The storyline
Okay, every company has a story, sure — if not a way of telling it to good effect.
We’re not talking here about turning out a history of the company. That happens, of course, at felicitous moments, like a big anniversary (no. 50, 75, 100). And when it does the history is turned out handsomely in a voluptuous volume suggesting the blessings of long customer relations and comfortable profits.
We’re talking, rather, about an organization’s opportunities to tell its story every day in so many ways:
- In greeting customers
- In phone manners
- In web pages
- In newsletter articles
Everything a company does, in fact, and says is grist to the mill of story-telling. Of telling a story with a definite storyline that starts and stops with one point in mind.
A point in mind.
Not a mishmash of facts.
Or dusty historical artifacts.
The point of the story we’re telling, a storyline goes, whether it says so explicitly or not, is such and such. We’re not telling the story merely to entertain, though you may find this story entertaining. We’re not telling the story to educate, though you may be educated. We’re not telling it to edify.
We’re telling it, let’s be frank, so that you remember one thing about the company.
One thing.
One theme.
Whether that’s our extraordinary caring attitude. Our cutting-edge products. Our stability through the years. Or whatever.
The story is not the shortest point between A and B. It’s a roundabout way of getting at a point that can’t be delivered in cliches or jargon; in incoherent anecdotes; in plagiarized expressions.
Stories
You’ve all heard, no doubt, about the power of stories — including stories in the corporation. Companies of all sizes are calling in storytellers to help loosen up creative powers, to suggest coherent story lines in apparently unconnected data, and simply to make the business environment more human(e).
Aside from grunting and scratching, the story is the most primitive and archaic communication medium, and this may account for its enduring power.
Who can resist the idea of then, and then, and then? Then what happens? It’s the impulse that drives our daily lives, our not knowing what next and yet stepping bravely, or foolishly, forward.
And the impulse that keeps companies going, despite or because of all the rational and scientific management plans that can be devised.
Of course, a business with no plan, no idea, of the next step may be stepping into a bog of its own devising.
Once upon a time there was a company called XYZ that had a brilliant idea and no idea what to do with it. Until the time it was four or five years old, it enjoyed a series of spectacular successes. It was coddled by the market, wooed by investors, and gave back fabulous ROI. Then along came the big bad wolf of recession, tight credit, customer fickleness, and … and … and …