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Developing a council narrative – the “why” of your organisation – has been seen for some time as a fundamental element of a communication strategy.
It defines an organisation’s purpose; it brings people together around that purpose. It directs action, and in a democracy, it gives people a marker against which a public body can be held to account.
Many councils have developed narratives over time as part of their approach to strategic communications. Many have been written up, and even published, and still failed to benefit the strategies, reputations and achievements of the organisations for which they have been written.
This toolkit looks at why and how a more engaging approach to developing and communicating a narrative works, and offers some practical models and approaches you can use right now.
It also unveils exclusively a new post-pandemic One Story for local government, which you can use to challenge thinking in your organisation and as a template for your own local narrative.
The toolkit’s nine chapters expand on the five-step approach to building narrative shown below. (Figure 1)
What we mean by narrative and how it’s different from story
Stories……
capture the everyday realities – engaging head and heart – reflecting authentic experience in a creative way. Stories can include first and third person points of view, creative non-fiction or “faction”.
In a story, something happens to someone or something. A story typically has a beginning, middle and end. This is a structure that humans recognise and understand and maps how our brains work to interpret information/events.
Narratives……
are the big ideas, strategic themes or essence that communicate new ways of seeing something, a purpose, your values, or a worldview. Often taken from a range of stories, a narrative makes sense of patterns.
“Narratives create meaning. They define our past and what it meant as well as our future and what is possible.” Open Society Foundations
Dominant or deep narratives (sometimes called meta-stories) ……
are how entire societies interpret how things work and are the result of previous narratives that have become embedded. They are often invisible and super-powerful, what some people call “accepted wisdom” (whether they are true or not).
“Deep narratives… provide a foundational framework for understanding both history and current events, and inform our basic concepts of identity, community and belonging.” Narrative Initiative
What makes an effective narrative?
A narrative is not another one of those communications nice-to-do’s. It’s fundamental to your organisation’s position and mission in its area.
Effective organisational narratives:
- build confidence and understanding for staff, partners and communities by structuring, prioritising, and ascribing meaning to experiences and beliefs
- support behaviour change (in the organisation) or promote social change (in communities) by communicating core behaviours and values, or, by reinforcing coherence (in a world where we are bombarded with information and messages)
- make the vision of the organisation stack up / believable, explain why the organisation thinks that, and build trust because it is human
- provide orientation in times of uncertainty when making critical decisions very quickly may be essential, and complexity needs to be reduced
- enhance the impact of your communications by telling a more memorable tale in which only a few specific properties of the organisation are emphasised