Each month, our newsletter delivers the latest industry thinking and insights to our community. Last month, rather than sharing a technical deep-dive, I included a light-hearted story about nearly getting stranded in an airport car park after a long international business trip. My electric car was running on fumes because I had accidentally left the security settings activated, draining the battery while I was away. This personal mishap, framed as a lesson in agile leadership, wasn’t intended to be our most impactful piece—yet it became our most opened and most replied-to email ever. This experience powerfully reinforced a crucial aspect of agile strategic execution: while metrics, spreadsheets, and processes are essential tools, it’s stories that people truly remember and connect with.
Why Strategy Often Fails
We work with many companies who are doing great work—investing in agile ways of working, building solid delivery frameworks, tracking important metrics and setting and achieving ambitious OKRs. But even with all that in place, something can still go missing. Usually, it’s not the strategy itself; it’s how that strategy is communicated. If your team can’t remember the story behind why something matters, they’re less likely to stick with it when things get hard. That’s why when we work with clients, we don’t just help them set direction – we help them tell the story behind it.
Research from Stanford has shown that when information is presented solely as data, retention rates hover between 5–10%. However, studies from the London School of Business demonstrate that when that same information is embedded within a story, retention skyrockets to 65–70%.
This power of storytelling was illustrated perfectly during my recent client engagement. At a company event, a team member shared how their work directly enabled young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to access previously inaccessible services.
Despite spending an entire week on-site with this client in multiple strategy sessions – where I absorbed countless data points about their business approach – what truly resonated was this single story. While I might struggle to recite their complete strategic framework, I can vividly recount this impactful narrative with the same passion, belief, and positivity each time. The emotional connection forged through storytelling created a lasting impression that raw data simply couldn’t achieve.
I also think back to some of my favourite agile, OKR and leadership books:
- The Phoenix Project
- The Goal
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
- Radical Focus
What do they all have in common? They aren’t bland business books – they are management parables, engaging stories with relatable characters – I remembered the stories, and I remembered the lessons from those.
Crafting a Compelling Story with SUCCESs
When helping teams craft a compelling story behind their strategy, I often reference the SUCCESs model from “Made to Stick” by Chip & Dan Heath. It’s a brilliant tool for making messages memorable and meaningful. Here’s the breakdown:
- Simple – Strip your message down to the core idea. What’s the one thing you want people to remember?
- Unexpected – Grab attention with a twist or surprise. What makes your message stand out?
- Concrete – Use vivid, specific examples. Swap vague ideas for real, relatable language.
- Credible – Use trusted sources or real data to back up your point.
- Emotional – People care more when they feel something. What’s the human impact?
- Story – Wrap it all in a story people can relate to, repeat, and retell.
Why Strategy-as-Story Works
Stories light up parts of our brains that make meaning. They help us care, remember, and retell. We know that change is constant, and alignment is everything, so making meaning matters a lot.
When we work with leadership teams, we often help them answer:
- What’s the North Star that we are trying to reach?
- What’s the problem that we’re trying to solve?
- Why is this important right now?
- What would have to be true to solve that problem?
- How does this connect to real outcomes for our customers and teams?
Once you’ve got that narrative clear, then the OKRs, initiatives, projects and subsequent delivery plans and sprints start to make a lot more sense.
How can you ensure alignment of strategy and execution? >>
Making Your Strategy Memorable
Here are a few ways to make your strategy more memorable:
- Weave in WIIFM – That’s “what’s in it for me.” Help teams understand how this connects to their day-to-day work and what success looks like for them.
- Tell it often – Strategy isn’t a one-time comms piece. Repetition builds retention. Use it in team meetings, all-hands, retros—anywhere you want it to land.
- Don’t create your strategy in secret – A successful strategy is executed by your people and teams. Bringing your teams into the strategy definition process, whether that’s for feedback or as part of a cross-functional working group, will ensure that everyone feels a senses of ownership, increasing the chance of making it stick.
- Make your strategy communication exciting – Can you create a video to instil excitement, showcasing real people who are impacted by the strategy? Consider a launch event – make it something that people look forward to seeing and being part of.
Keeping the Story Alive in Delivery
Strategy doesn’t live in slide decks; it lives in all aspects of your organisations, from the boardroom to the team areas, in sprints and stand-ups, around the water cooler and coffee machine. If your team can’t connect their work back to the bigger picture in those everyday moments, strategy becomes background noise. And your OKRs? Just more numbers and letters on a page.
So, how do you keep the story alive once delivery begins?
- Start sprint planning (or any other kind of planning session) with a reminder of the “why” – Before diving into user stories, tickets or tasks, re-anchor the team. What’s the objective these deliverables ladder up to? What problem are we solving? What does success look like from a user or customer perspective?
- Use retros to check the story still makes sense – Retrospectives aren’t just for checking what worked or didn’t. Instead of just retro-ing on process, measure the outcomes that you’re trying to improve and ask: “Are we still solving the right problem?” This keeps the focus on outcomes, not just activity.
- Share progress like a story, not a status update – Whether it’s a sprint review or stakeholder update, don’t just list what got done. Demo what changed, who benefited, and what you learned. This helps people see momentum – not just output. In addition, don’t be afraid to break barriers and find common ground with humour. Relevant humour timed rightly and used appropriately can help to make your demo (your story), more memorable. If you’re brave enough share some self-deprecating humour about challenges you’ve faced as a team – this helps to show that you’re HUMAN. But be warned, it doesn’t come without risk – make sure the humour is light-hearted, inoffensive and aimed at the right level for your audience.
When delivery teams start to speak in stories, it becomes easier to see value, measure progress, and stay aligned—even as things change.
Need Help Creating Stories, Not Statistics?
Are you ready to make your strategy unforgettable? Let’s work together to craft compelling stories that drive engagement and success. Contact us today for a free consultation and start your journey towards a more impactful, memorable strategy.
