DESCRIPTION
The “Story Circle” is a narrative framework that outlines eight key stages of a protagonist’s journey, visualized as a circle and adapted (shortened) from the hero’s journey.
For business storytelling, it means you map the “hero” (could be a company, product, team) moving from a status to the nextto come back in a changed, better, smarter way. It’s cyclical nature and simplicity makes the difference (especially compared to the 12 step from the classical “Hero journey”): it ensures the story doesn’t just progress, but completes a full arc of transformation.
This makes it especially useful for case studies, brand narratives, change-management stories, and presentations where you want your audience to feel the journey and see the growth, but also in transformation and change phases…
ORIGIN
Dan Harmon created this metod in the late 1990s (while working on screenwriting) as a synthesis of mythic structures (hero’s journey) into a simplified “story circle”.
USED BY
Scriptwriters, TV & film creators (Harmon himself uses it on shows like Rick & Morty)…
Approximately needed time
- Step 1: 1 hours
- Step 2: 1 hours
- Step 3: 2 hours
- Step 4: 1 hours
- Step 5: 1 hours
- TOTAL: 6 hours
METHOD
MATERIAL YOU COULD NEED: A template or board with a 5-step circle or flow diagram and creative stuff…
STEPS
STATUS QUO
You need a clear baseline so the audience understands how far things will move. Describe who the “hero” is (product team, company, project) and their everyday world, including challenges. What’s working, what’s assumed, what’s comfortable, but limiting.
Example: “The software team had been servicing legacy clients for 10 years, stable but growth had stagnated.”
DESIRE
Without a clear need or challenge, there’s no movement or tension and obviously no story. Identify what the hero wants that they don’t currently have (market growth, new capability, customer segment). Or articulate a challenge’s arrival. What stakes are involved?
Example: “They wanted to expand into mobile SaaS within 12 months, but their architecture wasn’t ready.”
STRUGGLE
This is where action, learning and tension happen. Audiences engage with the journey. Therefor, you will need to start mapping how the hero leaves comfort zone or enters unfamiliar territory (new market, new tech), what obstacles appear and how adaptation or iteration occurs.
Example: “They partnered with a mobile startup, rewrote the backend, faced data migration issues and team resistance.”
DETOUR
The story needs a moment of significant change and it often involves a cost or loss, which adds depth. When the hero achieves a breakthrough (or thinks they do), but pays a price (budget overrun, culture clash, early customer churn) is the moment you tell in this step. This moment redefines what success means.
Example: “Launch happened but bug-rate doubled and they lost a key client but in doing so discovered a scalable architecture.”
RETURN
…changed
The audience needs to see transformation and not just events but how things are different. That gives meaning and closure. Show what the world looks like now: how the hero and organization have changed (mindset, capability, culture, market position) and draw the learning path and next steps.
Example: “Six months later, the team services mobile users globally, new growth is +40 %, and the culture has shifted to innovation first.”
Harmon’s original version has 8 steps: You, Need, Go, Search, Find, Take,Return and Change.
The 5-step version we’ve build retains the transformation arc but simplifies for business-story telling brevity, without loosing important elements of it. It aligns with the “leave, struggle, return changed” narrative motif at the heart of many stories.
In business contexts, emphasizing the price paid and change achieved elevates stories beyond “we succeeded” into “we transformed”.
Even thought we shortened it, avoid skipping Step 3 or Step 4 as they are where credibility and emotional engagement happen. 😉
