ABSTRACT
Case story 4 tells the story of how Big Tobacco harnessed the power of the American Narrative to support the change lesson:
Ground your change vision in heritage and history, and lead with a promise to take your people ‘back to the future’.
The American national narrative has been expertly mythologised to give Americans an emotionally compelling narrative to live by. The fire of the past is endlessly stoked to fuel a restless, unceasing ambition to seize the future. An organisation’s change vision should do the same. It tells the story of how, as the war against tobacco gathered force in the late 20th century, cigarette companies worked hard to plant the idea with the public that freedom of choice meant the freedom to smoke. Secretive lobbying coalitions funded by Big Tobacco created an enduring new American Narrative that led to the Tea Party movement that came to prominence in 2008.