Society for Storytelling

Springboard Stories

Stephen Denning introduces the concept of a ‘springboard story’ in his essential book, The Spring-board: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations.
“By a springboard story,” he says, “I mean a story that enables a leap in understanding by the audience so as to grasp how an organization or community or complex system may change.” Moreover, it is not simply organisations which are changed by storytelling, it is the people who work in them. Stephen Denning says, “The stories that were successful for me all had certain characteristics. They were stories that were told from the perspective of a single protagonist who was in a predicament that was prototypical of the organization’s business.”

Knowledge Sharing
This springboard story is taken from Stephen Denning’s book, The Springboard. Faced with the uphill task of advocating the concept of knowledge sharing within the World Bank, the story of a health worker in Kamina succeeded in igniting action throughout the organisation.
“Clearly the twenty-first century is going to be different. But how? The story of the health worker in Zambia offers the possibility of viewing the future, which, I suggest, is going to be like today.
“Thus, in June 1995 a health worker in Kamana, Zambia, logged on to the Centre for Disease Control Web site and got the answer to a question on how to treat malaria.
“This true story happened, not in June 2015 but in June 1995. This is not a rich country: it is Zambia, one of the least developed countries in the world. It is not even the capital of the country: it is six hundred kilometres away. But the most striking aspect of the picture is this: our organization isn’t in it. Our organization doesn’t have its know-how and expertise organized in such a way that someone like the health worker in Zambia can have access to it. But just imagine if it had!”

Morale Building
We undertook a project with the managers of a health department in Scotland at a time when morale in the department was at an all-time low. What emerged was this: the managers told and retold a story about how their great ideas for the future development of the department were constantly being blocked either by external events or by an unresponsive senior management. The general mood was of despondency and low energy.
Part way into the project, we invited the group to find a metaphor for their department. After a lot of thought and discussion, during which many images were rejected, they came up with a stunning metaphor. The department was like a greyhound in a trap, eager to be released, bursting with suppressed energy. The group spoke heatedly about how ‘they’ - the senior management - kept them in the cage.
After prolonged discussion, the group came around to realising just how much they had made the trap for themselves by repeatedly telling themselves a negative story about their predicament. Then they began to work on their new story - their springboard story - about how they release themselves from the trap, release their pent up energy and race to win.
The group was then able to move on to formulate plans to put their great ideas for the future development of the department into practice. Three months later we were invited to hear their presentation to their Chief Executive. They were confident and assured, their plans were accepted and being implemented, they had even applied for a health service excellence award. Moreover, when a health trust wide reorganisation was sprung upon them, they already had a good story to tell and were many lengths ahead of other departments.