I talk about “the story” so often that people must be sick of hearing about it by now. Or not. The idea of positioning an outcome in the form of a story is sort of old hat, but it’s been such an immensely useful management tool that I thought I’d do a quick blog post.The story is a framework that makes sense to everyone – it has an introduction, a conflict, an apex, a resolution, and some sort of closure.
The story answers why something happened. It tells you what happened in a way that people who didn’t know every detail can understand. It dangles carrots of information over your eyes in the right places to keep you interested. A good story makes you feel emotionally invested in the outcome. A great story makes you want to step in and participate in overcoming the challenge. And of course, every story needs an ending – some resolution and closure – or else you’re looking at a Part 2, which is almost always never as good as the original.
When you ask for a great story, you get just that. When you ask for the strategy behind “blah blah blah”, you roll the dice with getting a very bad story.
Annie Tsai 