Strategy as story

Many organizations use stories or storytelling as a tactic or tool to help advance their strategies. With the growth in attention on narrative change in recent years, many organizations’ strategies also include a focus on changing the underlying stories that help shape cultural mindsets. But I’ve also been thinking recently about strategy as story: that essentially, a strategy is a story we tell ourselves about who we are, what our aim or purpose is, why it’s important, and how we think we can achieve it. 

A story can be defined as a set of characters in a particular setting, connected by a common problem, moving through a series of events over time (plot) towards a resolution. The parallels with strategy are clear since a good strategy outlines characters (the organization, its allies, opponents and audiences), a problem (climate change, injustice) a goal (change policies and systems to achieve justice) and a timeframe (within 5 years), and the envisaged path for moving from the problem to the goal. 

Nested Stories

Actually, a strategy is a set of nested stories - a strategy is a story that is built upon a number of other stories.  There is the story we tell ourselves about who we are, our place in the world, and what we are capable of doing. There is the story we tell about the conditions and systems we are trying to change - what they are, how they operate, whose interests they are serving, why they are just or unjust and what can be done about it. There is the story about who our community is, or who our audience is, who our opponents are, and so on. 

There are often a lot of assumptions embedded in all of these - which may or may not be accurate or helpful - and which are often unconscious or unquestioned. Sometimes the various stories within a strategy conflict or are in tension with one another. All of this has an impact on the success, or not, of the strategy. For example, if we hope to mobilize people to take action but our actions and stories position our audience as passive observers or make them feel hopeless and helpless, we are undermining our own strategy. 

Thinking of strategy as a set of nested stories enables us to surface and investigate each of those stories in turn and assess whether or not they are accurate or helpful. It also enables us to consider others’ stories - about themselves, about us, about the system we’re trying to change – and the extent to which they align with or clash with our own. Again, this has an impact on our success. For example, in many countries human rights activists who are working on a particular issue – corruption, or environmental degradation, racial justice –  also have to deal with the harmful stories others tell about them – such as that they are unpatriotic and ‘foreign agents’. So rather than either ignoring this, or trying to fight on two different fronts, how can activists' actions and communication tell a story related to the issue, that at the same time also reinforces a more helpful story about themselves?

Agility, flexibility, and long-term vision

Thinking about strategy as story can also enable agility and flexibility. Too often organizations set strategies over a multi-year period, without much room for change and adaptation in the face of changing conditions. However, a story is dynamic - characters take actions which elicit actions from other characters, which lead to reactions. There are often surprises, twists and turns. Characters discover things about themselves they did not know before, and again adapt accordingly. 

Finally, a focus on strategy as story can help us pay more attention to how we want the story to end. Too often we can be focused on resolving an immediate problem - focused on what we don’t want - rather than the longer term vision of the world we do want. Thinking about strategy as story can help us keep that longer term, inspiring end in mind, and help ensure we also communicate that vision to others.