Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Alignment and Balance in Corporate Storytelling

Great stories don’t start as an ad campaign. They are crafted out of the heart, soul and work product of any organization. Powerful stories not only define a business, they are critical to its success and growth.

But all too often, businesses ignore their story, or worse, dress themselves up as something they’re not in a weak attempt at marketing and promotion.

Over time, neglected stories reflect misalignment within any organization. The story they’ve been telling themselves and others doesn’t reflect their true identity. The business’s story becomes like the tires on a used car. After enough time, distance and wear, the vehicle isn’t quite straight anymore and tends to veer off the road on its own.

When crafting a company’s story, you’ll see this type of misalignment in both large and small organizations. Typically, smalls businesses are more organic and their story starts with entrepreneurial ownership. In larger companies, the story starts within the multiple levels of functional groups within the organization.

In his seminal white paper “Superperformance: A New Theory on Optimization,” Dave Guerra puts forth a proposition that all storytelling begins with the culture, products and services of any organization.

Guera states that:

“Superperformance is the product of process and culture. In this formulation, process is defined as the work and culture as the spirit of an organization.

The stories within an organization comprise of its physical dimension, encompassing business strategies, systems, and methods, while the spirit of an organization reflects the creativity, engagement, and inspiration of people in the company — its emotional dimension.

The strength and interaction of these two forces form the spark for organizational storytelling.”

Guerra’s formula takes into consideration both the organic and mechanical aspects of a business. The best stories are the ones that demonstrate a balance between the two — process and discipline combined with an engaged workforce that really believes in the company’s goal and objectives.

A few years ago, I worked with a Fortune 100 client to transform their entire business and work culture. The company had been around for over one hundred years and it’s story hadn’t change much, even though the industry had changed drastically.

Their previous sales and service story was structured using the following priorities:

1. Drive Business Results

2. By Creating Great Customer Experiences

3. With Engaged Employees

4. Who have Exceptional Leadership.

On the surface, this sounds like a great story. But upon deeper inspection, you can see that this model is driven from the outside in, instead of from the inside out. Their story was misaligned with the direction the industry was moving.

For two years, we spent a lot of time and energy to flip this “service value chain,” starting within the organization and driving outward to the customer. Eventually, over time, the new story became:

1. With Exceptional Leadership

2. We will Inspire and Engage Employees

3. Who will Be Self-Motivated to Create Positive Customer Experiences

4. Driving Outstanding Business Results.

By retelling the story of the business, we were able to foster real cultural change, creating a new, dynamic work environment that everyone embraced. We swapped an old set of tires for a new set, making sure that everyone was aligned and engaged in the process.

I’ll admit, getting your business story right isn’t easy. It takes all of the stakeholders coming to the table with an open mind and a willingness to accept uncomfortable truths, while working through changes that may be uncomfortable.

But it’s worth it. For in the end, you’ll know that your business has true traction, and your new treads are really grabbing the road with purpose.