Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

I have spent this past week talking to entrepreneurs about the first cohort of The Ken’s narrative thinking workshop we are conducting next week. And one question has come up several times. Why should an entrepreneur limit themselves to the confines of a story? Why should their towering ambition for their baby of a startup be limited by one narrative?

They do feel the need to learn storytelling, but they have also been cautious. 

To me, it feels like a classic conflict between the head and the heart. If you think of the hardworking founder of a successful startup as an artist (and there are good reasons to), then theirs is a mission to get the entire world to become part of their journey. They want to connect with everyone. 

For them, the world is divided into customers, investors, or talent, and potential customers, investors, or talent. 

But narratives can be limiting. To live and tell a story, they need to be strategic in laying down their vision and mission—enough that it can be written down in a single sentence, or a headline. It requires them to be deliberate, discerning, and specific with the details that go into that story. And, finally, it forces them to think of stories as lego blocks—chapters or modules they can use to structure and organise their hopes and dreams.

Take, for instance, Starbucks. Its essence, if you could call it that, is that it is the ‘Third Place’—in narrative science, the Third Place is something that’s neither home nor work that provides a feeling of connection and belonging. 

Sure, this is a story that leaves out a lot. But that’s okay, because ultimately, a story is meant to be concise, simple, and succinct. And it is meant to be told to and connect with a single specific person, or group of persons. 

But then, how does the entrepreneur connect with all the others that have been left out? 

We dug into the answer in a masterclass last week with an exercise:

I will attempt an answer to this question in this edition. 

And if you are a founder or a senior executive interested in participating in our Narrative Thinking Workshop, please fill out this form.

A business story is also about what’s not in it

There is a prominent school of thought that suggests that entrepreneurs should ‘say yes’ as much as possible. Even to ideas that sound too good to be true; to goals that seem impossible to achieve; and definitely to any opportunity that opens new doors into the great wide world.