Story Driven: You don't need to compete when you know who you are

by Bernadette Jiwa

We achieve maximum impact only when all five elements of our story—backstory, values, purpose, vision, and strategy—are prioritised over time.

a company’s DNA contains the vital information that creates its cultural identity. We may not be able to see intrinsic motivators like purpose and values or the attributes and attitudes that shape them, but they show up in the behaviours of the people who work there. Whether we realise it or not, these intangibles often originate in our backstory.

A company’s origin story is much more than a nice-to-have bit of folklore to use as part of a marketing or communications strategy. It’s the genesis of the company’s values and purpose—the foundation upon which everything else is built.

‘It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.’ —Roy Disney Values are part of our personal and organisational GPS, constantly indicating our next move. Our sense of right and wrong enables us to function as individuals and flourish as a society.

We subconsciously make values-based decisions all the time, but when we clearly articulate our values, we create a kind of moral shorthand that helps us to consciously and consistently act with integrity.

In a group dynamic, we need to create an agreed-upon and shared worldview, a set of guiding beliefs through which our decisions can be filtered. This enables us to make good judgement calls even in stressful situations. Shared values allow us to unite around shared ideals. When we agree upon them, we are also agreeing to be bound by the behaviours that support the upholding of them. In organisations, this encourages both responsibility and accountability. An organisation’s culture is a manifestation of its values.

Even if on paper you are the most qualified, even if you can demonstrate that your product is superior, even if you have a watertight rationale to demonstrate that you are the best choice by a mile, people will be reluctant to support you unless they believe you. And they won’t believe you unless they can see you. People need to understand what you stand for, just as much as they need to know how your policies, products and services can help them. You need to give them a reason to be loyal to your brand, rather than a hundred reasons why you’re better than the competition. There is no back door to the affinity we all crave with our audience. No amount of attention you can buy will get you to this point. Loyalty is achieved only with resonance.

Without a purpose, we don’t know why we’re on the journey. But without a vision, we don’t know the destination. The terms “mission” and “vision” are often confused and used interchangeably in organisations, so it’s worth making the distinction here. Your mission is your purpose—which is the term I prefer and have chosen to use for the sake of clarity. As we’ve explored in the previous section, it’s the reason your company exists. Your purpose is why you do what you do today and every day. Your vision is your aspiration for the future—the contribution you or your work will make.

It’s not easy to measure the impact of having a clear purpose and vision—which is why deliberately designing a business around them is often overlooked. And yet, when we dig deeper, we find that beloved brands, the ones that are successful by every measure, do exactly that. Your brand’s story has the power to be a map, mirror and magnet, and your vision keeps you on track, enabling you to attract like-minded people who want to create the future with you.

Think of your strategy as a path of stepping stones that you navigate to your goal. Your plan, chunked down into manageable pieces. Having a strategy enables you to ask better tactical questions.

Business building is not necessarily linear, but it is a progression. Important first and next steps on any business- or career-building journey are born from understanding what we are working towards. Without that clarity, we can end up walking around in ever-decreasing circles, getting nowhere.

Hire for cultural fit.

In addition to manufacturing tyres, Michelin created and distributed guides for drivers to help them to find hotels, mechanics and fuel throughout France. You could say that the company was one of the world’s first content marketers.

Never compete on price = Never compromise for price.

The company not only serves people in colder climates, but has also gone on to develop more specialist socks that solve problems for people with medical issues and extra durability requirements. Today the company innovates from a place of empathy.

Bruce was keen to learn and loved the culture of service and connection with customers. It was not unusual for someone from the bank to go grocery shopping for a sick pensioner, then deliver her groceries and get her signature on a withdrawal slip for the funds.

He was a founding member of what is now the Customer Contact Management Association.

Create the best product possible, honouring the historical craft and care of gelato. Because people don’t deserve sales and marketing, they deserve better.

Often, though, it’s the person with the lowest rank in an organisation who has the chance to make the biggest impact day-to-day.

This is the place where I’d invite you to begin retracing your steps on your journey to now—to reflect on the events, incidents and stories that changed your mind, your feelings or your direction in life and work.

What’s the one thing you wouldn’t change about yourself? Why? Remember and record a story about how that quality you value enabled you to step up and do something you’re proud to have done. How can you bring more of that thing you wouldn’t change into your work? In what everyday situations would it be helpful to bring this quality into play?

Your company story

Explain why each of these values is important to you. How do these values influence your decisions, work or business practices? Write a paragraph each about three business strategy decisions that were guided by your values.

Write a list of your core values. It’s often helpful to start with the word ‘I’ or ‘we’ followed by a verb—we act, believe, succeed, care, behave, deliver and so on.

PURPOSE Your reason

VISION Your contribution

STRATEGY

Your plan What

Who

How

Alignment

History, heritage and hindsight are powerful teachers. But we’re in too much of a hurry to reach higher ground to learn from them.

we can’t escape our shadows—the same goes for our backstories. And nor should we want to. We can learn a lot about ourselves, the world and our place in it by connecting the dots looking backwards. Instead, we worry about perfecting today’s dot or agonise about positioning tomorrow’s.

But there was very little instruction about how to become wise to ourselves. We were encouraged to find out what we were good at, but not to figure out what we stood for and how we came to stand for it. We learned the value of making good choices, but not to understand why we felt they were the right ones. We became good at telling people what they wanted to hear and stifled what we wanted to say.

Nobody escapes trying to fit in as they grow up, and all that conforming leaves very little room for the effort that’s required to be who we are.

A great company doesn’t just thrive because it’s profitable; it’s profitable because it helps people to thrive.

The secret to being exceptional is in the small choices we make moment-to-moment.