How do you create a culture of storytelling?

I am sometimes asked: what’s involved in creating a culture of storytelling in an organization? How do you create an organization in which authentic storytelling is the natural and normal way of communicating? How do you do this in a way that is highly productive for the organization as well as deeply satisfying for the participants?

I believe that six steps are needed.

1.      The first step is to recognize that establishing a storytelling culture must not only encourage good storytelling: it must meet other goals as well. Thus a storytelling culture in which people sat around all day telling stories to each other and got nothing done would not be sustainable. We must not only have good storytelling: it must also contribute to getting things done in the organization. Otherwise it will be seen as an encumbrance to the organization and will not survive.

We also need to recognize that storytelling is not an end in itself. This was recognized in the question that Paul Costello raised at the close of the Smithsonian session last month: He asked: What would be involved in creating an analytic framework to ensure that positive storytelling was encouraged and the de-humanizing storytelling was identified and discouraged?

Paul’s question implies that there is a good storytelling (life-enhancing) and bad storytelling (de-humanizing).  In promoting a culture of storytelling, we are interested in promoting the former rather than the latter. This in turn recognizes that storytelling is not an end in itself. It is a tool that can be used for good (life-enhancing) purposes or for bad (de-humanizing) purposes.

When we say life-enhancing, we have in mind interactions that enrich human relationships, that lift up the human spirit, and that appeal to the highest qualities of mind, heart and soul, that may even foster truth, beauty and love.

When we say bad or de-humanizing, we may have mind interactions that crush the human spirit, that foster fear, hate, meanness, selfishness and back-stabbing, that create environments that are boring, stifling, dishonest, ugly and systematically dispiriting. Eventually such cultures lead to repression, discrimination and even wars.

Once we recognize that storytelling is not an end itself, we need to be clear on what is the end for which storytelling should be deployed. Why do we like storytelling? Why do we want a storytelling culture? A short answer is that goal for which storytelling should be deployed is to foster high-quality interactive human relationships.

2.      The next step is to recognize that storytelling is not the only way to create high-quality, interactive human relationships. Storytelling is a big part of accomplishing this, but it’s not the only part: open-ended questions are often a more powerful and appropriate way of fostering high-quality human relationships: instead of telling people stories, one listens to what other people have to contribute. The goal is not to tell stories, but rather to have open-minded conversations, by stories, questions or whatever way of communicating that enables this.

3.      The next step is to recognize that some characteristic attitudes and practices in organizations are inimical to fostering open-minded conversations and high-quality human relationships. One of those attitudes and practices concerns the goal at which the organization is aiming. If the goal of the organization is simply to produce goods and services or to make money for the company, it will lead inexorably to an authority-based command-and-control bureaucracy, which will be inimical to high-quality human relationships and storytelling. Some organizations have overcome this problem by realizing that the goal of the organization is not to produce a thing (a product or a service, or even just an input into a product or a service, or to make money): the goal of work is to satisfy, please and even delight the people for whom the work is being done. Unless you have a people-oriented goal of this kind, the organization will inevitably slide towards a command-and-control bureaucracy, because that’s the best way to produce things. And a command-and-control bureaucracy will inexorably crush open, interactive human relationships as well as positive storytelling. So establishing a storytelling culture involves doing something about the goal of work in the organization. Unless the goal is oriented towards people for whom the work is being done, storytelling will not flourish in a sustainable way.

4.      The next step is to recognize that the standard way of organizing work, a command-and-control bureaucracy in which individuals report to bosses, is also inimical to high-quality human relationships and to storytelling. Instead, work needs to be organized in self-organizing teams, in which high-quality human relationships can develop, open communication can be fostered and people are able to give their very best.

5.      The next step is to recognize that this way of organizing work, in self-organizing teams, needs to proceed in relatively short work cycles. In part, that’s because, in order to foster high-quality relationships, you need constant feedback from the people from whom you are doing the work as to whether in fact they are being satisfied, pleased or even delighted. In part, that’s because for self-organizing teams to be sustainable, they have to be continuously productive, and not veer off into chaos, or diverge into work that doesn’t meet the needs of any customer or client. When each cycle of work is focused on delivering something of value to the people for whom the work is being done, there is constant feedback on progress towards the goal. In this way, there can be a conversation between the people doing the work and the people for whom the work is being done: in effect, they can share their stories about the meaning of what is occurring.

6.      The final step is to recognize there is a need for greater openness in communication than is common in command-and-control bureaucracies. Hans Christian Andersen’s fable about the emperor’s new clothes sheds light on what is involved here. The tale has a familiar part and an unfamiliar part. The familiar part is that the emperor of a prosperous city is swindled into buying an imaginary suit of clothes and when he parades around the city, a small child cries out, “But he has nothing on!” The crowd realizes the child is telling the truth. That is the familiar part of the story. The unfamiliar part of the tale is that the truth that the child has inadvertently blurted out makes no difference. Neither the emperor nor the attendant nobles pay any attention to it. The emperor holds his head high and continues the procession, as do the other courtiers. The charade continues.

        In this tale, Andersen put his finger on a key feature of all hierarchies: the mere exposure of falsehood doesn’t put an end to it or change behavior. False statements that support the power structure of a hierarchy have precedence over true statements that put the power structure in question. Everybody in the power structure tends to go on acting as though right is wrong and black is white because their own role in the structure depends on defending it.

        Such a culture is not only inimical to authentic  storytelling: it also happens to be incompatible with the goal of work—to satisfy, please or even delight the people for whom the work is being done. You can’t succeed in this attaining goal, if people are merely telling each other what they need to know or what they want to hear. Unless there is total openness, the organization will not be productive and a culture of positive storytelling will not be possible.

 

So those are the six steps that I see as essential to establishing a sustainable culture of storytelling in an organization: 

1.      The goal that is being pursued in establishing a storytelling culture is to foster high-quality interactive human relationships.

2.      Stories should be recognized as one of the ways of fostering high-quality human relationships, but not the only one.

3.      The organization must have as its goal to satisfy, please and even delight other people.

4.      The work should be conducted in self-organizing teams.

5.      The  work should be done in relatively short cycles,

6.      Communications should be more open than in a command-and-control bureaucracy.

Some organizations have taken the steps that I describe above. The steps not only lead to the creation of a storytelling culture: they also generate significant increments of productivity, deep job satisfaction and continuous innovation and client delight.

 

This way of running an organization is very different. As one manager told me, “told me, “Once you introduce this, it affects everything in the organization—the way you plan, the way you manage, the way you work. Everything is different. It changes the game fundamentally.”

 

I describe such organizations in my forthcoming book.
http://www.stevedenning.com/Books/radical-management.aspx

Comments

[Seth Kahan]

"False statements that support the power structure of a hierarchy have precedence over true statements that put the power structure in question."

That is so well said, Steve. I hear stories all the time about senior management behavior that seems silly, childish. Like the stories of Alan Mulally at Ford asking his senior managers to flag problems and their unwillingness to do so at the first sr management teams Mulally hosted. 'Why would that be?' I wondered. It seems so basic, like a lesson we learn in kindergarten.

But, there in that one sentence you explain it elegantly. Thanks.

Onward to storytelling cultures, and all the other good stuff you describe above!

[Mike Wittenstein]

Classic. It would be to the advantage of other disciplines if they applied these six steps as well. Well done, Steve.

[Daryll Bellingham]

Nice list. I like the suggestion that 'open ended questions are often more powerful and appropriate way of fostering high quality human relationships'.

I'd like to suggest that the power of open ended questions is that they leave it open for people to respond with one of their stories.

An open ended question is also a signal that you are likely to listen well to a story response. High quality human interactions are ones where people take turns to listen and contribute.

Thanks for taking the time to put these thoughts on 'culture of storytelling' together Steve.

[Health News]

Thank you for introducing me the wonderful information.And .....Totally boring.!