Philosophy of Communication
Which came first: the mission statement or the water cooler? Both of these corporate-culture titans function as key narrative vehicles within an organization. Each serves as the locus for storytelling that contributes to the “community of memory” (Arnett et al., 2018, p. 139). The fundamental difference between the two lies in control. While an organization can—and from an ethical standpoint, must—articulate what it stands for (Arnett et al., 2018), it has no control over water-cooler talk. An organization can only influence this gab (which can be a gift).
The “dwelling place” of the water cooler—to use the words of Arnett et al.—has always been a source of fascination for me, from my earliest days as an editorial assistant at an alt-weekly newspaper. The break room was where you would hear what was really going on; not just what the higher-ups were saying. Today, as an employee communications professional, it remains my favorite stage to witness the “performance” of organizational storytelling (Boje, 1991). But, given the near-impossibility of translating the business value of water-cooler chitchat to the C-Suite, I must necessarily focus on bigger stages. Enter Walter Fisher.
From the moment I first read about the Narrative Paradigm Theory (Fisher, 1989), I was enthralled. “I propose . . . a reconceptualization of humankind as Homo narrans,” stated Fisher (1989, p. xiii). Fisher reasoned that to be human is to tell stories, to serve as
authors and co-authors who creatively read and evaluate the texts of life and literature. A narrative perspective focuses on existing institutions as providing ‘plots’ that are always in the process of re-creation rather than existing as settled scripts. Viewing human communication narratively stresses that people are full participants in the making of messages, whether they are agents (authors) or audience members (co-authors). (p. 18)
If every employee within an organization holds the power not just tell a story, but to continually re-create them through applying their lessons and in turn sharing new stories, then what happens when the organization becomes better at storytelling? Can water-cooler “performances” truly impact the bottom line?
From the literature I have reviewed, this appears to be an area rife for future study. In the meantime, I am seeking to share how storytelling can liberate the mission statement—and especially its supporting business strategy—from the confines of charts and SWOT diagrams and into the hearts, minds, and actions of employees, who “live, create, or interpret them” (Fisher, 1989, p. 58).
Ethical Considerations and Challenges
As Johnson (2019) noted, “Ethicists are particularly interested in how cultural elements, both formal and informal, promote or discourage moral action” (p. 260). The ethical concerns inherent within all corporate communication, including internal storytelling, must recognize how stories “situate our lives, giving meaning beyond our individual selves” (Arnett et al., 2018, p. 139). As Fisher (1989) acknowledged,
The lay audience can test the stories for coherence and fidelity. The lay audience is not perceived as a group of observers, but as active, irrepressible participants in the meaning-formation of the stories that any and all storytellers tell in discourses about nuclear weapons or any other issue that impinges on how people are to be conceived and treated in their ordinary lives. (p. 72)
Storytelling holds great power to influence behavior; it must be used to promote the good, and ensure coherence between both the “community of memory” and the organization’s “communicative practices” (Arnett et al., p. 143). The chief ethical concern for storytelling is to ensure the organization can walk its own talk.
Apart from this, broader challenges for this project include the fact that some people are naturally better storytellers than others. But I’m confident I can develop broad guidelines that will allow even those who are not comfortable storytellers to begin to infuse narratives into their communications.