Strategy development through interview technique from narrative therapy
Journal of Organizational Change Management
ISSN: 0953-4814
Article publication date: 13 February 2017
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the successful strategy formulation process of a new purchasing department at an international engineering group.
Design/methodology/approach
The strategy formulation was co-created by the department manager and employees at a storytelling workshop, facilitated with interview technique from narrative therapy, and later authorized by the business area director. The organizational intervention preceded the scholarly inquiry.
Findings
Employees’ retrospective storytelling about working at the company enabled them to formulate a joint mission statement using words and expressions from their own stories. Prospective storytelling enabled them to formulate a joint medium- and long-term vision and a corresponding action plan. This paper proposes interview technique from narrative therapy as a new practice-oriented strategic management tool and calls for further experimentation in rethinking best practices in strategy development.
Originality/value
Introducing narrative therapy interview technique in an organizational context is valuable because it may facilitate affinity of employees to strategy through storytelling thus contributing to contextualized strategy formulation and paving the way for subsequent implementation. This “from practice to research” approach can serve as inspiration for action researchers interested in driving organizational change.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper, with the same title, was presented at the Colloque Organizational Development and Change 2016 in Lyon, June 9-10 2016 and published in the conference proceedings.
Citation
Kryger, A. (2017), "Strategy development through interview technique from narrative therapy", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 4-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-06-2016-0111
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited