Storyteller or agent provocateur?

Story telling has the power to inspire, influence and persuade. Any arguments out there? Hopefully not. If so please step away right now and mind the gap.

It also has the power to challenge, and changing the normal thought processes and modus operandi is the key lubricant in freeing up any organisation innovation inertia.

Thinking sideways is a powerful skill. The best stories are the ones with the slight twist, the ones that have the ah-hah moment as opposed to the ha-ha moment. There is only an 'h' difference but that 'h' is a mighty big letter.

Internal communications for me is primarily about looking at ways of delivering stories not just to engage and inspire change but to make anyone think what if I….??

I was in a meeting last Friday that turned from a brainstorming session about a part of a new promotion into a therapy session for one of the participants. He suddenly woke up to the fact that the reason he was so unhappy at work, and everything was getting complicated and he couldn’t keep on top of the basics was that he kept passing the responsibility for the decision onto other people. Justifying this by, but then cloaking it in, a laudable desire for inclusiveness; instead of just simply doing it.

I remember one day talking to another group about a time I had had to make some not insignificant changes to the intranet web site copy. The group in question, working in that organisation, asked how I had got through the mass of approvals they would normally have to go through? I told them I just did it. I didn't ask. By the time the permissions had worked their way down through the mass of emails and cc’s (continuity cock-up) the opportunity to address the topical issue would have disappeared. And the chance to make a salient point had evaporated. I hate wasted ideas.

So i just did it and hoped that the reason for my indiscipline in the ranks would allow me to escape the headmaster’s wrath. The result was interesting. Firstly, the powers to be didn’t even notice and then,when I did mention it in passing and through guilt to the person who should have been at the head of the approval food chain, they were not only supportive but began a process to shortcut the process in future. He is, not unusually, continually stacked up with e-mails and appreciated that no decision is worse than the wrong decision, in virtually every situation.

Waiting for approval for stuff that they pay you for your judgement to produce is just nuts. Frustrations with poor communications and irrelevant controls are sited as the major reason that employees leave companies. Here is the rub. Bosses feel the same frustrations believe me. They do empathise. So if you do find a renegade in the ranks, don’t fire them; nurture them. culture them, and get them to spread the word. To tell their story. See what happens.