What a story looks like: The Heroic Vice-Chancellor versus the Bad Guys

I’m aware that the established audience for my blog is largely made up of those with an interest in Higher Education, so I hope that a relevant example will help to illustrate how a story could be told within an organisation.

A Vice-Chancellor is giving an all staff presentation and is talking about the challenges faced by the university; they begin to talk about the Research Excellence Framework (REF). They explain that the REF will judge the quality of the university’s research and will determine how much funding is receiving in the following years. They go on to remind staff that an increase in research income is crucial for the university and illustrate the consequences of a poor result, along with contingency plans for balancing the books elsewhere. During the talk on the REF, context will be given about the villains (the government) and the brave and bold heroes (university senior managers) who will steer the ship through the storm and keep it steady through careful planning and avoiding rocky obstacles. The story may make some people out to be particular types of characters, but most of the details are there and the audience is clear on the various outcomes.

Now, imagine if the story told were more like this:

A Vice-Chancellor is giving an all staff presentation and is talking about the challenges faced by the university; they begin to talk about the Research Excellence Framework (REF). They explain that the REF will judge the quality of the university’s research and will determine how much funding is receiving in the following years. They go on to remind staff that an increase in research income is crucial for the university and illustrate the consequences of a poor result. During the talk on the REF, context will be given about the villains (the government) and the brave and bold heroes (university senior managers) who will steer the ship through the storm and keep it steady through careful planning and avoiding rocky obstacles. The story may make some people out to be particular types of characters, and some of the details are there; the audience is not clear on the various outcomes.

Finally, imagine the following story:

A Vice-Chancellor is giving an all staff presentation and is talking about the challenges faced by the university; they begin to talk about the Research Excellence Framework (REF). They explain that the REF will judge the quality of the university’s research and will determine how much funding is receiving in the following years. They go on to remind staff that an increase in research income is crucial for the university and make it clear that the result is an ‘all or nothing’ situation. During the talk on the REF, context will be given about the villains (the government) and the brave and bold heroes (university senior managers) who will steer the ship through the storm and keep it steady through careful planning and avoiding rocky obstacles. The story may make some people out to be particular types of characters – so the audience know who the good guys and the bad guys are – but the audience are left to determine what ‘nothing’ means for the university in an all or nothing situation.

You may think that there is not a great deal of difference between the stories on the surface, but in fact there are some important differences in how the stories are told. In story 1 all of the details are provided, the teller is honest with the audience. In story 2 some details are omitted so that the audience has some understanding of the situation but the teller leaves certain gaps to be filled in. Story 3 takes it further, it does not provide details on what the future will look like and leaves the audience to imagine what failure looks like for themselves.

This shows what omitting certain details can do to a story and hopefully illustrates the varying levels of control organisations can have over the understanding of their employees. It also starts to bring the question of honesty to the fore.

I’m interested in examples of stories that might have left out some details or any stories you have been told which are told to help you make sense of change. Please do contact me via the comments box or check out the ‘get in touch’ page.

This is part of a series of blog posts on communications ethics in organisational storytelling and organisational narrative for a final year project. Normal HE-geekery service will resume soon.