Tony Robbins, motivational speaker, author, business strategist, and life coach to celebrities, often says, “Change your story, change your life.” The story you put out there determines how the world perceives and values you as a brand. The right narrative informs the world how you are making a difference, inspires confidence in you, and attracts supporters, customers, partners, influencers, and investors.
Here’s how to get the narrative right:
- Increase employee motivation and engagement.
- Create channels for dialogs to happen around change.
- Empower employees to become change-makers.
- Stand in your customers’ shoes.
- Establish a clear context for the narrative.
- Ensure that the narrative mirrors the leaders’ expressions.
- Make the narrative tangible.
- Lay down concrete assessment metrics.
- Reinforce the narrative.
A business narrative has to be lucid and concise. You have to convey what is critical, but you cannot be verbose. In this article, I will explain why you need to craft a business narrative and how you can create one that is compelling and effective, so let’s get started, shall we?
1. Increase Employee Motivation and Engagement
The process of creating a business narrative begins long before you huddle inside the boardroom or head to the drawing board. It starts by engaging with your employees.
An engaged workforce is a powerful business weapon, as your employees are the biggest drivers of the change you envision. They need to believe in and embrace the business narrative first before your customers do.
To enhance employee engagement:
- Start by fostering a collaborative working environment.
- Break down the silos and encourage employees across executive teams to brainstorm ideas and share best practices.
- Create specific project teams, but encourage all team members to use their unique knowledge and project management skills to tackle various jobs.
- Spot and reward employees who come up with unique ideas and sustainable solutions.
You can take cues from what other businesses are doing to increase employee engagement.
For instance, all full-time employees of Rachio in Denver, Colorado, are equity owners. They profit when company revenues increase, which is an incentive to drive change that fosters positive growth.
Not all employee engagement initiatives involve financial rewards or gains.
For instance, at North Berkeley Investment Partners in Berkeley, California, employees meet every Friday to share stories of gratitude. They recount how they have helped one another through the week.
These meetings foster camaraderie and instill in employees a sense of belonging and working towards a common goal.
However, if you’re only having these meetings to boost the company’s bottom line, your employees will sense this and become disillusioned and upset. The meetings will become a chore and there’s no amount of narrative that can fix things. So, you’ll need to be authentic when you want to increase morale and motivation.
This might mean that you’ll need to forego profits sometimes for the good of your employees.
2. Create Channels for Dialogs To Happen Around Change
The key to making employees feel valued is to make them feel heard. They need to feel confident about speaking up and voicing their opinions.
Start by listening without judgment.
Ask your employees to be present at the table, then ask them to define the changes they seek. Instead of thrusting change down their throats, invite your employees to initiate the change-making process.
Your willingness to give them the reins will encourage your employees and make them more invested in the company’s success.
As a leader, you need to listen to learn diverse perspectives. You can formulate solutions that address multiple problems and varied interest groups when you have different POVs to work with. Listening also forges close bonds between leaders and employees.
3. Empower Employees To Become Change-Makers
According to the Project Management Institute report titled Pulse of the Profession® 2020, 53% of the organizations surveyed said that they prioritize creating a business culture receptive to change.
They want their employees to drive change rather than merely react to it.
Change-makers who are employees tend to drive large-scale organizational change. Employees who feel a sense of belonging to their companies are passionate and proactive about driving change, so make them feel empowered.
Here’s how you can empower your employees to become change-makers:
- Schedule periodic training to upskill existing employees.
- Ensure executive teams work on similar priorities.
- Put in place processes to facilitate change.
- Always have sufficient resources to implement change.
- Recruit employees who gel with the organizational culture.
Having the requisite skill sets and knowing that there are resources and systems to drive change encourages employees to be forthcoming with their creative inputs. Empowered employees inspire others in their teams to embrace change readily and become change-makers themselves.
4. Stand in Your Customers’ Shoes
Your business narrative should resonate with your target audience. The words you use in the narrative, the pictures you paint, the case studies you highlight, and the vision you conjure up should inspire your audience to come along on the ride with you.
Communicate with your key stakeholders to identify gaps and ambiguities, and unresolved issues in your current narrative. Reach out to your audience to understand their perspective, gauge the pain points, and pinpoint their expectations from your company.
Send out surveys and questionnaires, organize virtual meet-ups, or hobnob with them on social media and online forums.
5. Establish a Clear Context for the Narrative
Provide a clear context for the narrative. The right context gives your audience the inspiration and reason to buy from you and support your vision and endeavors.
Here are a few pointers to help you establish a clear context for your narrative:
- Present yourself as a human being first.
- Adopt a compassionate, enthusiastic, and confident voice.
- Highlight unresolved issues and provide solutions.
- Use evidence and success stories to validate your point.
- Provide test results to prove that your ideas will work.
- Use words that inspire and excite.
A lucid, unambiguous narrative should strike the right balance between authoritativeness and friendliness.
The rationale you present with cold, hard facts should be tempered with emotions that appeal to the heart, so the narrative you craft should convey your passion to your stakeholders.
6. Ensure That the Narrative Mirrors the Leaders’ Expressions
Authenticity is convincing. Your stakeholders want to see that you are walking the talk.
Ensure that your narrative matches the expressions and leadership styles of the top brass in your company. Create a culture that matches the values you have laid down in your narrative.
The content you post on social media, the rewards and recognition policies you follow in your organization, what you give back to the community, and the environmental sustainability practices in place in your company should align with the core message of your narrative.
7. Make the Narrative Tangible
Emotions inspire, but you still need numbers to convince your audience of the feasibility of your story.
Make sure that your narrative is tangible by specifying outcomes and deadlines. Create simulations or provide analogies from other real-life scenarios to convince your audience that your ideas will work out in practice.
8. Lay Down Concrete Assessment Metrics
A narrative weaves in the dreams and hopes of an entire organization. But you also need to measure how your story is unfolding so that your passion and the resources you have invested are not wasted.
Use assessment metrics to keep track of your story.
Apart from sales figures, the shares and likes you garner on social media, and the investors you attract, the information you glean from your employees and the reviews left by your customers will give you an idea of how you are progressing with your story.
The metrics you collect periodically will also help you update your narrative and add relevance and conviction to your story.
Ensure that your metrics align with the objectives you have mentioned in your narrative. Metrics also boost employee morale. It is always heartening to know that your efforts are yielding results. On the other hand, metrics let you know if you need to alter your narrative or tweak your course of action.
9. Reinforce the Narrative
Don’t let your narrative fade into oblivion after a big-bang launch. Reinforce the narrative and let it etch into the collective psyche. Use opportunities and spaces like town hall meetings, webinars, team activities, your website, and social media platforms to reiterate your story.
Look to create opportunities for your audience to engage with your story consistently.
For instance, TUI UK & Ireland launched a website where visitors can embark on a visual journey of where the business started and where it is heading. They can interact with the content through games and competitions.
What Is a Business Narrative?
A business narrative is a story you tell the world about your organization, your offerings, what your brand stands for, and the value you provide. Its goal is to market a business as a high-quality and ethical seller, a top employer, a profitable partner, and a valuable investment option.
Crafting a business narrative is not a one-off exercise.
Your story can change depending on how your business responds and transforms in the face of market demands, emerging challenges, and competitor behavior.
Your business narrative can change if you decide to overhaul your brand’s image. It can also change when you change your goods basket, start providing a different set of services and reach out to a broader audience.
How Long Is a Business Narrative?
There is no correct length for a business narrative. It should describe what your business does, its USP, the target audience base, the solutions you aim to provide, your long-term business goals, and how you plan to achieve these. The core ideas you want to convey should be between 3-5 paragraphs.
The length of a business narrative or its tone is inconsequential. What matters is that your story should sound authentic, be convincing, and inspire positive action. Of course, if it sounds authentic, but it isn’t, you won’t fool anyone in the long term.
Importance of a Strategic Narrative
Your narrative should convert skeptics, impress potential buyers, convince investors to loosen their purse strings, and bring onboard partners who are as enthusiastic about your business as you are. But a strategic business narrative is critical for a company in many other ways.
Read on to find out how crafting a narrative and getting it right helps a business.
- Conveys purpose: In a world full of noise and fake information, businesses that appear purposeful and have a definite mission statement attract attention and loyalty. People are mindful of where they spend their resources and want to associate with companies they feel are going somewhere.
- Aids business development goals: A narrative helps you plant context to convince potential buyers and investors. The story you build around your brand makes you relatable to your customers and helps them perceive value in your offerings.
- Secures competitive advantage: Purchase decisions are often driven by emotions because human beings connect with their hearts. Your narrative makes you stand out in a crowded marketplace. The story you put out there distinguishes you from your competitors and helps you attract clients.
- Facilitates decision-making: The narrative you create becomes the roadmap for your business development plans. Your story determines your game plan and the decisions you need to make to reach your goals.
- Enhances employee engagement: A narrative that speaks to your employees enhances engagement. People like to be a part of an organization that values them and aligns with their core values. A strategic business narrative attracts talent and improves retention.
How Can Organizational Narratives Help in Getting the Narrative Right?
Organizational narratives play a crucial role in getting the narrative right for businesses. The importance of organizational narratives lies in creating a strong, cohesive story that aligns with the company’s values and goals. These narratives help in shaping the company’s identity and communicating its message effectively to internal and external stakeholders.
Final Thoughts
Do not be in a hurry to create a business narrative and put it out there. There’s more to crafting a narrative than just stringing together words.
You need to first prepare your employees to embrace a new narrative and foster an environment in your organization that can drive the changes you envision. Then you have to put in hours of research to get a feel of your customers’ needs and determine the gaps in the market that your offerings can plugin.
Getting the words right is a meticulous process. Be patient.
Sources
- Clear Strategy: Why you should be building an engaging corporate narrative in 2021
- BTheChange: Stories of True Changemakers: How These Companies Grew Their Impact
- Reuters: Handing the Reins to the Change Makers
- Michigan State University: Qualities of Effective Change Agents
- Virtual Speech: The Importance of Storytelling in Business, with Examples
- The Daily MBA: Writing Your Business Narrative
- PMI.org: Pulse Of the Profession 2020
- TUI: Home Page
