Understanding the connection between numbers and stories is critical, especially for people who believe that numbers are the only lens at which to view past, present and future.  My original post is a good start.

As a fully recovered accountant I have moved from someone who serves client processes to being a storyteller. Oddly enough I do this successfully by offering analytics services based on Microsoft, Cognos and Business Objects technologies in the international enterprise spaces which they occupy.

Here is how I make the link from stories to numbers with a little mantra that I call my ’story lens’.

Story Process Software Brand KPI

Tell a story twice and it becomes a Process.
Tell a story three times and software is made to speed up Processes.
Tell a story four times and you create a Brand value.
Tell a story five times and someone creates a KPI to measure.

Anyone can point this story lens at a corporation’s value chain to obtain a clear understanding of what is happening there today and what will happen in the next 6 to 12 months.

I add two simple tools to magnify the value of a story lens:

1. Personae–build key personae with a focus on behaviours
2. Scenarios–gather stories that are the core of the financial forecasts of a corporation and its key value stream partners.

First observe which Personae are linked to a corporation’s value stream stories and determine how those Personae might change their behaviours in the next 6 to 12 months.

Next identify the key stories attached to the corporation’s financial forecast–these stories are the orginial story bucket or Scenario at the core of the financial statements.

Then modify some of the original stories according to anticipated changes in Persona behaviours and add new stories which may occur in the future, not those that are a progression of current stories but rather those that may occur due to unforseen events such as Barrack Obama being elected as the next US President. Once the new stories are combined to those in the original Scenario label this bucket of stories Scenario2.

Then consider how you would have to manage and align the business if the world unfolds according to the stories in Scenario1, or your current financial forecasts or if the world unfolds according the the stories that make up Scenario2.

To come full circle, all this is possible by working with a story or rather a series of stories and linking them to Personae.

All storytellers intuitively understand that numbers and stories are complementary and as a storyteller I must point out that at one time stories and numbers were one and indeed even today a number evokes many stories–the numbers 7 or 4 in the Chinese culture or even the number 5 in our own.

Chanel No5–the link between Africa and the western world–

http://uma.chanel.com/fplus.php?chsetdefgnavdiv=13&landing=f&branding=n05

In the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria the deity of love, sexuality and finance is OCHUN and her number is 5.

Coco Chanel either new and used this mythical connection or was extremely lucky. Either way the connection of stories and numbers is illustrated effectively here and others who wish more proof can research as time permits with luminaries like Marie-Louise von Franz.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Marie-Louise%20von%20Franz

though I suggest this as a first read

On Divination and Synchronicity: The Psychology of Meaningful Chance. Originally Presented As Lectures at the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich (Studies in Jungian Psychology) (Paperback)
by Marie-Louise von Franz
http://www.amazon.com/Divination-Synchronicity-Psychology-Meaningful-Originally/dp/0919123023/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226257728&sr=1-7

Stories are the core of what we are and what we do, and for those with an unclear understanding of what a storyteller means let me offer this view–first a storyteller hears a story, repeats a story, modifies a story, builds a story and finally lives a story.

Cheers,
Nick
nick@scenario2.com