What’s Up With Your Attitude?

One of the biggest problems I run into when I help CEOS, Leadership Teams, and entrepreneurs create a strategic narrative is their attitude.

It’s not that they have the wrong one. No, it’s more that they don’t have one at all. As a result, their strategy is too fuzzy, and that’s costing them millions.

I define “Strategic Narrative” as a system of stories that promote a particular point of view. Thinking in terms of a narrative can help you focus all the stories you tell on the promotion of a particular attitude towards the topic of your business.

Take Swedish food brand Oatly for instance. They produce alternatives to dairy products from oats. From reading their website, my interpretation of their attitude is this (I am paraphrasing):

We don’t like dairy products. We believe that they take too much energy, water, land, and greenhouse gas emissions to make. So, we deliver products that have maximum nutritional value and minimal environmental impact.

Your attitude matters because it has several important functions:

Identity: your attitude is who you are. Defining the point of view that you like helps you define what challenges you want to take on or not. That's a basic principle for creating an identity.

Differentiation: Do you remember that person you met once with that attitude? Whether they have a negative or a positive attitude about something, people with an attitude stand out and retain your attention.

Decision-making: your attitude helps you and your team make clearer decisions. Internally, it’s easier to pick a direction if you know the prevalent inclination. Outside, your attitude helps people choose you or not.

Whether you sell oat milk, cars, makeup, cybersecurity, or consulting, you have an attitude. It is critical to define and share it. That's what your strategic narrative helps you do.

Want to hear more about strategic narrative principles like this one? See below.

Join the Next Strategic Narrative Underground Session. It's free.

Discover The Pattern Language For Strategic Narratives during a free weekly 30-minute flash course with me on zoom.

For the next two months, I am inviting you every Thursday at 9:00 am Pacific to attend a presentation and participate in a conversation about one of the patterns included in the book that I started writing.

I talk for about 15 minutes, and then we discuss specific aspects of what you’ve learned. I answer your questions, and this is also a chance for me to gather your feedback.

At the end of the call, you will get access to the Google document with the manuscript of my book. Each time you join, you get access to a new pattern. You can join for free as many times as you want.

Join us next Thursday, May 13th, at 9:00 am Pacific.

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcvdemuqTsqG9VNmso2ZqPmiGXJP644gYfx

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

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