. Then he invited them to tell their own stories of how they felt about their country, and how they would like it to be. He asked each person to commit to one thing they would do differently over the next year, and he sent them on their way.

The turnaround was not easy, but together the prince and his people got their country back on its feet and made it a beautiful place to visit once more. He threw a huge party to celebrate their achievements. But before the celebrations began he asked everyone to tell their stories of how things had been transformed, and what they should do next.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Throughout human history, storytelling has played a fundamental role in defining who we are and how we relate to others. The earliest known written stories were produced in ancient Babylon around 1700BC. Stories such as creation myths were passed down orally through generations for thousands of years before they were written down. Cave paintings suggest that the roots of storytelling go back even to prehistoric societies. The principles of good storytelling were well understood in Ancient Greece. And as the multi-billion-dollar entertainment industry attests, storytelling is alive and well today.

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ONCE UPON A TIME…

“Analysis might excite the mind, but it hardly 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.”

Stephen Denning, author of The Secret Language of Leadership

How do stories survive through the ages?

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins developed the concept of the 'meme' to explain how ideas survive through generations. He first coined the term in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, and he defines it as any idea, behaviour or trend that has the ability to transmit from person to person. Memes are units of cultural information – 'ideas' – that act in a similar way to genes in our bodies. As they replicate themselves from one person to another through communication, they change and adapt. The most memorable, compelling and adaptable memes survive; others die out. Stories such as creation myths and hero stories that emerged from Ancient Greece, the Middle East, South America and the Egyptian and Chinese dynasties have survived remarkably consistently through the ages and live on today in many popular books and films.

Communicates a sense of purpose

In this report we explore: • what businesses can achieve through storytelling • the evidence that storytelling works • what makes a good business story • how organisations can use storytelling to achieve specific goals.

1.1 The power of telling a story A great deal has been written about what organisations can achieve by storytelling. In the next chapter, we explore in more depth how and why storytelling works. In the meantime we summarise below what advocates of corporate storytelling believe it can do.

Helps us feel part of something greater than ourselves

Warns about the consequences of certain actions such as overreaching oneself or hubris (particularly in leaders)

Galvanises us into action

So what role does the emotional, fantasy world of storytelling play in the rational, data-driven context of business organisations? Until recently, many organisations considered it too imprecise or ‘fluffy’ to inform serious commercial dialogue. Any mention of storytelling would prompt eye rolling and impatient demands from executives for reasoned analysis, backed up by data. These days, however, we find that businesses large and small, across the spectrum of industry and commerce, are increasingly using storytelling to help develop their leaders, communicate their strategy and motivate their staff.

Communicates who you are

Connects people or organisations with their roots

Humanises organisations

Describes what is truly valued

Imagines possible futures

Honours achievements

Pushes the boundaries Allows us to learn from – of what's possible and avoid repeating – past mistakes

Shares good practices

Shows contrition

Helps prepare for change and transition

Names the elephant in the room

Shares hopes and visions

Acknowledges disaster or tragedy

1.2 Storytelling – a fad in the making?

Our research found storytelling in organisations to be more widespread than we had anticipated. Over recent years it has become increasingly mainstream and accepted as a key communication technique. Is it something that organisations should embrace wholeheartedly? Or could it be just a passing management fad?

There are many arguments in favour of storytelling.

• Human beings are hard-wired for storytelling and it is fundamental to how we make sense of the world.

• Stories enjoy a higher level of recall than any other form of communication.

• There appear to be few organisational situations where storytelling is inappropriate – it works at all levels, can be adapted to any scenario and can be useful in handling even the most sensitive situations.

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ONCE UPON A TIME…

“Powerful stories have spurred millions of men and women to acts – tragic and heroic – that have cost them their lives and fundamentally reshaped our world.” Jonah Sachs, author of The Story Wars

The core purpose of storytelling We would caution, however, that although companies are investing effort and resources in storytelling, there is no hard evidence that it works. We did not come across any systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of storytelling, and there is scant scientific evidence to back up the claims made by its fans.

What evaluation we did encounter is generally limited to impressions or anecdotes, and in other cases organisations find it difficult to isolate the impact of storytelling from other initiatives.

• Elizabeth Edwards, Head of Talent Development at beverages company Twinings Ovo, noticed that: “people were doing fewer ‘presentations’, instead bringing storyboards with pictures to meetings, where they talked about the pictures rather than using sets of slides.

We also noticed people using metaphors to explain change.”

• Anecdotally, storytelling appears to help people remember what they heard. Stephen Bungay, Director of Ashridge Strategic Management Centre, relates how, several months after his story-based sessions, he finds people able to recall in some detail the stories and underpinning messages that were shared.

• Similarly, we heard how storytelling makes situations seem more ‘real’ or memorable. For example, Elizabeth Edwards described feeling the room go quiet as the General Manager told a story at the Twinings Ovo annual conference. After the event, people talked about how they sensed a ‘magical’ moment. Although it happened some time ago, people have stronger memories of that moment than of similar more recent events.

Even organisations that are highly skilled and practised in storytelling can still be heavily oriented to data and quantitative input. As Samantha Rockey, Head of Leadership Development at SABMiller, pointed out: “Even though we have a strong history of storytelling, it’s still a constant battle against PowerPoint. Influencing and decision making is heavily oriented towards data and rational, logically driven arguments but we have made progress such as banishing PowerPoint presentations by our leaders from our management development programmes for the last ten years.”

Christopher Booker, author of The Seven Basic Plots, which explores why people tell stories, identifies three key reasons.

• To achieve a state of harmony. “[Stories] present us with a model of what is required for any human being to achieve maturity.…

He or she must consciously have reached a state of harmony with the unconscious … a balance between body and mind, heart and soul.… To show how this state can be achieved (and how and why human beings fall short of achieving it) is the central purpose of storytelling.”

• To reveal truths about human nature. “[Storytelling] provides a uniquely revealing mirror to the inner dynamics of human nature.”

• To understand why we do what we do.

“Laying bare the unconscious foundations which underlie so much of the way we view the world [casts] an extraordinarily revealing light on history, politics, religion, philosophy and almost every aspect of human thought and behaviour.”

In summary, it seems that storytelling can be a useful tool for organisation development, but practitioners should proceed with care. Both logic and storytelling play a valuable role in communications, and the two approaches can complement each other well.

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HOW AND WHY DOES STORYTELLING WORK?

Topics covered

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Introduction

2.1

What happens when you tell a story?

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2.2

What cognitive psychology tells us

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In this chapter we review what makes storytelling effective, and what we can learn from the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

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2 HOW AND WHY DOES STORYTELLING WORK?

“What stories can tell us ... much more profoundly than we have realised, is how our human nature works, and why we think and behave in this world as we do.” Christopher Booker, author of The Seven Basic Plots

2.1 What happens when you tell a story?

Organisations today are heavily data driven and most executives are trained in structured, logical analysis. But success depends on being able to persuade others to support your vision or recommended course of action. The problem with logic is: • for every data-driven argument, there is usually a counter-argument based on different data • persuading people by reason alone does not lead to action.

Storytelling seems to offer a way of getting people on-side in a way that you can't do through logical argument alone. As Peter Guber, author of Tell to Win and a successful movie industry executive, expresses it: “Everybody in business shares one universal problem: to succeed you have to persuade others to support your vision, dream or cause.… You have to reach their hearts as well as their minds – and this is just what storytelling does.”

There are a number of possible explanations for this.

• A unique characteristic of humans is our ability to make sense of the world, and stories are the principal way humans make sense of, and give significance to, the experiences we have.

• People can recall stories, including the feelings and images they evoked, many years later.

• Stories are rooted in emotion and can therefore touch us in ways that more ‘rational’ forms of communication can't.

• Stories both describe things we are conscious of and allow us to interpret our subconscious through different lenses and experiences.

• Action does not result from rational analysis – witness the failure of most diets to achieve lasting weight loss. To invoke action, it is necessary to engage feelings.

• Stories feel familiar, because they are rooted in universal truths humans share. According to Stephen Bungay, stories help people “realise something different about what they already know, which means they are more likely to act.”

Do you need a strong consumer brand to make a compelling organisation story?

Storytelling often comes easier to organisations with strong consumer brands or a clear corporate purpose that people can identify with.

• Storytelling is at the heart of SABMiller's corporate communications and leadership development strategies. Its corporate website tells stories linked to individual brands, to the company's long brewing heritage and to key themes such as sustainability. Its leaders are natural storytellers, who ‘tell it like it is’.

• GSK uses storytelling to connect employees with the patients who use its products – but who generally have little influence over the medicines that are prescribed to them.

Posters in the R&D department remind research scientists that 'the patient is waiting' and leaflets on tables in the company café tell stories of how medicines have changed lives.

• In Cancer Research UK, the stories of cancer patients are a very powerful part of how staff and volunteers are engaged in its charitable mission. In recent years the messages, as well as focusing on scientific research, now include personal stories of cancer patients whose lives have been saved by treatment, to help engage and make the work relevant.

Stories – particularly those facilitated by social media – are also contagious. As the column describes, organisations can either benefit from this or it can become a public relations disaster.

So what actually happens that makes storytelling compelling?

1. Changing the mood • Stephen Denning, author of The Secret Language of Leadership and one of the ‘gurus’ of storytelling, finds that storytelling can change the mood, because listeners are more likely to relax, concentrate and focus on the speaker when they hear a story.

• Denning also finds listeners are less easily distracted by phones and email.

2. Engaging feelings • Listeners who are engaged in a story tend to be receptive to the emotional and human truth it contains.

• By incorporating data in a story, we associate the data with the feelings experienced while hearing the story. When we recall the information subsequently, we also recall the related feeling.

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HOW AND WHY DOES STORYTELLING WORK?

“Although good business arguments are developed through the use of numbers, they are typically approved on the basis of a story – that is, a narrative that links a set of events in some kind of causal sequence. Storytelling can translate those dry and abstract numbers into compelling pictures of a leader’s goals.” Stephen Denning, author of The Secret Language of Leadership Do you need a strong consumer brand to make a compelling organisation story? continued But what if you don’t have a strong consumer brand or inspiring corporate mission? There are many other ways of uniting people around corporate stories, although it may require more thought to get beyond the obvious.

• Customer stories. Telling the story of how a new customer was won over, or how the company’s products or services help its customers to achieve their mission. An element of Rolls-Royce’s new strategy is ‘putting the customer at the heart of the organisation’. The company has begun to gather stories that illustrate this in practice, and the best examples will receive a company award.

• Tackling an intractable challenge.

Companies can use stories of how employees overcame an apparently unsolvable technical challenge to inspire creative approaches to problem-solving.

• Looking after employees. Centrica Energy has used storytelling to embed the ‘CE way’, which describes “the way we want our business to be run, the way we want people to act and the way we want it to feel working for Centrica Energy. It affects everyone in the business and everything we do. It’s made up of three ways – High Performance, Pioneering Spirit and Safety.” As part of the induction programme, Directors are invited to talk about their experience in the energy industry to share stories which demonstrate why High Performance, Pioneering Spirit and Safety are important.

3. Dealing with ambiguity • Good stories contain an element of ambiguity: multi-faceted messages involving different characters and plots reflect real life.

• People identify situations and behaviours with characters and they become a sort of shorthand for something which would otherwise be abstract, complex, or difficult to explain simply in a rational, logical way.

• Stories help to make points of principle in a straightforward way.

• Laborious explanations or long discussions can be avoided by telling a story.

4. Managing difficult conversations • A story can relieve the tension in a situation, particularly with the judicious use of humour.

• Stories can be used to refocus a discussion on what’s important, or re-energise it when it’s lost its way.

• Metaphors can cut through the barriers of national cultures in multinational businesses.

5. Making it personal • People can extract messages that are relevant to their own situation; they can make their own interpretations and draw their own conclusions.

• Stories can help others see things from your point of view.

• Stephen Bungay, who uses the film Gladiator to illustrate his leadership models, is struck by the different aspects of the story that people discuss afterwards. “Everyone talks about a different part of the story, [one] that’s relevant to their situation. They pick up on the important message for them.”

Stephen Bungay cautions that a common mistake presenters make is trying to tell the audience what conclusions to reach from a story. It is the personal meanings people attach to a story that determine whether it’s real for them, and whether it will lead to shared commitment to action.

2.2 What cognitive psychology tells us As we mentioned earlier, experts in storytelling have little to offer in terms of hard evidence that storytelling leads to better outcomes than communications based on data and logic alone. However, the field of cognitive psychology provides some clues.

1. People often create stories to make sense of situations, even when no story exists In the 1940s, psychologists Heider and Simmel conducted studies testing how people perceived other individuals, their behaviour and personal qualities. Subjects watched a short animated film depicting three geometric shapes – two triangles and a circle – moving around the screen. Although there was no explicit ‘story’ involved, the subjects described a narrative underlying the movements of the shapes, and attributed emotions, motivation and personality to the actions on the screen. Subjects made sense of what was happening on the screen by constructing a plot and characters in a story.

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HOW AND WHY DOES STORYTELLING WORK?

“Good storytellers inspire through use of emotion but also stimulate a mental reaction. By engaging both heart and mind they help people find their own individual motivation for doing something different.” Adrian Moorhouse, Managing Director, Lane4

2. Messages delivered in story form are more memorable Cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner found that facts are 20 times more likely to be remembered if they are part of a story. Studies have also found that subjects find it easier to recall a list of random words if they remember them as a story (mnemonics work in a similar way). The psychologist Frederic Bartlett measured the level of recall associated with different ways of presenting information, such as figures, photographs and stories, and found that people remember information more quickly and accurately when it is presented in the form of an example or story. This is particularly true when stories are intrinsically appealing. Bartlett’s work also showed that people tend to remember things better when the information fits with their existing attitudes. So, for example, a climate change believer might remember different details from Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth than a sceptic would.

3. Stories encourage learning Bruner identified two modes of thinking, each providing a different way of ordering experience and constructing reality.

• The logico-rational mode deals in abstract concepts, data, and logical argument.

• The narrative mode deals in stories, using human ability to imagine particular circumstances to explore the ”vicissitudes of human intentions”.

According to Bruner, while the two modes complement each other, each serves a different purpose: “The imaginative application of the [logico-rational] mode leads to good theory, tight analysis, logical proof, sound argument and empirical discovery guided by reasoned hypothesis. The imaginative application of the narrative mode leads instead to good stories, gripping drama and believable (although not necessarily 'true') historical accounts.”

Bruner found that listeners who are in a critical or evaluative mode are more likely to reject what is being said, whereas stories put the listener in a mental learning mode.

The neuroscience of storytelling Our understanding of brain function is in its very early stages, and as Professor Adrian Furnham points out, “we have still not found a storytelling centre in the brain.” However, neuroscientists suggest that one of the reasons stories are so compelling is that ‘mirror’ neurons within the brain react to stories in much the same way as they do to real-life sensory experiences. When we hear a story we pick up on sensory details and descriptions that activate our imaginations, allowing us to experience the story vicariously. Although this complex area is not fully understood, it suggests that humans may be ‘hard-wired’ for storytelling.

Some neuroscientists also believe that stories stimulate the regions of the brain that process meaning. By telling stories, tellers can assign meaning to facts, making them more memorable.

Communications need to appeal to the ‘feeling’ parts of the brain in the limbic system, as well as the ‘rational’ neo-cortex. Appealing to people’s rational brain may lead to people nodding in agreement, but this may not translate into action.

Cognitive psychologists have also found that co-creation – where the listener is actively involved in the development of the story – results in deeper processing and better recall of information. It is not entirely clear why this is, but Professor Adrian Furnham, Professor of Psychology at UCL, thinks that the emotions triggered by certain plot features – such as ambiguity or release of tension – draw people in and provide a motivation to be involved in the story.

In summary, despite the lack of evidence to explain why stories work in the way they do, it does seem that people are naturally drawn to stories, and that storytelling can therefore be used to help people learn, remember information better and commit to action.

In the next chapter we consider what makes a good story, and review the core stories that reverberate through history.

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THE ELEMENTS OF A GOOD STORY

Topics covered

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Introduction

3.1

The fundamentals of storytelling

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3.2

Classifying stories

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3.3

Crafting the story to the situation

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In this chapter we consider the theory underpinning the use of storytelling within organisations, and look at why certain stories seem to recur in different forms throughout history. We also examine what makes a good story and consider how stories can be crafted to suit different business situations.

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THE ELEMENTS OF A GOOD STORY

“When we hear stories based on these patterns, we feel more like we’re remembering something forgotten than learning something new.”Jonah Sachs, author of The Story Wars

3.1

Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln

The fundamentals of storytelling Storytelling, particularly in the business context, is rooted in the concept of 'rhetoric', which is described by Wikipedia as ”the art of discourse … that aims to improve the capability of writers or speakers to inform, persuade or motivate particular audiences in specific situations”. Rhetoric has been studied and used in the Western world since the days of Ancient Greece. Aristotle identified the three components of rhetoric necessary to win over an audience to the storyteller’s point of view as 'logos', 'ethos' and 'pathos'.

Logos reasoned discourse or argument

At the CRF Storytelling event on 10 September 2014, Stephen Bungay looked at how two of history’s great storytellers – Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln – used rhetoric in different ways to reach their goals.

• Churchill’s Finest Hour speech, delivered as the Battle of Britain was about to begin in 1940, used many of the common techniques of rhetoric such as imagery, simple syntax, structure and pace, to unite the nation against Nazi Germany.

• Two scenes from the film Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, showed how Abraham Lincoln was highly skilled in using personal stories – often involving humour – to get across key points of principle, defuse emotional situations, or disarm his opponents.

Some key points emerged while considering these two different approaches to storytelling.

Ethos the character, underlying beliefs and values driving the person who’s communicating

Pathos awakening emotions in an audience to induce a desired outcome

If any of these elements is missing, the message will be much less successful in persuading others to adopt the communicator’s point of view or take action as a result of what they say.

Communicators can fall into traps if they neglect one or more of these elements.

• Many business people, schooled in rational analysis, get stuck in ‘logos’ and fail to inspire or provoke action.

• Pathos needs to be balanced with the authenticity conferred by ethos, or listeners feel manipulated and the story backfires.

Rhetoric can be a powerful way to transfer one person’s conviction about a future course of action to others. But history is littered with examples – from wars to corporate collapses – of the dangers of using rhetoric for illegitimate ends.

1. Rhetoric needs to be used sensitively to the reality of the situation. Churchill’s powerful rhetoric skills were exactly what was needed in the early stages of war. In the 1930s, his rhetoric about impending war had failed to move people, and by the end of the war people were tired of hearing the ‘same old thing’.

2. Good storytelling requires authenticity and self-awareness. Abraham Lincoln could ‘get away with’ using humour, as his easy storytelling manner and background as a provincial lawyer from Kentucky allowed him to tell stories of ‘ordinary’ people and situations to great effect. Churchill was a historian from an aristocratic family – his oldfashioned, romantic style was consistent with his character and image.

3. You need to be a vessel for the cause.

Attendees at the event shared stories of leaders whose use of personal stories had failed because they were seen to be selfserving, or telling stories to satisfy their own ego. In contrast, Lincoln and Churchill believed in the causes they were promoting, and their actions backed up their words.

4. Little stories can have a big impact.

Lincoln’s story about a ‘little old lady’, who he helped escape conviction for murdering her violent husband, contributed to the abolition of slavery in the United States. Churchill’s brief speech helped swing the balance of opinion away from his opponents who advocated appeasing the Germans and avoiding war.

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“Myths inspire the realisation of the possibility of your perfection, the fullness of your strength and the bringing of light into the world. Slaying monsters is slaying the dark things. Myths grab you somewhere down inside.” Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero of a Thousand Faces

A universal myth?

Joseph Campbell, the renowned American mythologist, identified 'the hero’s journey' as the 'Monomyth' (a word borrowed from James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake) underlying all human adventures. It comprises a classic sequence of actions – from separation, through departure, to initiation and finally return – that are common to all stories, wherever or whenever they originated.

Underpinning Campbell’s universal myth is the concept of 'archetypes' developed by Carl Jung.

Archetypes are elementary ideas or characters that recur throughout human history and across cultures. Jung believed that humans are not born as a blank canvas, but carry pre-set concepts – archetypes – that inform their experiences and behaviours. These archetypes are the foundations of the common stories that humans share.

Aristotle described the basic structure of a story over 2000 years ago in his work Poetics. It may sound simple, but it has held true over time. Stories, he said, should have: • a beginning – in which the situation and characters are set up • a middle – where the story is developed by some sort of complication or difficulty to be overcome • an end – where the situation is resolved.

Content As well as thinking about plot (which we discuss further in the next section) and characters, there are other content and style factors to consider.

• Syntax – keep it simple; focus on concrete rather than abstract vocabulary.

• Rule of three – examples include Aladdin’s three wishes, Goldilocks and the three bears and Jack’s three visits up the beanstalk. According to Christopher Booker, author of The Seven Basic Plots, the use of threes is powerful because it shows that “the miraculous developments that take place in stories do not just happen instantly and effortlessly; they require a steady accumulation of experience, concentration and effort.”

Christopher Booker, author of The Seven Basic Plots, distils these plots, which he believes form the foundation for storytelling, into a universal plot, comprising a set of fundamental impulses that power each type of story.

• Contrastive pairs – Churchill’s Finest Hour speech contains several examples, including Britain’s “sunlit uplands” vs “the abyss” of Nazi Germany; Good (“the British Empire and Commonwealth”) vs Evil (“the enemy”).

• A hero or heroine, who is in some way constrained or unfulfilled, embarks on a course of action. This constriction sets up a tension to be resolved in the story.

• Emotion – listeners should be able to relate to the emotions in the story. Professor Adrian Furnham finds that certain emotions –building and releasing tension, for example – are very effective.

• The hero must battle dark powers or his own limitations along the way.

• Ambiguity – the possibility of multiple interpretations pulls people in to the story and allows them to draw their own conclusions based on things that are real to them. Avoid telling people what to think.

• There is a climax, where the dark power must be overcome, or tragedy ensues.

• The hero often goes through some form of psychological transformation, or growing up.

• The grip of darkness is broken, and order is restored.

So what is the purpose of myth? Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski argued that it is to make meaning, to codify values and to provide a glue that holds society together. He held that myth “expresses, enhances and codifies belief, it safeguards and enforces morality, it vouches for the efficacy of ritual and contains practical rules for the guidance of man.”

We also see these types of myth in action in organisational life. Think about Steve Jobs, whose story contains strong echoes of the hero myth.

The maverick leader battled Microsoft for domination of the PC market before being ousted from Apple in the 1980s, only to return in triumph a decade later to oversee the development of the iPod and other blockbuster products.

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Structuring a story

• Humour – well-judged humour can make a story more memorable.

• A clear moral or lessons learned – Stephen Bungay finds that people recall the underlying moral of the stories he tells much better than the plot details.

• Simple imagery – Jonah Sachs recommends presenting tangible information “on a human scale”, so people feel they can 'touch' and 'see' an idea.

• Metaphor – rich metaphors allow people to remember messages more easily.

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When is a story not suitable?

Geoff Mead, Director of the Centre for Narrative Leadership, suggests people use the mnemonic CASTLE to help them remember the points to consider when crafting a story.

Characters Action Structure Texture Language Emotions

We asked interviewees for examples of situations where storytelling would not be appropriate, and they came up with surprisingly few examples. The ones they did identify were those where: • precision is required, such as presenting detailed financial or technical information • storytelling might be used to mask what is really going on • the focus is on practicalities, such as signing off a plan or agreeing actions.

3.2 Classifying stories Why do similar stories recur throughout history and across different cultures? This is a subject that puzzled author Christopher Booker for over 30 years and his book The Seven Basic Plots recounts his quest for answers and his conclusions.

• There is a small number of plots that are so fundamental to how we tell stories that it is virtually impossible for a storyteller to break away from them entirely.

• These plots form a hidden, universal language – a nucleus of situations and characters that are the stuff from which stories are made.

• The basic plots are rooted in parts of the unconscious that all humans have in common – the archetypes Jung described as “the ancient river beds along which our psychic current naturally flows.”

• These core stories follow a hidden set of universal rules, with conditions that must be met before any story can come to a fully resolved ending; failing to follow a basic plot can mean a story feels ‘wrong’ or unresolved.

The graphic (next page) sets out the seven basic plots, and considers how these might be applied to business situations.

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“Wherever men and women have told stories, all over the world, the stories emerging to their imaginations have tended to take shape in remarkably similar ways.” Christopher Booker, author of The Seven Basic Plots

The core story Overcoming the monster

Rags to riches

The quest

Voyage and return

Comedy

Tragedy

Rebirth

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Classic examples

Business applications

Against the odds, the hero must confront and slay George and the Dragon the monster, a superhuman embodiment of evil, which David and Goliath threatens a community or even mankind.

He often wins a prize, such as a kingdom or the Jaws hand of a beautiful princess.

Michael O’Leary’s Ryanair (David) battling BA’s Goliath

An initially humble hero is raised to a position of immense success. There may be a crisis mid-way through the story, which the hero ultimately overcomes through a reversal of fortune.

Cinderella

Richard Branson

Dick Whittington

J.K. Rowling

The central character is called to complete an heroic deed, involving a long journey with companions, where he encounters monsters, temptations and sometimes a trip to the underworld, before finally achieving his goal.

Lord of the Rings

Launching a new strategy, product or business line.

The central character(s) travel out of everyday surroundings into another world completely cut off from the first, where everything is strange. The hero is threatened or trapped until they make an escape and can return to the safety of familiar surroundings, sometimes a changed person or grown up.

Wizard of Oz

A community is reduced to confusion and misery due to an egocentric ‘dark’ figure who abuses his power.

Through a process of healing and reconciliation, harmonious order is restored, and love and friendship triumph.

The Marriage of Figaro Shakespeare’s comedies

Organisation renewal following poor results or the ousting of a failed CEO. Sainsbury’s revival under Justin King is an example.

A hero is impelled into a risky or forbidden course of action. After initial success, the situation unravels out of control and a nightmare ensues, culminating in the hero’s violent destruction.

Faust

Ken Lay, Enron

Macbeth

Dick Fuld, Lehman Brothers

The central character falls under a spell, trapped in a state akin to living death. They are rescued either physically or morally by another figure who brings them from darkness to light.

Sleeping Beauty

Steve Jobs’s dismissal from Apple in the 1980s and triumphant return.

Homer’s Odyssey

Alice in Wonderland

Astra Zeneca’s rejection of Pfizer’s takeover bid.

Tesco’s launch of Fresh & Easy in the US and eventual retrenchment.

Marks and Spencer’s various attempts to expand internationally.

A Christmas Carol

IBM’s successive transformations from mainframe then PC manufacturer, to provider of IT and consulting solutions to businesses.

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“Archetypes … are the elemental images around which the whole of the storytelling impulse in mankind is centred. [These] underlying patterns and images are somehow imprinted unconsciously in our minds, so that we cannot conceive stories in any other way.” Christopher Booker, author of The Seven Basic Plots

Do the basic plots apply to corporate stories? We think they can, but it is not always a neat fit. It is rare that corporate stories achieve the ordered resolution of the seven plots. Once one set of targets is achieved, the performance bar is set higher for the following year.

And a once-successful CEO can easily go off the boil.

Also, businesses can move through different archetypes over time. For example, there was a time when Google might have been seen as a David character fighting the Goliaths of the technology industry. Today it is a more ambiguous ‘big brother’ figure. At one time energy giant Enron seemed to be on an heroic journey of innovation and ever-increasing profitability, but this story was ultimately exposed as an epic tragedy – the company was run by greedy robber barons, their evil deeds revealed by a few brave knight whistleblowers.

These basic plots can help by providing a reference structure to check that any stories used in the corporate setting are crafted to be as compelling and memorable as possible.

3.3 Crafting the story to the situation Are positive stories of saved lives, happy customers and brilliant innovations better than negative stories of failed projects, botched customer relationships and product flops? Are rosy tales simply ‘too good to be true’, prompting people to craft their own cynical interpretations of what really happened? Do disaster stories demotivate?

In the same way that written and spoken stories can serve different purposes (see the column), it would appear that negative and positive stories can each achieve different outcomes.

According to storytelling expert Stephen Denning, both negative and positive stories are useful and important, but you have to select the right type of story for the situation.

If your purpose is to gain commitment to an idea or motivate into action, positive stories seem to work better. 'Negative' stories about failure can help people to learn and avoid the mistakes that others have made; they also tend to be better remembered.

Denning has taken this further, describing seven objectives and the types of stories that will best achieve them (see table on next page).

Written or spoken stories – which is more effective?

Much of the storytelling material produced by writers such as Stephen Denning focuses on spoken stories. However, many organisations also produce written stories. For example, John Lewis, the retailer, and Bird & Bird, the law firm, have published books detailing the history of their organisations.

However, opinion and evidence is divided as to whether written or spoken stories are more effective.

Spoken stories • Stephen Denning conducted a test in which stories were delivered through a variety of media, including written, aural and video.

People who read or watched video stories reported that the information didn't feel authentic and they didn't trust what they saw as packaged media from 'the system'.

However, when the same stories were told person-to-person, people listened more closely and were more likely to repeat the story and be influenced by its content.

• Geoff Mead, Director of the Centre for Narrative Leadership, argues that aural stories are more effective because the relationship between speaker and audience is more immediate and commands attention. They also facilitate a beneficial collective experience among audience members.

• Stephen Bungay cautions that stories delivered in any way other than face-to-face can backfire: “When you hear the voice of a corporate, the risk of inauthenticity is high.

Only humans can come across as genuine.”

Written stories • Cognitive psychologists have studied which delivery mechanism – verbal, visual or written – results in the best recall of stories. They found that written material was the best remembered.

• Professor Adrian Furnham thinks this is because reading allows for deeper processing of the material. Individuals can go at their own speed, and can take time to think about and internalise the content.

• Individual learning styles and preferences also have an impact on recall.

One conclusion we can draw is that choice of delivery mechanism should be influenced by what the story is designed to achieve. Where the objective is learning, written may be best, but for employees to commit to action it seems that the audience needs to see' the whites of your eyes’.

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If your objective is:

In telling it, you will need to:

Describes how a successful change was implemented in the past, but allows listeners to imagine how it might work in their situation.

Avoid excessive detail that will take the audience’s mind off its own challenge.

“Just imagine…”

Provides audience-engaging drama and reveals some strength or vulnerability from your past.

Include meaningful details, but also make sure the audience has the time and inclination to hear your story.

“I didn’t know that about him!”

Transmitting values

Feels familiar to the audience and will prompt discussion about the issues raised by the value being promoted.

Use believable (though perhaps hypothetical) characters and situations, and never forget that the story must be consistent with your own actions.

“That’s so right!”

Fostering collaboration

Movingly recounts a situation that listeners have also experienced and that prompts them to share their own stories about the topic.

Ensure that a set agenda doesn’t squelch this swapping of stories – and that you have an action plan ready to tap the energy unleashed by this narrative chain reaction.

“That reminds me of the time that I…”

Taming the grapevine

Highlights, often through the use of gentle humour, some aspects of a rumour that reveals it to be untrue or unlikely.

Avoid the temptation to be mean-spirited, and “No kidding!” be sure that the rumour is indeed false.

“I’d never thought about it like that before!”

Sharing knowledge

Focuses on mistakes made and shows in Solicit alternative – and possibly better – some details how they were corrected, with solutions. an explanation of why the solution worked.

“There but for the grace of God…”

Evokes the future you want to create without providing excessive detail that will only turn out to be wrong.

“When do we start?”

Sparking action

Communicating who you are

Leading people into the future

Source: Denning, 2004

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Your story will inspire such responses as:

You will need a story that:

Be sure of your storytelling skills (otherwise, use a story in which the past can serve as a springboard to the future).

“What if…”

“Now I see what she’s driving at.”

“Why don’t we do that all the time?”

“Hey, I’ve got a story like that.”

“Wow! We’d better watch that from now on.”

“Let’s do it!”

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How much detail should you include in your story?

A note of caution

Stories that are full of rich metaphor, characterisation and texture can be enjoyable and compelling, but Denning cautions against providing too much detail where the purpose is for people to think about:

No matter how well crafted a story, the results can backfire.

• applying the scenario in their context • actions they should take as a result.

Such stories should contain enough detail to be intelligible and credible, but leave ‘imagination room’ for people to develop their own response.

Select stories that help achieve the desired business outcome It is not sufficient to tell stories that may be of interest to the people who hear them; it is also important to plan for how that story will make a difference to the business. Stories need to be clearly relevant to the business outcome sought. Adrian Moorhouse, Managing Director of human capital consultancy Lane4, once advised a company that had engaged Olympic gold medallist Chris Hoy to talk to its call centre employees. When Moorhouse asked the company the purpose of engaging the cyclist, he found it had given little thought to how Hoy's motivational talk would help address the immediate issues it faced.

One of the principal challenges was meeting the target of handling 90% of customer calls ‘right first time’. On Moorhouse's advice, the company changed Hoy’s brief. As a result, instead of standing up for an hour, he told his story in three 15-minute blocks, each exploring a different technique he had used. After each session listeners were given the opportunity to practise what they had learned. So what would otherwise have been merely a form of entertainment for call centre staff became instead a valuable learning opportunity. By linking the message underlying the story to a specific outcome (improving call handling), the company was able to encourage people to behave differently as a result of what they heard.

• People love to subvert a message.

For example, one of Stephen Bungay’s clients adopted the slogan ‘Fast Forward’ for a change programme, which became ‘Live Fast - Die Young’.

• Beware Chinese whispers. Messages easily become lost in translation, particularly where the organisation is relying on managers who are inexperienced or uncomfortable storytellers, to cascade the message.

• Beware the interesting but ineffective story. A story may be enjoyable or even inspirational, but leaders need to create a ‘hook’ that takes people from being inspired to feeling sufficiently motivated to do something about it.

According to Moorhouse: “Rather than just trying to inspire people via a story, if you can drive that story through into action and activity that changes the world for those who hear it, you will get a much better, longer lasting, return.”

In the following chapter, we look at how organisations are using storytelling in practice to: • share the organisation’s history, purpose and values • engage employees around strategy • manage change and conflict • develop leaders as storytellers • celebrate success.

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Topics covered

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Introduction

4.1

Using stories to share the organisation’s purpose, history and values

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4.2

Storytelling to facilitate strategic change

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4.3

Leaders as storytellers

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4.4

Stories to celebrate success

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In this chapter we consider the various ways stories are used in organisations.

We describe a number of case examples of what organisations are doing in practice.

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“Storytelling for us is more about creating a connection between what we do and the patient, rather than being a thing in its own right.” Ben Chambers, Global Leadership Development Director, GSK

4.1

Storytelling in the age of social media

Using stories to share the organisation’s purpose, history and values Our research found that many organisations use storytelling to convey a sense of the organisation’s traditions, heritage, purpose and values. Some organisations' histories stretch back over decades or even centuries, which can be very powerful in fostering a sense of pride among employees. Some newer businesses have strong ‘founder stories’. Such stories can help to: • align internal and external brands (see William Hill case study on page 33) • connect corporate strategy with the organisation's culture, values and its brand • convey the culture and values – what’s expected and what good looks like • engender a sense of higher purpose among employees by connecting their individual effort with the greater good the organisation delivers.

Corporate myths can be helpful too.

• Some cultures grow up around corporate stories, which may have their roots in what actually happened, but can also be apocryphal. The 'garage start-up', for example, has become something of a cliché.

• Founder stories or the actions of corporate heroes can also be a good way of sharing the corporate DNA. The employee who goes the extra mile is one example. One of our interviewees recounted the story of a consultant who was forced to abandon his car in a blizzard and trek through snow to reach his client.

• Some stories, which may contain an element of truth, can also border on the ridiculous.

One example concerns Arnold Weinstock, the late and legendary boss of GEC Marconi.

The story goes that one Sunday night he spotted an office light on as he passed by on a train.

He immediately got on the phone to demand that someone go to the office to turn off the offending light, thus saving pennies-worth of electricity, but no doubt incurring other hidden costs in the process.

Stories can also help reconnect a company that’s lost its way, with its core values. For example Hewlett-Packard chief executive Meg Whitman has used storytelling to reconnect the business with the company’s origins and re-establish employees' pride in it. “There’s quite a bit of pride in being part of something that means so much to [Silicon Valley] and the country,” she has said.

A note of caution: strong corporate stories can sometimes be counter-productive, as they can make it difficult for new talent to fit in or for changes in ways of working to embed.

In the rest of this section we outline some examples of companies using storytelling to share organisation history, purpose and values.

John Lewis The 150th anniversary of the John Lewis Partnership in 2014 presented the firm with a unique opportunity to take stock of its history and heritage and celebrate what makes it unique. A big part of the celebration has been to acknowledge how the firm’s unusual approach to people management – all employees are ‘Partners’ who have a share in the business – has contributed to its continuing success. Storytelling has therefore been at the heart of the celebrations. The activities in the '150’ programme have covered all the retailer’s key stakeholders, as the examples below demonstrate.

Today’s business environment is characterised by deep public mistrust in large organisations and their leaders. This, combined with the capacity of stories to go viral through social media such as Facebook and Twitter, means companies need to pay close attention to their 'stories' and the potential these have to damage their reputation. The ‘twitterati’ are particularly influential in sharing stories that may be highly entertaining, but can also be extremely damaging for the organisations or individuals concerned.

• A musician’s experience of having his guitar damaged while flying with United Airlines led him to write a song, United Breaks Guitars, which was viewed by millions of people on YouTube and amounted to a public relations humiliation for the airline.

However, adeptly handled, social media can be highly beneficial.

• Unilever’s Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, including a video that went viral, has generated media coverage that the company estimates is worth more than 30 times paid-for media space, and has boosted sales significantly.

Internally, companies are embracing social media as a channel for leaders to engage with employees, and for individual employees to tell their stories.

• The CEO of SABMiller, Alan Clark, has described his management style as “leading a business through conversation.”

He exemplifies this by writing a highly personal regular blog. SABMiller also encourages employees to share stories through ‘The Source’ a site built on WordPress to help leaders connect and exchange ideas through stories, and through the internal social networking platform Yammer, to which more than 17,000 employees have currently signed up.

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Storytelling in the age of social media continued • One of the business heads of B2B media organisation Top Right Group writes a regular blog as part of an ongoing narrative about the business's journey of performance improvement and includes regular ‘calls to action’ to staff. This consistent focus on the same messages over the past two years has paid off in terms of significantly improved business results.

• Bookmaker William Hill employees use Twitter to post stories nominating individuals and teams for awards that are made at the company’s annual HOME Awards ceremony (see below for more detail).

• William Hill employees who are selected as volunteers for the company’s charity project in rural Kenya are encouraged to use Facebook to post stories of their experiences there.

A word of warning: social media messages are easily manipulated. If messages fall into the wrong hands, they can be 'spoofed', so that genuine attempts at good communication become embarrassing parodies. For example, although successful in sales terms, the Dove campaign has been widely parodied.

• The Oxford Street store hosted an exhibition of the retailer’s 150 years in business, allowing the public to share in the story of the firm’s development. There was also a birthday weekend in May, when customers joined in the celebration through special events in-store.

According to Lucy Ramseyer, Business Lead for the programme: “The Partners had a lot of fun that weekend, which customers really enjoyed too.”

• A book – A Very British Revolution – was published for sale and made available to all Partners. It tells the story of how John Spedan Lewis, the founder, transformed a clutch of department stores into the multi-channel business John Lewis is today. The book reproduces archive photographs and traces the firm’s commercial development against the background of social change throughout its history. It has proved popular with Partners: more than 90% have acquired a copy. “We found that the storybook resonated much better with our Partners than the sorts of memorabilia – mugs etc – that are often produced to mark such events,” says Ramseyer.

• The retailer is holding an event in the autumn of 2014 for all 30,000 Partners, including contact centre and distribution staff as well as retail workers. The Partnership story will be told through an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza, simultaneously at a main event in London and at satellite parties across the country. The event is designed to be highly engaging and memorable for staff: one of the designers of the London Olympics opening ceremony was involved in planning it. The firm is keen to tell the story of how its Partners have built the business together, and the part its unique values have played in its success. The event will also look to the future, considering how the business might develop over the coming 150 years.

EU Institutions In 2004-7, the European Union grew from 15 to 27 member states, most of which were former Eastern bloc countries. The EU institutions found that staff who joined from new member states did not have the same understanding of the founding principles and history of the EU as people from countries where this was taught in school. In 2007, the inter-institutional training centre for the European Civil Service, the European School of Administration, launched a course – The History and Stories behind European Integration. The purpose was to: • relate the EU’s history through anecdotes, films and photographs • develop shared understanding of the EU’s goals and founding principles • help participants identify with the EU’s development by placing their country’s history and their personal experience in the EU’s timeline.

The course traces the origins of the EU from the end of World War II until today, emphasising its initial aim of sustaining peace in Europe. The content features stories of individuals’ experience of key events in the EU’s history. Course participants map their personal story and their country’s history to the EU roadmap, and share their stories of what was happening while key EU events were taking place. According to Anna Smedeby, Design & Development Adviser at the European School of Administration, the course can be emotional. “We were quite shocked when we started running the course. Something happened. There were tears, applause, and people didn’t want to leave at the end – they wanted to keep sharing their stories.” Often people have first-hand experience of historical events, for example the fall of communism in 1989, which heightens the emotion when they share their stories.

Initially the course was designed as part of induction for new joiners, but its reputation has spread by word of mouth, and has even led to high-profile events involving the European Commission president. Smedeby believes its impact is because it meets a demand for meaning at work. “It helps people make sense of what they do and how they fit into the EU's broader purpose. Sharing stories in this way meets a need people have to feel they belong.”

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This positive experience of storytelling has led to a surge of interest in the technique within the EU institutions, and it is beginning to be deployed in different ways, within areas as varied as regional policy, budget and development aid. One example is a rethink on how policies and processes are developed and communicated, focused on using stories to describe and share processes rather than writing dry procedures manuals, with the hope that processes developed in this way will be more memorable and more consistently followed.

Another is the kick-off conference for the European Year for Development, which featured storytelling workshops.

Goldman Sachs Storytelling plays a key role in how the bank develops and sustains its unique culture. The firm’s leaders spend significant amounts of time mentoring others and telling stories of the history, heritage and culture of the firm at events including new-hire orientation sessions and in development programmes that people attend as they move through levels in the organisation.

4.2 Storytelling to facilitate strategic change The business press is full of stories about companies attempting to move in new strategic directions, and the consequences of failing to implement change successfully. So how can storytelling help organisations improve how they: • define their strategy • engage employees in delivering the strategy • implement change?

From our discussions with companies that are using storytelling to help develop and roll out new strategies and working practices, we found that storytelling can help overcome many of the classic obstacles to successful change.

• Instead of imposing change on people, some companies now use stories to help individuals engage with a new situation in a way that’s relevant to them personally, which is more likely to lead to action.

• By engaging the imagination, stories can help shape and extend what is possible or desirable.

• Strategy is often communicated in a rational, data-driven way. As our discussion of logos, ethos and pathos in chapter 3 shows, this one-dimensional approach to communication fails to take account of the importance of emotion. Stories can help sell an idea, or bring the data to life in a way that people can easily relate to.

SABMiller The international brewing company has a strong sense of tradition and history, combined with a portfolio of powerful brands, some of which date back to the 13th century.

Storytelling is very much part of the company’s modus operandi. It’s used to: • convey the pioneering spirit of the company’s founders who set it up in the Johannesburg gold rush of the 1880s • demonstrate how that spirit lives on today.

One story relates how SABMiller beat off rival Anheuser-Busch InBev in the race to acquire a business in Hungary: the executives concerned made a point of arriving on a scheduled flight while their competitor’s executives took a private jet • communicate what good performance looks like • ensure consistency around key corporate processes, such as performance management, by developing a set of ‘Ways’, which are based around stories. Employees are therefore educated about what’s expected of them through stories rather than policies and procedures manuals • promote brand legacy and provenance, which helps to integrate acquisitions.

The company has produced a 20 minute video telling stories of the company’s origins, current performance and future ambitions, which is shared with external service providers to engage them in its mission. The company's corporate website also has a strong emphasis on storytelling as the brewer seeks to bring both the business, and the beer category to life through stories gathered from its global operations. The landing page is dominated by a series of stories and others can be explored through tags such as “Responsible Drinking”, "Innovation" and “Sustainability”.

• Narrative can also be used to help people think through the obstacles they are likely to encounter while implementing a plan or strategy. Consultant David Pearl frequently uses storytelling with his clients to help them develop a narrative to sit alongside the strategy. By encouraging them to tell stories about what might happen at key stages on the implementation journey, he can help them plan for things that might go wrong and prepare for what would be required to get implementation back on track.

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“Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories that individuals or nations live by and tell themselves and you change the individuals and nations.” Ben Okri, author of A Way of Being Free

Building innovation capability through storytelling Interserve, the support services and construction company, uses storytelling to encourage both incremental and breakthrough innovations. The top 250 managers recently attended an innovation workshop structured around a storybook – How Stella Saved the Farm

by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in the US. By exploring the fable of how a farm innovates to get out of trouble, attendees discussed opportunities for making changes within the business, and the things that needed to happen in order to implement those changes.

The purpose was to encourage people to think differently and make connections with colleagues in other parts of the business so they could work together on the new ideas that emerged. The workshops were also an opportunity to air concerns about the barriers to change, and discuss how these might be overcome.

Stories can also be used to help shift the culture or mindset of the organisation.

• Centrica Energy has used storytelling as one of the enablers of culture change. One aspect of this is to shift managers’ perception of their role away from ‘telling people what to do’ to a more inspiring and motivating style of management. Although it is difficult in a relatively traditional, engineering-driven business, the company has used hooks such as safety at work to get managers comfortable with experimenting with storytelling.

Note: some corporate myths die hard, even if they are no longer true. It’s as important to quash some of the old stories as it is to create new ones. When stories such as 'people get sacked if they do that' continue to circulate long after that is no longer the case, it can be a substantial obstacle to culture change.

In the following section we highlight some examples we encountered of companies using storytelling to support a change of business direction.

United Biscuits In recent years United Biscuits (UB), the UK-based snacks business, has struggled against global competitors, and the company has suffered from a sense that it has lost its way. A recent change in CEO has led to a new strategy, designed to re-engage with the company’s entrepreneurial heritage. The company chose to roll out the strategy to all employees using a narrative approach.

• The company developed a series of A0-sized storyboards setting out the challenges it faced and the new strategic direction, which it characterised as ‘survival of the fittest’ in the jungle.

• In the story, UB’s principal global competitor is depicted as a huge gorilla. A lion represents the company’s heritage, growing from its origins as a supplier of small shops and bakeries to building some of the UK’s leading brands. A cheetah depicts the energy needed to reach the goal, and a dodo appears as a reminder of the consequences of failure.

• Every employee in the company has heard the story and seen the storyboards. Managers were encouraged to embellish the narrative with their own stories and examples, and an online toolkit, including video examples, was provided to support managers in the roll-out.

Note: the concept of ‘ethos’ (the authenticity of the person telling a story) becomes particularly important in the context of change, as people need to trust that those who are leading the change know what they are doing and have the right intentions. If people feel the story they are being told is unnatural or forced, they will not respond in a positive way.

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• This has represented a big change in direction for communications in the company. Some managers have felt uncomfortable delivering the messages in this way but, according to Group HR Director John Titmuss, where managers have embraced this approach it has worked well, with employees demonstrating good recall of the key messages in the new strategy.

Goldman Sachs Following the financial crisis of 2008, the bank set up a ‘Business Standards Committee’ to oversee a wide-ranging review of business practices across various workstreams. The review sought to identify not only where the bank had not performed as it might have wished or where things needed to change, but also stories about things that worked well and should not be lost. There was an important element of catharsis in allowing the more unfavourable stories to be aired, but by also highlighting positive stories the firm was able to identify ways of building on existing capability and refocusing on core values.

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“People are naturally more committed to their ideas than [yours]. The story technique turns your ideas into their ideas. [The] audience will be more likely to remember your ideas, be moved by them and passionately pursue them.” Paul Smith, author of Lead with a Story

SABMiller A series of acquisitions in different geographic markets has transformed SABMiller from a South African brewer into a multinational brewing heavyweight. Storytelling has played a key role in the successful integration of acquisitions in different markets, in two principal ways.

• When SABMiller acquires a new business it appoints a managing director from the core business with a strong track record, to run it. He or she is encouraged to use stories based on the history and legacy of the parent company to define how the new business will operate and integrate it into the culture of the group.

• SABMiller has developed a series of ‘Ways’ – codified working practices in key operational processes such as performance management and sustainability – which are built around stories. By rolling out the ‘Ways’ through telling stories about how it expects things to be done, the brewer instigates consistent practices across acquired businesses.

Dealing with conflict Storytelling can be extremely useful in surfacing and resolving tensions between individuals or groups of people.

• Stories – particularly those based on archetypes as described in chapter 3 – can depersonalise a tense situation by appealing to universal truths of human nature.

• Stories can be used to say the unsayable – surfacing issues that are too sensitive to talk about directly. Stephen Bungay has worked with clients to desensitise relationships through storytelling. In one example he used images of a king, prince and princess to resolve issues between different board members.

• Parables can provide a simple shorthand for a complex set of issues, allowing concerns to be discussed in a way that’s removed from the sensitivity of the situation.

• Stories can be used to counter rumours, or overcome a culture of negativity. For example, when she was at Visa Europe, Alice Lewthwaite, now Operations and Technology Director, EMAP (part of Top Right Group), collected and shared stories of successful individual development to counter a prevailing sense that ‘we don’t develop people’.

• Sharing stories can also be cathartic, pent-up feelings can be released, and people are often relieved to discover that others feel the same way.

A real-life example was South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up after the end of the apartheid era. Giving people the opportunity to tell their stories of what had happened – without fear of punishment or retribution – allowed conflict to be resolved and divisions healed. The Commission’s purpose was restorative, rather than retributive, justice, characterised by a search for truth and bringing victims, witnesses and perpetrators together to face up to the terrible things that happened during the apartheid era.

The Commission was underpinned by the principle of 'Ubuntu', described here by Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “It was decided that we would have justice, yes, but not retributive justice. No, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process was an example of restorative justice … based on an African concept of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is the essence of being human. We say a person is a person through other persons. We are made for togetherness, to live in a delicate network of interdependence.… I need other human beings in order to be human myself.… For Ubuntu … the greatest good is communal harmony.”

Cancer Research UK In 2012 Cancer Research UK (CRUK) went through a brand refresh, moving away from more ‘clinical’ language towards sharing a message of conviction in the possibility of beating cancer: 'We can and will beat cancer'.

Indeed, one of the charity’s core beliefs, which were identified as part of the brand refresh, is about having impact through stories. The three core beliefs are: ‘United we are stronger than cancer’; ‘Sharp minds and brave hearts win’; and ‘Our stories change the world’.

External communications have been refocused on the charity’s impact, telling stories about the links between its scientific work and the lives of individual cancer patients and their families. The charity has also repositioned internal communications towards sharing human stories, giving staff a better sense of connection between their work and individuals’ lives.

The charity used storytelling internally to roll out both the brand refresh and – 18 months later - an ambitious new strategy, designed to accelerate progress towards beating cancer.

CEO Harpal Kumar shared personal stories about what the new strategy meant to him, to engage people and increase commitment to delivering the strategy in a way that means something to everyone in the organisation.

Kumar described the improvements in cancer survival rates he has seen in his lifetime, and what achieving a 3 in 4 cancer survival rate in the next 20 years would mean in terms of impact on loved ones and himself, sharing a personal story about a friend. Members of the senior team were encouraged to cascade their own stories and use this as an opportunity to have a dialogue with their teams so that individuals could relate the message to what they do every day. HR developed a storytelling pack, including a video self-help guide to constructing a compelling story, to help managers to roll out the key messages.

According to Sarah Jepson-Jones, Head of Organisational Development, scores for employee commitment and engagement with the charity’s purpose and direction – measured by an employee survey – are high, suggesting this approach has had a positive effect.

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“Building a narrative around what we wanted to be as a business was so much more powerful than just saying ‘we want to be number one in tea’.” Elizabeth Edwards, Head of Talent Development, Twinings Ovo

Twinings Ovo

4.3 Leaders as storytellers

Elizabeth Edwards, Head of Talent Development at Twinings Ovo, highlights the role that storytelling can play not only in designing a new organisation, but also in ensuring that the new organisation works in practice the way it was meant to. The Twinings Ovo leadership team took time to consider how they could use words and imagery to get everyone to the same place and help people understand what they were trying to do. “We found just saying ‘we’re going to change to X style of company, and here are our goals and strategy for the business’ was not motivating for people. That’s how we came to storytelling – thinking about how we could use metaphor and imaging to make the changes we were going through more motivating to people.”

The leadership team compared aspects of the organisation’s pre-change state to trying to run a rusty old Ford Fiesta on rocket fuel – an analogy that struck a chord with employees.

They identified with the idea that the car was in danger of falling apart as it sped down the motorway, because it was being driven faster than the speed it was designed to go at.

Therefore the car needed to be upgraded to cope with the high quality fuel (that is, the highly capable people in the business). The key message resonated with people, i.e. that the organisation design was not optimised to enable people – the ‘rocket fuel’ – to do their best work collectively, and change was necessary to make the business more successful and a better place to work.

There are at least as many definitions of leadership as there are leadership gurus. What links leadership to storytelling is the idea of leadership being a process of: • making sense collectively of the potential impact on the organisation of changes in how people live and work • enabling shared understandings to emerge • building consensus around the organisation’s future direction • inspiring shared commitment to goals and actions.

Any description of the future – whether told as a story or a set of data – is fiction.

Proponents of storytelling find that describing the future as a story is more likely to gain the buy-in of those who have to follow the leader and implement their future vision.

Indeed, our research found that by far the most common use of storytelling in organisations today is developing leaders' storytelling skills so that they can use them to communicate more effectively with their teams and colleagues.

• Organisations that do this well tend to have CEOs who are natural storytellers. Andrew Witty, CEO of GSK, the late Graham McKay, former CEO of SABMiller, and Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Media are all examples of engaging characters whose leadership style, with a strong emphasis on storytelling, has shaped how storytelling is viewed and used internally.

• Some organisations include storytelling explicitly in their leadership development. Others adopt a more informal approach, where leaders who are good at storytelling are used as examples of what good looks like, or people are asked to tell stories as part of leadership development programmes. See the column on the next page for some examples.

It seems that being able to tap into the power of storytelling is a critical skill for leaders, particularly when it comes to persuading others. Stephen Bungay finds that convincing leaders: • address each of the three components of rhetoric – logos, pathos and ethos (see chapter 3) • in a manner that is natural to them • and connects them to their audience.

This is about more than simply ‘selling a message’: to be convincing leaders need to persuade by virtue of who they are and what they do, as well as what they say.

Bungay connects the three elements of Aristotelian rhetoric discussed in chapter 3 to the requirements of leaders. He links three necessary qualities of leaders (who they are) with three goals they must achieve (what they do). Thinking about how these personal qualities and goals are connected to the three elements of rhetoric can help leaders make connections between what they must achieve and how they can persuade others to work with them to achieve it.

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“The ultimate impact of the leader depends most significantly on the particular story that he or she relates or embodies, and the receptions to that story on the part of audiences.”

Howard Gardner, author of Leading Minds

Who leaders are What leaders do (personal qualities) (goals) Logos

Task competence

Achieve the task

Necessary connections between speaker and audience Creating meaning by linking my goal with yours • your position • my goal

Ethos

Personal integrity

Build the team

Establishing trust by demonstrating integrity and authenticity • your trust • my integrity

Pathos

Social competence

Develop individuals Linking logic to emotions • your emotion • my conviction

Bungay thinks that, in their storytelling, successful leaders need to address the primary question their followers will want answered: “What’s in it for me?” To infect others with their conviction, they need to do three things.

1 Address the experience and beliefs of those appealed to – not the ego of the leader (logos).

2 Address the emotions of each individual, making them willing to accept the burden of change and the sacrifices the actions entail (pathos).

3 Create the belief that the group can trust the leader because of their personal integrity – they tell it as it is so as to engage the value systems of the audience (ethos).

Any formal leadership development linked to storytelling should consider the rules of rhetoric and how leaders can apply them in practice. The examples highlighted in this chapter consider how storytelling is being applied to leadership development in practice, whether formally or informally.

Some organisations are very explicit about the role of storytelling in leadership development.

Top Right Group The media group ran a one-day ‘Odyssey in a Day’ development workshop as part of their Future Growth Champions leadership programme, set in a theatre space. 15 delegates spent the day deconstructing the story of Homer’s Odyssey, exploring it from different angles and styles, and learning about storytelling skills and techniques. At the end of the day, the participants jointly perform The Odyssey on-stage to an audience made up of their direct reports. Through the day they explore: • their natural style of telling stories • using different language, expression and tone of voice • physical projection, body language and impact in a room • how to apply the story to their business context.

Case Notes The application of storytelling to leadership development varies widely across the companies we interviewed.

• Some organisations, such as SABMiller, include storytelling in all leadership development from graduate or first-line manager level all the way up to the most senior positions. The focus here is less on technical storytelling skills, and more on sharing individual experiences and being authentic. Similarly, as part of an ongoing programme of culture change, Centrica Energy has included a session on storytelling in the Manager Induction programme.

• Others focus more on storytelling at particular levels, or for particular business applications. For example, although leaders at all levels in GSK are encouraged to tell stories, there is a particular focus on storytelling at the ‘leading leaders’ level.

Here, the ability to translate strategy into action is a key skill, and leaders are taught how to bring strategy to life in a way that motivates and inspires others, through stories. They practise painting a picture of the future, describing, according to Ben Chambers, Global Leadership Development Director “what it will look like, feel like, even taste and smell like, when you have achieved the success you want as a leader”.

Individuals are encouraged to develop stories that bring to life GSK's expectations for them.

So each story will be different and related to that individual and their context, whichever business or geography they come from.

• Many organisations use storytelling less explicitly – for example, to help leaders improve their communication, convey what’s important or enhance their authenticity.

Leadership development at Goldman Sachs, for instance, involves a high degree of mentoring, which is structured around stories.

The firm holds a series of round-tables where leaders talk about how they became successful, the career challenges and dilemmas they faced, and how they tackled them. Twinings Ovo, meanwhile, uses storytelling to help leaders think about how they can craft more effective messages.

• Goldman Sachs offers communications coaching – separate from executive coaching – with a heavy focus on storytelling.

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“Storytelling works for us because it’s a key way of driving the organisation strategy. It fits with our philosophy and enables our people to contextualise what we are trying to achieve.” Ben Chambers, Global Leadership Development Director, GSK

Case Notes: Celebrating Success • Centrica Energy holds an annual CE way awards ceremony which underpins the company’s recent culture change programme.

Employees are asked to nominate colleagues who have demonstrated the CE way in action.

Each of the shortlisted nominations is made into a video story which is shared at a blacktie awards presentation dinner in London, and the videos are shared across the company.

• To mark its 150th anniversary John Lewis is organising a one-off event for all 30,000 Partners in autumn 2014. The event will be a spectacular celebration of the Partnership’s story, covering past, present and future, and highlighting the role that its Partners have played in its success.

• Rolls-Royce recently revised its corporate strategy, which is summarised in the strapline 'Trusted to deliver excellence'. The company has relaunched its internal awards programme to focus on recognising the values that underpin the new strategy, such as putting the customer at the heart of the organisation, and to generate stories to support the associated culture change. Any employee can nominate a colleague for an award in one of 19 categories. Employees then vote on the shortlisted stories, which are told through video case studies. The awards are presented at the company’s senior leadership conference, which is an opportunity for Rolls-Royce’s leadership team to support the new values in a highly visible way.

• William Hill’s annual HOME awards are an important aspect of how the company has embedded its operating principles, which it launched in 2010 (see more in the case study on page 33). The awards have also been a way of integrating newly acquired businesses in other countries. Any employee can make a nomination via Twitter, which means that staff who don't have access to company email can still get involved. The awards ceremony – a black-tie event hosted by a leading sports personality – is streamed live via the web.

After the event the company produces the ‘Story of the Night’ – a booklet telling the award winners’ stories.

• Serco’s Pulse Awards, which recognise both what people achieve and how, have played an important role in developing cohesion across a highly decentralised organisation. See the column below for more detail.

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Alice Lewthwaite, Operations & Technology Director for EMAP (part of Top Right Group), found that the experience led to significant improvements in presenting and communication skills for the group. For example, one executive gave a highly successful presentation – told as a story with a strong rallying call - to 1600 people at an industry conference following the event.

Cepheid The Silicon Valley-based molecular diagnostics company recently launched its first ever formal leadership development programme, and it contained a strong storytelling element. The programme covers two aspects of storytelling.

• The ‘big story’ – using stories to get buy-in to major strategy shifts or significant capital investments. One example is how country general managers (GMs) present their business plans to the global executive committee for sign-off. These are usually dry presentations with lots of numbers. In his presentation, the UK GM told the story of setting up a Sexual Health Clinic in London. He recounted the obstacles he had to overcome, and how patients’ experience had been transformed. Rather than having to wait for a GP appointment, followed by a nervous wait of several days for test results, patients can now walk in for a test without an appointment and receive their results by text message the same day. The GM still had to present his numbers, but the whole tone of his presentation was transformed by the story.

• Storytelling in the everyday work context – structuring day-to-day communications as a story.

So far 20 people have gone through the programme. To make the learning stick, Cepheid has adopted two techniques that ‘force’ attendees to put what they learn into practice.

1. Each month after the programme, one of the 20 attendees (up-and-coming executives) makes a presentation to the company’s executive committee about what has changed for them since taking part in the programme. They are asked to: • make their presentation as a story • identify the ways in which they find it difficult to practise the leadership skills they were taught – for example, where techniques they have learned are incompatible with the company culture.

In this way, individuals get to practise the skills they have learned and the executive committee hears about aspects of the culture and organisation that may undermine its investment in leadership development.

2. Within 60 days of completing the programme, each participant has to run a workshop with their team lasting at least 90 minutes. The purpose is to share their key learning points and put into practice some of the techniques – such as storytelling – they were exposed to on the programme.

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“Stories are the ‘oil in the engine’ of our organisation. They connect our disparate businesses, and describe the common values that we share.” Geoff Lloyd, Group HR Director, Serco

4.4

Serco’s Pulse Awards

Stories to celebrate success Throughout this chapter, we have explored how storytelling can engage employees in the organisation’s purpose through connecting them with its history, heritage and values and, by extension, winning their buy-in to its future strategic direction. Another key area where corporate stories are used is to reinforce success. We find that a well-told story with a positive message can create a strong sense of inclusion and engagement with an organisation’s performance. Stories are also being used to highlight examples of individuals and teams whose actions reflect the company’s core values and corporate DNA. Increasingly, companies are using storytelling as an opportunity to share success stories and to encourage behaviour change. In particular, companies are organising formal events, such as awards ceremonies, to recognise employees who have delivered exemplary service, gone beyond the call of duty or played a crucial role in the organisation’s success.

We have found many reasons why awards ceremonies are a particularly good way of sharing success stories.

• All employees can be engaged at different stages in the process. Typically, all employees are invited to nominate people for awards, and some companies allow their staff to vote on some or all of the awards.

• Some companies now live-stream events on the intranet, or share videos afterwards, allowing those who didn't attend to feel involved.

• Award categories can be crafted to reflect important company values.

• The stories of corporate ‘heroes’ can be recorded – often by video – and shared.

• The events offer the opportunity for people from different parts of the business to network and share their experiences.

• The presence of senior people and star presenters at the ceremony adds cachet to the events.

Case Study – William Hill The betting group has experienced in practice many of the opportunities and benefits of storytelling that we encountered during our research.

1. Storytelling begins at the top Stories about the CEO, Ralph Topping, reverberate through the business.

• He is a natural storyteller and embodies a compelling ‘rags to riches’ story, having started at the bottom 40 years ago.

• He is known for remembering details about people – such as the football team they support – so staff feel he cares about them as individuals.

“We’re looking for models of behaviour that have the potential to bring real value and improvement, not just to our bottom line, but to the way we work in the future, to our people and how they feel valued, to the communities we work in, and to our reputation around the world.” Serco Pulse Awards Guidance Serco, which provides outsourced services to governments worldwide, has had some form of employee recognition awards in place for 18 years. But in recent years the focus has changed, and is now more closely aligned with the company’s strategy, business principles and corporate values.

• The awards scheme has been renamed the ‘Pulse Awards’ because the awards recognise the lifeblood of the organisation and reward the behaviours that are at the heart of the company’s culture.

• The award categories have been reshaped to align more closely with business strategy and reflect values and governing principles.

• The awards are designed to support Serco’s culture and seek to “reward the right behaviours that are at the heart of our culture and demonstrate why Serco values them so much.” They recognise not just what was achieved, but how.

• Categories include Inspiring Leadership, Commitment, Innovation and Impact. There is also a ‘Heart Award’ that recognises employees who have shown outstanding courage and selflessness.

The awards have become an important aspect of defining common values across a decentralised organisation with highly autonomous divisions. According to Robert Smith, Director, Business Compliance and Ethics: “It’s the one thing we do that’s global and touches everyone. It’s really good for employee engagement.”

• He has become renowned for awarding significant prizes to staff he thinks should be rewarded. For example, at the company’s most recent annual long-service event at the William Hill Ayr Gold Cup, to which all staff with 25 and 40 years’ service are invited, Topping gave an all-expenses-paid Caribbean cruise to one particularly deserving employee.

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“All too often … leaders fail to understand that when an audience 'just doesn’t get it', it is probably not because the numbers do not add up or that the argument does not make sense, but because they have not enabled people to imagine or to feel what 'it' is.” Geoff Mead, Director of the Centre for Narrative Leadership Serco’s Pulse Awards (continued)

2. Project Africa helps provide meaning for the company’s staff

In terms of how the awards work, the company issues guidance notes to all staff, promoting the awards and setting out the categories. It seeks nominations from every level and every division of the company. There are typically around 1000 nominations, which are whittled down to 150 Divisional Awards, judged by each division’s Executive Management Team, and then down to 40 global awards. The global winners are selected by a panel of senior directors including the CEO, CFO and Group HR Director, with assistance from an external Business in the Community adviser.

In 2012 William Hill launched Project Africa to provide educational and medical facilities to a village in rural Kenya. The purpose was to “create a legacy that developed [the company’s employees] and focused teams into supporting those who are less fortunate”. So far over £200,000 has been raised, and the company has built facilities for the local school, improved the water supply and set up a crop farm to provide food for the school. William Hill sends a group of employees to the site every year to help with building projects.

The awards are presented at an ‘Oscars’ style black-tie ceremony in a London hotel, with a dinner and live entertainment. The company invites external guests such as key customers and suppliers – as well as the employees involved in the awards. The company sees the awards as a 'soft-sell' way of communicating the company's culture and values to a range of stakeholders.

• engaging employees by giving them a story they can share outside work – generating pride in the business.

The nomination process generates a large number of stories that can be used to effect outside of the awards event itself. The company is looking at how it might use these for internal communications and learning purposes – for example to pepper internal news stories with real-life examples.

What next for the Pulse Awards? The new Serco CEO, appointed in 2014, is a supporter of the concept, so the Awards will continue, but they will be updated to reflect further changes to corporate strategy and operating practices.

The project’s stories – which are recorded by an award-winning film-maker – have helped change staff perceptions of what the company stands for. Beverley Newman, People Development Director, believes that Project Africa has benefited the business in many ways, including: • ‘tipping the balance’ in recruitment so someone will choose to work for William Hill rather than go elsewhere

2. The HOME Awards help embed company values In 2010, William Hill changed its brand positioning to 'The Home of Betting', reflecting the company’s proposition that William Hill offers its customers the best betting experience anywhere, whether on the high street or online. The company used HOME as the basis for developing a set of core principles that captured its way of working and priorities. This was the first time William Hill had articulated group-wide values. These principles were developed in 40 workshops involving nearly 500 staff across the different countries where the business operates. The sessions sought to capture the best of what employees do and how they behave, as well as things that they could do better.

H

Hungry for success

O

Outstanding service

M

Making it happen

E

Everyone matters

A key element of embedding the HOME values are the HOME Awards, which are presented at an annual black-tie event in Brighton.

The company also appoints a 'HOME hero' every year – someone from the business who is an exemplar of the HOME principles in action and is a good ambassador for the company. The senior management team selects the Hero, who spends the year pursuing an agenda that he or she defines around how to advance the HOME principles. They continue their day job at the same time.

Like other organisations, William Hill finds it impossible to track directly the impact of storytelling on business performance. But Beverley Newman says that scores for employee engagement, propensity to stay and willingness to make discretionary effort above and beyond the basic expectations of the job have all improved. Overall employee engagement scores have risen from 38% to 54% at the last count.

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CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Topics covered

Introduction

5.1

Conclusion

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5.2

Recommendations

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In this chapter we summarise the conclusions of our research and present some recommendations about how organisations can use storytelling more effectively.

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“I think storytelling is quite possibly under-utilised in organisations. It shouldn’t just be reserved for the ‘big’ corporate stories. Anyone can learn how to apply the skills of storytelling to day-to-day work situations.” Annette Mahaffey, VP Organisation and Leadership Development, Cepheid

Observations from CRF Storytelling Event, September 2014

5.1

• Most organisations are full of stories, whether they are recognised as stories or not. The stories told in corridors every day are an eye on organisation culture, giving an insight into ‘how things are done around here’. Organisations that use storytelling in more formal ways are simply tapping into what already happens.

• There has been significant growth in the use of storytelling within organisations over recent years. It is becoming an increasingly popular management technique. But is it in danger of being another management fad?

• Use of emotion is key to good storytelling, and using a variety of emotions will make a story more memorable. ‘Keep them guessing’, advised Adrian Furnham. Stories that achieve a neat closure have less impact than those that are ambiguous or left open to interpretation.

• Given the popularity of storytelling in organisations currently, is there a danger of storytelling fatigue? The conclusion of the discussion was that storytelling is so fundamental to how people relate to each other, that it will always be an important element of communications. So storytelling is here to stay, but it may be packaged as something different over time. It is important to avoid it becoming just another passing ‘initiative’ like quality management or business process re-engineering. .

Conclusion

• Used in the right way, storytelling can be an effective business tool. But as with any powerful rhetorical device it needs to be handled with care. Storytellers must pay particular attention to their authenticity: if listeners perceive any hint of artificiality or insincerity, the storytelling effort will backfire.

• Storytelling appears to work by engaging people’s emotions, making information easier to remember and allowing individuals to relate what they hear to their own particular circumstances. Stories that combine fact and emotion seem to be more effective in encouraging people to act than communications based on reason and logic alone.

• Stories can be used to convey complex concepts and situations in ways that people find easy to identify with and understand. They can also be effective in resolving conflict and managing sensitive situations.

• We did not find any evidence of organisations evaluating the effectiveness of storytelling, but anecdotal evidence suggests that stories help to engage employees. Psychologists have found that messages delivered in story form are more memorable, and storytelling can be useful in encouraging learning.

• Our research found that storytelling is a useful technique for - conveying the organisation’s heritage, purpose, strategy and values - getting buy-in to an agenda for change - developing leaders who can inspire their followers - celebrating success and recognising individual effort.

• However, storytelling does not need to be reserved for the ‘big’ stories, such as shifts in business strategy and major change. It can be used equally well for day-to-day communications.

• We found that whereas storytelling in organisations was considered fresh and radical just a few years ago, it has recently become more mainstream. It is an undeniably important and useful tool, with the potential to enhance communications across organisations at all levels.

5.2 Recommendations 1. Consider how you currently use storytelling within your organisation.

• Are you missing opportunities to improve communication through using stories?

• How do you share your results with internal and external stakeholders? Is there an opportunity to present that as a story?

• Do you need to invest in developing storytelling capability?

• Do you need to update your leadership development materials?

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“Storytelling is not a sure-fire thing, and some people may react badly. But it certainly beats 50 numbers-packed PowerPoint slides in getting a message across.” Stephen Bungay

2. Do you have a corporate story that embodies your strategy, identity and company values?

Should you develop one?

Becoming a better storyteller

3. Do you know who your corporate heroes are and why? What are their stories?

The question of whether anyone – even those who are not natural storytellers - can learn to tell stories, was discussed at CRF’s Storytelling event.

4. Do you have a bank of corporate stories that you can draw on as necessary? Does anyone within the organisation have responsibility for gathering corporate stories? Consider spending time gathering together: • examples of good performance • stories of successful sales • examples of service that exceed customer expectations • stories illustrating what the company’s values mean in practice • warning stories showing what happens when things go wrong – for example when employees breach ethical guidelines or fail to follow key company procedures • learning stories – to support key teaching points.

5. When preparing a presentation or other form of communication: • make sure you adequately address all three elements of rhetoric – logos, pathos and ethos • think carefully about whether any PowerPoint slides you plan to use are necessary or add to what you are trying to say • think about where the balance in the communication lies between emotion and logic – and whether that balance is correct • use the seven basic plots in chapter 3 to check whether your story is structured to maximise impact • make sure your communication gives people the space to engage emotionally with the subject, personalise the message to their own circumstances and draw their own conclusions.

6. Stephen Bungay suggests turning the traditional approach to presentations on its head: From

To

Tell them what the message is

Start with a narrative

Set out a framework or a set of arguments to support the message

Talk about people, emotions and situations

Give examples to illustrate Tell them what you’ve told them

Give pointers to help people understand the meaning Allow the framework to emerge naturally by drawing out key points

• Professor Adrian Furnham’s view is that storytelling is a teachable skill, and that anyone can learn to improve. However, certain personality types – extroverts, for example – are more trainable than others.

• Training programmes need to focus on improving delivery and developing good content – traditional ‘presentation skills’ training often focuses on visual aids at the expense of content.

• Even those who are ‘naturals’ need to practice. Abraham Lincoln was a great storyteller, but he had learned in childhood how to influence others through stories, and practised all his life.

The presenters and participants shared other viewpoints on how to tell better stories.

• You need to have a good story to tell in the first instance. Skilled interviewers can help identify and shape powerful and useful stories.

• Emotional intelligence is extremely important. The scenes from the Abraham Lincoln film showed how Lincoln influenced others and brought them round to his point of view, by regulating both his own, and others’, emotions.

• Personal authenticity is key. According to Adrian Furnham: “Anyone can learn to be a better storyteller, but you have to be you.”

• Following the rules and structures inherent in stories will help you develop better stories.

However, sometimes deliberately breaking the rules can make people sit up and take notice, and will turn a competent story into something more memorable.

Guide people towards the key messages, but allow them to draw their own conclusions

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REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED READING

Books

Articles

Booker, C, The Seven Basic Plots: Why we tell stories, Continuum, London, 2004

Denning S, Telling Tales, Harvard Business Review, May 2004

Campbell J, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Harper Collins, New York, 1948

Guber P, The Four Truths of the Storyteller, Harvard Business Review, December 2007

Campbell J, The Power of Myth, Anchor Books, New York, 1988

Alan Clark, Part of the beer élite, www.ft.com, 8 June, 2014

Denning, S, The Secret Language of Leadership: How leaders inspire action through narrative, Wiley, San Francisco, 2007

Jerome Bruner, The lesson of the story, The Guardian, 27 March 2007

Gardner, H, Leading Minds: An anatomy of leadership, Perseus Books, New York, 1995 Guber, P, Tell to Win: Connect, persuade and triumph with the hidden power of stories, Profile Books, London, 2011 Mead, G, Telling the Story: The heart and soul of successful leadership, Jossey-Bass, London, 2014 Pausch, R, The Last Lecture, Hachette, London, 2010 Sachs J, Winning the Story Wars: Why those who tell – and live – the best stories will rule the future, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, 2012, Smith, P, Lead with a Story: A guide to crafting business narratives that captivate, convince and inspire, Amacom, New York, 2012

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Meg Whitman jolts HP as its reluctant savior, www.forbes.com, 10 June 2013

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