Suzanne Tesselaar

The Story of a Kiss: Storytelling in Organizational Change Suzanne Tesselaar

Over 80 % of organizational change efforts fail, management literature says. No wonder, as change is continuous and difficult, if not impossible, to manage. This book reports on an empirical research into 9 organizations, at the early stages of a merger. Organizational storytelling is used as an interactive intervention showing how lived and co-constructed stories mobilize people for change efforts. It addresses the temporal aspects of intentional change efforts, offering a much better chance of success than attempting to manage organizational change in a linear fashion. Experience how stories create cultural embedding through a common language in the 9 organizations, leaving management one step behind the change they, themselves, initiated.