As a child I particularly loved Greek mythology, and in the 70s and 80s was a fan of Ray Harryhausen’s animations in movies such as the original Clash of the Titans. My love of Greek mythology continues to this day – I even named my daughter Arianna after Ariadne from the story of Theseus and the Minotaur which was my favourite Greek myth as a child. 

As a big Star Wars fan, I became aware of the seminal works on storytelling and mythology by Joseph Campbell. Interestingly, what his work shows is myths across the world all tend to conform to the same structure, no matter where or how you encounter them.

The highest-grossing films, from Star Wars, the Hunger Games to The Matrix, all tell the classic hero story of departure, fulfilment and return, themes that are at the heart of many mythological and religious stories, from the life of Jesus or Buddha to the tales of King Arthur. This is known as the Hero’s Journey. Check the link at the bottom for a simple and short summary of this.

In my working world of strategy, storytelling is becoming an increasingly more important tool in the strategy kit bag. You can have done the most rigorous and robust strategic analysis on a particular opportunity or challenge, but this counts for nothing if you can’t land the key messages to your target audience. Hence, I am seeing more emphasis placed on crafting strategic narratives to support strategies. And the universality of story telling, and the hero’s journey in particular can really help with this. Try framing a piece of strategic analysis as a story using the simple structure of Context – Conflict – Resolution.