Business Narrative
From Regional Knowledge Resource Kit
Why use business narrative techniques?
When people are asked direct questions they tend to tell the interviewer what they think the interviewer wants to hear. The formality of the situation creates a behaviour of compliance. Even when the interviewee is providing forthright responses they are constrained by how the question is told and the desire by the interviewer to obtain specific types of information.
The interview approach represents the analytical method of developing solutions. We all, however, use narrative approaches to make sense of what’s happening around but since Fredrick Taylor created the discipline of scientific management managers have shunned narrative methods as merely anecdotal and virtually worthless.
The world has changed since the days of Fredrick Taylor. Business is now complex, interconnected, messy and unpredictable. A great way to get a handle on this messiness is to listen and work with the stories people are telling in your organisation. Stories deliver facts in context and with emotion and carry with them some of the messiness inherent in the business environment. We use these workplace stories to make sense of complex environments.
In 1986 J. Bruner provided a useful distinction between the two types of thinking.
Stories provide details from which we extract and remember principles. Principles help us deal with totally new situations. The answer lies not in the story itself but is contained in the sensemaking that is prompted by the story. Storytelling is a social phenomena. The story becomes a catalyst for a group of people to make sense of a situation and choose their next steps (action).
The use of narrative techniques in organisation contexts was pioneered by the IBM Institute for Organisational Complexity (later the IBM Cynefin Centre) in the late 1990’s. Leading theorists include Dave Snowden and Carl Weick. The narrative methodology used in development of Regional Knowledge Strategies was developed by Anecdote and used under license for this Regional Knowledge Resource Kit.
Recommended resources
- Anecdote has prepared an easy-to-read whitepaper on the application and benefits of narrative techniques in organisational change.
- Information about complexity in organisations and the Cynefin Framework.
