We have talked before about storytelling, and how powerful it can be. We’ve also talked about how change efforts can so easily be derailed by symbols and perceptions.
I was reminded of this recently when a client asked me to talk to their employees about an upcoming change. There was an employee in the group who talked about a prior change and the impact it had had. He told the story and it was compelling – the language, the picture he painted. It paved the way for some of the rest of the discussion.
The stories that abound in organisations can be so powerful. In my client’s case, the story wasn’t that positive; but consider this example in a recent article “How to Really Understand Someone Else’s Point of View” where the authors cite this example:
“…one employee had a passing conversation with Mike about the challenges of adopting a child, pointing out that Pitney Bowes had an inadequate adoption benefit. A few weeks after that, he and his wife received a letter from Mike congratulating them on their new child — along with a check for the amount of the new adoption benefit the company had just started offering…”
The retelling of this story – now many hundreds (even thousands) of times has now passed the actual event into organizational lore; the story retold as an example of Mike Critelli’s leadership style and what made Pitney Bowes a great business. Think of the power, the imagery, the sense of person and place you get just from that one paragraph.
Now think, what stories are your employees telling about your company? Are they the Mike Critelli type of story, or those that lament past organizational failures and poor performance? And what does this tell you about your culture? And how healthy it is? And if it’s the latter, what are you doing to change the story?
