Chapter and Verse—Transformational Storytelling

By Patricia Koopersmith and Theodore Pedas

Effective storytelling isn't a skill limited to famous authors. The truth is, we all have a story to tell, but it’s the way in which we tell it that matters.

When leading a change effort, a leader must tell an impactful story—one that inspires and motivates the workforce. Storytelling is a powerful tool for communicating and building commitment to an organization’s value, culture, and vision. To achieve success, an organization must develop stories that address the organization’s origin, how its people embody its cultural values, and how it will achieve its future vision.

Here’s why storytelling is a powerful tool:

  • Connection and Relatability: Storytelling eliminates the distance between leaders and their employees. Listeners can find parts of themselves or their own experiences in the stories they hear. As a result, they will feel a greater connection with the organization’s mission and vision.

  • Impact and Memory: Stories are more than 12x more likely to be remembered than isolated facts[1]. Whereas facts only activate the language part of the brain, stories activate the same parts of the brain that real-life experiences engage, meaning that stories remain in the mind longer[2]. Any effort to change minds or gain buy-in are hopeless if the listener immediately forgets the message.

  • Familiarization: Storytelling can create a sense of familiarity with an ideal future state, allowing listeners to imagine this new reality. Employees will find it easier to lean into the future if it is not a scary, foreign concept.

As you implement a strategic or cultural transformation, consider using the following three types of stories to align employees with your organization’s values and vision for the future: the origin story, the future state story, and the cultural value story.

The Origin Story

Just as they do for comic book superheroes, origin stories explain the value behind the organization. They reveal the organization’s guiding principles and unite employees around a common purpose to drive them forward.

TIPS:

  • Introduce a hero: Who is the “hero” of the origin story and what was their intention? This is not necessarily the founder of the organization. This hero could be someone who embodies the organization’s values or who achieved a feat in the organization’s earlier stages.

  • Establish tension: What problem needed to be solved? What or who was the hero’s “nemesis” (or overarching struggle)?

  • Resolve conflict: What did the hero do to overcome the nemesis? What was at stake and what did they risk?

  • Circle back to guiding values: How did the hero’s actions embody the guiding values of the organization? How does this story and its values fit into the narrative of the organization today?

  • Weave the story into the organization’s fabric: Circulate the origin story to all employees to inspire them and build their sense of belonging. Incorporate the origin story into the onboarding process so new hires feel included in the big picture narrative of the organization.

The Future State Story

Future state stories communicate the future vision to employees and demonstrate where aspects of the future state are already occurring. These stories help employees understand what the future state looks like in action, which builds buy-in and enables them to move toward the future state in daily operations.

TIPS:

  • Develop vignettes of the future vision in action: Craft inspirational vignettes of various scenarios in the future that illustrate the organization operating differently (in line with the vision) and achieving meaningful outcomes.

  • Collect stories from across the organization: Collect stories that demonstrate current state challenges and how pockets of the organization are already leaning into the future vision and achieving powerful results (e.g., reducing burdens, delivering innovative services, maximizing value to customers, etc.).

  • Reframe: Engage in positive reframing of the future transformation’s outcomes. For example, instead of drawing attention to the removal of outdated job responsibilities within specific positions, emphasize that employees in those positions will now have greater capacity to acquire additional skills of value and take part in exciting new roles.

  • Incorporate cultural values: Weave in the organization’s cultural values as you describe how the organization will achieve its outcomes.

  • Launch a communications campaign: Institute a campaign to communicate future state stories and stir up excitement about the organization’s direction and its possibilities in the future.

The Cultural Value Story

Cultural value stories highlight the individuals and groups that currently exemplify the desired future cultural values. These stories also serve to communicate the paradigm of a future state employee to the workforce.

TIPS:

  • Recognize star performers: Institute a process for gathering stories about star performers and teams from across the organization who have achieved excellence while exemplifying the desired cultural values.

  • Present the story in a digestible format: Condense stories into easily digestible pieces. These stories should engage the reader and show, not tell, how the individual or group exemplified the value through their actions.

  • Issue cultural value awards: Establish cultural value awards to recognize individuals who embody a desired cultural value and to demonstrate leadership’s commitment to the future state culture. Make these awards symbolic, scarce, and special.

  • Honor past employees: Consider naming each cultural value award after an individual from the organization’s past who embodied that value. The story of the award’s namesake should clearly communicate the cultural value in action.

Best Practices, CommunicationsMichelle Wandreschange management, storytellingComment