Walking into a lift the other day, I was greeted by one of those people who cannot bear the overwhelming silence of a group of people in a confined space. I had barely pressed my floor number when she shot a question at me, "What do you do?!" Trying to regain the precarious balance of a pile of booklets in my arms, I just looked at her. I knew this moment would come. I had spoken about it before. I had even encouraged others to develop it. Now, it had actually happened! In the metallic flash of the greasy, finger-printed, closing lift doors, I had experienced a phenomenon move from the hypothetical to the real. It was … the Elevator Statement.

Fortunately for me, she got out at the next floor (does one floor up or down qualify as enough time for an Elevator Pitch?), shortly after I had spluttered out some garbled answer that clearly left her dazed and confused. That spaced-out, glazed look people get in their eyes is one that I'm becoming quite accustomed to as I've explained the narrative work I do. Now, it may already be too late in this post to redeem myself from the intuitive question emerging in your head, "Have you wondered if that look is a result of how badly you communicate what you do?" Well, sure. While I may not be an uber-salesman, I know damn well that I'm a strong communicator (most of the time) who on an average day can capture what I do in some fairly logical sentences.

Be that as it may, I do believe my sufferings with the Glazed-look-on-potential-customer's-face Syndrome (GLoPCF)are in part as a result of the nature of the word "narrative". I assume that for most people the word narrative equates roughly to the word story which then, in connotative terms, equates to thoughts and memories of fairy tales and mesmerizing storytellers. For the average business person, narrative does not automatically fit into any of the well-defined, well-honed, well-established business disciplines that folk spend years mastering in businesses. It simply does not fit into the schema of known career paths and consulting methods.

And then, on the other hand, there has been quite a strong emergent trend (since about the 1990s) of storytelling in the business context – this is where professional storytellers have come into the business and worked at getting leaders and employees to become better storytellers, both as a fun exercise as well as a technique to drive certain agendas. It seems then that one can imagine a continuum of people who've had some exposure to narrative in the workplace. But this is not the only continuum at play when it comes to the GLoPCF-Syndrome.

When it comes to defining narrative work within organisations, one need only Google the terms narrative and storytelling to find quite a disparate industry at play. There are a multitude of offerings that find themselves broadly categorised as narrative and storytelling work. This broad spectrum results in misinterpretations of what a narrative practitioner will do, confusion of what the work actually is and, at times, misrepresentation by practitioners of what type of narrative work they sell.

All this thinking about the narrative work continuum got me thinking about the political continuum – that there are Left- and Right-wing factions on the political landscape. Is the same not true when it comes to narrative practitioners and thinkers and how they may be grouped according to their ideologies, philosophies and methodologies? I think it is and I know some businesses who could testify to being quite confused as to what narrative work is due to disparate offerings being touted under the same banner.

I'll now try to delineate the various forms of narrative work that practitioners may offer you as well as move beyond a polarised view of narrative work in organisations towards a more integrated model.

The Narrative Left-wing

One the one side of the spectrum, lets call it the "Left-wing" (for those that may not like to be associated with it, I use the phrase Left-wing and Right-wing in an a-political sense just to capture the polar opposites), there are those who view stories as an ancient form of communication that holds the promise of moving hearts and minds towards a certain end. Be it moral education, or the lifting of the human spirit, stories are used here by storytellers and practitioners work hard with individuals (especially leaders) to improve their storytelling skills in terms of being able to choose stories, construct stories and their ability to deliver them in a compelling manner. The gem here is a well-constructed, well-delivered story that shifts emotions and thoughts.

The Narrative Right-wing

On the other side you have a group of people who agree, in principle, with the assumptions made by the Left-wing narrative practitioners but differ considerably in the application of, and intent behind, narrative work in organisations. The major difference here is that stories should not be used in a way that aims to shift people in a certain direction, but that stories told by employees and leaders alike help capture and represent what is really happening in a situation. With this information, people are then able to make informed decisions about problems and scenarios. The gem is the story itself, in its pure form, told by someone in a natural way.

In terms of my personal preference, I would refer to the Left-wing as Storytelling and the Right-wing as Narrative work. While many of the narrative practitioners I know will now want to tie me to a stake and set me alight for making such a simplistic, stark and polarised dichotomy, I believe that it is a distinction that will be useful for businesses who embark on narrative projects. Knowing whether you're looking for a Storytelling intervention, or a Narrative project, as well as knowing which category the person you're speaking to sits in, will be of great service to both practitioners and clients alike.

Where would I place myself on the continuum? Not yet my dear reader, I would like to provide a little more aggregation and synthesis of the narrative/storytelling field before I pin my colours to the mast (besides, if you've read any of my other work, you'll already have an idea).

If I were to break the Left-Right Wing continuum up a little and create some general categories of narrative/storytelling work, there would be applications that I've seen and dealt with in the following contexts:

• The Therapeutic Context
• The Marketing Context
• The Communications Context
• The Leadership Context
• The Complexity Context
• The Organisational Culture Context
• The Knowledge Management Context

Seeing that this post already way too long, and that I'm keen to give a broad overview of how narrative plays itself out in each of these contexts, I'll dedicate a shorter posting to each context in particular over the next week or so.