How re-imagining past shapes your strategic narrative

“The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.” ― Alain de Botton

Strategizing for the future from the uncertain edifice of the present is fraught with challenges. As the pandemic has shown us, the shockwaves from a single development can render the most elaborate market research and analysis obsolete. 

How then must a business craft a strategic narrative that stands the test of time. How can we create a monument atop shifting sands? The word “disruption” might have lost its pejorative origins and evolved into a vibrant synonym for innovation. Yet, “disruption” is hard to bring about in many organizations because it unsettles the comfort zones. 

This is why many strategists (both business and political) found it expedient to disguise change as continuity. A new measure is characterized not as a standalone development, but as a continuation of what the business did in the past under similar circumstances. Many opportunities to chalk a new path are lost due to a narrow, fixated perspective of the past. The past needs to be infused with a fresh meaning for a new future to manifest. 

Wait! Are we falsifying the past?

While this might appear like an exercise in window-dressing, I think it’s not. We rarely have an objective view of the past. In fact, a lot of how we see a certain event is controlled by how we think it panned out in the present. An unpleasant event that is seen to have ended well is seldom characterized as “unpleasant”. Likewise, a failed end-result can completely erase the memory of an excellent start. 

The past is not carved in stone. It is what we make of it. 

How seeing the past in a new light helped us

A company I was once associated with decided to re-jig their brand strategy. The company witnessed exponential growth, thanks to a series of organic and inorganic expansions. The parent company was a 1st gen IT services company that predominantly focused on application development. But, as they grew, they also acquired expertise in enterprise-scale solutions. 

This was also the time when “digital transformation” was rising on the horizon. The inorganic growth afforded us the right tech mix to help businesses embrace digital transformation. However, the leap from positioning ourselves as an application developer to an enabler of digital transformation looked daunting. During the brainstorming sessions, we realized that our image as an application development company was self-imposed and shaped by historical habits. 

What we were doing then, what we were continuing to do as we grew, and what we planned to do in the future was all the same: offer customers unlimited opportunities for growth using the power of technology. The technologies that we used may have evolved. But our contract with the customer remained sacrosanct.

A special story that holds everything together

Once these difficult waters were navigated, the journey towards the grand business narrative was smoother. For, this narrative was tasked with holding a diverse set of people, geographies, cultures, business interests and values together. 

The strategic narrative is the prism businesses use to impose continuity upon its actions throughout its trajectory. It’s a north star that stays relevant amid changing market conditions and technology landscape.