{"id":12334,"date":"2023-09-05T05:47:47","date_gmt":"2023-09-05T05:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/leadership\/how-story-building-can-help-boost-your-business-performance\/"},"modified":"2023-09-05T05:47:49","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T05:47:49","slug":"how-story-building-can-help-boost-your-business-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=12334","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018Story Building\u2019 Can Help Boost Your Business Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Seasoned hikers wouldn\u2019t dream of heading off into the wilderness without a map and a compass. But organizations do it every day.<\/p>\n

Two years after the breakthrough book In Search of Excellence <\/em>reported on 43 of the \u201cbest run\u201d companies in America, 14 of the 43 firms were in financial trouble. The reason, according to a Businessweek <\/em>study: their failure to deal effectively with change.<\/p>\n

In other words, they lost their bearings.<\/p>\n

Every organization is perfectly aligned to get the results it\u2019s getting. Unsatisfied with results? Check your map and compass.<\/p>\n

Strategic alignment is every bit as critical for organizations as it is for hikers. Call it pathfinding. Call it navigating to true north. Call it mission and vision. Call it taking responsibility for shaping events. Call it good leadership. Call it smart business. It\u2019s not a destination, it\u2019s a journey. Take charge.<\/p>\n

Bottomline? Culture is a key performance component in every organization\u2014your business, your team, your family.<\/p>\n

It may seem like an oversimplification, but \u201cculture\u201d is in large part a product of the stories people create about their environment. Note that word \u201ccreate.\u201d Culture is not just about storytelling (although that plays a role). It\u2019s about story building<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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An excellent resource on this phenomenon is The Secret of Culture Change: How to Build Authentic Stories That Transform Your Organization<\/em>, <\/em>authored by Jay B. Barney, Manoel Amorim, and Carlos J\u00falio. These men certainly have the credentials to write such a book. Barney, one of the world\u2019s most cited strategic management scholars, focuses his consulting work on implementing strategy through culture change. He received his Ph.D. at Yale and teaches entrepreneurship at the University of Utah. Amorim has been CEO of four large corporations and has served as a board director in six countries. J\u00falio is founder of HSM, the largest management training company in Latin America.<\/p>\n

Multiple studies show that most strategic efforts to change a company\u2019s culture fail. In exploring this phenomenon, Barney, Amorim, and J\u00falio compiled and analyzed more than 150 stories from business leaders who successfully navigated change. They identified attributes that are common to every successful change story.<\/p>\n

The authors point out that organizations where culture and strategy align outperform those where culture and strategy do not align. So, what does alignment look like compared to misalignment?<\/p>\n

\u201cStrategy and cultural misalignment can take many forms,\u201d Barney says. \u201cFor example, a firm\u2019s strategy may focus on building and selling innovative products, but its culture may focus on assigning blame and firing people who take innovative risks. A firm\u2019s strategy may focus on delighting customers, but its culture may focus on keeping manufacturing costs low or developing technically sophisticated products that customers can\u2019t afford. A firm\u2019s strategy may focus on decentralized decision-making, but its culture may value centralized decision-making and control.\u201d<\/p>\n

In all these and many other cases, Barney says, the misalignment between strategy and culture will make it difficult to implement a firm\u2019s strategy.<\/p>\n

The authors differentiate between story building and storytelling, and say the former is more crucial to culture change than the latter. Why?<\/p>\n

\u201cStorytelling is used to inspire certain behaviors in organizations, and some stories have true motivational power,\u201d Amorim says. \u201cHowever, nothing is more impactful than seeing a leader behaving in ways that reflect the principles and values of the new culture.<\/p>\n

Amorim offers this illustration: Shortly after Procter & Gamble acquired Gillette, Alberto Carvalho was named vice-president for the developing countries. India had enormous potential, but poor performance. \u201cAfter a few weeks, Alberto found that the technology-driven culture of the acquired company shed little light on the needs of consumers,\u201d Amorim says. \u201cProduct Development claimed the product tested well among consumers. The problem was the test was done among Indians living in Boston\u2014not representative of the Indian population.<\/p>\n

Carvalho then announced he was going to India. He knew from experience he would find something valuable during that trip. His team believed the trip was a waste of time, but ended up joining him.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the next week, they woke up at 5:00 AM to go to poor neighborhoods to observe men shaving,\u201d Amorim says. \u201cThey discovered that many families shared a bathroom outside of their houses and that men cleaned their razors by shaking them in a small cup of water, as running water was a luxury few could afford. No wonder Gillette\u2019s product is clogged with hair so easily! Those and other insights helped them develop a better performing and lower priced product for India, which sold to 100 million men while the subsidiary\u2019s market share jumped to 18% in two years. By creating a radically different \u2018story,\u2019 Alberto started the shift to a more successful customer-centric culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barney says that to be effective, culture-changing stories must have six attributes:<\/p>\n