Stories for Management Success

The Power of Talk in Organizations

David Collins

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351665803
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

We tend to assume that we may divide our activities into talk and action. In so doing we tend to suggest that talk is subordinate to action.

Taking issue with these presumptions, Stories for Management Success: The Power of Talk in Organizations argues that talk is central to what managers do. Indeed it argues that, for managers, 'walking the walk' necessarily implies 'talking the talk such that storytelling is now central to managerial work'. Noting that managerial talk is increasingly located within an account of storytelling the book offers a critical review of the academic debates associated with telling tales at work and uses this critical reflection to shape and guide those who would realise the power of talk. Thus, the book concludes with six key questions designed to prompt both introspection and action on storytelling in an organized context. With reflections on the relevant management research, the author provides a scholar's digest to aid management thinking and practice.

This book offers an examination of the processes of organizational storytelling and has been designed to allow practitioners of management to recognise and in so doing to unleash the power of talk in organizations.

1      Introduction

In everyday conversational exchange we generally employ forms of speech which privilege certain types of behaviour. In so doing, however, we tend to denigrate other modes of conduct. As a child, for example, I can recall being told that I was ‘a chatterbox’. Furthermore I was given to understand that having been labelled in this way I was obliged to do something about it. Indeed I soon learned that at the very least I should ‘shut up’ so that the adults and the less talkative children around me could get on with doing something useful.

Of course it was not just children who were subject to such forms of (linguistic) discipline: The adults, I now realise, also lived in a world where ‘talk was cheap’ and to be ‘a gossip’ was a great insult that carried very real social repercussions.

In this text I intend to build upon these childhood reflections. My aim is to produce analytical insights on the ‘talk’ and ‘action’ which in so many ways shape and construct our endeavours. Through this I hope to prompt introspection on the processes of management and, perhaps more importantly, I hope to promote useful forms of managerial action which appreciate the significance of organizational storytelling and the power of talk in this dynamic context.

Huczynski is one of a number of scholars who have devoted their careers to the study of management and managing (see for example Huczynski and Buchanan 2007). In the early 1990s he produced a notable study which examines the work of management’s gurus. Discussing the deeper structure of ‘guru theory’ Huczynski (1993) argues that seemingly diverse forms of guru theorising share and project common presumptions about the nature of work and the processes of managing (see also Grint 1994). Probing these similarities Huczynski suggests that management’s gurus embed their offerings within narrative frameworks that threaten and yet reaffirm the status of the managerial leader. Pattison (1997) and Jackson (1996; 2001) echo and expand upon this point. Discussing Tom Peters’ (1988) Thriving on Chaos, for example, Pattison suggests that this text amounts to a secular retelling of the biblical tale of Noah. Thus Pattison argues that Thriving on Chaos builds upon a narrative which threatens each of us with a deluge (of foreign competition) yet promises salvation to those who are willing to construct an ark (designed according to the parameters of ‘chaos’ and ‘excellence’ as outlined by Peters).

Recognising that contemporary management has been constructed in and through narratives, this little book focuses upon the medium used to persuade us that managing is, at root, a ‘moral project’ (Watson 2001). To this end we offer an extended analysis and review of a special form of managerial talk known more commonly as organizational storytelling. I do not, you will note, suggest that organizational storytelling constitutes a management fashion that is to be dismissed or derided as somehow faddish and ephemeral. Instead I will argue that organizational storytelling needs to be taken seriously. Indeed, I will argue that stories act to structure thinking and action within organizations and are, therefore, central to managerial success.

Yet I will also suggest that practitioners of management have been exposed only to ‘sensegiving’ perspectives (Collins 2013) which assert that organizational storytelling offers a relatively simple means of advancing managerial control. To counter this unhelpful assumption I will offer reflections on ‘talk’ and ‘action’ in managerial work (see Marshak 1998) which highlight the importance of ‘sensemaking’ processes (Weick 1995). This text, therefore, will argue that the denigration of ‘talk’ has continued into my adult life and extends beyond the Kilmarnock streets that shaped my formative years. Indeed I will suggest that ‘talk’ in the field of business and management has been, variously, denied, devalued and distorted.

Challenging the disciplinary assumptions that shape our appreciation of real managerial work, I will insist that the business of management is, in fact, founded upon persuasive talk. Recognising the reproach that is contained within the familiar challenge: You talk the talk but can you walk the walk? I will argue that, for practitioners of management, this all too familiar censure needs to be recognised as wrong-headed and counter-productive because it suggests that action and talk may be separated. Furthermore I will argue that those who would separate action and talk misunderstand the essence of managerial work because they tend to assert that talk is, in fact, subordinate to action. Countering the reproof voiced above, therefore, I will argue that managers are tested, daily, and when tested need to develop and demonstrate their capabilities in and through talk. Recognising the demands of this regime, I will argue that the special form of talk known as organizational storytelling holds the key to management success. Overturning the presumptions that devalue talk and which would subordinate talk to action, therefore, I will argue that in organized contexts, walking the walk necessarily implies talking the talk!

In an attempt to situate this analysis within a context which enables action and yet appreciates the plurality and the complexity of organized settings I will offer what I have, elsewhere, termed ‘critical-practical’ (Collins 2000) insights on the practice of storytelling. This critical-practical approach, as we shall see, has been developed so that you, the reader, might take steps to reflect upon and, perhaps more importantly, to improve your storytelling practice.

Accordingly the text is structured as follows: In Chapter 2 I begin with brief reflections on the nature of management. Texts prepared for practising managers seldom look critically at the nature of managerial work. This is regrettable because critical perspectives on management and managing offer, as we shall learn, useful insights on the problems, processes and dilemmas which arise as we seek to work with and through others.

Noting that ‘management’ is normally framed in terms of outputs, our critical review will counter that ‘managing’ is more usefully conceptualised as a social and political process which, while it is founded upon ‘persuasion’, is enacted in settings that often make it rather difficult to get people to do things. Recognising the central role which ‘persuasion’ and indeed emotion perform in the managerial process, Chapter 3 will consider attempts which have been made to locate managerial work within an account of storytelling.

While noting that managerial work has been usefully framed as a narrative endeavour, Chapter 3 will, nonetheless, suggest that our appreciation of the organizational processes which shape and construct managerial work remains rooted in sensegiving models of storytelling. Contrasting such sensegiving accounts with an alternative framed by Weick’s (1995) account of sensemaking, we will attempt to situate and redeem the social and political complexities which have been, too often, ignored within the analysis of organizational storytelling.

Chapter 4 builds upon this account of the contest between sensegiving and sensemaking as it examines, more closely, the academic debates which structure our appreciation of stories and storytelling. Chapter 4 will, therefore, reflect upon the different ways in which stories might be defined and acted upon. Here we will probe the different ways in which ‘reports’, ‘opinions’ and ‘stories’ seek to construct and account for events. In addition we will examine the division between ‘deductive’ and ‘inductive’ accounts of storytelling (Collins 2013). Chapter 4 will also analyse the tools which storytellers may call upon as they attempt to shape our appreciation of the world and its problems. To allow readers to put these reflections to work we will offer a pro forma designed to reveal the different ways in which epic, comic, romantic and tragic tales deploy narrative resources.

Chapter 4, as we shall, see is rich with stories and indulges a little meandering. Yet our meanders have a purpose because the tales which mark this (water) course have been selected and/or designed to enhance your appreciation of the ways in which storytellers can intervene in sensible environments, variously, framing events and forming characters as they attempt to shape thought and action. Chapter 5 builds directly upon these tales and offers a number of key questions designed to enliven both talk and action. Chapter 5, therefore, will offer six questions designed to precipitate reflection on your storytelling practices so that you might (a) understand the power of talk, and (b) put storytelling to work within your own organization. Finally Chapter 6 will offer a brief summary of our analysis and concluding comments designed to cement your appreciation of the role(s) which stories perform in successful managerial endeavours.

2 Managerial work

What do managers do?

For many readers this question will, I presume, sound like the sort of interrogation that announces a joke. I know lots of jokes about management consultants but for some reason I do not seem to know any good jokes about managers. I could, however, begin this analysis of organizational storytelling with a joke, for there are clear narrative similarities between jokes and stories: Both place actors in a scene and then outline an interaction between events, the actors and the situation, which proceeds to a conclusion that – in the case of the joke – is designed to generate laughter. In addition it is worth observing that, beyond precipitating the physical response of laughter, jokes, like stories, may serve to illustrate and, in so doing, may challenge the sensibilities of the audience (see Double 2005; Lee 2010). Indeed, if we are very fortunate jokes, like stories, may also tell us something more generally about the human condition.¹ I will not, however, pursue an approach based upon joking within this text. There are two reasons for this. First, as I mentioned before I do not seem to know any good gags about managing. And second, I want to make sure that my point is taken seriously.²

Joking aside, then, the issue as I see it is that through some unfortunate confluence of habit and tuition we tend to conceptualise management in ways which deny its complexity. Furthermore we indulge codifications which overwrite our intuitive appreciation of the dynamics of social organization (Chia and King 1998). Thus we tend to depict organizations as things; as stable institutions. And having assumed that we can treat organizations as entities we then represent managing as a simple, linear, matter of cause and effect (Czarniawska 1997; 1999).

Consider for a moment your own curriculum vitae. My guess is that it will focus upon what you have done (because talk is cheap) and it will, furthermore, contain declarations which take personal credit for key outcomes (because you need to demonstrate that you can walk the walk):

I delivered a 22% improvement in output … a 17% improvement in profitability … year-on-year increases in labour productivity … a 47% reduction in waste … a 74% increase in un-read memos.

This outcome, or output-focused, account of management is, I concede, perfectly legitimate at some level. For example I expect the companies and agencies that I am obliged to interact with to do things for me. And I will acknowledge that, nowadays, I expect these things to be done rather quickly. Furthermore when I participate in selection interviews I expect that the candidates will be able to show me what they can do.

Yet the problem with this outcome-oriented, cause-and-effect, account of management is that it tends to obscure the ways in which managers actually get things done. Academics and academic institutions must take some of the blame for this state of affairs because in a desire to bring some degree of shape and order to the shifting, dynamic and complex business of managing others we have indulged codifications which project a narrow action-orientation. Following Fayol (1949), therefore, those who teach ‘management’ typically tell students that managers plan, organize, command, control and co-ordinate the actions of others. Moreover those of us who teach ‘management’ tend to talk at length about the types of activity associated with these tasks. Yet we say much less about the practical problems; the social and political issues that arise when we seek to plan, organize and control the thoughts and actions of others.

We do not need, however, to indulge these codifications when we teach or, more generally, when we talk about the processes of managing. In a small-scale but highly influential study Mintzberg (1973), for example, provides a useful appreciation of the day-to-day problems and dilemmas of managerial work. Analysing the everyday activities that managers undertake, Mintzberg reminds us that these agents are situated in complex hierarchies. We have, as you well know, first-line managers, middle managers and senior managers. These practitioners, no matter whether they are senior production managers or middle ranking facilities managers, we should note, operate in dynamic contexts that are prone to change. Recognising this, Mintzberg warns us that managing is inherently political. Managers, he tells us, are obliged to spend a large part of their working lives actively negotiating the boundaries of their own discretion and responsibility. Indeed he suggests that the daily problems of co-ordinating others – and we might add, controlling yourself – are such that managers must spend rather a lot of their working lives in meetings. Mintzberg adds that, when they are in such gatherings, managers must engage in forms of conversational exchange that are – to a greater or lesser degree – designed to engage people in forms of thought and action that they might otherwise choose not to pursue. These otherwise avoided activities might include getting up early to travel to a meeting; making just one more sales call; or even reading this little book!

Yet whatever your reason for reading this book, Mintzberg’s study should serve to remind us that, despite the familiar codifications, managing others and yourself is, at root, a social-political process hinged upon the arts of persuasion. This expression, as we shall see, reflects an understanding that managerial control – the ability to shape the thoughts and actions of others – is incomplete. We should add, moreover, that it is often self-defeating.

Why might managerial control be considered to be both incomplete and potentially self-defeating?

The short answer is that while the familiar codifications of management imply a fixation with ‘command’ and ‘control’, work within simple and indeed more complex organizations necessarily implies co-operation such that the whole history of managing (see for example Bendix [1956] 1963; Thompson [1963] 1972; Ramsay 1977; Zuboff 1988; Hales 1993; Collins 1997; Marchington 2005) might be said to boil down to a search for forms of co-ordination that do not break down or otherwise intrude upon the social co-operation that gets things done. Despite Fayol’s (1949) codification, therefore, it is worth pointing out that control (albeit fragile in nature and temporary in its effectiveness) is not the primary concern of the organizational elite that guides our agencies and corporations. Control may well be a means to the end that managers seek, but the organizational end – as we saw when we dipped into our CVs – will not be control per se. The end that is sought will be output, or productivity, or growth, or profitability … or all three simultaneously.

Edwards (1986) captures these tensions rather well. Reflecting upon the nature of the employment relationship, Edwards observes that ‘labour’ is quite unlike the other factors of production conventionally recognised in the study of economics. Thus Edwards observes that while we can simply purchase tracts of land and quantities of capital we cannot do the same with labour. Instead we are obliged to purchase ‘labour power’; a capacity to work. The problem being, of course, that since most of us are paid simply to attend work the capacity of labour power to do something useful – something profitable – may go unrealised. Recognising this indeterminacy, those who manage labour power are, Edwards suggests, obliged to find ways to direct and to control what their employees and co-workers do. Yet since employment is an exchange relationship employees have an incentive to resist their employers’ attempts either to extend or to intensify their work activity. This implies that the parties to the employment relationship must address a fundamental conflict because their economic interests are divergent. Indeed this gap between the needs of the parties to the contract suggests that the employment relationship is, potentially, antagonistic. Moreover we would do well to note that this conflict potential is built into the very foundations of the relationship. Drawing these points together Edwards (1986) suggests that the employment relationship is founded upon, and may be considered to be, a ‘structured antagonism’.

This conceptualisation of the employment relationship as a ‘structured antagonism’ often angers or unsettles practising managers. These individuals tend to utilise unitary (Fox 1985) models of organization, and so, draw upon metaphors which highlight teamworking and common goals when they are invited to discuss their management philosophies (Ramsay 1975; Harvey-Jones 1994). It is worth making the point explicitly, therefore, that to accept that the employment relationship is, at root, a structured antagonism does not necessarily imply that managers are nasty and exploitative. Clearly some managers are pretty nasty and fairly exploitative. John DeLorean for example (Wright 1980) seems to have been a trag...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Managerial work
• 3. Organizational storytelling
• 4. Reports, opinions and proto-stories
• 5. Putting stories to work
• 6. Concluding comments
• Bibliography
• Index