Organizational Storytelling and Oral Tradition

Have you attended motivational presentations or workshops where speakers use personal or professional stories to make a point, to bring about change, or to inspire? Or have you read any of these books: Who Moved My Cheese, Fish, Squirrel Inc., or Our Iceberg Is Melting? If so, then you have experienced organizational storytelling.

WHAT IS IT?

Organizational storytelling is the use of narrative as a form of communicating ideas to promote change, encourage leadership, and promote advocacy. Organizational storytelling has been and continues to be widely used in the business community. Leaders such as Spencer Johnson, Stephen Denning, and Annette Simmons use organizational narrative and/or business fables based on real-life stories with the goal of bringing about change or to communicate complex ideas. Organizational storytelling is not about fairy tales or the traditional stories that are told. It is talking about the kinds of stories that are told every day in organizations throughout the world by busy executives to achieve real-world objectives (Denning 2004, 99).

The ability to tell the right story at the right time is emerging as an essential leadership skill for the 21st Century (Denning 2004, 86). When telling organizational stories, it is essential, however, that the presenter tell only organizational stories that are authentic and accurate. The tellers may present stories about organizations that they have worked with or may tell stories that they have heard from others. Listening to the stories of others and then using them is critical to the organizational storyteller. Kate Marek states that truly listening to the stories of others connects us to each other in powerful ways by building a community of learners (2011, 13).

Annette Simmons identifies six types of stories for the organizational storyteller in her book Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins:

• ”Who I am” stories—explaining who you are as a person
• ”Why I am here” stories—offering the reason(s) for the telling
• ”The Vision”—describing an exciting future that reframes difficulties
• Teaching Stories—creating a shared experience to change behavior
• Values-in-action stories—illustrating value by using an action story
• ”I know what you are thinking” stories—validating and then dispelling the secret suspicions/concerns of the audience (2007, 23-25).

ORGANIZATIONAL STORYTELLING IN THE SCHOOL LIBRARY—THE CONNECTION

Kate Marek, in her book Organizational Storytelling for Librarians, discusses how organizational storytelling can be used to tell pieces of library stories. “I brought to mind memories of library experiences throughout my life both good and bad. I worked on converting those memories into language and images, so I could both talk about the memory and paint a verbal picture for my listeners” (Marek 2011, x). When presenting organizational stories, Marek stresses the need to focus on the personal stories of the school librarian in terms of the growth and development of the school library—in other words, “the library’s life story.” Who are the heroes of your library’s story? What are some of the key events from your library’s past, and how might you weave those into a compelling contemporary tale that will help you move forward?” (Marek 2011, 6).

Many of the same presentation tools are necessary to do effective organizational storytelling as traditional storytelling—use of the voice, facial expressions, dramatic pauses, and creative movement. However, there are some differences. The following chart includes information on organizational storytelling from Marek and comparative information on traditional storytelling from the author (see Figure 1).

Is organizational storytelling preserving, perpetuating, or extending the oral tradition? “Some of the stories that occur in organizations are close cousins of traditional stories, which of course have a long history” (Denning 2004, 99.) The debate may continue but the value is in the story and the telling, regardless of the goal, the presentation method, or the audience. Storytellers tell stories that “stick” and these stories are able to touch the hearts of listeners (Marek 2012).

EXAMPLES OF BUSINESS FABLES

• Johnson, Spencer. Who Moved the Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1998.
• Lundin, Stephen. Fish! A Proven Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results. Hyperion, 2000.
• Kotter, John. Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Condition. St. Martin's Press, 2006.