L&D TV VIDEOS

Julia knew the culture wasn’t right. As a new HR manager in a legacy male-dominated organisation, she’d already noticed some examples of everyday sexism that made her feel uncomfortable. It’s not that there was a bad attitude at the top, but with what she’d seen, combined with her knowledge of the evidence that formal reporting rarely works to reveal bad behaviour, she knew an intervention was needed…

A few weeks back, I reviewed a book – The Social Brain – by Tracey Camilleri, Samantha Rockey and Robin Dunbar. It takes Dunbar’s academic research and theory about the evolutionary psychology of how human groups work and, focussed on the co-authors’ knowledge of large organisations, applies it to the working world. I love that book, but I’m the kind of guy who really appreciates a VERY high-level distillation of principles to work by. So, I thought I’d return to the book and see how well I could achieve this.

Drama for Change pairs video with storytelling and supercharges it with a powerful campaign. The three elements combine to get teams engaged and active in a workplace culture – working together to improve it. Let’s quickly review each element and then look at the synergy…

Storytelling is a skill often boasted by video companies and HR consultants. But do they really know what it means, or are they just flashing around a sexy buzzword? The harder you look at storytelling, the more elusive its meaning. Is it a sensible management tool, or is it about as useful as astrology? I thought I’d take a run at making sense of story in a single short article. I love a bit of high-level abstraction…