You can only act strategically, day in, day out, if you know your company’s strategy. Here are five things that happen when you really do know it. you know when to say ‘no.’ you get better support from your colleagues–they are trying to achieve the same things you can wing it with confidence–the strategy is […]

In using story-work to build a brand, engage employees, or for one of its many other purposes, organisations nearly always focus on storytelling. The meme is strong because the act of storytelling is so powerful. But to focus solely on this one aspect of story-work severely limits the benefits. The most valuable application of this […]

We have been helping organisations transform their strategies into concrete and memorable narratives for quite a few years now. In every organisation we’ve worked with – no exceptions – there have been powerful stories already circulating in the organisation that run counter to the new strategy. In most cases, these stories have been strong enough […]

It’s quite possible you’ll lose your job as CEO if you are unable to persuasively communicate your company’s strategy. Léo Apotheker, the recently fired CEO of Hewlett-Packard, has just learned this lesson. Mr Apotheker was appointed CEO of HP in October 2010 less then a year before he was let go. Before HP, Apotheker was […]

Steve Jobs introduced iCloud at Apple’s WorldWide Developers Conference in June 2011 . iCloud is Apple’s ‘next big thing’. After explaining the iCloud concept, Steve says, “Now, you might ask ‘why should I believe them – they’re the ones that brought me MobileMe?’” The audience laughs uproariously. Everyone in the audience knows that MobileMe is […]

How do you get your people to think about what the future could be, in a way that inspires them and starts to spark action, but also takes into account the simple fact that the future is unpredictable? I was reminded of this challenge, yet again, last week. We were working with a client on […]

“A company without a story is usually a company without a strategy.” Ben Horowitz, entrepreneur and investor1 Steve Jobs bounces onto the stage and grabs the slide changer from his colleague with a friendly “Thanks Scott”. He’s looking thin and grey, illness having taken its toll, but his energy remains boundless. It’s the 2011 Apple […]

John Hagel has written an interesting post on the importance of narratives in providing persistent context for our lives, organisations and society. The post is important because John is an esteemed thinker that business and institutions notice and heed. And it is also this reason that I’m prompted to write this reply because I feel […]

One of the basic requirements for any form of successful communication is the listener understands what’s being said. However we often face the challenge when trying to get our message understood of the “curse of knowledge“. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our […]