Assessing Stories Managers Tell

Seven assessment criteria are developed from applied logic and supported by relevant literature: relevancy, application, factual/lifelike, social construction, effectiveness, has a point, and goodness. These assessment criteria can be used in narrative inquiry by scholars, storytellers, and listeners to assess how well stories meet these criteria and promote the transference of experiential knowledge to practice. To illustrate how these assessment criteria can be used in thematic narrative inquiry, a convenience sample of three city managers was selected, qualitative interviews consisting of previously structured questions were conducted, and stories were elicited. The city managers’ stories were selected and assessed to determine the level of specificity with which the story met the criterion. Based on these assessments, the authors identified the best storyteller from the perspective of the listener, highlighting characteristics of good storytellers. Public management heuristics developed from themes or points from the stories are discussed.