How storytelling supports strategic change: An organisational experience

Abstract

Storytelling plays a significant role in organisational life, with more and more leaders using storytelling strategies in their work. Storytelling also has an important part to play when it comes to driving strategic change. Research, however, is lacking in the area of how stories can be supportive of change – especially when it comes to the way in which audiences within such contexts experience those stories. To understand more about how storytelling supports strategic change, a qualitative, interpretative study was undertaken within a newly restructured business in the financialservices sector. This entailed an exploration of how employees experienced an example of storytelling. Feedback was gathered from 12 participants, all of whom were in the employ of the business at the time of the restructure. Data was gathered based on their experience of and insights into the storytelling as shared with the company by the chief executive officer. Supported by insights from organisational storytelling literature and centred on the research findings, presented in the form of a thematic analysis, a conceptual framework was developed to incorporate four important and interconnected elements – setting, story, storyteller and storytelling. Insights based on participant feedback and researcher observations are shared for a deeper understanding of how leaders might use storytelling in contexts of transformational change and, more, broadly, appreciate the broader role that stories are able to play within organisations.