Do you love a good story?
What about a good story about business—a fable?
Let’s take a closer look at what makes business fables ideal for thought leaders and business experts. If you want to share your business insights from a unique perspective, below, we’ll review how to make a fable that your readers will love.
According to the marketing boutique Credera, “story-focused content is biochemically rewarding.”
Storytelling works extraordinarily well in capturing and holding audiences’ attention — but not just because stories invoke ideas and feelings. The fact is, humans find stories irresistible, or rather, human brains do. As they scrutinize the meaning of information, readers’ brains constantly seek a reason to care, and attempt to anticipate what will come next.
Credera
There’s something about a good story that pulls us in and gets us to consider things from a different perspective or perhaps confirms what we knew all along.
What is a business fable?
A fable is typically a short story with a moral lesson, often written for a younger audience, but not always. In the context of this article, a business fable is a book-length fiction story for adults that teaches a lesson about character development, business savvy, course corrections, and overall life how-tos or how-not-tos.
The appeal of business fables is that they follow the main character(s) on a journey that whether it ends on an upturn or downturn, there’s a lesson to be learned.
Every business owner faces challenges, and while some of them can be seen clearly on a spreadsheet, others are a crisis of our humanity—Which path should I take? Are the sacrifices worth it? Should I start over? Should I throw in the towel? Should I believe in myself when others around me aren’t so sure?
Business fables allow us to go beneath the surface and wrestle with some of life’s gray areas, which take time to process and only reveal solutions when certain pieces of the puzzle are in place.
When you experience a journey through the eyes of a character, you can see their choices and weigh their decisions against your own. Would you do the same thing if given the same circumstances? If not, how or why would you do things differently? This is the beauty of business fables. They prompt you to ask yourself the tough questions.
Why are business fables important?
Business owners juggle a lot. Day-to-day can be a delicate balancing act of choices with limited resources that tell you how to get it right. Business fables offer another option for learning life lessons. Viewing them through the eyes of a character in a story who is walking a similar path can be a great motivator for change and relief.
Is a business fable more effective at teaching concepts than a textbook or nonfiction book? It depends on what’s being taught, how your reader likes to learn, and how well the story is written.
Ultimately, as an author, you want to meet your readers where they are, and if they learn better with stories, tell them one.
A business fable can offer busy professionals a lesson in the form of entertainment. Where a nonfiction book on marketing may get shelved until there’s free time in a tight schedule, a story about a startup where the main character sacrifices everything, including his family, to get his business up and running might be engaging enough for a chapter read before bed.
Fables offer life lessons from a safe distance—less pressure—entertainment with a few signposts along the way. Unlike real life, when you’re dealing with challenges in the moment, reading a fable with a familiar context offers the space to ponder it, take the parts that apply to you, and throw away the rest.
What are some examples of business fables?
Business fables are nothing new.
The following is a list of some well-known—and not-so-well-known—business fables. (The key takeaways in quotes were pulled from Amazon.com’s product description. )
Who Moved My Cheese – by Dr. Spencer Johnson
“Who Moved My Cheese? can help you discover how to anticipate, acknowledge, and accept change in order to have a positive impact on your job, your relationships, and every aspect of your life.”
It’s Good to Be King by James M. Kerr
“The reader will see how the two work together to transform the fate and fortune of the mystical Kingdom of Candyshire by applying common sense and sound leadership strategies — just like the ones we all can use to shape and transform the groups and organizations that we lead.”
A Symphony of Choices: How Mentorship Taught a Manager Decision-Making, Project Management and Workplace Engagement—and Saved a Concert Season by Gerald J. Leonard
“[W}orkplace culture and strategy expert Gerald Leonard delivers a fascinating narrative following one Jerry Hall, the new Symphony Orchestra manager at a prestigious symphony concerned about the challenging plans for an upcoming season. In the book, you’ll watch Jerry connect with a former college professor and learn the skills necessary to successfully manage his way through these unprecedented times in his business and personal life.
Getting Naked: A Business Fable about Shedding the Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty by Patrick M. Lencioni
“Lencioni illustrates the principles of inspiring client loyalty through a fascinating business fable. He explains the theory of vulnerability in depth and presents concrete steps for putting it to work in any organization. The story follows a small consulting firm, Lighthouse Partners, which often beats out big-name competitors for top clients. One such competitor buys out Lighthouse and learns important lessons about what it means to provide value to its clients.”
Get A Grip by Gino Wickman and Mike Paton
Get a Grip tells the story of how Swan Services resolves its issues by implementing the Entrepreneurial Operating System®. With the help of EOS, Eileen, Vic, and their leadership team master a set of managerial tools that allow them to get traction on their business, grow the business, and deliver better results for clients.
Here’s a short list of more popular business fables to consider:
The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino
The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
SIlos, Politics and Turf Wars by Patrick M. Lencioni
The Ideal Team Player by Patrick M. Lencioni
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patcick M. Lencioni
The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family by Patrick M/ Lencioni
The Unicorn Project: A Novel about Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data by Gene Kim
The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim
Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute
The Myth of Multitasking: How “Doing It All” Gets Nothing Done by Dave Crenshaw
What are the steps to writing a business fable?
The difference between a fable and a standard fiction story is that the main point of a fable is to share a lesson. To start writing your own fable, begin with the lesson.
Consider the following questions:
- What lessons have you learned in business that have had the most impact on you, your employees, and the health of your business?
- Did you overcome a specific challenge? What was the obstacle? How did you come out on the other side of it? Was it trial and error? Wise council?
- Or did you make poor choices and have to suffer the consequences? What did this look like? What would you do differently if you had to do it over again?
The best fables are born out of personal experience, whether it was one that you walked through or someone close to you. A fable is not a memoir, so you’re not trying to retell a personal event; however, you can use an experience as a starting point for developing the theme of your story and the lesson you want to share.
Once you know the key takeaway for your reader, then you can begin developing your story.
Here are a few articles on selfpublishing.com to get you started.
- How to Write a Book in 12 Simple Steps
- Setting of a Story: 8 Tips for Creating an Immersive Setting
- Character Motivation: 6 Ways to Craft a Compelling Story
- What is a Hero’s Journey? | The Stages and Its Benefits for Writers
Takeaways
If you are a business owner considering sharing your expertise in book form, you have several options within the fiction and nonfiction categories. If you select fiction, a business fable could be the ideal format for offering your readers a real-world experience based on day-to-day circumstances that are familiar to them in a way that’s easy to digest and relate to.
The end goal of any book that focuses on development is to leave readers with something that motivates, encourages, and prepares them to be the best they can be. Know your reader and know yourself. Are you a great storyteller? Use it to your advantage and create a story your reader will still be thinking about decades after their first read.