Storytelling content makes people care about your organization?
Storytelling is not a marginal activity. An organization can’t have all its assets working if storytelling isn’t at the centre of its strategy. Can you generate creative ideas from the inside? Open the door to thinking and talking about new ideas. If you want to develop and maintain a innovative thinking culture, find your idea generators. The people who bring compelling ideas into organizations are unique: eclectic, boundary-spanning thinkers who involve others in conversations.
A sense of “purpose” clarifies what your company does and how it wants to stay relevant in a rapidly changing world. It does not, however, address how you get people to care about your purpose. That’s where branding comes in. Expectations about the transformative effect of a strong brand are very high, but telling the story about your sense of purpose is a chronic challenge when organizations rely on tactics that aren’t up to the task. The result is that managers are often disappointed when, despite the expense, the standard branding tactics on which they rely – logos, advertising, mission statements, taglines, media relations, direct mail, dramatic new architecture – appear to have minimal impact.
Branding needs a new philosophy. It gets one from Ann Chistiano and Annie Neimand in “The Science of What Makes People Care” (Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fall 2018). They tell us organizations need to stop trying to raise awareness because, too often, it reaches the wrong audiences where messages get ignored, cause a backlash, or even harm. Instead, to compel people to invest their attention, emotion, and action in your work organizations need a communication strategy that results in belief and behavior change. First, they suggest, tell better stories: storytelling is, simply, “the best tool we have for helping people care about issues” because people are more likely to remember information they get in narrative form. Second, use those stories to find your community.
You’ll do that more easily if you make the brand about “them.” All too often organizations sound like they are demanding attention because they aim their communication toward building profile with messages that are more about them than their audience. Chistiano and Neimand tell us that rather than making communication sound like a megaphone, make it “a gift to your audience” where you help them solve a problem. What is it you want people to believe and do? People engage and consume information that aligns with their values or world view. If you connect to what they care about you can help people see where your values intersect and how the issues you are working on matter to them.
Rather than making communication sound like a megaphone,
make it “a gift to your audience.”
How are you building trust in the power of your purpose? Storytelling is not a marginal activity, and your ability to produce a steady supply of fresh and compelling stories is more critical than ever.
The Chistiano and Neimand article reminded me of a now-old but still very valuable book: The Invisible Grail: In Search of the True Language of Brands by John Simmons (Texere, 2003). Simmons had once worked with Interbrand to revive the Guinness brand through storytelling; the book was his chance to tell readers that organizations can’t have all their assets working if storytelling isn’t at the centre of their strategy.
If an organization doesn’t want to be seen as being like everyone else, he wonders, why do they neglect the potential of language to creatively demonstrate its unique personality? That’s because they see words “as dummy text,” not as a creative resource; they consistently deny time and space to words out of the belief they’re plain and unexciting. Simmons assures us, however, that storytelling and creative business writing are not marginal activities and that organizations must bring their capability for expressing identity in verbal terms in-line with more traditional practices of expressing identity visually because it is words that truly engage a person’s imagination and helps them understand the brand’s meaning.
Stories succeed because a narrative approach grabs people emotionally and is the best way to explain abstract concepts and galvanize support. Simmons tells us about Anthony Trollope, more familiar today as a novelist than as a bureaucrat, who was a senior official of the British Post Office. He recognized engaging language would more effectively advance his departmental work and he intentionally crafted reports that were pleasant to read. Similarly, 3M encourages the use of narrative over bullet points in presentations because it recognizes stories are uniquely capable of carrying the day.
Chistiano and Neimand ask if their readers’ organizations are telling a real story or just sharing messages? They feel that while many have embraced the concept of storytelling, many use vignettes or messages, not actual stories that are either interesting or compelling; they don’t pass on new insights. They argue that “investing your communications resources simply in spreading information will not inspire anyone to get behind your cause.”
Where are your insights and leadership? What you know, and how efficiently you use that knowledge, is where differentiation resides. Fundamental change is necessary if companies and brands are to develop their own distinctive stories. How do we establish a culture of storytelling, open the door to thinking, talking about, and reflecting on new ideas? Ask who will find and write the brand’s stories and Simmonds says it’s likely the question is answered with a blank look because most organizations feel more comfortable hiring a project manager or conference organizer than a creative writer.
Management traditionally stifles creativity from within the rank and file. It is hard to generate new ideas when standard business practices drive out people with diverse ideas: tightly-scripted, micromanaged organizations endanger their future when employees fixate on narrow, preexisting ideas. But “what good is a master carpenter who is never available to his apprentices…because he is scared to give away his preciously acquired skills…?” (Krogh, Ichirjo, Nonaka. Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to Unlock the Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation, Oxford UP, 2000).
Few organizations recognize that their heroes should be the idea people who believe better management of knowledge assets yields a competitive advantage. These are people who are convinced organizations can change if a golden idea emerges and they look outside their field for new approaches – not fanatical, nor trendy, but they are boundary-spanning and eclectic. So, if you aspire to develop and maintain a strong brand, and a culture of innovative thinking, nurture your idea generators – they’re always “on.”
What makes them a vital resource, however, is their practice of involving others in discussion. They shape the conversation, unite the team, and make building a compelling vision attainable. The informality of this kind of simple talk is a remarkably effective technique to get employees moving in the same direction. A new system of values and a idea-friendly culture will emerge if managers let ideas percolate. By permitting members to think imaginatively about what their organization can become, and communicating the kind of values the company wants to promote, a common understanding of the organization’s purpose will emerge. And from this comes the breakthrough you hoped your branding would achieve in the first place.
We can’t overstate the importance of original and compelling stories. The public won’t automatically accept your claim to leadership just because you have a tagline proclaiming it, and you can’t stay in people’s minds if you don’t say something worth listening to. You can’t generate quality perceptions of your leadership in the marketplace unless you add your organization’s unique and substantive point of view.
Original and compelling content tells everyone you know something other organizations don’t – that’s the starting point for market leadership. Being the focal point for discussion and shaping the conversation is part of the leadership for which people expect of a leading organization; articulate organizations lead vital public conversations and trust builds around organizations that explain why they are leaders.
Content is a catalyst to drive engagement, and community will gather around your ideas. Use your content to stand out in a cluttered marketplace. Live in the minds of people by providing anytime, anywhere, access to what you know regardless of where they live.
Note: This article initially appeared as part of Argyle Brand Counsel+Design’s Leadership BrandingTM series
Retool Lab is a collaborative focused on helping cultural, entertainment and public institutions regroup, reshape, and retool their strategy to recover from the economic impact of the current crisis, and to use these insights as a springboard to thrive far into the future. You can contact us at info@retoollab.com or at www.retoollab.com