Part IV Storytelling as Community Transformation
Thursday, May 28th, 2009The Phases of Culture Change
Storytelling can be construed as a sub-set of culture. With a culture of storytelling, your organization should progress through the following four stages:
1. Expression – have your workers express the culture of what ‘is’. Let the stories be told, the good, the bad and the ugly. We must embrace the whole of what our culture is to be able to celebrate the good in emotional freedom. Once a decline in negative storytelling begins, then the culture can be celebrated.
2. Celebration – focus on the things in your organization that really work; the elements of your corporate community that make people happy to work there; the things that brought you through perhaps decades of change are still there. Once you find alignment to the culture of what is great about your organization, then, and only then, can you move towards transformation.
3. Transformation – this is where the storytelling becomes a strategic tool for change management. Casting the vision of change occurs in this phase. To cast a vision before celebration occurs reduces the chances for success since the company doesn’t really know, or like, itself. When your company has a track record of successful change, then you’re ready for the expansion phase.
4. Expansion – consider how you’d like your business culture to expand. It could be that you sponsor education development in your field; that you spread your cultural celebration through philanthropy; that you grow your business intentional about who you are as an organization. A company that has been transformed can transform others. That you will grow is inevitable; how you grow is up to your intention.
Transformation within Your Organization
The transformation that the change management and training teams want is by not trying to change the culture so much as celebrating the culture as it is. The culture is changing and will change. That is inevitable. What is not inevitable is that the employees leaving will feel that their contribution has been beyond performance and attendance. By separating culture from performance, you will actually see indirect performance improvement. Once the storytelling has become a form of celebration within your organization, then you can start to use the skill as a method of transformation. In giving reviews and feedback, a story can be a more effective way of getting across not just the explicit point but also all of the facilitative insights that a narrative can provide. In this case, be sure to act with integrity. The teller of the story needs to declare, “I’m making a point here, not just telling a story” and tell the story and make the point.
Transformation within The Community
As the storytelling moves from expression, to celebration to transformation, take your company’s storytelling culture into the broader Canadian culture. As the storytelling culture takes root within the organization, the culture will spill into the wider community. Some potential methods of supporting this overflow of culture include:- volunteerism at various hospitals, schools, prisons etc. where company volunteers read stories to those who love to listen- local storytelling contests whereby the staff of your local offices hold an annual storytelling contest for those in high school- cable TV show where retired workers interview local heroes and human interest stories (take a page from the Men of the Deeps who are a choir of men from the coal mines who must have worked underground)- annual book: each region or department has one employee submit a story about their community (profiles both the story and the story-teller). Create a DVD version as well.
The Impact
Change is inevitable in your organization. Effective and efficient change requires that the way things are is given proper respect. By creating a story-telling culture with its own rewards independent of performance, the organization can move ahead with no regrets.Where is your organization in terms of the four stages? How would you like to proceed?
