Stories for Work

Chapter 6 Stories that work for change

One of the biggest challenges facing organisations and leaders today is change. This may mean implementing an organisation-wide change or a change within your team. You may also need to get an individual to do something differently — to change a behaviour, mindset or their priorities.

Regardless of the situation, the problem is that we are often so used to ‘the way things are’ that we dig in our heels and refuse to move, or even listen to another’s point of view.

In the past, organisational change was managed via a very thorough, albeit drawn-out, process. This process consisted of months of planning and off-site strategy sessions, followed by collaboration sessions designed to increase employee engagement, and a detailed stakeholder management and communication plan, where scripted messages would be filtered through the organisation via beautifully designed PowerPoint presentations.

Many say this rarely achieved success. The rapid rate of change in today’s world means that our PowerPoint decks are out of date long before they’ve even been spell checked, and most of our audience are usually asleep at the click of the first bullet-point slide.

When it comes to encouraging others to adopt a change, especially if the change relates to a habit that they have been doing ‘forever’, it’s not uncommon to be met with stony silence and disengagement.

Leaders are now forced to communicate change in a more agile and personal way, to cut through the ...