Why story comes before strategy...

For the past decade I have been running a consultancy using storytelling as a tool to achieve all kinds of things - communicating impossibly complex science, empowering young people, building trusting relationships over conflict-lines and gathering support for new initiatives. I have seen how stories move people's hearts and minds and generate energy for change. But I have often felt frustrated by the way storytelling is seen in the "serious" worlds of science, business and government. 

Storytelling has flimsy, whimsical connotations next to the serious language of strategy. In organisations, communication departments are positioned down the hierarchy from the executive team who defines the strategy. Storytelling is often seen as a finishing exercise to shape a project up for presentation to the world. 

I see the place of stories as much more fundamental than this. Stories are powerful evolutionary tools that our brains have developed to make sense of the world. They transform the overwhelming stream of sensory impressions into a consistent picture which enables us to make decisions and move forward. 

While strategy helps us define “how” we achieve things, stories define who we are, what we want to achieve and why. They are like the DNA for our behaviour, shaping, without effort, the way things grow. 

Stories encapsulate our values and emotions. Perhaps this is why rationalists try to avoid them -  they seem anathema to the pursuit of objectivity. But the truth is that, whether we like it or not, our decisions are shaped by our values and stories - even if we are scientists! And if we deny the power of our values, they act even more powerfully and unconsciously. 

By studying stories, we can find the roots of conflict in the world. Everyone creates slightly different stories of events and these stories often clash. We need to be able to talk about this. While we focus on trying to be objective, we miss this important point. But if we become aware of our stories and search for shared stories, I think that solutions will follow easily.

I have felt encouraged recently to see more recognition of the importance of stories to public life. My friend Alina Siegfried, who runs a story-based consultancy in Wellington, recently sent out this link to a campaign called “stories for life”, which aims to create stories that contribute to the re-design of a healthier economy. It challenges us to design a new economy based on a story of interconnection:

"To bring forth new and ancient stories into our culture, which weave a narrative of interconnection and help us design a new type of economy.

An economy where we put life at the centre, the health and wellbeing of people and planet, of all life, an economy re-designed to be in service to life."

I love the sound of this! I have only recently seen what a major role, the economy has played in defining my personal story. This realisation has largely come through reading Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth, which brilliantly describes how our modern economy has been formed around a human character called “rational economic man”. This idealised person has perfect knowledge, insatiable appetite and continuously seeks to maximise their personal gain.  And the neoliberal economic system which has dominated this country's policies since the eighties and has deep global roots, is formed around this unappealing character. We live in a story that assumes we all act like "rational economic man" and incentivises competition and personal gain. The result is inequality and environmental degradation. Raworth calls for us to craft a new human character, one which is deeply social, caring and cooperative. 

I find this idea very inspiring. It is a challenge of storytelling, not strategy. 

I believe we need to ask “Why?” before we ask “How?” 

I'd like to see the executives and decision makers at the helms of organisations and governments give attention to the stories they are basing their decisions on - to question the values that shape their decisions. And then later to focus on strategy.