Prof.ssa Ernestina Giudici 1

Storytelling

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“Once

upon a time…”

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l Oral narrative: a way to hand down from age to age the history of humanity

l And presently?

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l  Extension of employment fields:

¡  Political Science (persuasive power)

¡  Psychological Science (storytelling-identity)

¡  Economics ¡  Military Science (social perception

and public opinion)

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l  Taking into account the above underlined extension, a question brought about:

What is Storytelling?

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Storytelling is the ability to tell stories

                                         

                                                                                                 

                                                                                     

                                                                                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                 

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l  Storytelling is the science that converts and fosters things (real or fantastic) into words, sounds, real perceptions

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l  Narrative is not an object but an activity: people become protagonists

l  “Stories are not neutral:

they always have a message”

Storytelling components

l Two basic components ¡  Product ¡  Process

l  Product, as communicative acts

l  Process, as results with various effectiveness

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l  Memory essential role

l  “There would not be any storytelling without memory and there would not be any memory without storytelling”

One clarification l  History – a group of events in logical

and chronological sequence, the story content

l  Story – design of speech by which a story is performed, creation of real or imaginary events

l  Storytelling – action by which the story is transmitted to the public

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Autobiographical memory

l Memory is not only able to remember reality, but also to assign them additional meanings making a “personalization” of the story within a memory system

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Storytelling transmission levels

Storyteller subjectivity

Plots and genre objects of storytelling

Physical media choosen and

used

Times of the story and of the

speech

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l  The storyteller transfers the story “filtering” across their own subjectivity

l  Paying attention to the chosen plots (epic, tragedy, melodrama, comedy) and to the genres (thriller, crime, romantic, fantasy, etc.)

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l  Significance of the relationship between the time of the story and the time of the speech: real development, facts duration and order, gap between facts and storytelling and exposure order

Storytelling and firms l Towards the mid-1990’s

story-telling established itself also in the business field

l Two questions: ¡ What stories of interest do

people have to tell? ¡ To whom should they be told?

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Storytelling and firms

l By identifying to whom the story should be told, it is also possible to plan what story to tell, what characters, times and events

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Why is storytelling important for enterprises?

l Because of the plurality of internal and external public

l A storytelling has the skill to: ¡  organize, shape, define the

organizational reality ¡  deepen the knowledge ¡  improve the communication

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Macroarea of publics of reference

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Employees Stakeholder

Employee macroarea

l Story purposes: ¡ To inform ¡ To motivate ¡ To persuade (good quality of job

politics or adopted strategies) ¡ To adapt to the change

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Stakeholder macroarea l Story purposes: ¡ To persuade customers to

purchase ¡ To involve customers in the

consumption experience ¡ To create and/or develop the

knowledge and appreciation of the firm as social entity besides economic Prof.ssa Ernestina Giudici 21

l The act of telling stories has been and is an essential connective tissue inside the firm that management have no choice but to adopt

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An example

l Steve Jobs and the speech at Stanford University

l  Is it a story? l  If yes, what kind of story? l What narrative levels is it

possible to find?

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McDonald's Take Away Packaging is Using Stories as a Metaphor

Text: "Take the McDonald's hamburger. It's sear-sizzled on the grill so both sides come out perfect every time. Whichever way you look at it, it's the one story that always has a happy ending."

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Headline

l I like the idea quite a lot

l McDonald's is all about convenience, good taste, and family. As such, here are a few and easy-to-implement suggestions to strengthen the packaging and messaging

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l  a) Put some pictures of smiling happy people, especially children on the bag

b) Tie in the story concept with your website. There is nothing on the main site connected to this advertisment and message

c) Include your website or a perso- nalized website on the bag such as www.mcdonalds.com/story

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l Steve Denning stated: the reason for the storytelling success is simple: in the mid-1990’s nothing else worked

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l  In reality, what has changed?

l At a certain point the awareness of the central role of immaterial factors compared with materials became stronger

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How might stories be born?

l  Remember: behavioral network l  Inside informal spaces: ¡  Interaction during coffee break ¡  Drinks dispenser ¡  Work canteen ¡  Other chance encounter

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How might stories be born?

l  Depending on management stimuli ¡  To reinforce identity ¡  To create a strong internal culture ¡  To reinforce the strategy ¡  For other specific goals (of the

firm, regarding the product, the external relationships, etc.)

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Person Group Organization To regain and express personal experiences To revise the job experience

To confront and share To build a common sense of the events To transfer values, rules and solutions To deepen the knowledge of the organization

Bring to light a conflict To stimulate the change

Story function

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Organization core story

Stories from

clients

Internal stories

External stories

Story or stories of the firm?

l  What elements need to be taken into account to formulate an answer? ¡  Firm definition ¡  It is a complex, dinamic entity and

in relationship with their environments

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Implication: a molteplicity of “stories”

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Firm story perspectives

Individual

Strategic

Consumption

• Products (written and oral) to express the work experience (from e-mail to meeting)

• Mix of stories/speech to promote the firm (with papery, relational, digital tools)

• System of storytelling that direct shopping experiences (visual design, music, colors, space organization, etc.)

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l  The multiplicity of stories that may express a firm, came from ¡  Fragmentary storytelling ¡  All-embracing storytelling

l  In other words, from coffee break chatter to sagas

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Why build a storytelling?

l  “… to win it is not sufficient possess the best production, the most creative product, the more professionally able management. That which makes a difference is to have the better business autobiography”

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What is it possible to do with storytelling?

Share specific goals

Give sense to the actions of the daily organizational behaviour in way of impressing a motivational push

Create an identity (of the firm, individual or of group) able to foster a bigger and better identification

Maintain the memory (individual and collective), to realize a permanence of knowledge and a behavior orientation

Direct the social view of the firm: stories make peple laugh, cry, cause fear, generate hope and many other feelings, through identification and protection

Build and protect a culture, that is values and behavior that have reflections on daily facts

Support on the future planning with nonstop repetition of stories toward internal and external people

Writing phases

Collecting stories

Story investigation

Render Prof.ssa Ernestina Giudici 39

Collecting stories

l  It is the most critical phase of storytelling

l  The activity results will depend on them

l  By means of this phase people get in touch with the firm and with their public

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Sub-phases of “collecting stories”

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Organization choice  

Programme definition  

Interview achievement  

Identify the correct organizational context  

Sample choice  Definition timing and places

where to do interviews  

Define goals  Collecting method  

of stories  Identify the correct way to

bring stories to light  

Obtain the support of an internal representative  

Definition roles of interviewer and interviewee  

Collection and filing of stories  

Story investigation

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Stories transcription

•  Transcription of interviews •  Identification of stories •  Arrangement of an information record

Stories classification

•  Definition of variables •  Form compilation •  Arrangement of synthesis pattern

How identify a story?

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Impression   Verbal signals   Portraying  

These are the notes that the interviewer took during the interview that c o n t a i n s e n s a t i o n s , moods, etc. may also be the result of questions to the interviewee: e. g.

“What you just told me seems like a story, don’t you think?

In your opinion, is there a title able to express the exact meaning?  

These are made up of phrases that assume the character of “start” and “end” of the story. For example, a phrase like this:

“I will clarify this with an example” is a “start of a story”.  

It is about “scenes” or “figures” of personages t h a t a r e n a m e d a s introductory elements of the story to give easier comprehension

 

The collection module

l  The interview, after their transcription must be “partitioned”: in this way the stories emerge

l  After, stories must be “filed”: this gives the possibility to systematize the collected elements

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The collection module l  The module is composed of three

parts: ¡  Independent variables: personal

characteristics and organizational position of the interviewee; identification elements of the firm

¡  Dependent variables: specificity of the story and of its elements

¡  Interpretation variables Prof.ssa Ernestina Giudici 45

An example of information to insert of the module

l  Number (identification) l  Organization l  Author l  Position l  Theme l  Text of the story l  Keywords l  Protagonist person and participants l  Similar stories l  Kind of storytelling l  The moral of the story l  The quality of the story Prof.ssa Ernestina Giudici 46

Story interpretation

l  Four elements to take into account with attention: ¡  The event analysis: the fact

development, the involved persons, the causes, the effects

¡  The events interdependence: how much the events is still “alive” inside the organization

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Story interpretation

¡  The subjective impact: how much the event influenced the storyteller (and still does) and how much the organization is influenced

¡  The possible scenarios: to

understand, with pointed answers, the possibility of any different development of the event

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