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Your Strategy Needs a Story

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Summary

This article explains how storytelling is an important part of strategy formulation. Business strategy is usually a rational process based on facts and analysis, but it must be communicated and understood by those who will implement it in order to be successful. Strategy stories can provide a powerful bridge between arguments and actions, intentions and results, and strategists and implementers. The Wildlife Conservation Society's strategy is used as an example of a successful strategy story. The article then provides a five-step guide for building a strategy story, including collecting observations, leveraging the power of questions, writing the story, testing it, and telling it.

Q&As

What is the purpose of a strategy story?
The purpose of a strategy story is to turn facts and information into a shared mental model of how the business works and where it is heading, and to motivate action.

What are the seven key ingredients when constructing a strategy story?
The seven key ingredients when constructing a strategy story are: the company's activities, the company's assets, the customers' behaviors, the customers' location, the revenues, how revenue has changed over time, and what triggered those changes.

How can story-telling be used to motivate action?
Story-telling can be used to motivate action by binding the logical ingredients of a strategy into an engaging narrative which can move their audience to act.

What are the five steps for developing a strategy story?
The five steps for developing a strategy story are: establishing the factual context, leveraging the power of questions, writing the strategy story, testing the story, and telling the story.

How can open strategy-making help ensure that the strategy is better understood and implemented?
Open strategy-making can help ensure that the strategy is better understood and implemented by allowing for the strategy process to be open to employees close to customers or competitors, as well as those charged with implementation. This can result in a strategy that is both more cogent and better understood and owned.

AI Comments

👍 This article provides a comprehensive overview of how storytelling can be used to create a powerful and engaging strategy story. The step-by-step guide of creating a strategy story and the case study of the Wildlife Conservation Society is an excellent example of how strategy stories can be used to motivate action and create competitive advantage.

👎 This article is too long and contains too much information. The step-by-step guide does not provide enough details on how to construct an effective strategy story and the case study is too general to be useful.

AI Discussion

Me: It's about how businesses need to use storytelling when crafting their strategies. The article talks about how storytelling can be used to motivate people to act, and how it can be used to create a shared mental model of how the business works and where it's heading. It also explains how to develop a strategy story and how to test it.

Friend: Wow, that's really interesting! It's definitely something I need to read. What are the implications of this article?

Me: Well, the article makes a compelling case for the use of storytelling in strategy formulation. It argues that storytelling can help bridge the gap between strategy formulation and implementation, and that it can help foster engagement and understanding of the strategy. Storytelling can also help create a shared mental model of how the business works and how it should move forward in the future, which can help improve the company's rate of learning and competitiveness. It can also help make the strategy more digestible and engaging.

Action items

Create a strategy story for your business that outlines the past, present, and future.
Ask questions about your company and competitors to ensure that your strategy-making process is structured and allows for exploration.
Test your strategy story on internal and external audiences to ensure that it is digestible, engaging, motivating, and clear.

Technical terms

Strategy formulation: The process of creating a plan of action to achieve a desired goal.
Storytelling: The act of telling stories, often used to engage an audience and communicate a message.
Strategy story: A narrative that is designed to engage an audience and communicate a strategy.
5W2H: A method of questioning that stands for who, what, where, when, why, how, and how much.
Mental model: A representation of how something works, used to understand and predict behavior.
Competitive advantage: An advantage over competitors gained by offering consumers greater value, either by means of lower prices or by providing greater benefits and service that justifies higher prices.