Friday, June 22, 2012

Don't Like How Your Business is Going? Tell a Different Story

In Harvard Business Review, Rosabeth Moss Kantor sums up very succinctly how the wrong narrative can sink your business and the right one can get you back on track.

The first step is recognizing that the right story is THAT important.  The second is finding the right person to script it.

I spent the last week in NY with Emma Gilding, a rebranding expert, working with a small company to raise their profile.

Just a tip on hiring -- those of us who started in theatre have an instinctive grasp of effective narrative and how to make it work.  Our training?  Make something believeable to a crowd of people you've never met out of absolutely nothing, on deadline.

Emma began in the theatre with many similar convictions as I.  In fact, we even overlapped at Central School of Speech and Drama in London.  She was a student -- I was only helping out a friend. 

In any case, find the underlying truth, create the right script, play it with conviction, and it's hard for your business to fail.

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