A Christmas Metaphor

Your strategic narrative is like a Christmas tree.

If you celebrate Christmas, there are probably dozens of ornaments attached to your tree. Each one tells a different story.

For instance, the Nutcracker tells the story of Clara’s dream. The ball with the sunset is a souvenir from a past trip to Hawaii. The angel tells the story of Jesus. And so on.

All those ornaments are unique and feature a wide range of characters. But they are also unified by the meaning they bring to the tree and your celebration of Christmas.

All the ornaments together represent a system of beliefs. As a whole, your Christmas tree may symbolize values such as hope, peace, and joy–something better for humanity.

Or, your tree may just exist for the gifts and represent your way to conform to the pressure of our consumerist society.

It’s up to you.

The narrative behind your Christmas tree depends on the stories you gathered over the years, and the meaning you cultivated inside and outside with those stories.

A company strategic narrative works the same way.

Yes, you can craft or buy new stories all the time.

But if those stories don’t support the kind of transformative agenda that Christmas has with peace, you are missing out on an opportunity to influence your market and differentiate.

And if those stories don’t connect, if no one in your company shares the same vision for what those stories mean, it will be chaos. People will be misaligned.

Soon, the R&D team will come up with products and features that nobody needs, the Marketing department will want to go to market with something that is not ready, you will be pitching to the wrong investors, and you will accidentally hire people who don’t believe in what you believe.

All of this is costly.

Very costly.