How to bring your vision and strategy to life through storytelling

15 May

Storytelling isn’t just a powerful sales tool. It’s also a brilliant way to get your employees to understand and commit to your org’s vision and strategy.

For your vision or strategy to stick in people's minds, you need to make it part of your culture. An almost unthinking part of employees’ day-to-day work.

And to do that, you need a consistent drip feed of references to that vision or strategy.

CEO announcements. Financial results. Product launches. All are obvious opportunities to reference the bigger picture.

But finding employee stories that show your vision or strategy in action? And telling those stories in creative ways that start conversations?

That’s where the real gold is.

Here are some suggestions on how to find — and promote — that gold.

1. Keep your ear to the ground

Actively seek out stories of your vision or strategy in action. Listen out — or ask — for examples of things your people have done that demonstrate progress towards your vision or strategy. Big wins. Small wins. Challenges overcome or challenges they’re grappling with.

Telling stories that recognise employees for doing the right thing don’t just motivate the person being recognised.

They can also give others ideas for the types of things they can be doing to help the company achieve its vision or execute on its strategy.

2. Don’t lead with the vision or strategy

People don’t relate to stories about visions and strategies. They relate to stories about people. So never lead with the vision or strategy. Lead with what that one person did to live it and love it.

Zoom in. Give examples. Dramatise the detail. The big strategic picture is composed of a thousand smaller images of daily actions.

3. Get creative with the format

Don't just think: employee story = intranet article. Consider how you might repackage stories in video, audio or some other format.

And don’t let stories die on page three of an intranet search. Instead, make them headline news.

If you’re the CEO, tell the story at the next town hall. If you’re a manager, share stories in team meetings.

On Slack? Create a dedicated channel for people to share their stories (#truestories)

4. Think like a journalist

Heard a great story on the grapevine? Get out there and interview its main protagonist. Go armed with a list of open questions (i.e. ones beginning with Who, What, Why or How), to encourage them to open up.

And listen out for the language in their answers that will make a great quote for your story. (Hint: it probably won’t include phrases like aligning strategic competencies or driving efficiencies through excellence.

For help finding and telling employee stories, get in touch!

Want me to buy your product? Ditch the tech specs and tell me a story.

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