Narrative
Design
Thinking

The Strategic Importance of Narrative

Narrative is the single most important element in creating broad-market relevance for your company. Designed correctly, a narrative allows your business to connect to the belief systems of your most important audiences, including prospects, customers, partners, investors, and employees.

Define A Shared Aspiration

The most universally accepted narratives begin with a shared aspiration.   In the context of business, that aspiration could be related to business agility, revenue growth, or market innovation.  Narratives based on aspiration increase engagement because they tie to achieving specific desired goals.

Develop Patterned Language

When telling stories, many companies using the same language and lexicons get trapped in “the land of the derivative,” where they sound like everyone else.  Developing new patterned language increases curiosity, engagement, and overall storytelling effectiveness.

Build SME Advocacy

By its very nature, narratives invite like-minded people into the conversation.  When introducing a new narrative, companies should invite known subject matter experts into the conversation so they can help validate and amplify the ones most aligned with their business belief systems.

ARCHITECT THE FUTURE STATE

An aspirational narrative is about the hope and desire to achieve something important, meaningful, and value-based.  The most impactful narratives address the future state and they create market excitement for technologies and solutions that have yet to be broadly adopted.