Once Upon a Business Case: Recognising the Strategy of Story

"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood, divide the tasks, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The need to communicate complex topics to third parties, whether they be executives, stakeholders, or potential clients, is a universally recognised challenge across industries and sectors – particularly doing so in a way that connects with the people behind these roles. You can enter a meeting with all of the evidence, data, insights, and analysis, but unless you make an emotional connection with your audience, you are only going to get halfway there. In other words, you might win their minds, but how are you going to win their hearts?

In this article, Mauro Mortali, Senior Partner for Strategy and expert in leveraging the power of narrative to convey a message, details how to apply age-old story structures and techniques in a business context to amplify communication and build positive working relationships. This approach of using the power of story is a key part of how Cambridge MC delivers Strategy Development projects.

The Science of Story

The practice of storytelling is an intrinsic component in the genetics of human nature and our history. Cave paintings may be comprised of pictures rather than words, but they still tell a story and represent the way in which constructing narratives is as old as communication itself. Since then, story has proved invaluable for enabling us to share experiences, transfer knowledge, and build social connections.

In fact, there is evidence to suggest that story is the primary lens with which we interpret the world and digest our day-to-day lives. Though it may seem reductive, our brains are constantly creating a world for us to understand our experiences, populated with ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’, main characters – Me! – and deuteragonists – You. All of our milestones, memories, and goals, become the plot-points that tell the story of our lives.

This makes them the perfect, universal language with which to engage with other people. Our brains respond positively and attentively to stories because they eliminate distraction and help us to remain focused on a particular topic or message. We register stories with the same receptors that detect speakers, giving them the ability to reach our psyche quicker and facilitate a shared experience. 

In a Board Room Far, Far Away

So how can we apply these practices and principles to our working life? In short: decision making is driven by emotion first and rationality second. We spend a lot of our time justifying decisions that we have already made with our gut. Fundamentally, organisations are systems of people who are characterised and steered by their emotions, and so organisations should be considered to be a network of collected emotions.

Thus, data may speak to a person’s rationality, but it is often not enough to influence their actions or their decisions. Stories are significantly more powerful for the way they capture someone’s emotions, and so the language and narrative you use to frame your data has much more authority. Below are several techniques that you can use to strengthen this framing to facilitate an emotional connection with your audience.

Narrative Arcs

A narrative arc can be a useful tool for structuring a speech or proposal to make its delivery more cohesive, relatable, and dynamic. There are numerous classical arcs which you can extrapolate to fit the message you are seeking to convey and suit the tone you are hoping to create. 

The Cinderella Story, for example, provides an inspiring rags-to-riches trajectory which communicates hope, optimism, and determination. Man in a Hole (a person leading a perfectly bearable life finds misfortune, overcomes it, and then is much happier afterwards) is useful when encouraging someone to escape from a stagnating situation. And when you need to face your fears, or empower someone to do the same, Overcoming the Monster (an underdog story where the main character sets out to destroy a greater evil of some kind) provides a positive framework for success.

The most common and popular, however, was uncovered by Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) in the 1940s, upon collating and studying all available myths, legends, and fairytales across the world to compare them for similar patterns and structures. Following this thematic analysis, Campbell coined the Hero’s Journey, a monomyth which can be applied to nearly all protagonists between classical and modern fiction, and now the boardroom, following their journey from the call to adventure, initial resistance, influence from a wise mentor, and ultimately pursuing their mission. 

Simplified, this becomes a universal and accessible three-act structure of Context / Conflict / Resolution (known to some as SOAR: Situation, Obstacle, Action, Result) which can be used to frame any story and give it an emotional, uplifting ending.

Hook, Line & Success

When you begin a story, open in a way that immediately captivates your audience, and sustains their engagement and belief in what you are about to reveal. These are referred to as hooks, and, similar to narrative arcs, there are numerous different kinds that you can use. For example:

• Provocative Question: Intrigue your audience with a provocative question that compels them to learn the answer, e.g. What if a single app could revolutionise the way we manage our health?

• Personal Anecdote: Speak to the human, emotional side of your audience by pulling from your background or that of your company, e.g. Five years ago, our founder was living out of a van chasing a dream; today, that dream is a $1million enterprise. 

These represent only a couple of examples, but it is important to remember that the rule of first impressions applies just as much to your story as it does to you, so open with something charismatic that will make your audience want to learn the rest.

Know Your Audience

Choosing a hook to open your story can be coloured by a keen and informed understanding of your audience. Specifically, predicting how they will respond to a topic is dependent on knowing their comprehension of it before you begin.

One way to visualise this is through the idea of a Story Ladder, which extends from a place of no awareness on your given subject or message, and lands in a place of actionable understanding. The rungs in between represent all the stages of knowledge which it takes to get from one end to the other—and thus it is unrealistic to expect your audience to be able to jump multiple rungs at a time. Before addressing your audience, first acknowledge where on this ladder they are to anticipate where you would like them to end up, and how you will manoeuvre them there.

Another way to imagine this ladder uses a more emotional structure. If you view the top of the ladder as a feeling you want to produce, you can use the rungs as stages to work out how you can produce an emotional pay-off.

Happily Ever After

We will finish our story with a reiteration on the importance of speaking to the hearts of your audience, as well as their minds. One half of this may be supported by data, facts, and figures, but the rest is ensured by a relatable, thought-through, and structured delivery which speaks to the human, rather than just the client/employee/stakeholder/etc.

This can be informed by turning to the idea of story, a premise which everyone has grown up with, whether consciously or not, and thus envelops a social feeling of community, and amplifies your message with importance and universality.

In this article, we have detailed the basic methods of forming this structure and improving how you frame your narratives, but for further guidance and information on this topic and how Cambridge MC uses story within Strategy Development Projects, get in touch with Mauro Mortali, Senior Partner for Strategy.