Change Management Blog

Role for Seasoned Staff

Seasoned staff members have a tremendous role to play in cultural expression, celebration, transformation and multiplication. Currently they are often seen as a hindrance to the ‘new culture’. They are given more and more in labour concessions and yet their productivity and attendance don’t improve. They are treated like spoiled children. Spoiled children know they are not loved. However, the seasoned staff are not spoiled children; they are wise village elders. Every healthy culture celebrates and venerates its elders; even as the culture changes and grows, the village elders are held in high esteem if only for their experience. By honouring the seasoned staff to the position of village storyteller, the seasoned staff will feel the respect that they deserve. This role is separated from the process of business and has to do with the heart of the business.

Role for New Staff

New staff also have a crucial role. They have grown up with collaborative forms of learning and can help the seasoned folks see the value they possess and learn from them. They will embrace the storytelling culture itself as a valid form of expression and start to bring change about the how of business while they learn from the stories about the why of business.

Role for Change Management

Change Management is an inexact science. Indeed, it is more of an art that a science, requiring creativity and insight beyond the metrics measured. It is proposed that in addition to the typical stages of change management (whichever school you follow) that you use a new stage put at the very beginning of the process: Celebration. Celebrate what is. Celebrate the current culture. Anthropologists tell us that one cannot influence a culture one does not respect. By firmly and intentionally celebrating ‘what is’, we will have a firm foundation from which to cast our vision. In a sense, storytelling becomes a form of alignment before the vision is cast. Storytelling is one form of saying that “everything is as it should be”. Change management is one form of saying that “nothing is as it will be.” To try to do the latter without the former is like trying to walk without a firm footing from your rear foot. Ensure the foot behind you is firm and the next step can be taken with confidence. Find, and celebrate what is working in the organization before you cast the vision of change.

Role for Training

The training group has a significant role to play in developing a storytelling culture. Storytelling is itself a meta-competency; that is, a competency that develops other competencies. Mentoring without storytelling is ‘telling’ without the ‘story’. By using traditional methods for teaching the meta-competencies, the training group will impact both the expression and celebration of current culture and the movement of culture towards full peer mentoring. The training group should use consultants steeped in story culture to provide the most effective framework for creative yet focused storytelling. In addition, the training group has the opportunity to develop a communities-of-practice structure whereby competency development becomes an integral part of team activity on the floor. Storytelling is a step towards communities of practice whereby people learn more from each other than the training department.

Role for Leadership

Front line leaders such as Supervisors and Managers should have their scorecard reflect story-telling ability. This can be a subset of any mentoring objective that may already be within their mandate. They can use storytelling as an influential tool but when it’s time to tell a story, just let the story do its work. Using a story-telling for specific feedback over a performance issue is permitted but the leader must self-declare “this is not just a story but I have a point to make” and make the point. Be sure to wait until the celebration stage of storytelling before engaging in using stories as a feedback tool. More about that in next week’s post.

Role for Executive Leadership

For this cultural celebration to be effective, the executive team must be involved. We propose that the CEO of an organization actually take on a new additional title of CSO (Chief Storytelling Officer). The Story Telling department must be independent of other departments; do not let the storytelling culture be co-opted by performance. The leadership must believe in this strategic cultural path and model it within their own meetings and conversations.

What role do you play in the organization? How have you or could you use storytelling to impact business culture? Watch next week’s final post about the implementation plan for storytelling culture.