Want to Understand Culture? You need to listen to stories.
Anthropologist Polly Weissner studied the Kung people of Namibia and Botswana. Specifically, she studied their conversations. She noticed that there was a big difference between daytime talk and nighttime talk around the campfire. Daytime talk concerned practical issues and logistics. But 81% of the nighttime, firelight conversations were devoted to storytelling.
“Stories told by firelight put listeners on the same emotional wavelength…and elicit understanding, trust, and sympathy.” “[Stories] conveyed information about cultural institutions that generate regularity of behavior and corresponding trust.”
“Night talk plays an important role in evoking higher orders of theory of mind via the imagination, conveying attributes of people in broad networks (virtual communities), and transmitting the “big picture” of cultural institutions that generate regularity of behavior, cooperation, and trust at the regional level.”
In other words, stories played an important role in building culture. Stories help us relate to one another, and stories make culture – the norms, values, and acceptable behaviors – stick.
Maybe you’ve experienced this for yourself. Sitting around the fire, or maybe the kitchen table, with friends or family, sharing stories. You were effectively building a culture; you were bonding.
Just as the Kung people have their distinct culture, so does your organization. Through the stories they tell, everyone within an organization, regardless of position or authority, impacts the culture of the organization. The stories can be both major (“This is why we exist…”) and minor (“Let me tell you what happened here yesterday…”).
Stories that employees share in your organization act like the little voice in your head that talks to you all day long: they form a substantial core of the employee experience. This means that stories can become self-fulfilling prophesies, in a way. Positive, mission-affirming stories can inspire and reinforce positive, mission-affirming behavior from your team.
If a person wants to change the culture of their workplace, intentional storytelling is a powerful tool in the toolbox. Think about it: how do YOU want to be communicated with? Memos, emails, charts, essays, lectures, PowerPoint slides…or stories? They are intimate, emotional, and important. Once we hear one story, we are hungry for another.
How do your stories impact your organization’s culture?
There’s one type of organizational story that I like to call the “war story.” It typically centers on a particularly challenging or grating customer or client. I’m sure you’ve witnessed them swapped between employees at some point or another in your career.
While these “war stories” are mostly seen as a benign way of blowing off steam, they’re quite harmful to organizational culture. These stories frame the relationship between employees and customers as inherently antagonistic and encourage “us vs. them” thinking among the audience.
Imagine a new employee hearing these stories on their first day at work. The new employee will likely leave with an understanding that the customer’s wants or needs are in opposition to his or her own needs, and it’s likely this person will bring those attitudes into his or her next encounter with a customer.
The question at hand is not whether you as a leader are telling stories, but what stories are you telling? I challenge you to listen with a fresh ear the stories that you and others share within your organization. Think critically about what values and behaviors they reinforce.
What impact are the stories you tell having on your company’s culture? Are your stories about employees achieving goals and fulfilling the company’s mission, or are they little more than complaining? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment below.