Narrative Strategy: Reverse Engineering Reality
I’ve been really lucky to be working with a team of super smart people for the last 6 months. The type of people who worked on solutions for our planet and even in space. A collection of engineers and scientists who cultivated their skills in the oasis of research institutes, (mostly) inoculated against market forces and other typical commercial constraints. And don’t get me wrong, there’s been challenges too, but I find that my work in narrative strategy is taking on a greater significance as we navigate the audacious terrain of a research-driven start up.
In my role as narrative strategist to this young company, I’m helping them reverse engineer reality. Not our current reality, but our future one. The one we want. The new reality that we believe is possible.
Here’s how I’m going about it.
Identify the Future We’re Building
This may be considered the same as “vision” but I find “vision” lacks the strength of storytelling, and is usually just a collection of fluffy adjectives in front of trendy nouns. Instead, when we identify the future we’re building, we’re looking at signals of what’s happening right now as well as stories from our past and present that give us some indication of what’s possible. For instance, I’ll track the language and stories of relevant cultures and industries, seeing what terms are emerging, and what’s top of mind. This includes mainstream headlines and the comment sections of articles, as well as digging deeper into the stories that are being shared at the fringes of cultures. What themes are relevant right now? What tone is being dialed in? How are people framing their experiences? I’ll start to thread these stories together, seeing it as the momentum that we can either harness or repel to build the future we want. From a deliverable perspective this can look like a Narrative Bible, pitch decks, strategy sessions, team meetings, sales calls — any interaction that can capture buy in from stakeholders and evangelizes the future possible as irresistible.
Believe in the Future Possible, but Stay Flexible with How You Get There
Belief is probably the trickiest part of narrative strategy. It’s not a reliable science and more of an art form that I’m not sure can really be perfected. Belief is the mechanism that makes our efforts to build and create something that doesn’t exist actually transform into results. Maybe not the results we wanted, but something tangible. I first must believe in the image-feeling-sensation-story of the future that I can only see in my imagination. I believe in it so much that it propels me to take action, to start and continue even when I struggle. When obstacles emerge, my belief embraces me with a steadfast certainty, engendering the type of perseverance we only here about in great myths. Belief is a force. Don’t underestimate it.
Yet belief demands flexibility. The future possible, our new reality that we are building, has many variables and unknowns. There are too many details for us to know and not know, too many mysteries that remain. Yet that doesn’t stop our belief in the future we hold tenderly in our imagination. It just requires an openness to ambiguity and an unusual style of patience that I can only identify as intuition.
As new data becomes available, new information arises, and new stories emerge, we make decisions. Decisions that may seem foolish or impossible. Decisions dependent on forces outside our control. Decisions that must be made if we want our new future to arrive.
This could be decisions in response to new policies that impact our business model. Global catastrophes that force us to pivot. A team member leaving. A scientific discovery that changes everything. The details of possibility emerge, and we must decide how to proceed with the new information.
Reverse Engineering Works for Things, Why Not Our Reality?
I started to embrace this idea of reverse engineering while working with this start up. They approached their work through the lens of reverse engineering. They would start with a non-functional thing, something that would give form to the thoughts swirling in their minds, and then work backwards to figure out what needed to be done. From electric configurations, bench top science, to the experiments with new materials, they used the non-functional thing as their guide.
So why not do the same with our future reality?
This requires the same steadfast commitment to transforming intention into action, a flexibility to respond to new information, and a belief that the new reality we’re building is possible.
Practically, it looks like discussions with our team, integrating new data into our approach, saying ‘yes’ and then changing our mind when new information appears. Patience for the threads of our future to reveal themselves, and believing that if we just hold tight, we can create the reality we want.
Narrative strategy is not an unchanging dogma. It’s an approach that uses stories to deliver outcomes. Outcomes that include new realities. It undulates with what exists around us, what’s happening and coming, what’s being experienced and being avoided. For me, narrative strategy is the approach I take to make thoughts into things, desires into tangibilities and craft our future. I encourage anyone eager to experiment with narrative strategy to experiment with reverse engineering. What can we do when we know our desired future is already real?