by Natasha Lopes, a recent graduate of Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Surrey, B.C.), currently pursuing her career interests in Public Sector Innovation and
Jennifer Williams, a faculty member in Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s English department.
How can an understanding of Narrative add value to workplace innovation as a social process?
That’s the key question driving our development of a new learning resource on Narrative Perspectives for Workplace Innovation. Our team at Kwantlen Polytechnic University – English professor Jennifer Williams and myself as a recent B.A. graduate – are part of a Learning and Teaching Innovation initiative within the Faculty of Arts. Our aim is to equip graduates with an interdisciplinary perspective on innovation as a social process, so they can contribute distinctive value to innovation projects in the workplace (and in their other roles as community members and global citizens).
Our module is intended to highlight the impact narratives and storytelling have on innovation and the importance of narratives within the innovation life cycle of any organization – my personal interest is innovation in the public sector. Narratives demonstrate short- and long-term effects that impact the sustainability, legitimacy, design process, and attitude creation within innovation as a social process. But this only works if the Narratives have the right form, content and tone to fulfill that promise within specific innovation contexts and activities…and we believe graduates with disciplinary backgrounds in Literatures can help to shape effective Narratives for workplace innovation. [This “Superpower” for Literature graduates is illustrated in the attached card from our “Heroes of the Humanities” Collectibles series 😊]
Alt text: Hero of Humanities “Textor” with description of Powers and Perspective
by: Joel Dmitruk CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0lt text:
Our first step has been to explore research evidence about the role of Narratives in workplace innovation. Here are some of the ways that different Narrative types can contribute to innovation as a social process. (Each insight is drawn from the evidence source listed at the end of this post.)
Insight #1. Narratives can sustain support for ongoing innovation
Narratives can play an important role within an organization’s cultural mechanism, for ideas to reinforce an innovative forward-thinking culture across organizational boundaries. Narratives that show how people within the organization can produce better ideas will demonstrate the reflective nature of the internal working mechanisms. Large and small-scale narratives impact innovation processes and creates important perspectives.
Insight #2. Narratives can be key elements in gaining support for an innovation project.
A key aspect of innovation is the collaboration fostered within the organization, agency or department. Narratives can facilitate a bridge between different projects or within 1 project and its different phases. Stories that highlight the value created at strategic moments in a project can aid in mobilizing larger groups of people in support.
Insight #3: Narratives can Frame Your Innovation Strategy (“Innovation is the Narrative”)
Including narratives in governing process allows for management to remain in touch with various departments and clients. Managers can craft Innovation as Narrative in order to put more attention on processes that people may then be able to re-imagine. Innovation awards or competitions can be used to develop innovative narratives and solutions to problems within an organization.
Insight #4: Design Thinking and Narratives go hand in hand.
Storytelling is a key part of Design Thinking, and different narrative forms support different Design Thinking activities. A narrative can help to explain the rationale that links prototypes to user goals, use a metaphor to create a ‘what it feels like’ sense for a yet-to-be-detailed user experience, and to translate from the various objects and processes of Design Thinking into a mutual understanding of the design team’s interpretations and reasoning. The Narrative shared amongst the design team may need to be adapted to share with users and sponsors who have not been directly involved the Design Thinking process.
Insight #5. Co-creating Stories can support collaborative innovation
Creating sensemaking through co-creating a story allows for many voices to enter in a singular message. Through a shared narrative, more people can adopt and sympathize with the message being developed. In addition, using alternative story telling methods helps broaden the scope of the kinds of stories that can be told. For example, Renga is a Japanese art style incorporating collaborative story telling through poetry.
Insight #6: Narrative structure must be aligned to the particular purpose of the story
In each of these insights, the narrative is intended to serve a different purpose. For example, in the first two examples listed below in the research evidence for this Insight, the narratives are designed to communicate the processes of organization change. In the other two examples listed, the narratives are designed to promote intrapreneurial thinking and mindsets within the organization.
Understanding the relationships between narrative purpose and narrative structure fits naturally within the Ways of Thinking fostered in Literature Studies. We are continuing to explore how learners in our Literature programs can see the link between the capability developed in their academic experiences and the value those capabilities can create in workplace innovation projects.
Evidence sources:
1. The Importance of Narratives in Sustainable Innovation: Bartel, C.A., Garud, R. (2009). The role of narratives in sustaining organizational innovation. Organization Science 1(20), 107-117.
2. Narratives produced by collaboration promote a holistic approach to innovation: Manning, Stephan., Bejarano, A, T. (2016). Convincing the crowd: Entrepreneurial storytelling in crowdfunding campaigns. Strategic Organization, Special Issue: Organizing Crowds and Innovation 15 (2), 1-26.
3. Narratives can Frame Your Innovation Strategy: Borins, S. (2010). Innovation as narrative. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Kennedy School, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Research Paper.
4. Design Thinking and Narrative go hand-in-hand: Antle, A.N. (2017). Making sense of design thinking: A commentary on Lindgaard and Wesselius's "Once more with feeling: Design thinking and embodied cognition" She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation (Ed. Ken Friedman). Elsevier, 3, 2 (Summer 2017), 92-96. [invited].
5. Co-creating Stories can support collaborative innovation: Gabriel, Y., Connell, N.A.D. (2010). “Co-creating stories, collaborative experiments in storytelling.” Management Learning, 41(5), 507-523.
6. Narrative structure must be aligned to the particular purpose of the story:
· Reissner, S.C. (2011). Patterns of stories of organizational change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 24(5), 593-609. McCormack, C., Milne, P. (2003). Stories create space for understanding organisational change. Qualitative Research Journal, 3(2), 46-59.
7. Garud, R, Schildt H, A., & Lant T, K. (2014b). Entrepreneurial storytelling, future expectations, and the paradox of legitimacy. Organization Science 25, 1479–1492. Fellnhofer, K. (2018). Narratives boost entrepreneurial attitudes: Making an entrepreneurial career attractive? European Journal of Education 53, 218-237. Gartner, W.B. (2007). Entrepreneurial narrative and a science of the Imagination. Journal of Business Venturing 22, 613-627.