The stories we tell ourselves: assumptions and organizational change

I found myself making a team wrong for an outcome influenced by bureaucratic systems beyond their control. I was frustrated with what had happened and had given less thought to what they had been able to do. Recognizing that difference helped me move from blame towards a more useful conversation.

It also brought me back to something I have explored through both my work and graduate studies: how much of our understanding of an organization comes from explanations we have learned to accept.

In workplace-change communications for a public-sector property management division, I worked on questions about moving from assigned workstations to more flexible arrangements. Some were practical questions about finding colleagues or having somewhere quiet to work. Others concerned how managers would know that work was being done when employees were not always in view.

The answer required a distinction between observing someone at a desk and understanding the results of their work. That distinction had implications beyond the layout of an office. It concerned what a manager needed to know, how employees accounted for their responsibilities and what each expected of the other.

This is where I find the idea of organizational stories useful. A story connects what we have experienced to what we believe it means. If we associate a busy office with productive work, a quieter space may suggest something is missing. If our experience tells us that a new initiative usually means more work with fewer resources, an announcement about greater efficiency may carry a meaning its authors did not intend.

Those interpretations deserve consideration. They may contain knowledge that the formal account of a project leaves out. They may also carry assumptions that need another look.

Organizational culture scholar Edgar Schein examines shared assumptions in Organizational Culture and Leadership, written in its fifth edition with Peter Schein. Their work directs attention beneath an organization’s stated values to the understandings through which people interpret what happens around them.

For me, this makes listening to the stories people tell a useful part of understanding change. The account of a difficult project may reveal what people have learned about asking for help. A story about a successful team may say something about whose contribution is recognized. What gets repeated can help us understand what people expect, including expectations they have little reason to state directly.

My graduate studies gave me another way to approach that listening. In Communication for Development and Social Change, taught by Wendy Quarry, I examined the difference between trying to persuade people to adopt a proposal and learning enough about their circumstances to help shape it.

Quarry and Ricardo Ramírez develop that argument in Communication for Another Development: Listening Before Telling. They place listening and dialogue within the work of development itself, with attention to the context in which people are being asked to act.

I see a connection to organizational change. Before deciding that a team needs a different attitude, we need to understand what its members know about the work. Before asking people to adopt a new account of their organization, we need to consider the experiences that support the account they already have.

That can be uncomfortable when we are invested in our own explanation. I could recognize the importance of context in a course reading or a communications plan. It took more effort to apply the same care when I was frustrated with another team.

Chris Argyris addresses this difficulty in “Teaching Smart People How to Learn.” He describes how capable professionals can be skilled at analysing problems while becoming defensive when examining their own contribution. His argument asks us to test the reasoning behind our judgments, including judgments we feel confident are correct.

I find that useful because a convincing explanation can feel like the end of an inquiry. Once I have decided why someone acted as they did, I can begin preparing my response without asking whether they would recognize my account.

There is an ethical consideration here too. Describing a team as resistant or uncooperative can affect how others approach it. When that description comes from someone with authority, the people concerned may have limited opportunity to offer another view. We owe them care in how we interpret their actions, especially when we are in a position to influence decisions about their work.

This does not mean accepting every explanation or treating constraints as permanent. A better understanding can help us identify which requirement needs to be reconsidered and who has authority to do so. It can also make clear where someone did have a choice and needs to account for it.

For communications advisers, the practical value lies in keeping our interpretation open long enough to learn something. Before building a change plan around an explanation of why people behave as they do, speak with the people it describes. Ask what they recognize in it and what is missing. Then consider whether their answer changes the proposal, as well as how it should be explained.

I still had concerns about the outcome that frustrated me. Understanding the team’s circumstances helped me ask something more useful of them. I had been expecting a different result without first understanding what it would take to produce one.

Further reading

• Edgar H. Schein and Peter A. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, fifth edition. On the shared assumptions beneath an organization’s stated values and why understanding them matters when introducing change.

• Wendy Quarry and Ricardo Ramírez, Communication for Another Development: Listening Before Telling. On listening to understand people’s circumstances before deciding what a project should ask of them.

• Chris Argyris, “Teaching Smart People How to Learn.” On examining our own reasoning and contribution to a problem, particularly when we are confident that the problem lies elsewhere.

About the author

Alesha Hayes, MA, APR, is principal of A. M. Hayes & Associates, a communication and public relations practice based in Victoria, British Columbia. Her work brings together strategic communications, organizational development and public engagement, with attention to how decisions are made, how people become involved and what it takes to earn their trust.

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