Stories that drive the future: how narratives can improve scenario planning

Purpose – Much of the scenario-based planning work that is observed fails to account for the web of belief systems that powerfully shape the ways that future conditions and trends are created and acted upon. This paper aims to address this issue. Design/methodology/approach – The authors show how understanding narratives – people’s beliefs, attitudes and perceptions and the stories, images, anecdotes and aphorisms used to articulate them – provides planners and leaders an exceptional ability to anticipate with confidence the actions that can drive the real world toward one scenario or another. Findings – The process of scenario planning, when it is infused with identification and analysis of relevant narratives, can produce potent insights. Practical implications – From a scenario planning perspective, narratives are not trends as we typically define them, but rather they provide the emotional context by which individuals and groups evaluate and internalize trends and other forces at play in the environment. Originality/value – As scenarios are used in practice over time, their methodology is evolving. Bringing the analysis of narratives – the deep-seated beliefs and belief systems of organizational, national, and other cultures – into the art and science of scenario planning is a step in that evolution.