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Excepted from IDEAS IN THE NEWS 
A biweekly publication of MeansBusiness Vol. II, No. 2 -- January 22, 2001 
Storytelling to Introduce Change 
Stephen Denning

"The conventional wisdom is that you get an organization to change by explaining the reason for the change as clearly as you can, and that people - being rational beings - listen to what you have to say and weigh the reasons. 

If your reasons are good and your idea is good, they accept them and they get on with implementing the change. In reality, the opposite is the case. The people usually do not welcome an idea that is going to turn their working lives upside down and inside out as something that is positive and the addition of reasons rarely places the idea in a positive light . . . Telling a certain kind of story enables a listener to understand an idea in a way that is much less threatening . . If it is effective, the idea sparked by the story quickly can become a very part of the identity of the listener because it is an idea that they have conceived in their own language and in their own context." 

From: "Making Change Happen: Steve Denning Tells the Story of Storytelling" By Jeff De Cagna, Information Outlook, January 2001 (not yet available online) 

*Stephen Denning, of the World Bank, is the author of The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations.