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Succession Planning

The Story of Succession

Lindsay Edmonds Wickman

Once upon a time, the federal government had many employees who were baby boomers. These boomers were about to retire, and the government was in desperate need of a way to transfer their knowledge to younger workers. They looked to their hero — storytelling — to provide a solution.

Organizational storytelling can be used in the government as a way to facilitate the succession of younger employees into the roles left behind by retiring boomers. It’s an apt mechanism for transferring knowledge and experience and can also help to engage, recruit and retain fresh talent.

“What is the heart and soul of the organization?” asked Lynne Feingold, an organizational consultant, trainer and speaker who helped promote the use of organizational storytelling in the U.S. General Services Administration. “It’s the stories that people tell. When we talk about stories, we’re talking about shared experiences, and that’s the most efficient way to share knowledge. It’s not the knowledge you can read in a book; it’s the years of wisdom and implicit knowledge that somebody’s gained.”

Stories can be an integral part of most employees’ daily lives, whether the tales are personal or professional. Thus, almost everyone is a storyteller. As a result, government employees just have to harness employees’ natural talent when using organizational storytelling.

“Somebody says: ‘How’d the meeting go?’” Feingold said. “You tell them how the meeting went. There were people that were involved, there were actions, there were motivations, there were feelings and there were obstacles. Those are the essential parts of a story.”

Stories also can help to attract and retain talent. “People who feel engaged want to come to work every day. I like to use the metaphor of a symphony orchestra,” Feingold said.

“The conductor serves like the CEO, and to play great music the conductor has to listen to all the musicians and all the musicians have to listen to each other. If you see the different instruments like stories, it’s only through the telling and listening of every person’s story in the organization that a great organization is created.

“Every individual has a story [and] every organization has a story. Those stories have to be told. When you’re looking to capture knowledge or [attract] the right people, you need to match the individual story with the organizational story, and that’s the key to attracting and retaining people.”

Whether an organization is using storytelling for knowledge capture or in recruiting and retaining employees, the story must be aligned with an objective to be effective.

“When you’re telling a story, what’s the context, what’s the purpose, what’s the outcome that you want to get?” Feingold said. “There are different reasons for telling stories, so a story always has to be seen in context.”

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