Change Management Storytelling: Can the Change, Change Sally's Story ?
Anjali Sharma
Director of Narrative
Published Date
February 27, 2017
Change Management Storytelling is about Changing Stories of individuals.
Change management is defined like this - It is the discipline that guides how we prepare, equip and support individuals to successfully adopt change in order to drive organizational success and outcomes.
I personally do not agree with this definition because the conventional approach to change management does not take in to account that the people have changed. Karl Max theory of Alienation talks about this Change in People. I wrote about in one of my previous blog.
No longer it is about prepare, equip and support but it is about motivating them to be part of the change first.
So a good question to ask is How Should one Motivate?
Changing individual stories that are not working is a great way to motivate people
Here is an example from a recent Change Management Storytelling Programme We Worked on
Sally ( not her real name ) works for a leading Telecommunications Company as a direct sales person and her role is, door to door selling. The company she works for is implementing an IT system change.
Sally has heard her bosses give the usual reasons filled why we need to change presentation several times. Does she care? Well, we all know the answer to that.
However, Sally does care about something else which is Changing Her Stories. If the Change of IT System can make that happen. She is motivated to be a part of the change
The current story that is not working for Sally is
"Probably two days back, I was at work. I was trying to pitch to an old lady and we were probably taking a bit too long for her because we needed to use the system to check her particulars and stuff. And it took a really long to get the information we needed from the system. She wanted to rush back and cook food but we had to keep her for longer because of the slow system, trying to process, and it took a long time. The lady was not pleased and I didn't really feel proud about my work"
Now, if our change in IT system can make a promise to change this story to
"Probably two days back, I was at work. I was trying to pitch to an old lady, she informed me that she is in a rush and only has a few mins. I took her details and processed the information in the system and she was done within a few mins. She was really happy that she could renew her mobile subscription and get back home to cook on time. Seeing her happy made me very proud of the work I do."
In essence, if a Change manages to show bright future for those who need to put all the efforts towards the change. It is a Change people find worth being a part of. People are willing to work hard to make the change happen. Only if they find it meaningful for themselves. Generic reasoning like - we are changing to gain the market share does nothing for them.
To learn more about how we are helping companies create a motivated workforce for change. Click on Change Management Storytelling
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