Donald Miller

Empathetic statements start with words like, “We understand how it feels to . . .” or “Nobody should have to experience . . .” or “Like you, we are frustrated by . . .” or, in the case of one Toyota commercial inviting Toyota owners to engage their local Toyota service center, simply, “We care about your Toyota.”

When customers are invited into a magnificent story, it creates customer engagement. Could the same be true for employees? Absolutely.
With a StoryBrand-inspired narrative, ordinary jobs become extraordinary adventures. With a unifying BrandScript, the above story would have gone more like this:
Before even applying for a job, the prospective employee has already heard the buzz on the street about this cool company. It’s somehow more alive. The people who work there love it and so do their customers. They exude a sense of competence within their industry as well as across the community in general. Their leaders are respected. Even their former employees talk about it with a hint of sentimental longing. On the list of ideal places to work, there are few that compare.

There are interesting characters whose lives have led them to this place. Business goals sound like plot twists. There are mountains to climb and rivers to cross. There are storms to weather, bears to hunt, and treasure to find. The hiring manager is visibly excited as she walks effortlessly through the seven categories of the company’s narrative.

But not just anyone gets selected for this expedition. The employees of this company aren’t trying to be snobs, they’re just staying true to the story they’re following and they don’t want to compromise the plot. If you happen to be selected, it’s because destiny basically demands it. Instantly the candidate’s concept of work shifts up a level. It’s no longer just about what he can get out of it. It’s also about who he will become if he’s allowed to enter the story. He senses that working for this company will transform him.

By the second and third interviews, the candidate has met most of the team and even been interviewed by them. Everyone he meets tells the exact same story he heard on the street and in the first interview. The story is growing on him. He realizes he needs to be part of a story like this to be fully satisfied in life. We all do.

For the next three to five years, the new guy feels like he’s still getting to know the place. Every month he discovers new reasons why this is his dream job. Pictures of customers are plastered all over the walls, celebrating their successes. His daily tasks are not mundane but are specific objectives that have him working together with other teams to help their customers solve the problems that are frustrating them. His coworkers are not his competition but are a supportive community that actually wants him to thrive and grow as they live out a story about changing the world. Customers themselves visit the office to get a tour of the company that helped solve their problems.

Killing off a Narrative Void isn’t easy, and it takes time. Around the StoryBrand office, Ben uses the term thoughtmosphere. A thoughtmosphere is an invisible mixture of beliefs and ideas that drives employee behavior and performance. A thoughtmosphere improves when a StoryBrand-inspired narrative is created, talking points are devised, and a plan of execution is put in place to reinforce those talking points so every stakeholder understands their important role.

The number-one job of an executive is to remind the stakeholders what the mission is, over and over. And yet most executives can’t really explain the overall narrative of the organization. Here’s the problem: if an executive can’t explain the story, team members will never know where or why they fit.

true mission isn’t a statement; it’s a way of living and being. A mission is more than token rituals that make momentary reference to the things your employees should care about. A mission is a story you reinforce through every department strategy, every operational detail, and every customer experience. That’s what it means to be a company on mission.

The main distinctive of an On-Mission company is their attention to how the basic blocking and tackling of business is synchronized around a StoryBrand BrandScript. The BrandScript filters out all the noise and lets each stakeholder, each day, know why they’re doing what they’re doing.