Page 181 -

Making the Future Tangible

Stories offer a wonderful technique for blurring the lines
separating reality and fi ction. Thus stories provide a
powerful tool for imparting tangibility to different versions Provoke Ideas
of the future. This can help you challenge the status quo Sometimes a story’s sole purpose is to challenge the
what future business model?
or justify adopting a new business model. organizational status quo. Such a story must bring vividly
to life a future competitive environment in which the STORYTELLING
current business model is severely challenged or even
obsolete. Telling a story like this blurs the lines between
reality and fi ction and catapults listeners into the future. 175
175
This suspends disbelief, instills a sense of urgency, and
current business model opens the audience’s eyes to the need to generate new
business models. Such a story can be told from either an DESIGN
organization or a customer perspective.

Justify Change
planned future business model Sometimes an organization has strong ideas about how
its competitive landscape will evolve. In this context,
a story’s purpose is to show how a new business model
is ideally suited to help an organization compete in the
new landscape. Stories temporarily suspend disbelief
and help people imagine how the current business model
should evolve to remain effective in the future. The
story’s protagonist could be a customer, an employee,
or a top manager.

!"#$%&'(%)*+(%,,---192 /012013---2485-67