Traditionally, an “epic” was a long poem that narrated the deeds of heroes, the rise and fall of nations and the meddling of the gods. But in today’s vocabulary, “epic” is an — often intentionally exaggerated — adjective used to say that something is awesome.
When describing a person, you might say, “That guy was the most epic guitarist I’ve ever seen.” For an event or action, a simple “That was epic.”
You get the idea. But how does “epic” work for organizations? It definitely sounds weird when you talk about them like that:
Adobe is the most epic content authoring, customer experience management and online marketing software developer ever!
Yep, that definitely sounds weird — and a wee bit forced.
Making “epic” work for an organization isn’t easy. In the traditional epic, characters, groups and even entire nations went through a lot of hardship, self-discovery, lesson learning and perhaps even sacrifice to get to where they were going. Sound familiar? That’s probably because you experienced those same things at some point in your organization’s history. Any company that’s still operating in this world knows how hard it can be — and what it had to go through to get to where it is today.
That journey — coupled with your history and culture — makes up your unique story. It’s the tale of how you came to be and the adventures you’ve been on since the beginning. It’s the saga of your relationships with customers and the chronicle of your battles with competitors.
Unfortunately, most organizations aren’t on the same page when it comes to understanding and telling their unique story. Our role is to discover it, dust it off, polish it, package it and tell it in its most favorable light and most memorable way to those who will benefit from hearing it.
And with our team by your side every step of the way, you’ll discover how to make that story epic.
