Narrative Bee Dances – The Core Story in Organizations and purpose-oriented SMEs

Core Story

Summary

The Core Story is the DNA from which the organization narrates and transforms itself into the future. Ideally, it is the organization's "bee dance," integrating complex information and telling the best possible future for all participants. Using chronologically organized notes, the author describes how the development of a Core Story helped to revitalize the future potential of a traditional organization during a strategic realignment.

The Prequel

In August 2020, Roger approached me and asked if I was interested in developing the communication architecture for the implementation of strategic measures as part of a strategy development for a Swiss foundation. In other words, the goal was to translate and communicate strategies so that both leadership and employees not only understood the direction but also knew exactly how to achieve the targets.

Roger was the head of communications for a large philanthropic foundation. The foundation was in the midst of a transformation process. Over the years, globalization and digitalization had slowly, and then increasingly, changed the nature of the supported projects. The needs of the target groups were no longer the same as they had been 15 years ago. The strategic realignment aimed to achieve a contemporary positioning, shed unnecessary baggage, and, last but not least, secure the refinancing of the foundation. In short, the goal was to reinvent itself without losing sight of the foundation's raison d'être.

The following chronological descriptions are notes from the joint working process with Roger during phase 1, covering a period of about three months. All names, roles, and designations have been anonymized.

The Dance of the Bees

March 13, 2020

First Zoom meeting. Roger wants to accompany the upcoming strategy process very closely from the start with narrative measures, ensuring that all employees understand what the strategy is intended to achieve and what is specifically expected of them.I suggest to Roger that we develop a change architecture in three interconnected phases to optimally support the process with different interventions and measures:

• Phase 1: Open necessary storytelling spaces for leadership to foster a participatory process, gaining a shared understanding of the planned strategies and their significance.

• Phase 2: In multiple storytelling workshops, extract the experiential knowledge of employees and leaders from previous strategy implementations. Simultaneously, conduct a cultural analysis using narrative interviews to identify where unconscious behaviors ("this is how we do things here") or hidden rules have previously blocked or sabotaged change processes.

• Phase 3: Finally, bundle the key insights and reintegrate the extracted experiential knowledge back into the system as curated stories, making them accessible to all employees in the foundation. In this phase, the planned strategies would also be translated into concrete metaphors and images for the first time.

In summary, phase 1 aims to establish clarity and a shared understanding of the strategy among leadership, phase 2 extracts concrete implementation knowledge and identifies hidden change blockers, and phase 3 communicates all insights broadly and accompanies the strategy implementation with concrete stories.

To better explain, I tell Roger the bee metaphor: When the queen senses in late spring that there is an imbalance between available resources and the bee population in the hive, she sends out scout bees to explore new habitats. The scouts return with concrete proposals and "communicate" to the community through special dances what they have seen and experienced. Ultimately, the entire colony collectively "dances out" which location is optimal. Once the decision is made, and all perspectives are integrated, the queen gives the go-ahead, and they swarm out (Seeley, 2010). Roger laughs, commenting that the foundation’s board president certainly has no intention of leaving the hive, let alone making the employees dance. However, the image is clear enough for him: The goal is to gather as many perspectives and experiences as possible in order to choose the optimal course for implementing the strategy from the available options.

March 20, 2020

I present Roger with the detailed change architecture. The kickoff for phase 1 should be the development of a Core Story with the extended management team and all team leaders. I try to convince Roger that it is crucial to establish unity and clarity among the leadership team early in the process. Creating a shared Core Story should ensure that everyone agrees on who they were (or wanted to become), what they did with whom and how, and ultimately what the grand goal—the organization's purpose (the "why")—is.

At first glance, the Core Story might seem simple, but it is not. Anyone who has stood in front of a whiteboard with a group of 15 people, battling over every word and meaning in the formulated statements, knows how challenging the process truly is. For me, it is indeed comparable to the bee swarm dance, where the greatest possible consensus of all "collected" perspectives is collectively shaped.

Such a process not only creates a Core Story as a concrete artifact, which forms the foundation of the change architecture and accompanying communication measures, but it also has a powerful impact on the cultural space of an organization. When people are invited to share experiences and create meaning together, they feel heard and recognized. Participation in such processes also means participation in the outcome. The more dancers and perspectives I allow in such processes, the more powerful the impact across the entire organization. The joint formulation process is what creates meaning.

Roger is convinced and tells me he will advocate for the development of the Core Story to be the kickoff and dramatic beginning of the change process. The foundation indeed lacks a compelling story to tie everything together. I caution that the Core Story is rarely as catchy as communication experts might hope. Often, they are stylistically clumsy, long sentences that resemble a formula more than a polished slogan. Roger asks if it is possible to create a "real" story or slogan from this, to which I cautiously respond in the affirmative.

April 3, 2020

Roger informs me that the outlined change architecture has been approved by the foundation's board and executive leadership. However, the board president and the CEO expressed the desire to initially develop the Core Story solely with the internal communications department. The leadership at various locations would not be involved. Roger asks me somewhat awkwardly if the development of a Core Story is still possible under these parameters. The goal is to avoid conflict, as not all leaders are equally committed to the change. I emphasize that the value of a Core Story lies in integrating different perspectives and jointly creating meaning. The fewer people involved in this process, the more one-sided the result will be. Roger understands, but the decision is final.

After the Zoom meeting, I reflect on our conversation. Questions arise: Is developing a Core Story worthwhile if only three people are involved? How would the planned change architecture, with its three outlined phases, be affected? Why did the board president and the CEO drastically limit the number of participants? Was it a fear of too open a participatory process and the potential loss of interpretive and control authority within the organization?

April 8, 2020

Zoom meeting with Roger. Despite the lingering questions that influence our actions, we decide to move forward. We agree to develop the Core Story as requested by the board president and the CEO. We discuss the exact structure of the workshop and how to frame it to manage participants' expectations. It seems important to both of us to emphasize that the Core Story being developed would not resemble a polished story or catchy slogan. Rather, it would serve as a functional blueprint, against which all future communication tools of the foundation could be tested and verified. The Core Story would be, metaphorically speaking, the informational DNA by which the organization would build and organize itself into the future.

April 23, 2020

Joint phone call with Roger. He is concerned. The upcoming strategy process has already caused some unrest within the foundation. He now wants to ensure that during the development of the Core Story, nothing unresolved or potentially uncomfortable for the participants comes up. He suggests changing the inquiry for the storytelling round, which would warm up participants and prepare them for the Core Story's development, to focus on a positive experience. Instead of asking, "Remember a specific experience that is typical of your collaboration at the foundation?" the question would now be framed as, "Which positive experiences in collaboration with the leadership team at the foundation have remained in your memory?"

I understand Roger's concerns. A transformation process stirs up unrest and brings hidden tensions to the surface. For the organizational consultant, these are critical breaking points where tensions should and can be released. For those in leadership, these are disruptions that interfere with smooth operations and should ideally be avoided.

Roger’s desire to give participants a positive experience with a tangible end product is understandable. After all, who wants to start something new with disruptions? The crux, however, lies in the definition of success. From the perspective of an organizational consultant, success means that everything present in the organization can manifest during the process, including disagreements and the shared struggle for clarity and meaning. Preemptively smoothing over all rough patches and clearing away irritations is not in the client's best interest. In the end, it is Roger himself who decides to relinquish responsibility for the outcome. After all, the participants are mature enough to deal with inconsistencies. Our job is merely to guide the process, not to predetermine the outcome. Roger's voluntary concession strikes me as a success of our careful planning and the meaningfulness of the narrative work itself.

May 2, 2020

Roger and I discuss the workshop schedule. We consider how best to structure the mini storytelling round for participants. Due to COVID safety measures, the workshop will take place exclusively online. Instead of a flipchart, we now use a digital canvas (e.g., Miro, Boards, Mural, etc.) to capture participants' experiences in keywords.

Our workshop schedule now looks as follows:

• Welcome and framing

• Storytelling round with inquiry

• Core Story development

• Outlook on next steps

One challenge for us is that the entire workshop can no longer last three hours as planned; we now only have two hours for the process. The question of the process’s relevance does not seem to have been fully clarified within the organization. I decide to shorten the warm-up round.

May 12, 2020

The big day that we’ve all been working towards has arrived. The workshop begins promptly at 2 PM on Zoom. A total of four people are actively involved in the process: the board president, the CEO, the head of marketing, and the head of fundraising. Roger and I take turns moderating, while the other takes notes on the digital flipchart. In the storytelling round, I explicitly emphasize again that we are looking for specific experiences (time, place, people, interactions, etc.), and I then ask the inquiry: "Remember a specific experience that is typical of your collaboration at the foundation!"

The participants take a minute to reflect and then begin to tell their stories one after another. As hoped, these are specific experience stories rather than generic descriptions of collaboration (e.g., "we are creative, benevolent, etc."). Contrary to Roger's initial concerns, no conflicts arise. On the contrary, the open exchange of experiences creates an atmosphere of mutual appreciation and goodwill.

Warmed up and with a jointly developed understanding of collaboration, we then move on to the Core Story.

On the digital flipchart (see Fig. 8.1), three text boxes ask for an identity, impact, and transformation formula (cf. Erlach & Müller, 2020, pp. 135 ff.):(A) We are / we want to be … (Identity)(T) who do the following … (Action/Transformation)(E) with the goal of … (Goal)

After breaking the ice, the participants begin wrestling with the right terms, phrases, and activations. Who are we, really? How would we describe ourselves? What exactly do we do, and for what or whom? What is our goal? Roger immediately writes the participants' thoughts and phrases into the corresponding text boxes. Slowly, a tangle of formulations emerges that do not yet quite fit together. Occasionally, the focus jumps from one text box to another because a specific phrase in the "We are" section immediately affects the "with the goal of …" section. As the moderator, my role is to keep asking questions, combine different sentences, and challenge the phrases when they become too generic and vague.

As observed during the storytelling round, no real conflicts arise this time either. However, this does not mean that the participants do not engage and passionately wrestle over the formulations.

After about 90 minutes, three long, winding sentences stand in the respective text boxes. The participants appear pleasantly exhausted, as if they had all run a marathon together and crossed the finish line as one. Roger and I send the participants off to their well-deserved evening.

May 13, 2020

With a day’s distance, I reflect on the workshop and remain very satisfied with the outcome. Narrative interventions work so well because their impact arises from the process itself. The participants determine the "result" of this process and take joint responsibility for it. My role as an organizational consultant is to initiate this process, support it, and ensure it is not compromised—keeping trust in the process high and strong. Roger reports afterward that the participants are still enthusiastic. Everyone truly felt as though they had contributed to something substantively important and inscribed their own perspective into the foundation's DNA. Furthermore, the fear of losing control over the strategy and direction of the foundation to other participants (such as employees) had almost completely disappeared.

We discuss the next steps for launching phases 2 and 3 of the transformation process following the successful kickoff.

Core Story & Co. – Some Additional Thoughts

For the organizational consultants and communication designers among the readers, I would like to delve more deeply into the Core Story, purpose, and some other communication artifacts of organizations to better differentiate them from one another in terms of meaning and impact and to place them in the correct relational context.

The Core Story differs from purpose statements in several significant ways:

• The Core Story, due to its narrative structure (A–T–E), is primarily a transformation story with a strong pull toward the future. Compared to purpose statements, it is rarely a static (desired) description or snapshot of reality and impact. The Core Story doesn’t just tell the purpose of the company; it also strongly emphasizes who the organization wants to be and who it must become.

• Although the Core Story often lacks the stylistic elegance and brevity of a purpose, it is significantly more impactful and transformative within the organization. Precisely because it results from a collective meaning-making process in which the perspectives of diverse stakeholders merge into a meaningful transformation formula, it acts much like DNA in a cell nucleus: it builds and governs the organization from within—from a depth that is often inaccessible to classic purpose statements.

I frequently observe that purpose statements in organizations take on the form of a well-sounding mantra, which is repeated over and over in the hope of generating a strong sense of meaning. These tendencies toward ideological phrases for meaning and identity creation are not new in organizations. In my view, however, they almost never lead to the desired success. Ideological mantras do not strengthen organizations in the medium or long term; on the contrary, they make them rigid and brittle. The often unwieldy Core Story is less likely to be instrumentalized in this way than the purpose, which, due to its stylized formulation, is more susceptible to such usage.

It is also concerning that purpose statements are increasingly being "delivered" by specialized agencies—that is, introduced into organizations from the outside and communicated in a classic top-down manner. As with the Core Story, purpose statements only unfold their full potential when they are developed jointly by employees and leaders. That such a process can take months is in the nature of the task. But it is worth the time. Both the Core Story and purpose are highly process-oriented communication tools. They only realize their potential when they are developed in a participatory manner and "felt." If this is not the case, there is a danger that the purpose statement or Core Story will merely dress the emperor in new clothes.

The strong identity-building link of the Core Story to the past, its powerful pull toward the future, and the joint process of clarification and formulation make the Core Story a relevant instrument for organizational developers to securely accompany change and strategy processes, translate them, and communicate them with a high level of orientation.

The unique role and power of a Core Story can also be seen in its ability to generate the purpose, vision, mission, Why (after Simon Sinek, 2011), or value proposition at any time and further develop them. The reverse is not always true.

Fig. 8.2 Core Story

The impact and meaning dimensions of a Core Story, compared to other communication artifacts, can perhaps be better understood if we transfer them into a spatial coordinate system (see Fig. 8.2), which spans at least three dimensions:

• Axis 1: Past – Future. This dimension reflects the extent to which communication artifacts also reference the past (e.g., the organization’s origin). Organizations that integrate and retell their own past can build a more coherent future than those stuck in the snapshot of a desire or target image. The differentiating action on axis 1 is either integrating experience (past) or projecting experience (future).

• Axis 2: Internal Impact – External Impact. This dimension visualizes whether communication is primarily intended to have an internal effect—e.g., to orient and synchronize the actions of leaders and employees—or an external one, e.g., to inform customers and partners and thereby elicit desired behavior from them. On axis 2, the differentiating action is either orientation (internal) or positioning (external).

• Axis 3: Transformation – Conservation. This dimension shows to what extent the organization itself must change and transform in order to become the entity that can realize the desired future. The differentiating action on axis 3 is either regulating (conservation) or transforming (transformation).

Figure 8.2 aims to demonstrate the interplay of dimensions using a concrete example. It is based on the communication artifacts available on the internet from Zalando (as of Spring 2021, https://corporate.zalando.com/en/company/our-corporate-culture). I chose Zalando because the company's communication artifacts are relatively well documented and easily accessible to the general public. The Core Story, however, was reconstructed by me in a reverse-engineering process. In this or a slightly modified form, it likely exists within the company.

If we now look at the overall picture, we can clearly see the derivations and further developments of the individual communicators. Admittedly, language always has gray areas. My assignments of the communicators could certainly be interpreted differently. What interests me is not necessarily the exact positioning of the artifacts, but their interdependencies and connections with one another. For the attentive observer, valuable conclusions can be drawn regarding where and how different communication tools can be used.

For me as an organizational consultant, the axis of transformation versus conservation is particularly interesting. Here, the actual potential of the Core Story is revealed. By connecting the past with the (desired) future on axis 1, the Core Story simultaneously unfolds transformative power. This power is initially limited to internal communication because, as mentioned several times, the Core Story is not a slogan for external communication. However, like a spring, all other communicators can be derived and further developed from it. Connecting to the past or reaching into it simply means integrating past experiences and projecting possible new experiences into the future.

In contrast, the purpose in the example acts both internally and externally. However, due to its formulation, it lacks a connection to the past, as clearly visible in the diagram. No experiences are integrated. It is therefore difficult to deduce a potential or necessary transformation of the company itself from Zalando's formulated purpose. "Reimagining fashion for the good of all" primarily tells us a story about the customer and what will (hopefully) happen to them, or what is supposed to happen. We can assume, however, that "for the good of all" naturally also refers to the company's own economic well-being.

Zalando’s purpose statement is, by the way, a good example of the observations made earlier regarding well-sounding mantras and possible tendencies toward ideology.

The formulated vision contains the first tentative indications of the past compared to the purpose. The "we" also signals for the first time a still vaguely defined identity, and the phrase "strive to become" suggests that "we have not yet become who we want to be."

The mission formulation is clearly directed at employees and is meant to coordinate and synchronize actions on a functional level ("we operate"). Compared to the vision (or Core Story), the mission has a more regulatory effect but with a strong pull toward the future. The statement "we want to be market leaders" is a target specification, not a transformation promise (see Fig. 8.3).

Conclusion

The Core Story is truly the core, the DNA from which the organization tells and transforms itself into the future. Ideally, it is the organization's "bee dance," integrating complex information and telling the best possible future for all participants. As an organizational consultant, I see it as the starting point for every strategy and change process. The more employees are invited to "write" this core story, the more it orients, coordinates, and synchronizes the entire organization.

Narrative Organisationsentwicklung

Ein Arbeitsbuch in Fallbeispielen

herausgegeben von: Christine Erlach, Michael Müller

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

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