Telling the Story of Change: How We Use Stories to Change People—and Systems
Ive been prompted to write this blog, having just finished reading Gangsta Granny with my daughter- it was a much more powerful story than we expected and it has shaped some great family storytelling, tears, laughter, planning, visioning (Yes, its included, ‘where do you want me to sprinkle you when you die Mum’ question. Which I am actually very comfortable with and blessed to be able to hold that space for us.
What I really do: I tell stories, help others to tell stories and collect stories.
If you’re reading this, you probably believe system change doesn’t start with structures, strategies, or stats. It starts with people. Real people, in real places, navigating real complexity. And to truly understand the impact of our work, we must capture how change feels, as well as what it achieves. That’s why storytelling—particularly Stories of Significant Change—is core to how we learn, reflect, and adapt.
Stories of Significant Change: What They Are and Why They Matter
The Story of Significant Change method is a participatory, reflective approach rooted in the Most Significant Change technique. At TaAF, we’ve adapted this to fit the realities of place-based systems work. It allows our place leads, community partners, and system colleagues to pause and consider:
What has changed?
What feels meaningful or successful?
What didn’t go as planned?
What made the difference?
From there, the method supports people to unpick why change happened: How change happened, what were the ingredients? Who influenced it? What were the unintended outcomes? It captures the complexity, the relationships, the risk-taking—and the learning.
These stories become more than reflections. They are evidence—evidence that helps people articulate the value of their work, justify decisions, spot patterns, and influence others across their patch.
First, if you can squeeze an extra 4 minutes to watch this, this will tell you my commitment to WHY I choose to work through storytelling. “Our people and places are teeming with powerful stories”
A Culture of Story-Making, Not Just Storytelling
What makes this process work is that storytelling isn’t a one-off exercise—it’s woven into our culture. There are many things we do, and many mechanisms in place, to support the creation of stories that are useful and meaningful:
👥 Team Reflection: Our teams regularly come together to reflect on what’s working, what’s changing, and what feels significant.
☕ Thought Partnerships and Informal Conversations: Change is often surfaced in everyday moments—coffee chats, walks, car rides, or quick catch-ups. These are fertile spaces for noticing, wondering, and naming change as it unfolds.
🗣️ Curious Inquiry: All of our team members are learning to listen closely and ask deeper questions using a shared systems change language. We’ve built an environment where it’s safe—and expected—to be curious.
📝 Collaborative Story Refinement: Once stories are identified, teams come together again—often in person—to shape and refine them. This isn’t just about polishing for an audience. It’s about making the story useful: for learning, for sharing, for repeating what works, and avoiding what doesn’t.
This whole process makes the act of storytelling developmental—people don’t just report what happened, they come to understand it more deeply by telling it. And that deepens their capability as system changemakers. It’s worth noting here, that I’ve been trying and testing this approach since 2021, and it’s not perfect, nor will it ever be, but it’s the strongest example of embedded evaluation I have- and I’m seeing more and more organisations take it up in their way.
Grounded in A Model for Change
At the heart of TaAFs work is a simple idea: to change the system, we must first change the people. This means building the confidence, relationships, and capabilities of those working within it.
Sport England’s conceptual model reflects this journey—an iterative process where people, place, purpose, and power intersect. Stories of Significant Change make this journey visible. They help surface:
The enabling conditions for change
The system dynamics people are navigating
The ripple effects of action, even when not linear
The role of learning and reflection in sustaining progress
When people tell their story of change, they see themselves not just as implementers—but as changemakers.
Storytelling With Strategy—and Soul
Across all the places I’m working with right now, I’ve seen how data can inform—but stories move. They connect. They help people see themselves as part of something bigger. In complex systems, where change is slow and often invisible, storytelling brings clarity, momentum, and meaning.
Whether through our Stories of Significant Change or Humans of …style approaches, we’re building a culture where people pause to reflect, share what matters, and learn forward—together.
Because in this work, the story is the strategy. And I think I just made it FUN!
