Research shows that the more the narrative is owned and shaped collectively, the more it will make a positive difference.
Top tips:
- Be clear about the current dominant narratives and what you want to shift, why that is vital and why now – this will motivate people to get involved
- Adopt a creative process that engages the imagination, asks different questions, and includes a range of voices
- Good narratives come from everyday stories and how they fit with deeper organisational values, purpose and context
- To deepen connection, don’t just send your narrative to people, use it as an opportunity to further engage people
Developing a narrative should be shared work. Gathering a small, passionate group of colleagues helps in any change process, but with narrative development work it’s essential.
Research shows that the more the narrative is owned and shaped collectively, the more it will make a positive difference. Top-down messaging does not have the same empowering effect or make change stick.
Making the process creative and energising, therefore, can be the difference between a narrative project working or not.
Spread the process widely through workshops, focus groups or small creative conversations to gather stories and useful materials including images, video content, and social media. This should be fun!
(See Chapter 4 – How to run a narrative workshop for a detailed guide to one approach to establishing your narrative from the ground up.)
The kind of skills needed for this work – facilitation and engagement, gathering stories, telling them in the best way possible and editing – often exists in comms teams, but you can also build skills across your council.
There are many storytelling structures and techniques that will help improve the quality of the story and support narrative development (see examples in Chapter 8 – Some models to help you develop your narrative )
See how we have taken one of these approaches and developed a new story for local government in Chapter 5 – One Story for local government.
Whatever approach you use, however, the key questions to ask in building your narrative are:
- what is your story saying about the purpose of your council?
- why do officers and members in your council choose to do what they do, and why is that important?
- what is the human version of ourselves we want to see?
- what does your story say to the wider world?
The answers should point towards deep shared experiences that add meaning and significance to what you are saying. They are the building blocks that help focus the content of the narrative.
A good starting point for your first draft is to write no more than one page (around 400 words). From here, you can test, shape, and refine the piece through conversations.
Once agreed, the narrative should be crystalised into a 30-word version and used with images or film to reach as wide an audience as possible.
Narratives constantly change and evolve and that’s a good thing. When they are alive, they get under the skin.