Keep Reinterpreting the Story

Even a great story needs retelling from time to time.

A theatre group can’t keep putting on the same version of a play. What delighted audiences in Laurence Olivier’s 1948 film adaption of Hamlet wouldn’t delight a modern audience. We need ‘a Hamlet for our times’ – same story, new interpretation.

The performance mindset thinks constantly about how to do things differently, how to make the performance more engaging and more delightful. Leaders need to revisit the way they tell their story on a regular basis to ensure that it is still engaging the audience.

Apple went into business manufacturing groundbreaking personal computers, leading to the launch in 1984 of the Macintosh, the first mass market personal computer with an integrated graphical consumer interface and a mouse. The combination of the Macintosh with the Apple’s LaserWriter printer and Adobe’s desktop publishing software, PageMaker, is said to have created the desktop publishing market.

Nonetheless, in the 1990s the company lost its way, experimenting with a range of unremarkable and unsuccessful product lines, including digital cameras, audio players and video consoles.

With the return of the abrasive but visionary Steve Jobs in 1997, Apple remembered its story, ditched superfluous product lines and focused on releasing a stream of remarkable, innovative new products. Apple had rediscovered its core purpose – to make groundbreaking products that help change people’s lives for the better – and was retelling its story.

Narratives need to change with the times. Keep revisiting your story; refresh it regularly.

All great performances have a purpose – they set out to convey something precise and to take the audience on a particular journey.

The purpose can be grand or mundane; it can be high tragedy or frothy social commentary. The aim is to engage the audience, and we can be engaged in many ways.

All performances tell a story of some kind. The story may have a clear and recognizable plot, or it may be more of an emotional journey, but there will be a beginning, a middle and an end.

Successful organizations deliver a performance; they delight their audiences. These organizational performances must have a purpose, and uncovering that real purpose and communicating it is at the heart of all successful business.

The purpose will not be about what we do, it will be about why we do it. The people who admire ‘why we do what we do’ will be those who truly engage with us. They will be our loyal customers.

While our purpose will be simple – something that can be expressed in a few words – our ‘story’ will be longer. It will be an unpacking of our purpose, explaining why we believe what we do and how we came to be here.

If the organization has a great founding history – a founding myth – that history probably makes the core of a great story. But a founding myth isn’t essential. Uncover your purpose and build your story around it. Stories engage our emotions. Stories are memorable.

Our engaging story is at the heart of how our audiences perceive us. Their love of our story colours our relationship.

This means that we must be true to our story, or risk damaging the relationship.

If we have embraced high ideals, we can’t sacrifice these from time to time for convenience or commercial gain.

If we have promised to amuse and entertain people, we can’t go flat – we have to deliver a sparkling performance every time.

Our purpose must be meaningful and true, and our purpose and our story need to run through our whole performance. Together, they must inform everything we do.

Every story needs to be refreshed and re-evaluated.

There are only so many stories in the world – they can be constantly refreshed. Cinderella is retold as Pretty Woman. Seven Samurai is reimagined as A Bug’s Life. The Odyssey is reinvented as Watership Down.

Even great organizational stories can lose relevance over time. They need to be revisited, refreshed and retold.

Sticking to the core of the original story but bringing it up to date is usually the best approach.

Remember to work on your own, personal narrative – to have a compelling version of your own struggles and successes clearly in mind. This will help your colleagues and your future colleagues understand who you are and where you are coming from.