Hero-centered storytelling - ECS2017

http://www.edelman.com/post/five-storytelling-tools-for-communicating-strategy-to-employees/

Storytelling

Branding

Sales

Infographics

Pretty (websites with) pictures

Customer contact

Wearable tech

Augmented reality / Virtual reality

is narrative

Corporate storytelling as a PR strategy has significant benefits for employee engagement

that may result in improved internal and external reputation,

through making employees the organisation’s reputation champions.

Gill (2011: 17)

To build trust, and demonstrate empathy –especially in virtual teams – a leader must find creative and emotive ways of inspiring others through effective communications.

Grisham (2006: 486)

CSR volunteering & Storytelling

For the organisation

• Helps identify new talent/career paths within the organisation
• Increases loyalty
• Identifies organisational ambassadors and supporters
• Can positively affect staff retention
• Provides valuable feedback on the organisation's policies
• Equips staff with digital skills

For the participant

• Provides an opportunity for personal and professional reflection
• Emancipatory - transgressing boundaries (ambition, innovation);
• Holistic - team and personal transformation (culture change, better employer branding).
• Productive and instrumental - career development (new options within organization);
• Personal - therapeutic (stress / burnout reduction, decrease effects of emotional labour, less counter productive work behaviours);
• Enhances digital literacy and digital confidence

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/87/7f/29/877f29d215f527e15849837ea7dcbfe3.jpg

(Adi & Crisan, 2015-2016; McWhinney & Markos, 2003)

Message + Plot + Conflict + Characters

The obituary test

Write your company's obituary.

What would your customers say about it?

What would your colleagues/employess say about it?

What would your competitors say about it?

The master plots

(1) Quest, (2) Adventure, (3) Pursuit, (4) Rescue, (5) Escape,(6) Revenge, (7) Riddle/Mystery, (8) Rivalry, (9) Underdog, (10) Temptation, (11) Metamorphosis, (12) Transformation, (13) Maturation, (14) Love, (15) Forbidden Love, (16) Sacrifice, (17) Discovery, (18) Wretched Excess, and (19 & 20) Rise & Fall

(Tobias, 1993 cited in Kent, 2015)

The master plots for corporate PR

The Adventure

The Quest

In 1983, Howard traveled to Italy and became captivated with Italian coffee bars and the romance of the coffee experience. He had a vision to bring the Italian coffeehouse tradition back to the United States. A place for conversation and a sense of community. A third place between work and home. He left Starbucks for a short period of time to start his own Il Giornale coffeehouses and returned in August 1987 to purchase Starbucks with the help of local investors.

The master plots for activist PR

• The Underdog - whether an over-the-top personality or reluctant, the underdog struggles against the tyranny of powerful elites

• Wretched excess - higlight the change of one person or small group and result in excess

Kent (2015)

Static character

Status Quo is Good (Plot/Conflict)

Hilarity Ensures

(Structure)

Use storytelling to present the organisation's: myths, history and heroes but also as a way to emphasie its mission, vision, values and strategic concept

Considering the trust environment in 2017, rather than present your organisation as the hero, consider its role as MENTOR/GUIDE in your audience's journey (of transformation/discovery)

Grisham (2011: 495)

Mentor

OR

Reluctant hero