Tell Your Strategy Story
Unite storytelling and creativity to create a successful strategy
Course Outcomes
- Identify a strategic problem that your organization faces, frame it as a quest(ion), and brainstorm possibilities to solve it.
- Surface and pick the conditions that would need to be true to make the possibility a winning strategy.
- Build and conduct different types of stories to help you choose among your possibilities.
- Set your team up to be able to take action on the strategic choices you make.
What You’ll Learn
Week 1: Introduction
Learn a storytelling process for the strategy that will enable you to take action.
4 VIDEO LESSONS
- Making Choices—An introduction to strategy
- The Strategy Storytelling Process Map—A storytelling framework for navigating strategy
- The Strategy Choice Manifesto —A storytelling way to articulate strategy
- Strategy is a Storytelling Act For Everyone
1 ASSIGNMENT
- Identify the problem and frame a strategic question—Outline the current Strategy Choice Manifesto for your organization, describe the strategy problem that you’re facing, and craft a “How might we?” story to articulate the problem.
5 DISCUSSIONS
- What brought you to this course, and why have you chosen to learn the skills of designing strategy?
- Which steps of the Strategy Storytelling Process do you feel most and least comfortable with? Why?
- Have you ever had a difficult time communicating a strategy or strategic possibility in the past? If so, why?
- What story choices are you making in your current role? Can you see how this might be considered strategy?
Week 2: From Problems to Possibilities
Define a strategy problem that you’re facing, frame a quest story around your problem, and generate new strategic possibilities.
4 VIDEO LESSONS
- Setting the Stage for Strategy—Define a problem, frame a strategic quest story
- Framing a “How might we…” Quest Story
- Invent the Future—Generate strategic story possibilities
- Shape Strategic Possibilities—Apply “Where to Play” and “How to Win”
1 ASSIGNMENT
- Generate story possibilities—Push your thinking to brainstorm new strategic possibilities that answer the quest story you framed for your organization. Articulate those possibilities in more detail using the elements “Where to Play?” and “How to Win?” from the Strategy Choice Manifesto.
3 DISCUSSIONS
- Framing a “How might we” quest story can sometimes feel tricky, but it shouldn’t be the thing that slows your strategy work down. What are some ways that you’ve found that can help you frame a quest story?
- What strategy possibilities did you come up with for your practice case? Are any particularly inspiring and/or radical that you’d like to share? How did it feel to brainstorm and dream big?
- Think about two organizations that compete with one another–how would you describe their story choices? What’s unique about them?
Week 3: What Would Have to Be True?
Review the strategic possibilities you brainstormed and surface the conditions that are necessary to make a possibility a success.
3 VIDEO LESSONS
- What Would Have to be True?—The most important question in strategy
- Surfacing Conditions—Ask “What would have to be true for this story?”
- Identifying Barriers—Choose what to test about this story
1 ASSIGNMENT
- What would have to be true and barriers—Think about the “What would have to be true?” conditions for each of your strategic possibilities, then identify your early hunches about which ones might be barriers.
2 DISCUSSIONS
- Have you ever been in a situation where it was difficult to gain alignment? Were you able to move past this? If so, how did you get “unstuck”?
- Think of a choice that you’re facing in life or work, and the different options that you’re considering for that choice. How might asking “What would have to be true?” to make each a great option, help you to see them differently?
Week 4: Test to Learn
Learn how to test barriers to shorten your odds of creating a winning strategy.
4 VIDEO LESSONS
- Prove It—Two Myths that can kill innovation
- Test for the Future—Design and conduct strategy tests
- Testing in Strategy- What is your Clients Story?
- One Example of a What is your Clients Story Test
1 ASSIGNMENT
- Test to learn—Design and plan out strategic tests that you can conduct to learn more about the barriers you identified as part of the strategy process.
3 DISCUSSIONS
- What types of What is your Clients Story tests feel familiar to you? What are you most excited to try?
Week 5: Make a Choice
After you’ve conducted What is your Clients Story tests for your barriers, you’ll make sense of the results and use that information to make a strategic choice.
4 VIDEO LESSONS
- Telling the Strategy Story
1 ASSIGNMENT
- Decide—Look back across the entire strategy process and take stock of some of the big takeaways from the course, and think about how will you continue to practice strategy after the course is complete.
3 DISCUSSIONS
- What do you think will be the most challenging part of deciding on your new strategy? Are you stuck between any possibilities?
- What are some ways in which this course has changed your view on strategy design? How will you use your new perspective, or how have you already started using it?
- Have you presented strategy work in the past? What is successful? What were some techniques or tips that helped or hindered this work for you?
About Peter de Kuster
Peter de Kuster is the founder of The Heroine’s Journey & Hero’s Journey project, a storytelling firm which helps creative professionals to create careers and lives based on whatever story is most integral to their lifes and careers (values, traits, skills and experiences). Peter’s approach combines in-depth storytelling and marketing expertise, and for over 20 years clients have found it effective with a wide range of creative business issues.
Peter is writer of the series The Heroine’s Journey and Hero’s Journey books, he has an MBA in Marketing, MBA in Financial Economics and graduated at university in Sociology and Communication Sciences.
Practical Info
- Price is Euro 599 excluding VAT
- Start Date: July 2
- Time: 5 weeks, 4 hours each week
- Start this virtual journey by mailing us at peterdekuster@hotmail.nl
The Heroine's Journey 