Here we stand, fuelled with purpose, like the Commander on the Starship Enterprise, Captain Kirk, ‘boldly going where no man has gone before’ – heading into 2023. There was always an upbeat tone in Captain Kirk’s voice and an air of excitement as he narrated the Enterprise’s call to adventure.
Most of us won’t be discovering new planets and lifeforms this year. But strategic planning has become a creatively challenging process. The sheer magnitude of macro uncertainty generates a wild range of possibilities.
Recent scenarios
A few years ago, scenarios for the year ahead might include a new competitor, disruption in the market sector, supplier issues and exchange rate volatility. Before it actually happened, most of us could not comprehend a situation where travel would drop so drastically and cargo tariffs would rise so astronomically.
Our thinking is typically limited by the boundaries of what we believe to be possible. It probably helps to keep us sane – acting like a governor on a car engine. If our minds wandered off-limits at every opportunity, getting through the day could be a challenge.
New Year Exercise
As a new year exercise, see if you can ‘tie the dogs loose” ‘chip’ the governor and let your mind go with Captain Kirk into unknown territory. The variables in your market might be very different from those in mine and I’m not going to venture into any opinion on load shedding, politics, the war in Ukraine, or the Boks’ chances of winning the World Cup.
But I do have a view on the importance of the narratives around these things. From psychologists to business leaders, sports coaches and politicians, they are all aware of the potential influence that the words they choose carry. The stories we tell one another matter.
In his 2019 book, Narrative Economics, Nobel prize-winning economist, Robert Shiller, provides an account of how ‘stories help drive economic events – and why financial panics can spread like epidemic viruses’.
What sets his theory apart is that he ascribes the stories, the narratives, the way people talk to one another about events, trends, ideas, fears, and concepts, as active agents in how economic events unfold. Narratives are active participants in shaping outcomes.
“Spread through the public in the form of popular stories,” the blurb for the book reads, “ideas can go viral and move markets – whether it’s the belief that tech stocks can only go up, that housing prices never fall, or that some firms are too big to fail. Whether true or false, stories like these – transmitted by word of mouth, by the news media, and increasingly by social media – drive the economy by driving our decisions about how and where to invest, how much to spend and save, and more.”
Looking into 2023, are you hearing and re-telling the same old stories? A different perspective could change the storyline and the future might play out differently.
‘Narrative’ is one of those words that’s taken on multiple loaded meanings. But don’t let that cloud your thinking or detract from the powerful role that words and language constructs are going to play in 2023. Expect encounters with ChatGPT, (foundational models, generative AI, or large language models), as well as the Narrator Economy in the year ahead.
Going with you boldly into 2023,
