A521.1.4.RB - Stories in Your Organization

In my currently assigned organization, the one story that keeps rearing its head is the one dealing with the federal government budget.  This is a story that has many faces and points of view. I have been an employee of the federal government for over 27 years in many capacities and the story changes from year to year.  The story always starts with a negative story line and depending on who is telling the story, it can be very descriptive.  Many time these stories describes how events will happen and what will happen if certain situations do not happen…and so on and so on.  However with all this negative rhetoric, so far the world has not ended, the US economy has not imploded and collapsed, people have not started jumping off cliffs yet and we are still the most influential country in the world as we know it.  Personally, I feel these repetitive stories cause undue stress while feeding on the fears of individuals (like the stories of old concerning plagues, werewolves, and vampires) and speaks volumes about "who we are and what we stand for as a people".  Do we intentionally manipulate stories to benefit our own personal agendas?  There is no doubt in my mind that the individuals telling the stories provide meaningful and dramatic details so that the audience will want to hear the story.  At the same time, the story tellers of this situation often spark imagination by inserting phrases such as “Just imagine…”  and “What if…”; adding just enough audience-engaging drama and revealing just enough personal past experiences to provide validity and strengthen the story’s believability.  I know from prior experience that this very circumstance has affected many peoples idea's about the United States government culture as a whole.  The thought of inefficiencies, selfishness, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, all paint a negative image of the government to the average citizen.  From personal perspectives, I have learned to try to avoid these stories because normally they focus on situations I cannot influence.  However, every now and then some radical individual tells the story and baits me in with their long term synopsis of the organization and what direction they may go in the future.  Although such stories may seem harmless, they have both a direct and indirect impact on organizations.  These stories are often bottled up as negative rumors that flow from agency to agency, from office to office, and even cubicle to cubicle. Good luck to anyone who tries to tame this grapevine of rumors.  With these stories, morale often takes a downward spiral, you can often see the stress such stories cause in the faces of some employees.  Although we know these stories are often over dramatic, when told with passion, we listen to them knowing that they will stress us out. With such stories being told, the culture of the organization has become one of distrust, uncertainty and disloyalty.  So to answer the question of whether these stories promote the goals and ideals of the organization, the answer is definitely no.  I don’t think such stories will ever go away; they will just be changed to fit the audience.  These types of stories were here before I arrived and will be there when I am long gone.