Subscribe to receive more insights, analysis, and perspectives from First Person.
A powerful story uniquely positions your business with meaning. Story at the Center spotlights new ideas and strategy in service of B2B storytelling.
Brand architecture isn’t a logo thing. It’s infrastructure—and when it’s unmanaged, it creates drag on revenue, operations, and M&A integration. A new AI-enabled methodology is changing how we measure and govern brand portfolios at scale.
Sometimes your story isn’t broken—it’s just out of tune. You’ve done the research, nailed the strategy, built the decks… but it still doesn’t land. Before you burn it all down, maybe it’s time to tune what’s already there.
Messaging feels like progress. But without a strategic narrative, it’s a trap. This piece unpacks how story debt builds—and what leaders can do to fix it before the cycle repeats.
After 20 years of being called in when it's almost too late, I’ve seen the same pattern: companies treating Story like a waterfall project while their markets move at platform speed. The cost? $2.3 trillion in failed transformations and a lot of brilliant strategies that never see daylight.
This post is about when everything should be working… but still somehow isn’t. To reignite that dangerous spark, you must understand how the Innovation Paradox can silently stifle new ideas.
A central narrative resonates across all levels of audience interaction, ensuring consistency and credibility. When leaders see how we structure Story at the Center, they understand why this clarity is so important.
Future Casting transforms abstract technology into a vivid, actionable story of the future. Discover how to trigger customer epiphanies and lead your category — with lessons from Corning, SAP Concur, and more.
Future Casting isn’t wishful thinking—it’s structured imagination with a strategic purpose. This guide shows you how to visualize a believable future, align your teams, and lead your market with clarity and conviction.
Executives often recognize that their company’s position needs to shift—but without a structured way to align teams around that vision, they punt the problem down the road. The best ideas don’t happen in isolation. They happen when leaders turn vision into action.
Ever feel trapped in an endless loop—rehashing the same issues, revisiting decisions that should have been final, or watching a minor misunderstanding derail a meeting, forcing yet another reset of priorities and strategies?
Don’t scrap your story—align it. Learn how to bridge the gap between vision and action through strategic narrative alignment and achieve category dominance.
We know that the most successful companies don’t just tell any story, they tell the right one in the right way.
In a market filled with imitators, true differentiation comes from vision-driven strategy, not just planning. Companies that lead their categories do so by defining a compelling narrative about where the market is heading and their role in shaping it.
Innovation thrives when companies look beyond their competitors and draw inspiration from their own vision. This approach empowers you to stay ahead by evolving on your terms, rather than constantly reacting to what others are doing.
Vision is not just an abstract concept; it's a vital strategic tool. My last blog talked about all of the reasons that CEOs must define a bold vision—with a clear, actionable strategy that everyone in the organization can rally behind.
Working closely with CEOs and CMOs, I've helped translate those potent, sometimes chaotic ideas in their heads into clear, actionable strategic visions that everyone in the organization can rally behind.
Embracing Story at the Center means you’re not just crafting strategies—you’re scripting legacies. This is the art of business transformation.
