Essentially, a story expresses how and why life changes.
It begins with a situation in which life is relatively in balance. But then there’s an event - in screenwriting, we call it the inciting incident - that throws life out of balance. The story goes on to describe how, in an effort to restore balance, the protagonist’s subjective expectations crash into an uncooperative objective reality.
It’s messy. It’s unexpected. It’s trials and tribulations. It’s one damn thing after the other. A good storyteller describes what it’s like to deal with these opposing forces, calling on the protagonist to dig deeper, work with scarce resources, make difficult decisions, take action despite risks, and ultimately discover the truth that results in the protagonist’s necessary change. (A tragedy is when the protagonist doesn’t change.)
Every decision in business is made to affect change. Whether it’s wholesale organisational change to turn around an entire corporation or getting a memo to accounts.
The success of making positive change is entirely dependent on how successfully it’s distributed and expressed.
As humans, there’s no better way than using story. The better the story, the more effective the change it engenders.
What if we inspire people to manifest the change we want instead of trying to trick them (or force them)? What if we succeed to get our message across from here on in? What if we leave failure behind?