Such is the power of stories that people can believe things which aren’t true only because they have heard them said. After all, there is no smoke without fire and if that is the word on the street then who are they to argue?
Our work places are full of them, myths and legends, truths, half-truths and mistruths, fantasy and fabrication, water cooler talk and corridor conversation, you name it and the word is out. Stories are what people thrive on and in many ways they are the very glue that holds an organisation together. Our culture is the sum of all of our stories.
People remember stories, they resonate with the way our minds work, they strike a chord with our memories and they touch our very souls. Everyone remembers Aesop’s fables, nursery rhymes and biblical stories from their childhood. There is nothing more human than a story.
But stories are not just a force for good they can be a malevolent force as well. What could be more interesting than some juicy gossip or tittle-tattle? Such stories are guaranteed to get tongues wagging and the drums banging. It seems that the human appetite for schadenfreude is endless and a sordid tale or one that ends in tragedy will run and run, especially if it relates to someone in authority.
So how do we use the power of stories to influence our cultures? How can we make sure that it is the positive stories that get their noses in front and become the vernacular and that become the common currency?
The answer is obvious and quite simple. Make sure that we tell stories about our work that are positive. Not just we’ve finished this task or we’ve made this or that change but real stories that start with once upon a time and have real people in them and make us feel good about the stuff that we do day in and day out.
Good stories are everywhere once you start to look. Put a plus in front of the things that have happened and they will leap out at you. Today we have averted a possible significant outage, a customer has come back who I never thought we would see again and we’ve successfully resolved a long standing personnel problem.
Once upon a time we started on a journey to change our culture.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 