When change arrives in the workplace, so do the usual suspects. You know the ones—the person who resists every new idea, clinging tightly to the old way of doing things. They’re often labeled as being “stuck in their ways,” reluctant to embrace new technologies, skeptical of innovation, or just plain pessimistic. And let’s not forget the stereotype of someone unwilling to learn new skills, convinced that what worked in the past will keep working forever.
But these labels don’t tell the full story. Beneath this resistance lies something far more complex: fear of the unknown, the discomfort of losing control, the desire to hold on to familiar routines that feel safe, or confusion sparked by convoluted communication from higher up.
When faced with uncertainty, it’s human nature to seek comfort in what we know—and this instinct can make change feel like an unwanted threat.
As a leader, the solution to overcoming these deeper challenges isn’t more facts, rigid structures, or endless instructions. What really helps your people move through change is something creative and human: storytelling. Stories have the power to connect, inspire, and shift perspectives, making them a powerful tool for building resilience and team culture during times of upheaval.
In this blog post, I explore five unconventional, story-driven strategies that can help you tackle resistance head-on. From future journaling to co-reading sessions, these approaches offer fresh, engaging ways to transform how your team handles change, bringing them together to not just survive, but thrive.
1. Future Journalling
FUTURE JOURNALLING SNAPSHOT
- Used by: Individuals.
- Great for: Gaining a sense of control; pre-programming your brain to look for highlights and successes; reframing challenges and negatives into positive outcomes; resilience.
- Who can help me with these? DIY – This process requires no training or facilitation.
- Can I do this myself? Yes!
- Why we love this: It actually works! I’ve had a lot of success with it in my business and personal life.
Each night, you sit down to write in your journal. But instead of reflecting on the day you’ve just had, you invent the day you want to have tomorrow. You write about goals achieved and challenges managed as if they’ve already happened – and you’re damn proud of yourself for making it through another day successfully! Then, you re-read your story before sleep and once more in the morning, never to look at that entry again. This is future journaling.
Athletes use future journalling to manage pressure and visualise success, but it can be just as useful for anyone facing change or uncertainty. Future journaling helps you mentally and emotionally prepare for the next day. By rehearsing challenges in advance, you become more resilient and adaptable if and when they arise. During times of change, where the future feels unstable or uncertain, future journaling can help you feel centred, strong and confident.
2. DayLOs – A Day in the Life Of…
DAYLOS SNAPSHOT
- Used by: Project management teams and leaders.
- Great for: Preparing for upcoming change; testing and iterating your change concept; understanding your audience (plus – check out this approach for product and service design called Applied User Story Mapping)
- Who can help me with these? I can write Day in the Life Of’s for your organisation, or run workshops for senior executives and project managers to plan and craft DayLOs for specific projects and teams. Get in touch to talk about what you need.
- Can I do this myself? Yes!
- Why I love this: They can be graphic as well as text which is great for including diverse audiences.
DayLOs (Day in the Life Ofs) are short narratives based on anticipated changes over the next 12-18 months, focused on live projects your team is working on. They can be used to shape the look and feel of a proposed change by helping you get into the mind of your audience, identify potential challenges, and adapt your approach to get the best outcome. DayLOs are similar to the user journey or experience maps used by UX designers and marketers.
DayLOs can also be used to gain ‘buy-in’ once new processes, structures and initiatives have been planned, in advance of being rolled out. They help people picture themselves in new environments, and build resilience and enthusiasm for upcoming changes. When I worked on school building projects with architects in the UK, I wrote DayLOs for the new designs and curricula from the perspectives of students and teachers, guiding them through their day in the new spaces to visualise how change would work in practice.
3. Change Story Bank for Leaders
CHANGE STORY BANK SNAPSHOT
- Great for: Inspiring leadership; empathy; humanising the workplace
- Who can help me with these? Michelle Newell, creator of the Storytelling for Sustainable Change workshops and story templates.
- Can I do this myself? Yes! Once you’ve learned the ingredients of great storytelling, and the purpose of each Change Story type, you can begin mining your experience for your stories.
- Why I love this: Once you begin looking for your stories, they are everywhere!
How do you become a better leader during times of change? By being deliberately story-led in your communication. During change, people operate at peak emotion. As a leader stories can help you to connect authentically with your people and help them reframe their perception of change. Our brains thrive on stories, activating multiple areas and releasing hormones into our bloodstream that can make us feel motivated, inspired, reassured, resilient or ready for action!
A Change Story Bank is a reservoir of stories built around events, anecdotes, and happenings in your personal and professional experience. They could tap into the history of the organisation, reflect on the team’s past successes or imagine a different kind of future. Pre-planning your change stories and logging them in your ‘story bank’ gives you greater confidence to draw from them when needed, instead of defaulting to practical information sharing.
4. Futures Scenarios
FUTURES SCENARIOS SNAPSHOT
- Great for: building resilience, strategic planning, resilience, ideation
- Who can help me with these? Simon Waller, Futurist (I’m Simon’s partner in writing these)
- Can I do this myself? No. This story is built on an assessment of relevant signals and follows a particular structure. The story is complemented by thoughtful questions and workshopped with your team.
- Why I love these: Futures scenarios are so much fun! They can be a little whacky and dystopian, which encourages conversation and out-of-the-box thinking.
During a recent storytelling workshop, someone asked me how to convince her client to roll out a new initiative that showed promise but could succeed or fail. Essentially, she was asking me how to use story to encourage her client to take a leap of faith. My story approach in a situation like this is futures scenarios. While it’s not possible to predict the future, it is possible to prepare people for it – no matter what curveballs are thrown their way!
Futures scenarios are set 10 years in advance, in a world that looks very different to our own but feels possible or probable based on current signals and trends spotted by your community. By workshopping the scenarios, teams imagine potential outcomes, prepare for various possibilities, and pivot their work towards their preferred futures; ultimately influencing what the future may look like! When the future arrives, sometimes earlier than expected, the work your team has done with futures scenarios will help them meet any eventuality with resilience and adaptability.
5. Co-reading sessions
CO-READING SESSIONS SNAPSHOT
- Great for: Empathy, Psychological safety, Wellness, Active listening
- Who can help me with these? Ann Kowal Smith, and the team at Reflection Point have pioneered the approach to discussing fiction stories in the workplace. They are USA based and have run projects in the Americas and Europe. Australia, we may have to wait our turn…
- Can I run these myself? Possibly, depending on the skills of your L&D team. A trained educator or facilitator should advise on story selection, and be present to host the conversation and address sticking points.
- Why I love these: I love a good story! Bringing fiction into the workplace is a creative, subversive, and unexpected act.
Co-reading and talking sessions can help teams navigate change with a greater sense of connection and shared purpose. In a co-reading session, participants read a short fiction story in advance and then meet to discuss how the story relates to their values, lives and work. Following long periods of disconnection and the rise of remote work during COVID, the opportunity to bring people together is a great antidote to uncertainty and instability.
The co-reading process is about more than discovering a new story. It provides space for busy, dispersed or diverse teams to build dialogue, empathy, and understanding. People will often disagree on the content, intent or impact of a story – and this is healthy! By engaging in dissent in a safe environment, teams become more productive and collaborative in their daily work.
Bringing it All Together: The Power of Stories in Times of Change
Navigating change is never easy, but by tapping into the power of storytelling, teams can transform uncertainty into opportunity and fear into resilience. Whether it’s visualising success through future journaling, preparing for transitions with Day in the Life Of stories, or fostering empathy and psychological safety with co-reading sessions, each of these story-driven strategies offers a creative and human approach to change.
In moments of upheaval, people don’t crave more data or rigid plans; they crave connection, understanding, and a sense of shared purpose. Stories provide that essential thread, weaving together individual experiences and collective goals to strengthen team culture. When we allow ourselves to approach change not just with logic but with emotion and imagination, we can empower our teams to adapt, grow, and thrive in any environment.
The next time your organisation faces the inevitable challenges of change, remember: the stories you tell and the ways you engage your team can be the difference between resistance and resilience.
