Storytelling is an incredible tool. Powerful minds continue to tell us stories to strengthen and celebrate existing cultures within our society. Stories have the ability to provide continuity in our lives, and convey a sense of history and heritage.
Incredibly, stories have a place in the business world. Did you see the social media memes businesses were using recently, where they imagined June 21st, and how their businesses could weave into the end of the lockdown rules?
Cleverly planned and executed storytelling can change organisations. During these unprecedented times, many businesses may be making huge decisions to undertake large transformation. Storytelling should undoubtedly be a part of that journey.
So perhaps you are trying to survive a rapidly evolving marketplace, or overhaul your brand and tone of voice. Whatever the reason for your business change, you can’t go wrong with good storytelling.
What is storytelling?
Storytelling is a collection of words or images that brings ideas to life. It serves many purposes, including feeding the imagination, influencing, inspiring and teaching. In this article, we’ll discuss how important storytelling is for business change management and transformation, and how you can use narrative storytelling techniques to show the importance of the change initiative to your staff, and potentially your customers.
Importance of the change story
We know that if people understand the reason for change, people are much more likely to join the team that drives the change and get onboard. Storytelling can help you do this. By highlighting the need for the change – and how essential its timing his through storytelling – you can show your staff why it’s important they get involved, and encourage them to do so gladly. With this in mind, through storytelling it’s important that through transparent narrative, you show the beginning point, the key milestones, and, most importantly, the end point and its benefits.
Our experienced change experts understand this process and know the need for a rounded picture. We use office research and engagement surveys to determine how best to get the staff excited about any change management, including;
- Benchmarking surveys
- Focus groups
- One-to-ones
- Interviews
Power of storytelling for inspiration
You might not be interested in creating a storyboard or an actual physical story, and that’s not really what storytelling is about in this case. It’s more about inspiring your team through whatever means necessary.
Perhaps start by telling your employees where your final destination is, and, most importantly, how it will benefit them, you can get them excited through stories about an achievable destination, and then how you’re going to get there.
There’ll be work for them to do, but the focus should always be on the outcome and how it will help everyone, so as to keep spirits up, and inspire hard work.
Storytelling should be used as one of many tools in your toolkit for enhancement. When used correctly, it will aid the business leaders to implement changes successfully, and hopefully, if used correctly, conclude in a happy ending.
Storytelling for business culture
When we discuss matters of business culture, the stories told often comprise of:
- the way in which things are done
- the best ways to get the work done
- how to conduct yourself
- what will happen if we do things this way (specifying employee benefits).
So, for example, if a certain way of working and a new journey will lead to increased revenue, that’s great, but your employees want to know how that will impact them. Will there be room for promotion, for example, or pay rises, or perhaps better job security, or the opportunity to buy shares. Why should you employees be invested in your change? You need to find out what they want, weave it into your plans, then tell them the story.
The role your leaders play in storytelling
Your leaders need to do what they do best; lead. They should be the ones who drive forward storytelling as a tool for growth. By now they should already be trusted and respected, so when they tell your staff this is the way forward and why, they should be believed.
If your leaders are not in this position, you must first put in the groundwork required to get them to that point. Don’t try to cut corners. Lots of change initiatives fail. They need to be carefully planned and considered. You can’t just tell the story and hope for the best, you must first lay the foundations.
What is your company’s story?
Are you planning a business change initiative? Have you asked yourself if you have the right guidance and platform to bring your story to life, and tell it in a way that is convincing and inspiring? That’s where we come in. Our team of experts will provide you with an easy to follow, personable experience.