As a CEO of a startup or a company that has escaped from the cradle into “small company-dom” you are in a constant state of storytelling, storytelling that dictates the transformation of you as the CEO and your company.
As a writer of stories, you are told to “write what you know” while your Big Red Car believes the correct bit of inspiration is: “Write what you imagine based on what you know.”
They key thing here is that you are not writing a history, but a story of what the future will be because you are charged with creating that future.
We have spoken of this in several different ways:
Finding Your Authentic Leadership Style
Practice Like You Play
In both of these examples, the CEO is required to visualize an outcome — tell a story — and make it happen in accordance with that story.
To state the obvious, you have to think, visualize the outcomes you want, consider how you and the company must change, and achieve those outcomes.
This may sound suspiciously like work, and on that score you are correct.
If you don’t spend any time visualizing the transformation — both you and the company — then the world, the market will impose its wishes on you.
So, dear CEO, you have to visualize the outcomes you want, plan for them, write down your plan/story, break that plan down into chapters — no, sorry, objectives — and get to work making it happen.
Make it a big story. Big stories and little stories cost the same. Go big.
How does one eat a elephant? One bite at a time.
Last word — run your story by some folks who may be able to assist you. Run it by other storytellers.
Run It By These Guys
So, there you have it. Storytelling. Transformational storytelling.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Be good and buckle down to some storytelling — your unique story. Make it happen, because you can.
This guy was a storyteller and so are you. His story faced down Hitler at a difficult moment when England was defenseless having extricated its soldiers, but not their weapons from Dunkirk in France.
The power of storytelling? It can face down evil. It can win wars. It can transform you and your company.
