How Do We Learn? The Potential of Story Telling
There are experiences we have had that we will always remember. The pandemic was one of those experiences. Stories will be told about what happened, who it happened to and what the outcomes were.?Some of the events involved tragedies. Perhaps some humor can be found in our experiences: quarantining, changing the way we work and figuring out how to get groceries. Perhaps some new ways of doing things will emerge, partially making up for the inconvenience and frustration that was experienced.?
This pandemic was a “Black Swan” event.?These events are totally unanticipated, since they are not thought to exist.?They have an enormous impact. Planning for these events is generally not considered.?But they do occur, and it seems the last decade has seen more of them than anyone would have expected (Tsunami in Japan; Financial Crisis of 2007-10; extreme weather events; pandemic; inflation surge).?Some would argue it was possible to predict things just by reviewing history. But clear foresight regarding potential crises in times of unbridled optimism is rare. One question that should be on everyone’s mind is what we should learn from the current crisis. How can the experience be used to create better plans for how we live and the way we work in the future?
Prior to the written word cultures were transmitted across generations verbally, by telling stories that illustrated the values, beliefs and concepts that should be sustained.?Skip over the appearance of the written word and the evolution of the digital age to today’s world.?There are numerous media through which culture and lessons about what is happening, what should be done and how things work can be transmitted. This happens between societies, within societies, across organizations and within organizations.?Story telling can still sometimes be the best way. The press was filled with stories about the pandemic. that made its impact on people clear.?Printing tables of statistics about temperatures and weather patterns will not gain broad readership and will not elicit the emotion level required to seriously consider the impact of climate change... stories about human experiences resulting from it are more likely to have an impact. The devastation in Western North Carolina caused by a storm that has no precedent in that area has prompted stories about how people have been affected and how they are trying to cope. Reflecting on their crises can prompt people to be less confident that they are immune from that level of devastation and to think about what they might do "just in case." Now the wildfires in California add an exclamation point.
My third book was written as a story (The Most Important Asset: Valuing Human Capital). It took three years and three runs at the Editorial Board at the publisher of my first two books to get it accepted.?The difficulty with selling it was mostly due to the fact that it was written in story form.?The publisher (who had published my first two books) was mainly focused on textbooks and the academic world as their primary target, which perhaps made it difficult for them to believe that a story could be viewed as a credible vehicle for teaching/learning.?Despite the fact that The Goal and Critical Chain by Goldratt were written as stories and are still used in graduate business schools to teach lean production, the theory of constraints and project management the apprehension remains. Why this aversion to “management novels” persists is a puzzle. My goal was to make the book the equivalent of the Goldratt books, but focused on human resource management. Four decades full of experiences were used to show how theories and principles play out in real life.
My first book Rewarding Performance was not written as a textbook, but it stuck to the formula for being accepted as serious stuff. It presented theories and concepts and then suggested alternative strategies for managing employee performance and rewards. It contained thought models and prescribed processes that have been shown to lead to success.?I repeatedly emphasized that “what works is what fits the organizational context” but did not illustrate how that works with stories.?Giving examples of common scenarios helped to connect the theory to practice but the impact on people was missing. The book has been used as a text in several universities and sold so well that a second edition was written. The one written as a story has not been as successful..
My second book, co-authored with Fons Trompenaars (arguably the leading cross-cultural researcher), was first drafted in story form, and was rejected by the Editorial Board.?It was reshaped by starting with theory/models and then using a “case” to illustrate the concepts. I have always wondered why calling a case study a story is not permitted, but by changing labels all of a sudden the book gained acceptance.?In that form it was published.?.?
So why is telling a story viewed as “softer” and less rigorous than regaling readers with statistics and models, running the risk of inducing reader comas??The millions of words about the pandemic, that will be left for future generations, will have statistics cited, principally to convince people that this was a real tragedy of massive scope.?But what will be remembered? I will bet on the stories.?Cultural Anthropologists will advise writers to use stories if things are to be remembered, but will business publication editors overcome their reluctance to take stories seriously?
How Did We Learn Those Things That Stay With Us?
“What works is what fits” is a concept that should underlie all thinking about what strategies will work for managing a workforce.?That concept became clear when I was consulting with three organizations some years ago (a software firm, a consulting firm and a regulated water utility) I had to alter my mindset considerably when I went from one to the other.?I learned a lot from that… mostly that some things were the same and some things were very different across contexts.?An incentive plan rewarding innovation might be a winner in the software firm but probably would fail in the utility, for a lot of reasons associated with context and culture.??
Telling it like it happened in story form has allowed me to insert the impact of things like culture, management style and other relatively intangible forces.?The story form does not mean substantive concepts and principles cannot be presented. It may be personal bias, but I believe providing all the details about what worked/did not work made the lesson easier to understand and to remember.?The book in novel form tells a story about three recent graduates going to their first jobs and sharing their successes and their failures.?Then they go on to their second jobs… and third.?And along the way they change… they become more knowledgeable and more capable.?They learn how to use what they learned through previous experience to make better decisions.?Sort of how life works.
Organizations like Apple have many stories told about them.?Steve Jobs creates the organization with others… then is bounced as CEO and replaced by Scully… then Scully is bounced and replaced by Jobs.?The stories help readers understand that everything about the context was changing and that the leadership style that would work at any given time is the one that fits current realities.?Ever since Fiedler introduced the concept of contingent leadership styles, another form of “what works is what fits… now,” events have demonstrated that there is no one best leadership style, even for the same organization at different times.?
In my second book, “Rewarding Performance Globally,” Fons Trompenaars and I told a story of a multinational attempting to impose a global performance and rewards management system.?As mentioned earlier we had to disguise the story as a case, by including a lot of research findings on cultures.?By anticipating what the reactions would probably be from the country managers (based on Trompenaars research) we were able to illustrate how cultural orientation can make or break a system.?Try to push a merit pay system on people with a collectivist orientation and you are going to face resistance.?It is one thing to espouse theories… it is quite another to describe how an attempt like this has blown up, using the professional experience of the authors.?Including an emotional response from the Italy Country Manager and a rational response from the Germany Country Manager probably bordered on stereotyping but it made dealing with issues something personal, which it always is in real life.?
领英推荐
Expecting university faculty to use my second and third books in their classes may be overly optimistic, even though they were written for practitioners.?Yet substantive content can be communicated, even though the presentation is in the form of a story. Maybe students that increasingly do not read their textbooks could be seduced into reading a story… and accidentally learn something.?They certainly will learn much of what they know through stories and personal experiences when they get out into the real world.
The Story We Are Writing Today
Will the pandemic be remembered??By most people or just historians??It is certain that some of the characters in this drama will remember the roles they played and the experiences they had.?Those who chronicle history will use statistics but they will be likely to supplement them with stories, to provide context. If people look back on this with a “that was then… this is now” mindset they might conclude that no usable lessons came out of their experiences. That would be true tragedy because no preparation for the next Black Swan sighting will have taken place.??
The most important lesson to be learned is that unanticipated events of this magnitude happen... the pandemic and the western NC storm with no precedent.?This does not mean the best strategy for individuals is to build an isolated shelter and stock it with a years’ supply of canned goods and toilet paper.?But it might influence people to try to be better prepared so that if something similar happens the effects are less severe.?The financial crisis led to regulators increasing capitalization requirements for banks, to make them less subject to the type of crisis they experienced. What the pandemic will leave as a lasting legacy is to be discovered.
Some people who used to show up at a central location at specific times to do their work may no longer have to do that.?They may have learned new skills, like being productive in their work while doing full-time live parenting of small children.?Maybe they changed how they rank the importance of various the aspects of their lives. Do they now live to work or work to live? Perhaps being employed is not the only feasible option, since people can do work for organizations without working for them.?Technology has changed the rules in many ways, or at the least created other alternatives.?The pandemic stories may help future generations understand why things changed during this crisis.
The problems the pandemic created may encourage more anticipatory workforce planning by organizations. Scenario-based planning can enable organizations to anticipate a range of possible futures and develop strategies that will work reasonably well in any of them.?When severe exogenous shocks occur responses will have already been considered, making it less necessary to rely on knee-jerk reactions to guide decisions.?The game is not to make decisions as fast as possible, but rather to make the best decision as fast as possible.
Nobody wished for the pandemic to happen. But it did. So reflecting on its impact and using the stories organizations and people lived can perhaps soften the impact of the next surprise.?What was learned by organizations about workforce management may be the equivalent of getting an advanced degree. Maybe story-telling will regain its status as a way to learn.
About the Author:
Robert Greene, PhD, is CEO at Reward $ystems, Inc., a Consulting Principal at Pontifex and a faculty member for DePaul University in their MSHR and MBA programs. Greene speaks and teaches globally on human resource management. His consulting practice is focused on helping organizations succeed through people. Greene has written 4 books and hundreds publications and articles about human resource management throughout his career.
Order his latest book entitled "Strategic Talent Management: Creating The Right Workforce" with a promotional offer code from the publisher, Routledge available here.??