Disciplinary Grounding
Literature Review
Boje (1991) described organizations as “storytelling systems” in which the “performance” of stories is a mechanism for sensemaking (p. 106). As Boje observed, “We all tell stories, and during better performances we feel the adrenalin pump as word pictures dance in our intellect and we begin to live the episode vicariously or recall similar life events” (p. 107). These performances involve a cast of individuals and teams including executives, managers, front-line staff, and even customers. But at a minimum, storytelling involves two people “in conversation” (Boje, 1991, p. 107): 1) the storyteller and 2) the listener, or audience.
These two roles are equal in importance, as the listener’s “personal experience” inevitably “mingles” with the story being told, rendering the audience a “co-producer” of the story (Boje, 1991, p. 107). As Denning (2001) outlined, stories can function as a “springboard,” “catapulting the minds of … [the] audience forward to a conceptual destiny that they are happily helping to invent” (p. 37). Boje and Baskin (2011) noted employees naturally internalize stories because it is the way human beings explain the world around them. Employees “perceive, feel, respond to and think about” workplace events “in terms of the stories their brains are structured to create to explain those events” (p. 419). This allows employees to “recapture their sense of meaning, purpose and power in their work” (Boje & Baskin, 2011, p. 419).
In this light, storytelling provides distinct advantages for communicating corporate strategy. Barry and Elmes (1997) identified “strategy as a type of narrative” and examined the benefits and implications of viewing the communication of corporate strategy through a narrative lens (p. 430). Taking a “narrative view of strategy stresses how language is used to construct meaning” and understand how organizational players “create a discourse of direction (whether about becoming, being, or having been) to understand and influence one another’s actions” (Barry & Elmes, 1997, p. 432). Storytelling allows employees to engage in complex organizational discourse with a “deeper sense of meaning and purpose than can be achieved through, for example, spreadsheet modeling” (Barry & Elmes, 1997, p. 431). Or, as Denning observed, lengthy explanations of charts, diagrams, and similar “unnatural, manufactured, inanimate artifacts” (p. 50).
Storytellers seek to “develop an engaging, compelling account” that listeners can “willingly buy into and implement” (Barry & Elmes, 1997, p. 433). It is important to note storytelling does not replace traditional models of communication; it serves to complement it. A story is “not a panacea” for all a company’s challenges (Denning, 2001, p. 104). Rather, a narrative is simply a different way of presenting information, ideally one that is “worth listening to, remembering, and acting upon” (Barry & Elmes, 1997, p. 433). As Barry & Elmes observed, even the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) model can form the foundation for a story: “opportunities represent ‘the call,’ whereas threats become antagonists. As strengths are employed and weaknesses transformed, the protagonist becomes the hero” (p. 437). Yet unlike SWOT diagrams, stories can be shared and understood by all employees—not just business-school alumni. Storytelling “is a democratic resource; it is available to anyone with a story to tell” (Beigi et al., 2019, p. 458).
The key difference between narratives and more typical ways of communicating strategy (i.e., PowerPoint presentations and lists of bullets) is in how the information is designed and delivered. Of primary concern is ensuring a story’s “coherence” and “resonance” (Garud et al., 2014, p. 1482). A “plot” satisfies the former; the latter is achieved through “intertextual linkages with other stories in currency and broader discourses that are unfolding” (Garud et al., 2014, p. 1482). According to Shaw et al. (1998), a “good story … defines relationships, a sequence of events, cause and effect, and a priority among items” in such a manner as to ensure “those elements are likely remembered as a complex whole” (p. 42). Shaw et al. observed how at 3M, narratives were successfully used to “not only clarify the thinking behind [business] plans, but also capture the imagination and excitement” of employees (p. 42). Shaw et al. contrasted narratives to lists of bullets, which “leave other critical relationships unspecified” (p. 43).
Boje (1991) also observed this type of “terse telling” between parties who demonstrated an “understanding of the social context, since insiders know what to leave to the imagination” (p. 115). Strategic narratives, by comparison, identify “critical relationships among issues” to help the listeners to “see the whole picture” (Shaw et al., 1998, p. 47). This allows the audience to “locate themselves in the story,” enhancing “their sense of commitment and involvement” (Shaw et al., 1998, p. 50). Ultimately, as Barker and Gower (2010) noted, storytelling can promote positive business outcomes by “assist[ing] in the development of organizational understanding, building stronger employee relationships and therefore increasing business productivity” (p. 303).
Communication Theory
This examination of communication through a narrative lens has traceable roots in Walter Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm Theory. Fisher (1989) stated, “all forms of human communication need to be seen fundamentally as stories—symbolic interpretations of aspects of the world occurring in time and shaped by history, culture and character” (p. xiii). Human beings, Fisher suggested, “experience and comprehend life as a series of ongoing narratives, as conflicts, characters, beginnings, middles, and ends” (p. 24). There is a logical connection between Narrative Paradigm Theory and strategy, which “[a]s a narrative form, seems to stand somewhere between theatrical drama, the historical novel, futurist fantasy, and autobiography” (Barry & Elmes, 1997, p. 432).
Viewing corporate strategy through the Narrative Paradigm allows us to better understand how stories can be used to not just convey meaning, but also help employees envision the parts they play—to internalize the strategy and infuse it into their daily work. Narrative Paradigm Theory highlights the importance of the “relationships” Shaw et al. (1998) identified as key to good storytelling (p. 47). As Boyce (1996) noted:
The narrative paradigm views story as a fundamental form in which people express values and reasons, and subsequently make decisions about action. The method for applying the narrative paradigm involves identifying story themes and assessing the links between values, reason and action. It provides a particularly valuable method for working with story and storytelling in organizations. (emphasis added; p. 8)
Narrative Paradigm Theory can also assist in designing stories. Fisher’s paradigm maintains “[n]arrative rationality” as its “logic” (Fisher, 1989, p. 47). For a story to “hang together,” it must meet three criteria: 1) “argumentative or structural coherence”; 2) “material coherence,” achieved through “comparing and contrasting stories told in other discourses”; and 3) “characterological coherence,” or the “reliability of characters, both as narrators and as actors” (Fisher, 1989, p. 47). At the basis of this third evaluation is trust, which Fisher (1989) noted “is the foundation to belief” (p. 47). Trust is “an attribute of both the powerful story and the effective storyteller . . . [who] must be congruent with his story—his tongue, feet, and wallet must move in the same direction” (Guber, 2005, p. 56).
Within the parameters of Narrative Paradigm Theory, a successful story shares many of the same characteristics identified by Barry and Elmes (1997), in that it “highlight[s], juxtapos[es], and link[s]” organizational actions “in certain ways; convincing others that this is the way things have happened; and prescribing that this account should be the template from which new actions should be considered” (p. 433). As Barker and Gower (2010) observed, “This enhanced exchange of communication allows for swift evaluation and reaction in a competitive business environment, thereby allowing for the accomplishment of corporate and individual goals among all participants” (p. 303).
Significance
Fisher (1989) wrote, “Unless a respondent perceives an accurate and appropriate perception of herself or himself in the message, there will be little or no communication” (p. 17). This project will aim to show how well-designed stories not only improve employee interpretation and comprehension of corporate strategy, but also influence individual actions taken toward achieving stated goals.