Brand storytelling doesn’t follow a linear path. It never has. A linear model doesn’t allow for the chaos that comes with dealing with real, living, breathing humans and constantly changing markets. It certainly doesn’t take social media into consideration.
If you’re not careful, you could fall into the trap with some narrative arc models that, though they account for some issues with the brand, often do so with the issues in the rearview. As if the challenges the brand has faced in the past will somehow predict what the brand will face in the future.
Instead, look at brand storytelling as a narrative chain made up of many stories in “S” curves.
In turbulent times, companies must discover what kind of adjustments are right for them to stay relevant. It can seem overwhelming. But there are a few ways to think about resourcefulness to help companies of any size manage through stressful environments.
Dandelions put out a taproot from the very beginning to give themselves every advantage possible in journey ahead—because they don’t know if that journey will be easy or tough.
Unfortunately, too many companies don’t operate with the basic principles of dandelions and as a result, start with weak foundations, don’t plan for adversity ahead, and falter when the economic winds change. If we’ve learned anything from history it should be that change is inevitable. It can be sudden and unpredictable or like a slow-moving glacier.
We love to talk about what we’ve done, who we’ve seen, the hurdles we’ve crossed and triumphs we’ve realized. If we’re not careful, we can talk about how amazing we are and leave our guest completely out of the discussion.
Brands do this all the time. Agencies do this all the time. All this chest thumping and self promoting leaves consumers and customers on the outside looking in … if they even stay around long enough to keep looking.
Managers often place high performing individuals together and expect them to work well together. Then they are usually disappointed when those same individuals fail to reach even basic goals and objectives. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise. There are countless examples of high performing individuals fighting one another to reach the top of some mountain while happily sacrificing others around them.
For many employees involved in change management initiatives, the story of Hansel and Gretel is far too close to their own experience, minus the bread crumbs. We hear it all the time: employees feel like they’re being led into the woods to certain doom while senior managers feel like they’ve done their jobs in telling their staff that big change is coming, that they shouldn’t be worried and that everything is under control.
When employees fill their days with only those items that are important to them, or are listed on the scorecard they are held accountable for, they miss the ‘working together’ principle of teamwork. If it’s always someone else’s job to do the little things, then the organization begins to break down. Things that are left for others invariably end up never getting done.
