
The Narrative Age: How leaders can inspire change in a polarized world

Brand strategist and author David Aaker defined the concept in his book Creating Signature Stories: Strategic Messaging That Energizes, Persuades and
Frank Wolf • The Narrative Age: How leaders can inspire change in a polarized world
But you also need to understand the behaviors and attitudes that need to shift in order to reach that end goal, and how your planned activities will support the change.
Frank Wolf • The Narrative Age: How leaders can inspire change in a polarized world
As we saw in the last section, creating a strategy requires defining your field of play and the desired outcome.
Frank Wolf • The Narrative Age: How leaders can inspire change in a polarized world
The global expansion strategy of Netflix is another example showing the difference between strategy and planning. Netflix’s strategy to become the leading streaming service worldwide was based on the theory that doing so would require a highly diverse and localized content library. As
Frank Wolf • The Narrative Age: How leaders can inspire change in a polarized world
While strategy is about defining goals with the “what” and “why,” planning is about how to achieve those goals.
Frank Wolf • The Narrative Age: How leaders can inspire change in a polarized world
You’re taking a risk.
Frank Wolf • The Narrative Age: How leaders can inspire change in a polarized world
while you may undertake intensive research to understand the market, organizational readiness, or industry trends, at the end of the day you are putting yourself out there and stating what you believe is likely to happen.
Frank Wolf • The Narrative Age: How leaders can inspire change in a polarized world
A strategy is a set of choices made on a playing field with the aim of producing a victory. While you cannot know for certain the outcome, you must start with a theory. And
Frank Wolf • The Narrative Age: How leaders can inspire change in a polarized world
All of this can be planned with a smart and bold strategic narrative that fits into the narrative landscape of the intended audience. That’s the strategy part.