Narrative is story-telling. Whether that story-telling is used to develop an individual’s sense of self or a brand’s identity the role is the same.
News that “Bernard Madoff's victims will soon recoup another $252 million from the trustee unwinding the swindler's firm, boosting their total recovery to $9.72 billion.” raises the obvious question of how was it possible for him to dupe so many people for so long to such an extent?
When there is sufficient contact between two or more entities, over time, what started out as a Deterrence Based Trust relationship that was carefully framed by boundaries and edged with potential punishment now becomes a more equitable and better balanced Knowledge Based Trust (KBT) one.
Read more: Establishing Knowledge-Based Trust In An Uncertain World
There is a fundamental disconnect between business and ethics.
When Volkswagen and Microsoft blatantly lie and cheat and nobody within the organization, at any level, has the courage to say that it’s wrong it leads to a break between the values they profess to uphold publicly at the customer-facing interface and what they are really prepared to do when no one’s looking.
Read more: The Disconnect — Business Ethics, Moral Failure & Reputation Risk
Here’s an experiment: You are in a burning building. Smoke and fire alarms blaring everywhere. An emergency robot appears in front of you, emerging out of the smoke. “This way” it signals. Would you go?
Apparently 100% of respondents who took part in an experiment just like this, did follow the robot even though they had hard evidence in their possession that the robot was prone to malfunctioning and could not be relied upon to be accurate all the time.