Wow recently a major bank has picked up on something we’ve all known for a long time.  Stories are powerful.  We engage with them, we grow with them and we use the context of their knowledge to help build our own understanding.  And who has the best stories?  One group is great writers who can link their experiences with our own; and the other is US the people in business who make business happen – often this needs some BA help which we’ll come to further down – but the key point is remember how much engagement you have in a great story... you could have heard it many times but it still involves you  :-)

Oh! The Places You’ll Go! By Dr Seuss is a book that’s important to me.  It’s designed to be read out loud.  Now when I’m the one reading it, rather than having it read to me, I can see how this short 5 minute children’s story captures people and makes them think.  It’s the same when stories are shared about travelling in Europe, achieving the new innovation, or delivery of a big project bringing the concept into a profitable reality.

This isn’t new.  Stories are powerful.  We’ve captured complex social systems with stories, fables and oral histories spanning thousands of years.  Recently we have related to Entrepreneurial Storyteller role that at some time everyone in the organisation has to pick up.  Think Steve Jobs at Apple, drilling the message and vision down through others to the design team.  Think the Bard of old telling a story for his supper that is retold in the listener’s homes and influences the thinking of an entire community.  Think of yourself at the last social engagement relating a story that held people’s attention and then someone else came up and asked you for it to be retold or wanted a bit more detail on one aspect...

So why then do we every day see people stranded in huge documents?  At your last social engagement when asked for a bit more detail you didn’t produce a 93 page document and refer them to page 36 and appendix C.  Yet at work we see people either skim reading tombs of information or worse creating their own reams of papers and ploughing effort into grasping every detail – even when they know that :

What are the 3 things Dr Seuss and good Business Analysts (BA) have in common?  Well I’m a big fan of shared stories and repeated memes* for 3 reasons:

If we are to move the mountain and not be crushed by the experience, we need to follow a structured process (like BA’s) that defines the problem, then defines the solution options, ensures a shared and common understanding of the known objectives and pitfalls, details what success looks like before we get there, all the while maintaining focus with a prioritised roadmap to achieve success.  A simple tale really.  So that we too, have great stories to tell :-)

* A meme is an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. While genes transmit biological information, memes are said to transmit ideas and belief information.