Insights & More

SO, WHATS YOUR STORY

by Nandini Das Ghoshal 15 July 2009

I don’t recall how the virus of storytelling infected me but I have been living with it for a while now. My earliest recollection of thinking about this form of communication takes me back to a taxi ride from a client’s office where we ended up using a metaphor story to bring alive a particular piece of analysis. Yes – that must have been it. And pretty much like a light bulb which when comes on and instantaneously drives away all darkness, it hit me. The realisation that stories bring alive learnings in complex corporate situations in a way that is easily assimilated by the participant was big and I have been working on it frantically since then. I followed up my revelation with several weeks of research into the theory behind storytelling. Here are some lead conclusions that convinced me of the usefulness of this as a tool for influencing behaviour and effecting organisational change.

If one refers to our history and heritage, stories have come down to us from time immemorial. The ones that have been immortalized are those which have a point of view or perspective which is seeded in values and learnings of the times with a certain universality which cuts across geography, race and time. Their power is proved by the point that they have stayed with us even now and will continue to do so as countless adults retell them to their protégés. So why can’t it be the same in companies which are also micro-societies with shared values, goals and purpose?
Steve Denning, the guru of corporate storytelling says that the power of storytelling or the narrative has been grossly underutilized by the business community or the modern day corporation to be precise. I would agree with that. Most corporates scoff at the idea of using an “anecdote” to illustrate a point, dismissing it as inadequate, flimsy, non-mathematical and illogical.

The arguments in favour of storytelling go like this. Stories are the most powerful way to change behavior. Wise men, millions of years ago, knew how to use it well for the same. Stories work simply because of the power of the protagonist. “If one person dies, it is a tragedy and if a mass of people die, it is a statistic” is a powerful quote I came across during my research. Similarly Mother Teresa was known to have said “If I see the mass, I can never act….if I see one, I can”. People naturally engage with One. They start seeing themselves in the character and feel empathetic in a way that is so powerful.

Secondly, stories are potent because they help us understand complexity. A certain outcome cannot really be explained by just one or two variables. There may be multiple reasons why something happens the way it does and no mathematical analysis can illustrate that point to an average person in way that she may get it instantaneously. Each situation does not warrant that kind of complex analysis to explain cause and effect when it can be done simply by means of a story.

Stories appeal at an emotional level. They go past our defenses and engage with our feelings. They are natural and entertaining and most of all, easy to remember. They seep into the subconscious of the listener and lets her “co create” the sequence of events such that she starts to own the narrative just as much as the teller. This is the most powerful catalyst of influencing behavior. An idea cannot easily enter into the listener’s basic perceptual framework as a fresh idea through which they view the world unless they themselves co-create it.

The important thing to understand here is that the power of the tool is in the telling. The story has to be told to an audience and that’s how it comes to life. There is no usefulness to a story if it’s not internalized by the audience, if the latter don’t live, breathe and imagine it. Only then can they act according to it. In the act of listening, the audience is using so many of its faculties – sight, hearing, and tactile faculty and most importantly the power of the imagination – which makes the learnings more real. Now what if the stories were to contain the nuggets of insights that a corporate would want its employees to internalize, the values that would need to be accepted, the culture that has to be imbibed and the knowledge that needs to be perpetuated? Within a simplistic structure of a story with a protagonist, a dilemma and a resolution one can transfer to the listener a wealth of knowledge and all this without being patronizing or didactic.

How many times have you seen task forces labor over recommendation reports, take as many print outs as there are people in the company and have they sent out to every desk for internalization? And yet, probably only half the intended audience read it, a few internalize it and then it fades away till the next time it’s reviewed. How do you measure if people engaged with it, understood it and incorporated it into their work behavior, if that was intended at all?

We, in our work are inspired by the power of telling stories. We use them as means to “activate knowledge”. Each purpose necessitates a different kind of story to be crafted. Hence crafting the “anecdote” such that it is rooted in true knowledge and then telling the same to the audience to “activate” the knowledge is what really works for us.

THE METHOD IN THE MADNESS | TWO YEARS

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