Change projects are notoriously dodgy. Speakwise suggests about 70% of change projects fail and that those statistics haven’t changed much in decades.
The question is why it’s so poor — and how storytelling can help. Business storytelling for the win!
Using the big hero story
Let’s face it, this is the default of lots of leaders and it goes like this “When we’ve made this change we’ll all be happy and free and productivity will go up and workloads will go down”. The problem is that most people have heard it all before and very few believe it. They also know that it misses the hard parts.
Saying “When we get to the top of the mountain we’ll have a great view” skips over the slogging blisters that everyone gets on the way up — and your audience know it.
So sure, use the inspirational Big Hero Story if you want, but know that you also need to take account of a few other things:
- make sure any example you use in your Big Hero story are universally known (so that no one feels left out) and respected. The last bit is important. For example, if your big change example is “What they did at Apple was to…” it only takes one person to say “overpriced crap” and the whole thing falls apart
- you need to acknowledge — and quickly talk about — the (obvious) issue that there will be problems on the way to this promised land
- follow up with tactical stories that work on the ‘how’ not just the ‘what’.
The last point is something we’ll look at in a bit, but for now, concentrate on the first two points. Nothing undercuts your credibility as a leader as your audience rejecting your example/story. It’s worse than holding your hand out to shake and the other person ignoring you!
There’s a great business storytelling heuristic you can use here — the more challenging the change project you’re working with, the more ‘remote’ from your circumstances your story should be.
You need to match the process, but specifics can be a bit different. Silly example here… if you’re having to talk about your new staff development training regulations, an example from ancient Greece might be useful. Few people can take offence about being likened to legendary Spartan warriors.
The further away in time you are, the safer you are, all other things being equal.
Pub stories
A pub-sized story proves things are commonplace and (by extension) trustworthy. We sometimes call them “ten second stories” because the guts of the story can be delivered that quickly. If you can tell it only ten seconds, our brains think, it must be simple. And because the story is simple, it must be commonplace. If it’s commonplace, it applies to us.
So… for change business storytelling orientated around change management, ten second stories about the change (or at least steps in the change) are a great idea. If the Big Hero Story sells the end-point, Pub Stories sell the process.
“Company X did it by making overtime optional: so did company Y. In fact come to think about it company Z did the same thing!“
See how it goes? The very brevity of the story makes it more universal. Obviously you need to have sufficient detail that the story is believable, of course…
When you pick your pub-sized stories, make them as tightly specific as you can. Your aim here is to reassure, not inspire: and consequently what you’re trying to do is link your audience to the protagonists in your stories:
- if your leading a Local Authority, use another authority — preferably an adjacent one with similar circumstances.
- if you’re leading a research unit, use other research units in the same organisation — or in an organisation on the very same business park that everyone drives/cycles past on their way to work
- if you’re leading a cyber-security and IT company, use a company of pretty much the same size. A ten man company isn’t going to be reassured by hearing how Sophos does things!
Of course, the same rules apply as for big stories (in that the examples have to be ones people know about and respect). Ideally the story should be based on people your audience actually knows, not just knows about. If the team upstairs made the change you’re leading, cite them. Remember the aim here is to use stories to reassure that the change is a normal thing.
Negative stories
From a business storytelling perspective, the only time you should use negative stories is probably as a cautionary tale. The story of someone who didn’t change and screwed up can be salutary, but you need to be careful…
- if the story’s protagonist is too similar to the people you’re leading you risk them feeling critizised
- if the protagonist isn’t similar enough you risk the left handed widget problem.
What’s the left handed widget problem? It’s when you explain how to get a 43% increase in widget production; along with a 17% reduction in workload; and an extra 13 days holiday a year for everyone; in exchange for the most simple, trivial and easy of actions… but the response is:
”Yeah, that might work for them, ‘cos they make right-handed widgets but we make left-handed ones” despite the fact that all you need to do to convert a right-handed widget to a left-handed one is turn it over.
It’s a tactic/response of people who’re soooooooo set in their ways that, well… you get the picture.
Experience is the key here. Knowing when to go with a negative story isn’t all the hard but knowing which negative story you should use is tricky for newbies to business storytelling — so my advice is to not go for the negative unless it’s you’d look silly if you didn’t do it…
If you want to go for it however, here are a few tips/tricks that might help.
- avoid taking pleasure in other people’s mistakes. That’s pretty obvious I think, just from a moral perspective but remember to avoid being seen to take pleasure. That’s much more tricky (particularly in light of point two, below) but it happens even in ‘normal’ circumstances
- avoid stories that impact on the people in the room, even second-hand. If you’re telling a story of how company X made a mistake and went out of business, making all their staff redundant… if someone you’re talking to is married to one of those people, or friends with them it’s easy for them to think you’re delighting in other people’s misfortunes. And even if they don’t assume ill-intent on your party, they’re likely to be emotionally triggered, and not pay attention to your point
- think hard about identifying who you’re talking about. Being seen to be discreet can do wonders for how much people trust you, I’ve found, even if everyone knows who you’re referring to in your story.
Remember, business storytelling isn’t about telling a good story. It’s about finding an effective story and using it for the betterment of your business.