Story-telling as a way to convey meaning

Visions, or mantras or values have no meaning to people. Ask a random person what their company’s vision is and most people are blank. Visions, in my view, are usually the product of forced group efforts in companies that do team building activities once every two years. A company’s vision (or mantra or values) should justify its existence. How does your company make a difference in people’s lives? How is it meaningful?

Meaning exists between humans. Only when a business has a reason for existence does it have potential for meaning. Let me give an example: to me it seems Universal Records have no purpose; they don’t add value to society, and because of this I don’t care about them, they have no meaning to me. Thus, i don't care to buy their products. But how do companies, brands, organizations or products become important to us?

Let me tell you a story. There once was an African American boy. At the age of two this boy’s father dies, and the boy is left with only his mother to take care of him. His mother moves away to remarry, so his grandmother raises him, spending her every moment with the boy. At an early age, this boy earns a scholarship that will change his life; he gets in to a expensive private school. His hard work and the help from his grandmother lead him to Columbia University and later Harvard Law. The boy later becomes the first African American President of the United States. When this man said he had come a long way to change America, people believed him. This is really an epic story about a boy, victim to society, left alone by his parents, raised by his loving grandmother (to whom he often referred), that traversed the challenges in his way and rose to become a modern day icon. This is an icon I can care about, because it has meaning to me. Barack Obama has a vision – he wants change. And he has the stories to back it up. He is a story teller. 

I often hear people tell me that Barack Obama became president because he was on facebook and twitter. Let me tell you right now; that’s a misunderstanding. He became president because he could convey meaning through stories. As a part of an organization, or a company ask yourself “What justifies our existence and how do we create meaning in peoples lives?”.Only when you know why you do something, beyond reward, can you create actual meaning, and that is when you gain followers; be it customers, voters, employees or fan groups.