something to root for

I saw Aladdin the musical yesterday. It was tons of fun. This morning I asked myself, "What did I like about it?"

Aladdin is an old story, but it's an old story that works. I suspect that one of the reasons the story has survived through the ages, adapting for different mediums like books, movies, and musicals, is because it gives you someone (Aladdin) and something (love) to root for.

This is dead simple, I know. But the dead simple can be deadly effective. A few weeks ago I talked about the value of asking yourself, "Does it haunt?" Obviously, not everything you do should have the consequence of haunting. Maybe another question to ask, when appropriate, is "Does it give you something to root for?"

In ways small and large, stories are vehicles for change. We tell stories in our work: what our company means, what future we see, how our mission matters, and so on. Are we giving the world something to root for in these stories?