What Story and Strategy have in common
Running a storytelling workshop recently, I got to thinking why it was that I, as someone whose primary role is in communications strategy, am so obsessed with and evangelical about story. Looked at from the outside, you'd think they were polar opposites – business strategy is all about objectivity, cool calculations, assessment of market position and decisions made on the grounds of business needs. Story, on the other hand, is about emotional connection, personal perspectives, experience and identity.
The connection – and of course it's an obvious one – came to me while reading a book of reviews of bad films. A story ‘works’ when its elements gel – characters, plot, context, obstacles, climax and resolution. The right characters in the wrong context – no. A decent setting but no plot – sorry. Great characters but absurd plot twists – do me a favour. And an unlikely and badly wrought ending – money back, please.
It's the same with business strategy. A strategy works when its elements work together coherently: the wrong starting point and you’ve lost people before you even begin; bad planning or unconnected phases and you lose direction; invisible or inadequate leadership and you have no driving force; unclear purpose and your people wander about aimlessly, never quite reaching your desired outcome.
A key feature in good stories is the suspension of disbelief. Even though you know ‘it's only a story’ you are fully prepared to go along with it because it's credible and authentic: it ‘feels real’. We buy into a story when the premise (the basic idea) is clear and believable, and the characters are three-dimensional and we ‘trust’ them.
Plot drivers come from a coherent place within the world that the characters inhabit, rather than magically from the outside. If characters do things that make sense to us, they create a momentum which carries us along willingly to the climax of the story. We become involved in the story and feel satisfied with the outcome.
Barack Obama's presidential campaign strategy was stunningly effective, obviously. It was premised on two very ‘big’ but simple principles: position the candidate as an agent of change – both for the democratic nomination and against his Republican opponent; and get many, many more voters to the polls. His campaign people functioned in two groups – the ‘thinkers’ and the ‘do-ers’ (those who shaped and drove the ‘change’ message, and those who mobilised support on the ground) – and at different times one or the other group took prominence depending on circumstance, but they all had the same objective in mind: their candidate was going to become president. No matter what came up along the way, those two principles drove the campaign. So much so that the outcome became almost inevitable.
If we look at the campaign strategy in terms of a story, what do we see? The character was compelling and well-defined; the plot was crystal clear; the obstacles, though at times enormous; were credibly and compellingly overcome; the climax was thrilling; and the outcome was deeply satisfying.
John McCain's election strategy, however, quite literally appeared to ‘lose the plot’ – the candidate's character became fuzzy and some of the plot twists, for example the appointment of Sarah Palin as running mate, simply beggared belief.
An obvious way to plan a strategy is to start at the end – the desired outcome – and work backwards. That gives you a time frame, within which you can plan concrete stages that build on each other and make sense. We know this, it's all quite rational, but it's not very colourful or exciting. And that's where ‘story thinking’ can help you.
A good strategy is one where the end goal is held clearly in mind, and there's a clear, strong path for reaching it. A good story is destroyed by a bad ending. What story can learn from strategy is planning for the right outcome. What business strategy can learn from story is the need for character, involvement and the suspension of disbelief.
