Why innovation needs storytelling
We see stories everywhere. We listen to stories, we tell stories — they are one of humanity’s universals across cultures. We revolve around transmitting information and experiences, whether that is around a campfire, a table or an idea. Stories have the power to change our beliefs and behaviours, and they are one of the greatest tools we have for engaging audiences around complex issues such as climate change, migration, and other social issues.
Stories get told, and retold, and therein shape society and mythologies around our identities. Sometimes these stories are simplified, rewritten or manipulated in such ways that they do not address the complex nature of what truly occurred. At the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), we see how the stories told around innovation have shaped the way colleagues perceive innovation in the humanitarian sector. The stories people tell about innovation shape how others understand and relate to it. The enduring mythologies of the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of the world have left innovation to be interpreted as a privilege — privilege reserved for those in the ivory towers of Silicon Valley. As Hana Schank, a Public Interest Technology Fellow at the nonprofit think tank New America explains,
“The story of innovation, as it is typically told, is one of rule breakers, stay-up-all-nighters, people who are sharper and shinier than everyone else–whiz kids. And those whiz kids all look the same. Young. Male. Techies or policy wonks or numbers geniuses.”
The greatest innovators at UNHCR challenge this stereotype but the stories that have proliferated across the organization have embedded and nurtured this unoriginal caricature. And those who benefit from this single story have told it over and over again for their own benefit. Fortunately, master narratives can be countered — and innovation is the perfect avenue to understand how stories can build support, persuade, and challenge the notion of who gets to be an innovator.
Our brains on stories
Why do our brains love stories so much? Scientists have discovered that a good story lights up your brain in the same way pleasure does. As we follow the emotionally charged events of a story, the popular compound oxytocin rewards us for continuing along the journey. Stories have the ability to excite the neurons that make dopamine and stimulate the creation of oxytocin — the chemical that promotes prosocial, empathetic behaviour. Neuroscientist Uri Hasson argues that “a story is the only way to activate parts in the brain so that a listener turns the story into their own idea and experience.”
Steven Pinker, a Harvard University psychologist, argues that stories are powerful tools for both learning and the development of relationships with others. Storytelling has played a key role in social cohesion between groups and is a particular form of communication for passing information through generations. Pinker argues that there are neurological roots tied to social cognition not only for telling tales but also the science behind why we enjoy them. The oxytocin we derive from stories helps us care and feel connected to others — whether we like it or not.
Psychologists have also discovered that stories have the ability to transport us into the world of narrative and they are inherently more effective at changing beliefs and behaviours than facts are. For the cognitive benefits to have an effect though, you have to be telling a story that actually compels the reader to engage in this distinct mental process. Do you have a coherent plot? Do you have a story arc? Are there characters? Are the characters engaging? All of these things help to make a good story and therein, make your story more effective.
Making innovation inclusive and accessible
So, you might stay up all night curled up with your favourite book because your brain loves a good story — but how does this relate to innovation?
Within your organization, storytelling can act as a carrier for messages, assist in reinforcing cultural values or transform into a powerful persuasive tool. There is extensive research on the benefits of organizational storytelling, as sociologist Yiannis Gabriel notes, “Organization and management studies, no less than consumer studies, cultural studies, media and communication studies, oral history, as well as substantial segments of legal studies, accounting, and studies of the professions and science, have enthusiastically adopted the idea that, in creating a meaningful universe, people resort to stories….stories make experience meaningful, stories connect us with one another; stories make the characters come alive, stories provide an opportunity for a renewed sense of organizational community.”
At UNHCR, storytelling is a critical tool for making innovation accessible to our colleagues, developing a shared understanding of innovation, and creating a path for organizational change. More importantly, storytelling can help colleagues imagine themselves in similar experiences to the people who are already innovating, and therefore, build empathy for a character they may not have otherwise related to.
How to use stories as a strategic tool
For me, the wonderful thing about stories is that they are not only powerful cognitive tools but they can be malleable based on your challenges and how you want to create change within your organization. Organizational stories can be used to persuade, educate, reassure, inform, explain, connect, construct meaning, or simplify.
1. Stories to transport messages or vision:
We use stories to help illustrate our innovation process through emotive and authentic stories that not only help contextualise our mission and values but generate a common understanding of what innovation is and who gets to be an innovator at UNHCR. These stories are critical for changing the culture of the organization and familiarising people with a vivid vision of innovation. We’ve written stories such as “Why innovators can come from all parts of the organization” to persuade others in UNHCR that regardless of where you sit in the organization — you too can be an innovator if you have the right mindset. Stories of persuasion such as “Innovation is about diversity and inclusion. Stop with the gimmicks, catch up.” are disseminated to influence beliefs around innovation and to transport our vision of diversity to the centre of innovation initiatives. Creating a compelling vision is a key element for sustainable innovation across an organization — your vision needs to energise and compel others to move and act. Stories of innovation allow us to create this shared vision and common understanding to introduce positive change.
2. Stories to diffuse or pitch ideas:
People love ideas, and innovators have many tools to prototype their novel products, services or processes. Storytelling offers a key framework to emotionally connect with your audience or decision makers. Instead of developing a Powerpoint presentation, create a story around your idea that people will yearn to retell. Move beyond a basic pitch and see how you can utilise the science of story-building to make your idea resonate and more memorable for your target audience.
3. Stories to capture bright spots:
At UNHCR we talk a lot about bright spots. For us, bright spots are the people who are on the frontline innovating — we exist to support them. Telling stories of others in the organization who are innovating can not only help people overcome anxieties and concern about various attributes of the innovation process. But it can make innovation more accessible. For example, we wrote a story about an Innovation Fellow in Zimbabwe who was experimenting with methods to bring refugee voices into our programmatic cycle, giving us a direct line of feedback into what was and what was not working for their community. Another colleague based in Turkey discovered this story and explained, “When I read this story about innovation, it was the first time that I felt like it was relevant to my work and something that we should all be incorporating into our day-to-day protection work.” She then applied for the Innovation Fellowship and we welcomed her into our 2018 cohort. Storytelling is key for building understanding and engagement for innovation across UNHCR.
4. Stories as a road map for behaviour change:
At the Innovation Service, we believe that strategic communications can be used to not only build support for innovation but also to change behaviours at a cultural level. Often, resistance to change is simply a lack of understanding of how to change. Innovation and experimentation can walk in lockstep with uncertainty, and with uncertainty comes ambiguity. We can use stories to script behaviours and create a pathway for innovation that is accessible for colleagues who may not know where to start. If you want to create an organization that breeds innovators, it is not enough to tell them “be innovative” or “be creative.” Through detailed stories, we can tell them how they cultivate change.
For example, UNHCR Brazil has done an excellent job creating a culture for innovation within their operation. In the previous cohort of UNHCR’s Innovation Fellows, three of the accepted twenty-five person cohort came from the operation during the height of its innovation activities. This was something we knew we needed to capture so other UNHCR operations could learn from their experience. We documented the behaviours and actions of Senior Management to Protection Officers to understand how we could script the critical moves through storytelling. Through telling the story of why innovation took office in UNHCR’s Brazil operation, we’re confident it will create a pathway for other offices to recreate their recipe for creativity. Stories can inspire others to learn more, do more and take the road less travelled.
5. Stories to build knowledge and educate:
What we’ve seen at UNHCR is that innovation is not always accessible to our 15,000 colleagues across the world. Storytelling is an extremely valuable tool to challenge the notion that innovation is only technology and to build knowledge about what the innovation process looks like in practise. Instead of relying simply on facts, we’ve used a story of a young refugee in Tindouf, Algeria who built a new shelter structure out of water bottles to illustrate that innovation can come in all forms based on the needs of a community. Stories also allow us to capture lessons learned around experimenting at UNHCR and how to build knowledge around what works and what doesn’t. Ultimately, our learning has greater value when we share it and reading a humanitarian innovation story is more inspirational than another report.
6. Stories to understand the past:
Innovation is rarely straightforward, and a lack of institutional memory can reinforce the status-quo. Through storytelling, we can capture the long-dormant seeds of innovation’s past and guide others through the trials and tribulations of the innovators who came before us. If people in the humanitarian sector don’t see how much has already changed, they can fall into the trap of believing that they can’t challenge current norms. If we look at the evolution of cash-based interventions in displaced communities, we can clearly see how willing the sector is to adapt to the standard way of working. Additionally, cash-based interventions have challenged how the humanitarian sector thinks about dignity and the power of choice for refugee communities.
7. Stories to explore the future or the unknown:
Science fiction creates pictures of what the future can be by inviting us to climb into the story and explore the future before it happens. Star Trek is a great example of science fiction inspiring future technological innovations — the Star Trek “Hello Computer” long preceded Apple’s Siri or wireless headsets. There is an essay written in 1945 by Vannevar Bush where he envisions what we now call a personal computer. This extraordinarily prophetic essay imagines not only new technology but the relationship we will have with the information and knowledge it keeps, and with one another.
Stories allow us to gaze into what our future could look like, and the norms and beliefs pulsing through it. What would the culture of UNHCR look like if every Senior Manager created space for staff to innovate? In the article, “Why cultural change has to accompany our renewed investment in data” Chris Earney, the Head of the Innovation Service, imagines UNHCR as a more agile and efficient organization at the forefront of proactive, evidence-based humanitarian response. The story of what this culture could look like and why it matters to refugees is supported by clear actions to reimagine that future together. We can also use storytelling to take a sociocultural approach to work with communities and create alternative futures where they are the decision makers. We may not be able to predict the future but this branch of storytelling enables us to extrapolate and forecast a rich connected picture of possibilities for innovation.
But storytelling also needs innovation
So now you’re convinced — storytelling is a key tool for driving innovation. But I believe we need to go beyond the stories that are being told now. The stories we are telling also need innovation.
While in some cases people may not understand how innovation relates to their work, in other instances people simply don’t believe they can be an innovator. To change our organizational culture at UNHCR we need to question the paradigm of who gets to be an innovator. We have to tell stories to steward our culture forward. We have to tell stories to demystify the role of creativity and innovation in people’s day-to-day lives. This experience of creativity has historically not been accessible to the many because someone once spoke of its false innateness. We have to tell stories that value the virtue of inquisitiveness and reward the merit of curiosity. There are too many people cast out from the innovation conversation because of distorted archetypes of ‘changemakers’ who wield an innate gift. The false shadow of the lone inventor frightens people outside the creative experience. We have to tell stories that depict creativity as accessible and curiosity as a friend we can always revisit.
We also have to recognise the cultural variations in what people expect to see in stories — how can we use innovation to speak across cultures whether that is through speech, gestures, or drawing stories.
We need to tell better stories. We need to tell more inclusive stories. We need to tell stories about the intersectional spaces, the complexity of systems and the nuances of the human experience.
We need to question who has been telling our innovation stories and why. We need to question who is telling the refugee story and how they are benefiting from controlling this narrative. We need to understand the power dynamic of storytelling and more importantly, who has a voice at the table when we’re talking about innovation.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses the danger of a single story in her famous Ted Talk and how we risk a critical misunderstanding by limiting ourselves to simplified narratives. She states, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”
And this is true for the spaces in which we operate as well. We can’t have a single story of innovation. We can’t limit ourselves to one story structure, one face or one voice. We can’t allow the cliches or stereotypes to filter our stories for so long that they become the perceived norm. We have to build stories of failure alongside our journeys of success. We need stories that move us towards each other, not farther apart. We need stories that not only set new standards but challenge us to live up to them.
We need stories of innovators as diverse as the world we inhabit. We need, we crave, a thousand different stories on how innovation can improve our organization and the lives of displaced communities. Storytelling and innovation should exist symbiotically. They can be mutually beneficial to one another in the desired future we wish to build. Instead of an afterthought, let’s bring innovation to the forefront of how these stories are being told — in their most complex yet accessible versions.
As author Maria Popova so eloquently states,
“A great story, then, is not about providing information, though it can certainly inform — a great story invites an expansion of understanding, a self-transcendence. More than that, it plants the seed for it and makes it impossible to do anything but grow a new understanding — of the world, of our place in it, of ourselves, of some subtle or monumental aspect of existence.”
So yes, innovation needs storytelling, but I would argue that storytelling needs innovation just a little bit more.
This essay was originally posted in the recently released publication — UNHCR Innovation Service: “Orbit 2018–2019”. The publication is a collection of insights and inspiration, where we explore the most recent innovations in the humanitarian sector, and opportunities to discover the current reading of innovation that is shaping the future of how we respond to complex challenges. From building trust for artificial intelligence, to creating a culture for innovating bureaucratic institutions and using stories to explore the future of displacement — we offer a glance at the current state of innovation in the humanitarian sector. You can download the full publication here. And if you have a story about innovation you want to tell (the good, the bad, and everything in between) — email: innovation@unhcr.org.
