Storytelling and Design Thinking - Case Study Example

Name: Course: Tutor: Date: Topic: CHANGE MANAGEMENT: Storytelling and Design Thinking EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Boutique change consultancy is a consultancy that uses design thinking approach in storytelling to introduce and manage change within organizations. There is an increase need to integrate storytelling and design thinking in managing change. This report therefore investigates how design thinking and storytelling approaches can be applied for effective management of change. The report presents design thinking approach which leads to the development of a story that successfully implement and manage change. Communication is a key process, hence critical questions designed to aid development of a strategic communication plan. The organizations survival will be determined by its capability to administer change and not necessarily its current financial status. The report will also discuss the main challenges and issues brought about by the hesitant simplification of the approach. We conclude by discussing the hypothesis of the value of Design Thinking and Storytelling as key factors for designing change policy framework. This creates a process where we bring in a discipline into the narrative procedure, hence doing away with guesswork. The report argues, based on a concrete case, that design thinking and storytelling are valid and important approaches to address change processes. When the design problem is identified it easy delivers the meaning of a story in an impressive way. A complex idea is simplified yet still loaded with the meaning. Implementation of change in an organization results to tensions, the management should therefore ensure the all the employees within the organisation are engaged in the process of change. The organization change success is based on the acceptance and ownership of the change by the entire team of workers in the organization. Design thinking put a strong emphasis on narratives that are easy to understand and includes practical recommendations. The report seeks to form recommendation to be implemented. More especially on how change is to be communicated effectively using design thinking and storytelling. TABLE OF CONTENTS Topic: CHANGE MANAGEMENT: Storytelling and Design Thinking 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND 3 STORYTELLING 5 DESIGN THINKING 5 INTEGRATION OF THE TWO 5 DEVELOPMENT OF A CHANGE PROGRAMME 6 DISCUSSION 8 JUSTIFICATION ON THE FRAMEWORK 10 RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION 11 REFERENCES 13 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND The organisation under study in assignment 2 was News Corporation, a New York City based mass media corporation. This organisation has been faced by so many challenges which include the current scandal, sharp decline in its earnings and tight competition after the emergence of two more competitors; The Sunday Correspondent and Sunday Independent. The audience are now aware of the manipulation scandals, plagiarism, frequent omission, inaccuracy, distortion and bias. This practice makes it so hard for an average citizen to acquire objective, timely and open uncensored issues involving United States. Due to stakeholders concerns and sharp criticism for manipulation scandals, descending profits, reducing audience, plagiarism and propaganda, There is need to have an overhaul in the operation procedures and on the past organizational culture in order to solve this problem. Finkelstein, S. (2006, p.158) observed that organizational culture is strong and very difficult to change. The people tend to resist to change and new ways of doing things just because of an installed mindset. The fear of change is inevitable. There is consistent requirement for change in today’s organizations due to the fast-changing environment. The success of the change an organization implement depends on how that change is managed, irrespective of the size of the change. It is worth noting that change implementation faces a lot of resistance from people involved in the process. The main aim of this report is to conduct a detailed literature review in order to establish the most effectively way change can be implemented and managed in order to save News Corporation from sharp criticism and poor performance. Whatever things that threaten the status quo, employees tend to be cynical about that change. Taking this into consideration, change implementation has to be done cautiously, sympathetically and the whole management teams to get involved and create a sense of ownership of planning, implementation and management of change. The report will start by introducing the problem to be addressed and change required. This is then followed by a review of concept of storytelling and design thinking People need a free press free from influence because this is good for democracy. The report will then provide a process on how change is to be communicated and managed as a design thinking process to solve the problems facing News Corporation. The report also gives how design thinking and storytelling can be used to implement strategic change and a justification on the given framework based on literature review and findings that can be used to inspire storytelling approach to change. Lastly the report gives recommendation and conclusion. STORYTELLING Storytelling is an observable fact that is essential to introduction of change in an organization. It has the capacity to go beyond several dimensions of groups. Storytelling is a form of communication that involves people breaking down complex knowledge to narratives and shared among individuals in the particular group or groups.(Denning, 2006). Storytelling is a powerful tool to drive change in an organization mainly because it has a high social presence that brings people together. DESIGN THINKING Design Thinking is process of solving problems it’s a realistic and creative process. It is used by business leaders to create a great framework for developing stories that will attach with the audience. In addition the process is straightforward, rapid and collaborative. The process takes a constrained, objective and systematic order in design problem solving. It clearly defines the problem, creates several alternatives solutions and implements the best of it. INTEGRATION OF THE TWO Storytelling takes the steps of design thinking process to build a deliberate narrative to take the audience on an engaging expedition, to a meaningful culminating point regardless of the medium. Combining design thinking with a storytelling creates a process where we bring in the same discipline to the narrative process, successfully avoiding the speculation. Hence the design problem becomes apparent and to deliver the meaning of the story to the audience in a memorable way. DEVELOPMENT OF A CHANGE PROGRAMME To change the organization successfully requires a great deal of hard work, patients and careful. Implementation of change is a big task if inappropriate techniques are applied. Therefore, there is need for efficient ways for introducing and implementing change to relieve the pressure the staff feels towards the change being introduced. Employees should be availed with details of what the change entails including how it will have an effect on the company to avoid confusion. A technique that brings staff on board makes it easier for the transition, it gets employees personally involved in the change hence a sense of ownership. The employees should know exactly what is going on and understand the change right from the beginning. This technique will develop the sense of urgency to foster change. Staff will be able to adjust to the changes gradually. Everyone will get involved including the whole management and executive teams hence creating interest among the members of staff. There is need to recruiting great change leaders. Donald Chrusciel (2008) proposed the use of change champion, this has described as one with organizational political astuteness. This is a person who is also recognized as part of the culture, a person who is accepted within the organization this person will therefore be an effective agent of change. Change will only happen if the whole organisation really wants it to happen. In this framework a sense of urgency will be developed around the need for change. This will greatly assist in igniting the preliminary impetus to get things moving. An honest and convincing dialogue will be opened on what is going on within the organisation, workplace and market at large. When all the employees are talking about the proposed change, the urgency is built and propels itself. Marshak, R. and D. Grant (2008) pointed out that changing the mindsets and consciousness in order to facilitate a shift from the traditional believe to the current appropriate way of doing business. According to them, change is a process that needs to begin from the management and freely flow through the entire organization. There must be a psychological shift in the employee consciousness. Reading the modules has greatly assisted me in conceptualizing the problem, refining the concepts and applying it in the topic of study. For the proposed change to be successful at least three quarter of the entire company's management should accept the change. The success of the vision will depend on the change process hence there will be a proper communication network around the organisation frequently and strongly and being implanted in everything that is done in the organization. The change will be fresh in everyone’s minds; since the idea is communicated at every opportunity. The change vision will be frequently talk about addressing peoples’ concerns and anxieties, candidly and in a very sincerely way. Frequently talked about concepts become knowledge and reduce resistance to change due to awareness. F. Graetz and Smith (2010) concurred with the resource philosophy of organizational change management that key competence are assets that will improve organizational performance. Most of the times change is perceived as a straight forward pathway to some perfect future, but to the employees, change can seem a less structured and linear approach. This brings in a problem since it creates an intensity of pessimism and mistrust from the beginning. To help organizations communicate changes more effectively, storytelling will be based on the most tried and tested story framework. According to Denning (2006), a story will portray the pursuit for something and the journey towards something better. Creating an organization tailored objective will help people to comprehend the change. In addition it’s a powerful tool to guide communications itself (Kaye, 1995). The vision of the change must rotate around characters meaning the individual creates the vision arc. Change should form part of the organisational foundation in order for it to stick. It is actually the corporate culture that will ensure the change vision is shown in day to day activities. Continuous efforts should be made to guarantee change in all the organisational processes and procedures, hence inculcating the change in the organizational values and culture. Support of the management and the employees should be maintained at all costs. This involves the current staff and the upcoming leaders hired or brought in. The manager should talk about improvement at every opportunity (Cross, 2011). The change process, success story, and other story that catches his attention are expected from the manager. During hiring or training of new staff, change ideas and values should be included. DISCUSSION Design thinking and storytelling can be used to better implement strategic change. Design thinking refers to a formal mode of artistic and practical resolution of issues with an objective of an enhanced potential outcome. Its starts mainly with an objective and doesn’t solve a define problem, hence it is a solution based thinking. The parameters of the issues and probable solutions are explored at the same time. Design thinking is a procedure that reinforces ideas throughout a brainstorming stage. This procedure reduces the participants’ fear of failure and promotes the general participation and involvement from a broad diverse source. Design thinking process involves Empathizing, defining, ideating and testing. Within these steps, more ideas can be shaped, the precise questions can be asked, change can be framed and the best alternative chosen. The management should be able to observe and interact with the employees to understand their experience. Through the processing of the empathy findings the staff point of view is arrived at, this will aid in diversifying possible solutions hence a wide range of ideas. The ideas are then transformed to a substantial form for easy experience and interaction with them. Design thinking process concludes with the test by using observation and feedback and thereafter reviewing the original position. The management should consider the four design thinking rules; that is the human rule, the ambiguity rule, the re-design rule and the tangibility rule. Story narration improves the mutual understanding among members present as they infer the narration according to their own experiences. This allows tailored evaluation of problems, explanations and solutions. Good leaders make use of storytelling in various occasions for this sole purpose. These stories and narrations present them and the organisation at lager as ambassador of change and not the defenders of the status quo. Leaders cannot fully eliminate fear, avoid the prospect of change in the organisation or even abolish uncertainty. However they can influence the change process and employee participation by just narrating a purposeful story. A story therefore is a powerful medium putting facts into an initiation context. The narration is built to generate expectation or suspense and connect the listener to action. Leaders who know how effectively deliver a story and understand the best story to tell at any given point has a powerful influencing and skill of communication. Such a leader is at a higher position to correctly influence a change process. This will be used to attach employees to strategy by given that which brings about understanding, certainty and eventually inspiration in the personal contribution from the employees. Besides it is a powerful technique for communication and change management. First a story requires a lead character that has enough in common with the employees for them to easily empathize with. This is because appealing stories are all about people and one of them the main character. In organization stories it is appropriate to have an individual as a character rather than a corporate to enable the main character to empathize with them. In a story concerning change, the audience will be more occupied with how somebody else comes to terms with what the change is all about. The consequences of the change on a day to day basis including the chances the employee might be made redundant. Secondly the story must have a clear problem to avoid it being just a portrait. It must have a good inciting incident to gain enough momentum giving the employees a reason to care. Finally the story should proceed from tests and obstacles to create interest, through this, mistakes are resolved. Corporate stories should avoid going straight from problem to resolutions instantly. Introducing through a story, the obstacles tend to increase in both complexity and in difficulty as the story progresses, these create a sense of tension and risk. Managers can use storytelling effectively to introduce change, first by ensuring that others see and share in the story hence influencing the organizations culture largely. After the recognition aid the employees recall the efforts they have spent in the success of the organization by including a narrative of what they did that was incredible. The narrative should have a moral of what it means in the big picture, the objective, the results and the link to the principles and goals of the organization. Stories should be sufficiently captured and presented when dealing with insightful credit. Avoid instances that will water down the story by making it about the giver. Storytelling is the most perfect approach to deliver engaging and significant communication that promotes change process for both individual employees’s and teams (Denning, 2006). It enhances the sharing of meaning of the change between management and the employees, as it brings staff on board with desired changes. It provides a flexible framework for the narrator to reflect the organization’s objective to suit the employees. Through stories trust and loyalty in the organization is created by a moving bond with staff because it explains the behavior of the organization in terms of the vision (Kaye, 1995). Combining design thinking with story creates a process where we inject this same discipline into the narrative process, effectively removing the guesswork. In this case, the design problem is identifying and delivering the meaning of your story in the mind of your audience in the most memorable way. Through stories the employees will be able to think of new potential. It is a source that increase understanding and enhance self-reflection. Design thinking relies on both of these to envision designs that develop the lives of others. Stories will effectively explore thoughts from user research. The first component of a design process is where the story informs, depicting a picture of the current and how it exists for users. During the next part of the process, a new story is created that inspires, reframing the picture with new ideas that make things better. A focus on the story enables the employees internalize then by sharing the story helps clarify the particulars. JUSTIFICATION ON THE FRAMEWORK The following is a justification on the framework based upon research, reading and findings that can be used as a general model of design thinking inspired storytelling approaches to change. Through story, it is possible to have a picture of the future for the employees to interact with the idea. This is because they participate in the story created. Design thinking and storytelling enhance vision and instigate innovation. Design Thinking is an area that will aid the management perfect their storytelling skills, hence enhancing the communication of the change. Story design helps the organization to position itself in achieving the desired change. It is a tool useful in creating familiar and better understanding by creating an enduring impression. The change is built as a story identity hence an environment that supports the change. Then the story identity is developed and scripts the change to pursue a strong narrative structure to support the change from start to finish. The story should be script to support the company’s uniqueness, using the old techniques of storytelling will create a impressive experiences for the employees. Why story design, a story gives organization a casual relationship and a very strong structure. Story-designed change is more memorable, hence generating feedback. A story identity on change brings out the strengths of the management, bringing out the people that share the values of the change. The management should be able to design and script the change desired into a story. They use methods adapted from dramatic storytelling and experience design. The story identity is shaped by several methods of storytelling, an example being visual methods. By scripting the change into a story we can generate a unique employee experiences with a narrative structure. A change story script is an outline of the story-designed change; it plots the change process from start to finish. RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION This report clearly demonstrate that the use of design thinking through story telling is key to engaging a more personalized level hence a solid understanding of the management change desire. By using storytelling, management is able to build the loyalty of employees during change process. This is achieved by connection organisational culture with the employee’s strategies and expected change in order to strengthen support for change. Corporate storytelling has an influential role in improving a strong employee engagement while strengthening their loyalty. Corporate stories can address employee needs which include emotional and cognitive engagement, this is more important once there is change and uncertainty where a more personal and deeper communication medium is highly needed. When a narration is carefully organised, it is able to reach employees at a personal level and highlight the crucial concepts that need be understood in order to support and commit to change process and corporate message. We would like to open the discussion on a key question we think is worth tackling to address the challenge of designing people-centric awareness change on general complex restructure. In other words, we hypothesized the value of Design Thinking and Storytelling as key factors to address this challenge. The value of Storytelling should be formally assessed through cross-cultural formal evaluation. Based on this case and others, we believe that the communication plan is an integral part of that change process. Employees will usually be uncomfortable with the uncertainty produced by major changes. Often managers try to drive uncertainty out of a new undertaking by adhering to strict Procedures and limiting the information flow. there is need for employee flexibility to change as the future innovations brings in more change avenues, they need to also remain alert on the specific change. Employees should have a deep understanding of the perspective in which all changes are ground. These means the employees must be comfortable with the ambiguity intrinsic in the workplace. Creating an atmosphere for focus and flexibility will be the greatest communication challenges facing organizations. Mastering this dilemma will not only sustain current change initiatives, but also insure the future viability of the organization. The manager is to bring the employees to a reflective understanding in a catchy way possible. A design story will reach this moment at the climax. Events of the story are created moving towards the climax; the audience mindset is achieved at each stage. What they are familiar with, what they don’t and what they want to be familiar with. Design thinking applied in stories helps keep ideas organized, allowing the manager to choose an alluring journey for the employees. The organization therefore needs to prudently manage its resources in order to perform well. The magnitude and speed of change highly depend on resource management. The management needs to make firm decisions that enable organizations change and exploit innovative minds of the talented workers. A critical skill for change managers is the ability to narrate the change and ensure people have roles to play in that change story. These dynamic environments necessitate vibrant processes for managing change effectively. It rest entirely on the top management of the organization. Their style of managing the change should be in a way that employees can easily cope with. It is the manager’s responsibility to facilitate and enable change. More so, the manager's role includes interpreting, communicating and enabling and not to instruct and compel. An organization requires a structured approach for ensuring that changes are smoothly and successfully implemented to achieve the desired goals. One of the most problematic aspects of change is the capability to understand what is happening, and makes sense of it. REFERENCES Brown, T. (2008) Design thinking. Harvard business review 86, 84-92, 141 Cross, N (2011) Design Thinking: Understanding How Designers Think and Work, Berg, Oxford and New York. Denning, S. (2006). Effective storytelling: strategic business narrative techniques. Strategy & Leadership, 34 (1), 42–48. Donald Chrusciel, 2008. What motivates the significant/ strategic change champion: Journal of Organizational Change Management Vol. 21 No. 2. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Iowa, USA. Fabrikant, Geraldine, 2004. "Market Place; News Corp. 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