The Springboard : How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations

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Summary: The good, the bad and the ugly
Review: 'The springboard' is one of the most unique books about Knowledge Management I've read. Denning has successfully used story-telling writing style to illustrate the power of story-telling in implementing Knowledge Management (KM) initiative. There are large number of books in the market about KM tools, framework, and technologies, that are focusing on the strategic or scientific side of KM, 'The springboard' offers a rare and refreshing view on the soft barriers side (employee behavior, cultural difference etc) of it.

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Summary: Richly Rewards Patience--LISTEN to the Story He Tells
Review:

If you are impatient, narrow-minded, and opinionated (or overly enamored of your own opinion), don't buy this book. I bought it and eventually read it because someone I respect very much recommended it. I would not have bought it at my own initiative, and part of the my purpose in writing this review is to persuade you to take a chance on this book, whose title, while accurate, may be off-putting to those that think they are serious, action-oriented, "just the facts" get on with it types.

The author has done something special here, and it is especially relevant to those of us on the bleeding edge of change in the information and intelligence industries, each trying to communicate extraordinarily complex and visionary ideas to the owners with money or the bureaucrats with power--neither of these groups being especially patient or visionary.

The book accomplished three things with me, and I am a very hard person to please: 1) it compellingly demonstrated the inadequacy of the industry standard briefing, consisting of complex slides with complex ideas outlined in excrutiating detail; 2) it demonstrated how a story-telling approach can accomplish two miracles: a) explain complex ideas in a visual short-hand that causes even the most jaded skeptic to "get it," and b) do this in such a way that the audience rather than the speaker "fills in the blanks" and in so doing becomes a stakeholder in the vision for change; and 3) finally, provides several useful appendices that will help anyone craft a "story" with an action-inducing effect.

The footnotes and bibliography are sufficient to make the point that this is not just a story, but a well-researched and well-documented real-world experience of great value to any gold-collar revolutionary struggling to overcome obstacles to reform.

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Summary: THE Manual on using Story to Instigate Change
Review: As a professional who uses storytelling in the business world to catalyze community, I have found The Springboard by Steve Denning to be the manual I wish I had had ten years ago. Over and over again I appreciated his articulate description of the components and dynamics of good storytelling.

Denning provides a profoundly different perspective on how storytelling operates effectively in an organizational context. The content of this book is unmatched by any of the current literature. The implications go beyond knowledge management. The last chapter explores the deeper meaning of storytelling and its potential contribution, pointing the way to a different and exciting future.

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Summary: An eye-opener, must-have for change and KM projects
Review: As someone involved with leading change in my organization as well as knowledge management programs, I found this book really helpful. It is not a "how to" book, although the author does give you some step-by-step guidance with the appendix, but rather a "why you should" type of book.

It advocates the use of storytelling for leading change and it uses the World Bank as the example. The comparison with greek philosophers and other classic works may sound a bit boring at first but it just gives you more food for thought on why storytelling has been used for such a long time. And it also gives more credibility to the text, you know that this guy is not a hot-shot consultant who is just trying to sell an idea.

One of the best things about the book is that the author also shares what went wrong and what he should have done differently. Very difficult to find such a thing among other business books (they all seem to be claiming to be the silver bullet).

Finally, it is a great eye-opener and can give you some insights on how to use storytelling in your day-to-day activities. If you're into knowledge management, this is a must-have.

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Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: I have read a few books and articles about the importance of storytelling in business. This book finally makes sense of it all, and provides useful explanations for why it works where other more traditional approaches simply do not. Well written and highly informative. Simply, a masterpiece!

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Summary: A simple concept - a powerful idea ...
Review: On the surface, "Storytelling for organizational change" seems like a simple tale of a simple solution to a vexing problem. It is a tale of a journey into the uncharted territory of knowledge management, but it is also a tale of how telling stories enabled major organizational changes to take place. Again on the surface, it seems deceptively simple - just tell a story and the organization will change. Therein lies the paradox: on the surface, it is a simple story. Beneath the surface, though, it is a story of Denning's quiet persistence on the given strategy, of shepherding, coaxing, coercing and guiding others over whom he had no authority to go in the direction of that strategy. Throughout the book, Denning shows how he combined the vision and strategy of sharing knowledge with his search for ways and means to make people in the organization understand what this meant and to get them to buy-in and join the journey. His sensitivity to his audiences' reactions and subsequent deep introspection leads him to question the established ways of communicating about change. This is the real power of "Storytelling for organizational change": it is his introspection, his questioning and research, that led him to uncovering the power of telling stories - and not just any story, but a specific type of story that not only has all the components of the changes being introduced, but also has the power to transport the listener to a place where he or she can actually see their own organization working in the way described in the story. Denning gives specific ideas and tips for finding, creating and using springboard stories for organizational change. What the reader must develop for him- or herself is the ability to emulate Denning's quiet but relentless persistence in the face of both overt and covert resistance - which runs as a second strand throughout the book - in seeking out and using the stories to show how the organizational change is both valid and successful. This book has value to anyone trying to introduce any type of organization change, as well as for introducing knowledge management itself.

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Summary: Knowledge Management Classic work
Review: Stephen Denning describes in a more or less chronological way how he discovered the power of storytelling as a tool to change people's views and decisions. Of course, storytelling has been a (if not the) major means for transmitting wisdom and knowledge throughout the generations since the dawn of time. What Denning has done in this book, however, is both to popularize storytelling as a management technique suitable for contemporary change agents, but also to provide some analysis as to what constitutes a "springboard" story--one that is effective in effecting change. His appendices provide some matrixed data to support his analyses and guide the reader in implementation. Some of the factors making "springboard" stories effective are intuitive. A true story is more effective; a story involving one's own organization is more effective... This book is not a cookbook for devising/using these stories, rather it is more descriptive and represents more of an initial foray into the value and use of storytelling. It could use a sequel and, perhaps, a statistical analysis. Furthermore, it can be less than an exciting read. Indeed, one wonders if there is too much detail or too much autobiography in parts. Nonetheless, it is a fundamental classic of present-day Knowledge Management and provides an ingress into the fascinating world of applying human psychology in organization management.

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Summary: Some value, but the writing style makes this a boring read
Review: Storytelling is an effective way to communicate ideas and gain buy-in, but the story has to be compelling enough to capture and hold attention. This book fails to capture and hold your attention because the author's writing style makes his story of discovering the positive impact of storytelling uninteresting.

There are some positives in the book. If you are involved in knowledge management, you may be able to follow the story a little better. Also, the appendix tells you the essential elements of a springboard story and takes stories in the book and dissects them into those elements. Finally, the book touches both on crafting the story and delivering the story, though neither is treated with a lot of depth.

If you already have experience with storytelling and want a reference on how to apply to business, this book could be useful. However, I would first look for a used copy to purchase.

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Summary: An invaluable aid to managing change.
Review: The Springboard belongs on any short list for best business book of its year. It is an essential addition to the bookshelf of anyone, executive or consultant, who is concerned with the management of change.This is a book that I will keep with the half dozen or so to which I constantly refer.

The context of the book is the introduction of knowledge management into a very large organization - The World Bank - but its relevance extends to any and every aspect of the change process.

The form of the book is an extended story about storytelling and the impact of a particular type of story in engaging the attention and commitment of people to necessary change. It is written directly, simply and with a poet's precision of language, which makes it immensely readable. Many of the books that I review, I skim for points of value. This one I read from cover to cover, and enjoyed doing so.

The thesis is a simple one and the extended framing story about the development of knowledge management within The World Bank, which makes up the book, proves the thesis. Change is driven both by the logic of the relationship of the organization to its environment and by the interaction of human hopes, fears and preferred perspectives (mental models) with the 'objective' situation. When new departures are needed, an appropriate story can engage the imagination and creative powers of the audience, where analysis and logical argument may only engage the critical faculty. A story can provide the means of circumventing an unacknowledged fear of change and built-in defences by enticing the audience to participate in the creation of a world that overcomes problems which affect all of them. Denning's thesis is not that a story is all that is needed; it is that the initiating power of stories has been neglected in our culturally preferred analytical approach to problem definition and problem solving.

I happen to have been working with an organization that seeks to do on a smaller scale some of the things that The World Bank does on a very large scale, and is currently experiencing many of the issues that Denning describes in The Springboard. Both his diagnosis and his prescription ring absolutely true. In every chapter I found explanations, ideas and suggestions that are immediately useful and helpful, not only to that situation, but to any change management situation.

There are five invaluable appendices summarizing aspects of the development, presentation and performance of springboard stories, structures for building up a springboard story and examples of stories with explanatory marginal notes on the role of each part of the story. These provide an extremely useful ready reference for the practitioner.

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Summary: The Power of Emotional Engagement
Review: Think about it. Who are among the greatest storytellers throughout history? My own list includes Homer, Plato, Chaucer, Aesop, Jesus, Dante, Boccaccio, the brothers Grimm, Confucius, Abraham Lincoln, Hans Christian Andersen, and most recently, E.B. White. Whatever the genre (epic, parable, fable, allegory, anecdote, etc.), each used exposition, description, and narration to illustrate what they considered to be fundamental truths about the human condition. In this volume, Denning focuses on "how storytelling ignites action in knowledge-led organizations" and does so with uncommon erudition, precision, and eloquence.

His narrative covers a period of approximately three years during which he used what he calls "springboard" stories to "spark organizational change" at The World Bank. More specifically, to forge a consensus within that organization to support the design and then implementation of effective knowledge management, first for itself and then for its clients worldwide. How he accomplished that objective is in and of itself a fascinating "story" but the book's greater value lies in what he learned in process, lessons which are directly relevant to virtually all other organizations (regardless of size or nature) which struggle to "do more with less and do it faster" in the so-called Age of Information. Maximizing use of their collective intellectual capital is most often the single most effective way to do that.

There are several reasons why this book impressed me so much. Here are three. First, Denning allows his reader to accompany him during the process by which he eventually overcame rigorous but subtle internal opposition to what was perceived to be a threat to the status quo at The World Bank. Second, he shares with his reader the profoundly important realization -- well along during the process -- that he needed to use a "springboard" story to win over his opposition. That is to say, practice what he had been preaching but without (until then) much success. Finally, he provides just about anything his reader needs to know inorder to use storytelling to achieve the same objectives within her or his own organization: forge a consensus of support, design and implement an internal information management program, and then extend participation and benefits to all other stakeholders, especially customers or clients as well as strategic partners.

The comprehensive narrative (which really increases in pace and impact after Denning's "profoundly important realization") is supplemented by six appendices: Elements for Developing the Springboard Story, Some Elements for using Visual Aids in Storytelling, Elements for Performing the Springboard Story, Building Up the Springboard Story: Four Different Structures, Examples of Springboard Stories, and finally, a Knowledge Management Chart. The Bibliography which follows is brief but more than adequate. The footnotes are conveniently provided within each chapter to facilitate correlation with Denning's text and indicate the nature and extent of his erudition.

Although Denning could probably hold his own during a workshop conducted within the highest of ivory towers, I value even more (much more) his immensely practical approach to accommodating all manner of realities such as the aforementioned opposition to his efforts within The World Bank and the importance of telling the appropriate "springboard" story to an external audience. For example, the same story which was enthusiastically received by his audience in London was met with polite silence soon thereafter by another audience in Bern.

In this review, I have only begun to indicate the nature and extent of the invaluable wisdom and practical advice which Denning provides. Why Five Stars? Because a higher rating is not available.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Guy Claxton's Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less (1999); Peter M. Senge's The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990) and The Dance of Change: The Challenges of Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations (1999); William Isaacs' Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together: A Pioneering Approach to Communicating in Business and in Life (1999); Carla O'Dell's If Only We Knew What We Know: The Transfer of Internal Knowledge and Best Practice (1998); and Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak's Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know (1997).