Sensemaking in organizational storytelling: From linear storytelling to antenarrative

Abstract

Storytelling can be considered good professional practice for organizational communication as it resonates with stakeholder audiences and contributes to the process of sensemaking. This paper challenges two key assumptions that underpin storytelling in an organizational context. The first assumption is that clarity is the goal of storytelling and therefore linear modes of organizational storytelling should be used to reduce complexity to achieve clarity of understanding of organizational messages. The second assumption is that organizational storytelling consists only of the stories an organization tells about itself, and multiple understandings or ‘mixed messages’ are ‘noise’. This paper will argue that the storytelling concept antenarrative – or narrative fragments that can form emergent storytelling episodes – will expand the parameters of sensemaking in organizational storytelling. Furthermore, listening to emergent storytelling episodes can provide insights into prospective sensemaking, which has implications for organizational storytelling practices in our digital age. Putting antenarrative alongside concepts such as ‘listening’ and ‘engagement’ helps to improve organizational storytelling to work toward more effective organizational communication practice and respond to the challenges of complexity in storytelling, entanglements of the porous organization, and digital disruption.