brandeins Newsletter – Mark Baumanns: „What drives us?”, “What makes us tick?”. Those who are looking for orientation in uncertain times should first look inwards. It is a matter of reassuring oneself about what constitutes the core of the person or the business, which must be reinterpreted again and again, regardless of new framework conditions. It is no coincidence that the search for the purpose of a company is booming. But that alone is not enough, because after all, employees want to know where the company is going. “Forget goals! Develop a Winning Narrative that triggers emotions!” neuroscientists at Stanford Business School told me four weeks ago. A short story that tells what we want to achieve in a few memorable words. It’s reminiscent of Satya Nadella in 2014. The then just-appointed CEO of Microsoft evoked the company’s proud tradition in a few emotional sentences. And then presented his programme in four words – “mobile first, cloud first” – with which he brought the company forward again after a ten-year phase of stagnation.