Andrew Taylor on the Business of Arts & Culture
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Strategy as storytelling
Posted: September 28, 2007
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A web discussion at SocialEdge, a program of Skoll Foundation, is exploring the idea of strategic storytelling -- or the promise and challenge of creating more compelling narratives about our work. While all agree that narrative is a powerful force in conveying purpose and meaning, it also has a controlling side that should lead us to be cautious and thoughtful in our telling. Says one participant:
Stories are the prima materia of identity, culture, and social order. Every relationship, every experience, and every object - is stored in the mind with a story attached to it. Cognitive science supports this with extensive research on the mechanisms of narrative and sense-making.
So, on the one hand we are completely lost and direction-less without our ability to construct, organize, and remember stories. We need stories in order to know who we are and where we are going.
Yet on the other hand, consider how quickly we can become enslaved to the stories that we inherit from our parents, school, religion, society, and our organizational peers....These same stories also impose limits on what is ultimately possible, leading to a self-defeating pattern that keeps individuals and organizations stuck from moving forward.
Many arts organizations I've seen aren't even aware of the many stories they already tell -- to their customers, their audiences, their artists, their boards. Every spreadsheet they present is a story, as is every policy they draft, and every description they give of an upcoming event or an event gone by.
If even these little stories were told with intent, with purpose, and with clarity, imagine how much more compelling an organization would be.