Keep this in the hands of one author – someone who can write and edit well (probably a member of the communications team) and who’s been part of the workshop development. Ideally the narrative will fit on a side of A4 and can be boiled down to a version that’s just a couple of sentences long – your elevator pitch. Share with key players, but don’t let them add lots of text to your draft.
At this stage it’s worth testing your narrative; if you’ve got it more or less right this shouldn’t mean a wholesale rewrite. You’ll know best who your key target audiences are, so explore how your story might sound to a wide range of people like:
- a single mum, part-time worker living in council housing
- an elderly couple in supported accommodation
- an independent shopkeeper
- the facilities director of multinational looking for new premises in the area
- a frontline council employee
- a colleague in a neighbouring council
Share your finalised story with members, managers and employees at every level of the organisation – use some of the tips and techniques you can find in the internal communications toolkit.
This work shouldn’t be about instructing people to use your story, or launching the narrative with high profile events, it’s about having informal sessions and discussions where you can listen to employees’ own stories about the council, see how their stories echo the one you’ve developed and encouraging them to share the story more widely.