For a short clip of this lecture, delivered at Kent State University’s Graduate Program in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management, click here. For written excerpts, click here.
Click here
to read Thaler's essay on the Benefits of Building a Narrative Organization.
How Story Helps
Working with narrative is highly effective, sustainable, and readily available.
Here are some ways in which Thaler Pekar & Partners can assist you, your organization, and your grantees in applying the powerful tool of story to program implementation, advocacy, resource development, and communications:
In the planning stages of a project, it is useful to identify:
- Problems that are being addressed and the opportunities that are motivating action; stories can be tremendous sources of inspiration and innovation
- Critical points at which stories may be gathered that will aid in assessing progress and evaluating outcomes and impact
- Questions that will be most useful in eliciting illuminating stories
- Various ways in which to gather and retain these narratives
- Planning for and responding to crises
- Participants who will be accountable for gathering, managing, and ensuring the accessibility of the stories.
In the midst of a project, the collection, analysis, and sharing of stories will be useful in:
- Yielding insight on progress-to-date
- Sharing critical information with stakeholders
- Building trust among key participants
- Making sense of complexities
- Offering solutions to problems that may have arisen
- Providing qualitative results and illustrating quantitative data.
At the close of a project, narrative will:
- Yield insight on what was learned, and how it might have changed the ways in which you work, or will operate in the future
- Clearly articulate lessons learned and the project's outcomes and impact
- Be a useful form for sharing information so as to strengthen understanding among staff, board, volunteers, donors, policymakers, and other stakeholders.
Stories gleaned throughout, or as a result of a project, are useful for advocacy:
- Collected stories will point to actions that need to be taken, or advocacy that others can undertake to rectify problems or increase the provision of services
- Assembled narratives will shed light on who should act, and what activities will be beneficial (or harmful) to advocacy goals.
And stories are a vital tool for being heard and understood:
- Stories should inform the construction of key marketing, advocacy, and fundraising messages.
- Stories are a potent tool for establishing trust with listeners, and helping them to comprehend, remember, and act on your key messages.