Using stories to get across a corporate message
Philip Gibson, Friday, November 27, 2009

It’s strange how people start talking a different language when they get to work. Only a few days ago I was waiting to board an easyJet flight to Inverness when the following announcement crackled over the tannoy system:

At this point in time we’d like to ask those who purchased a speedy boarding ticket to come forward.

Now easyJet is a relatively young airline. It likes to cultivate an image that’s fun and informal. So it jars when it uses words and phrases like ‘at this point in time’ and ‘purchased’. On board we were treated to further delicacies: ‘throughout the duration of the flight’, ‘in the instance of an emergency’, ‘the lights will be illuminated’. I found myself wondering whether easyJet isn’t every bit as institutional as BA and Lufthansa.

I was particularly aware of this language issue because the reason for the trip to Scotland was to help run a workshop for the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA). They’d called us in to help them explore how they could use storytelling techniques to find ways of talking about their organization that outsiders could relate to.

Over the previous two weeks I had been working with Christopher Heimann, a Sparknow associate, on an agenda for a one-day workshop to be attended by all 50 members of the CNPA staff. Our client had had plenty of experience of workshops and proved to be a great collaborator. In fact we got onto something of a roll, going through seven drafts in order to make the agenda as tight, varied and original as possible.

For us this was a great opportunity to pull together much of the experience and many of the insights into storytelling that we’d accumulated over the past ten years. At the same time we had to choose just a handful of the tools and techniques that have become part of our repertoire.

So what did the day look like?

We started with a game of verbal improvisation that explored the power of simple words to change the course of a conversation. It made for a lively start to the workshop and highlighted the difference a positive attitude can make.
We then moved on to Jumpstart, a brilliant storytelling technique developed by Seth Kahan. It gave everyone a chance to talk about an experience that made them feel proud to be working at the CNPA and created an upbeat mood in the room. Everyone was impressed by how many good stories there were around. Many were taken aback by how many of those stories they’d never heard before. A number said that the exercise had given them a much better understanding of the many facets of the organization they worked for.

Jumpstart provided a great lead in to a discussion about why stories can be so much more powerful than approaches that rely entirely on facts and figures such as most corporate reports and presentations. It also helped surface what the CNPA was about at its heart.

After lunch the group explored the power of analogy and found new ways of characterizing what the CNPA does. Trying to agree on an analogy provoked some lively discussions about the nature of the organisation.

Up to this point the focus had been inward-looking. Now we brought the outside world into the workshop with an exercise called Try to see it my way. It encouraged everyone to step into the shoes of different groups with an interest in the Park. It was a stimulating and a salutary experience that highlighted the need for the CNPA to get close to those affected by its decisions.

We flagged the importance of language by brainstorming ‘words that get in the way’ and ‘words that work for you’.

Finally we ran a session that gave participants a chance to try out all the day’s learning in situations they would be likely to encounter on leaving the workshop. After some hints and tips we asked participants in groups to find experiences they could use to get people to think again about the CNPA in different scenarios: at the pub mixing with local residents after work, before a meeting with local businesspeople, at a conference with national agencies and local authorities. The resulting role plays impressed even Christopher, who teaches improvisation at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

We got some terrific feedback and we’ve proved that we have a design for a one-day workshop that can work for all sorts of organizations wanting to explore the potential of storytelling to help people talk about their organization from the point of view of their own experience rather than in dead corporate speak.

On the night train back to London there were no corporate announcements, just a friendly conductor to show us to our berths.