Culture Narrative: the most important story your organisation will ever tell

Just as branding professionals and marketers create narratives to make their message stand out and connect with consumers, so too can you use the power of narrative to engage your people. Storytelling and Cultural Narrative™ enable your people to see themselves and their roles as having meaningful value within your organisation. Here’s how to bring your unique culture to life.

Your compelling story

Are you getting the total buy-in you need to drive performance?

When people have clarity on the cultural story of your organisation, they become personally invested in making it come true. By understanding your cultural story, your people will see themselves and their role as highly meaningful in its unfolding. Scaling that commitment across a critical mass of employees builds awesome power and momentum from within your culture. That’s how a Culture Narrative becomes a sustainable core strategy of engagement that shapes a high-performance culture.

The power of narrative  

You hear the buzzword “narrative” all the time these days. A narrative is essentially a way to communicate a story, account of events, or an experience. Stories and narratives are highly effective in stimulating our right-brain imagination through creative flow which sticks in our memory.

How can you use a Culture Narrative strategy to break through the clutter to shape a high-performing culture and attract great talent?

Winning hearts and minds

To become a savvy leader of your culture, you must realise that a narrative strategy is a highly effective belief-changing discipline. Branding professionals have been using narrative strategy for years to make their message stick in consumers’ minds by shaping their beliefs, which drives desired behaviour.  

Culture shaping works in the same way in the hearts and minds of your people. The beliefs they have about your organisation drive the behaviours that bring your unique culture to life.

Your culture consists of repeated stories: formally by leaders, and organically around the water cooler.  These stories create clear expectations. Are you being intentional about creating high-impact stories?

Answering the 5 W’s and H

Here’s how you can leverage a Culture Narrative framework to tell the complete story of your culture. You must be able to quickly and succinctly answer the 5 W’s and H (The Who, Where, Why, What, When, and How) of your cultural story in the form of Leading Principles, i.e.:

•       brand
•       vision
•       purpose
•       values
•       mission(s).

The following model illustrates how to articulate the 5 W’s and the H of your organisation by connecting them to your Leading Principles.  

Simplicity, consistency and rigour in telling your cultural story is the key to success in making it stick.

The top 10 opportunities to apply your Culture Narrative™:

1. Recruiting: tell your story to attract top talent and show off the substance of your culture.
2. Hiring criteria filter: probe for alignment with your Leading Principles and ask candidates for examples of how they have demonstrated these attributes in the past.
3. Onboarding: connect fired-up newbies up front with what is expected within your culture.
4. Leadership development: centre all leadership competencies within the context of your Leading Principles. Measure performance based on how they drive your Culture Narrative.
5. Engagement strategy: amplify your purpose and meaning by connecting people to the short-term goals and long-term vision of your organisation. Your narrative provides the core repertoire for every leader’s communication efforts, which should be designed to increase inclusion within your culture.
6. Energise every meeting: establish a ritual of starting every meeting with a focused discussion about how your values apply to the work before your team today. Use it as brainstorming stimuli for aligning your actions to drive your brand. Be specific on fundamental behaviours.
7. Millennial motivator: allow your people to see their potential for growth and success in the context of your Culture Narrative. This vision will give them the confidence that they are in the best place to learn, grow, and advance in their career – a key factor for engagement and retention.  
8. Decision making: get on the same page by leveraging your Leading Principles as guideposts for aligned decision making.
9. Reward and recognition: use your Cultural Narrative to create categories for recognition and appreciation. Leverage winning stories to build a legacy that exemplifies great performance.
10.  Build your brand: the expression of your employer brand and external brand should be centred on your Culture Narrative.  External customers care about your commitment to culture because it has a high impact on their experience doing business with you. Show it off!

BONUS opportunity – Innovation fuel: your Culture Narrative should empower your creative thinkers to confidently act on ideas and solutions that move the story forward. Their creativity depends on their ability to envision possibilities. Turn the disrupters in your organisation loose by framing innovation challenges within the context of your Culture Narrative.

Your story is continuous

Keep in mind that your Culture Narrative is a living and breathing entity. It’s as fresh as “What happened today?”, because that introduces the story of “How it impacts tomorrow”. Your ability to update, refresh, and reinforce the events that bolster your Culture Narrative keeps it alive and relevant. Your Culture Narrative isn’t the story of yesterday, it’s the story that helps people positively anticipate “What’s next?”. Your Culture Narrative framework provides the essential context to continue the next chapter of your success story.

Steve Van Valin is CEO of Culturology. He is a culture-shaping strategist and innovation expert. Steve works with leaders who believe a healthy engaged culture is their key to unlocking a competitive advantage. Steve played a key role in shaping multi-media shopping leader QVC’s collaborative culture, creating a remarkable customer experience and brand. QVC grew to over $10 billion in annual revenue with that philosophy. Steve has over 25 years of experience developing winning culture and innovation strategy with clients including SAP, Boeing, NASA, Lincoln Financial Group, and The Philadelphia Phillies.

www.culturologyusa.com