When asked, most people deny that they are good storytellers. But the truth is, we are all good at it. We are constantly telling ourselves stories and believing them. There are stories about what we are and are not capable of achieving. Stories about our ability to succeed in different types of personal and professional relationships. Stories about the role that work, family and friends play in our lives. And almost without exception, these stories prove themselves to be true. Stories shape the world we live in as well as how we interact with that world.
Storytelling may be the earliest form of communication among humans. Some scholars believe that cave paintings preceded language as a form of storytelling. Even today, we are drawn in by stories. We feel fear in the pit of our stomachs as the villains prepare to surprise the heroine. Our heart races as two lovers finally embrace on the screen. Our hair stands on end when we find out why the young boy in The Sixth Sense sees dead people.
Organizations often have stories that shape and sustain their cultures; they usually are of the past. There may be the founder’s story, the story of early struggle, the story of the first big breakthrough in the marketplace. But stories can play a vital role in shaping the future of the organization as well. In Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results, Judith E. Glaser writes, “We overestimate the power of logic and underestimate the power of storytelling … Use storytelling narrative that engages people’s emotions and creativity to make change happen."
All too often, when introducing and attempting to enroll people in change, communications are based purely on facts. As Glaser points out, logic does not have the same power as stories when driving change. Frontline employees are not motivated to make fundamental shifts in the way they are working to increase market share. Managers and supervisors aren’t ready to give up “the way things get done around here” to improve shareholder value. Senior executives aren’t going to interact differently for a change that promises to create a stronger brand identity.
Stories have a critical role to play in change. But, as Glaser states, it has to be a story “that engages people emotions and creativity.” This requires a story not about the future, but rather a story from the future. Stories about the future are processed in our heads. Stories from the future — that we can feel ourselves living in now — engage our heads, hearts and guts. They tap into our emotions.
Why is this so important? What gives stories from the future power that stories about the future don’t have? It is often said that “culture eats change.” Organizational culture is nothing more than the collective ways of thinking and acting in the workplace. It determines how priorities are set, the ways in which people go about doing their jobs and how they interact with others. Culture reflects what is valued, and what is not. New employees learn how to fit into the culture. For longer-term employees, culture is programmed into their neural networks and muscle memory.
Stories from the future invite us to experience a different way of thinking and doing. They give us a taste of what it will be like at the other end of the change journey. They acknowledge some of the major struggles along the way and point out some of the milestones that reflect the progress that is being made. They engage emotions and creativity. One of the greatest powers of a well-crafted story from the future is its ability to begin the process of reprogramming muscle memory and neural networks even before the change gets underway. After all, no matter what the struggles are, the story lets us know what it is like to experience life in the organization when the change is successful.
If you are to bring in stories from the future as part of your change process, they have to be created by your leadership. Change practitioners or communications staff may facilitate the conception of the story and polish the result, but if they write it, the story will never become embodied by leaders. The stories need to be complete enough to let employees across the organization know the journey and what lies at the end. And, they need to be open enough to be adapted to the different parts of the organization affected by the change.
Change stories from the future, as Glaser said, “engage people’s emotions and creativity to make change happen.” They open up employees’ neural networks and muscle memory to change. And they set the foundation for preparing, planning and taking a successful change journey.
