Strategy is about telling stories. Good strategy is about telling the ongoing saga of your brand.

This is part two. In part one we introduced the premise and a framework to hang our strategic direction on. Then we got into Mission & Goals (What). This time we’ll be examining the Value Network (Who) and Strategy (How)

Value Network

Who are the primary character in our story? Is there a main protagonist we’ll tell the story (Vision) through? Is there an antagonist?

This last one is tricky. Most strategic visions are rosy pictures of the perfect world our strategy leads us into. Without conflict stories don’t exist. Even Seinfeld, a show about nothing, had conflict. The same is true here. If there is no conflict, noting in the way of success, then there is no need to develop a strategy.

Conflict can come from many places. In the corporate world there’s almost always an aspect that comes from people. Resistance to change from within. Reluctance from customers. Event external pressures from competitors. These antagonist may or may not be referenced in your strategic vision. Recognizing them will help you develop better strategies. We’ll talk more about conflict with strategy. For now lets get back to the Value Network.

Your Value Network is made up of the most impactful roles on success. Notice I said role and not people or jobs. As you start to build your Value Network focus on the roles people play. It’s common for the same person or job title to play multiple roles. By separating the role from the job your strategies will have greater longevity. This will also help to remove potential bias. Tina in sales might be great with social media, but that doesn’t make social media curation a function of sales.

Technically, once you’ve identified the roles and responsibilities of the network, you’re done. Go further. We’re here to talk about the elements of story. Understanding the roles needed is the beginning, not the end. Begin shaping your roles into characters. In business parlance these would be personas. Thinking of personas as characters creates a richer vision. The stronger your vision the easier it is for people to rally around it. But remember, each character has a role to play that moves the story forward. If they don’t, they shouldn’t be there.

Note that I’ve chosen to write this series in a way that indicates a flow. Now throw that notion away. Don’t look at these as a series of steps to be checked off. The truth is you’ll bounce around between Network, Strategy, and Vision. The Mission is the touchstone everything co-develops around. You may even find through the process a need to adjust the Mission. That’s OK, and you should have processes in place to allow that.

I’ll be talking about character and the Value Network in the future. Next we’ll be diving into strategy.