The Urgency to Understand the Larger Story of Another

The power of story. It influences our lives. We have a personal story, fed by the evolutionary stages of story from our culture, our tribes, and our family. Story describes our core values and the why of our journey.

If you built a business model to help people, companies, and governments understand their identity through story as well as the stories of others you might be able to create a powerful and sustainable engagement that could lead to constructive relationships throughout our world. You might be able to avoid war. You might be able to solve some of the world’s largest problems.

Narrative Strategies has done that. We sat down and talked with the Vice President of Strategy, Paul Cobaugh to help us understand story’s place and its potential. What we found is a different language to describe how stories feed a larger narrative identity, with story being a puzzle piece.

The puzzle creates a picture that tells you something. The stories tell only a piece. Assemble them together and it becomes a narrative of a family, culture, or company.

Since Paul is a veteran, he pulls examples of how he intuitively understood this in his work around the world.

It seems so simple. So simple that it is largely ignored by people in power. But a few are listening. And that is good. The future of our country may depend on it.

Someone needs to be in place to understand the collective stories of our enemies, so we can articulate our ideas and touch their narrative identities. That someone is a “narrator”. The narrator needs to be in it for the long game because relationships based on narrative identity require sustained engagement. And the narrator needs to have a sense of urgency so that our ideas can help shape the future narrative identities of the world. The story is unfolding right now. And we have a front row seat.

Time to have a great conversation!