Stories Aren’t Enough
When we were kids, my brother and I spent long summer days at our grandparents’ house while my parents worked. Every year one of the TV networks would air The Wizard of Oz. My grandmother loved that movie, and she’d make us sit down and watch it with her.
But I hated The Wizard of Oz. The first bit of the movie is in black and white. Lame. The second bit is about a girl in ruby slippers — not having it. Oh, and it’s really scary. Our 6 year old just watched it and had nightmares for two weeks. Flying monkeys? Green-faced Winkie guards?
You’ve probably seen The Wizard of Oz, too, or if you haven’t, you at least know the basic premise of the movie. What would you say if I asked you what The Wizard of Oz is about?
Most likely you’d tell me it is the story of Dorothy, a young girl who gets hit on the head during a tornado and dreams that she goes “somewhere over the rainbow.” You’d recount how Dorothy’s little country house gets swept up in the tornado and lands on top of the Wicked Witch of the East, making Dorothy a hero in the Land of Oz. But Dorothy wants to go home to her aunt and uncle, so she must follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City to ask the great Wizard of Oz how to get there.
But what if I asked you about the narrative of the movie? How would you answer?
What if I told you that narrative and story are two different concepts that work together to communicate big themes and ideas?
As much as I hated The Wizard of Oz, I loved basketball. When Nike’s Air Jordan sneakers came out, I wanted a pair so much that I tore an ad for the sneakers out of a magazine and taped it to the inside of the front door of our house. Every time my parents left the house, they saw a picture of the sneakers and a note from me asking for a pair.
My parents thought the Jordans were too expensive and that it was ridiculous to spend that much money on shoes. I don’t know if the Jordans would have made me any better at basketball — probably not. But Nike did a great job of convincing me that they would.
What Separates Story and Narrative
As we think about the difference between story and narrative, both The Wizard of Oz and Nike can help.
Nike tells all kinds of cool stories. As a kid, I saw these stories in their commercials and magazine ads, from Brooklyn-loving Mars Blackmon proclaiming over and over, “It’s gotta be the shoes” to a montage of athletes working out to “Revolution” by the Beatles. No matter what 30-second story Nike tells, everyone knows these are just snapshots of the bigger theme of Nike’s messaging: Just Do It.
In this way, the commercials and advertisements are the stories that Nike tells. Each of these stories works to prove the Nike narrative, which communicates, “Hey, we don’t care who you are or where you live or what excuses have kept you from getting out there and participating. We just want you to participate — so strap on a pair of our shoes and get to it.” The narrative Nike promotes takes on multiple forms and mediums, but the continual message remains the same: Everyone is an athlete.
The same is true for The Wizard of Oz. The yellow brick road wasn’t just a thruway to the Emerald City; the yellow brick road was Dorothy’s metaphorical journey as she learned to use her mind, control her emotions, and act with courage.
The story is about a girl lost in a strange land with flying monkeys and Winkie Guards. The narrative, however, is one of self-reliance: Inside each of us, we have the power to change our situation and overcome our fears.
To help make the distinction between narrative and story clear, I use these definitions¹:
Powerful Narratives: Narratives are constructed from a system of stories. They define, explain, and give meaning and context to our environment. Narratives unfold over time and shape our view of the world, defining our past and present while giving us a glimpse of the future.
Compelling Stories: Multiple stories comprise a narrative. Stories are “snapshots” that explain the who, what, when, where, and how of an occurrence. In essence, stories validate or refute the narrative.
STORIES AREN’T ENOUGH
A lot of focus in today’s business world revolves around telling a great story about your organization. But those conversations tend to ignore the underlying thinking that makes stronger stories. They gloss over the big picture organizational thinking that a good story needs in order to be true and create long-term change.
One of the best ways to gloss over a big problem is to create a good-looking brand, tell a great story, and then hope no one asks any big questions. You can tell a great story but your organization lacks purpose, a strong model, or has other deficiencies. Organizations like this tell stories that cannot be proved, and these organizations will eventually disappoint their audience or fail altogether.
Remember, my work focuses on organizations trying to make social impact. So it’s important to me that as much of the organization as possible is aligned around the mission and that the audience is drawn into the work.
It’s not enough just to tell good stories, you have to push further, you have to make meaning. Narratives help you in this meaning-making. They can capture hearts and minds and, through this, you can generate long-term, sustainable change.
DEVELOPING A NARRATIVE
Creating a narrative is not a magic formula. Instead, it’s more of a way to think about how you design your organization so the resulting design will lead to your narrative. When we grasp the power of this thinking, a story-driven organization can morph into a Culture-Bending one.
Here are some tools to help:
Culture-Bending Narratives: Everything in this article, plus a lot more on how to think about narrative and story and the fundamentals of your organization, is in my book Culture-Bending Narratives.
Narrative Map: Developing a narrative requires a lot of energy, effort, and trial and error. To help guide you, I created a narrative map that will ensure total alignment in your beliefs, your practices, and your messaging. The map’s individual pieces give you space to wrestle with multiple ideas, thus ensuring alignment and leading to a stronger whole. When viewed together, these ideas form new connections that lead to the narrative.
I talk a lot more about the map and how to complete it in the book but if you pay attention on Medium you should be able to figure it out.
Download the Narrative Map here. (Scroll all the way to the bottom.)
Organizational Purpose: As you evaluate your organizational narrative, you’ll begin to see the importance of consensus around your organization’s purpose. This purpose is best defined by directional indicators, or your organization’s Five Core Beliefs: Reason for Being, Mission, Vision, Values, and Strategy. They’re not part of the narrative map, but I do discuss them in the book.
If you don’t have the book you can use the exercises listed below to help get you going. All of them are found on this page.
Core Purpose — Reason for Being
Vision Statement Pre-Work — 8-Word Mission Statement
This is an excerpt from the book CULTURE BENDING NARRATIVES: Moving Beyond Story to Create Meaningful Brands.
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[1] This article and this article from Arizona State University provide insights into clarifying narrative vs. story. In addition, the article mentions “event unit” as a way to describe a story. This was the impetus for calling stories “snapshots.”
