According to award-winning filmmaker and creative consultant Robert Fritz, there’s a basic principle running through all of nature: tension seeks resolution. From the spiderweb to the human body, from the formation of galaxies to the movement of continents, tension-resolution systems are everywhere. They’re the force that powers all change.
This is the fundamental thing that moves us — the difference between where we are and where we want to be.
Think about it. Your nervous system doesn’t stay relaxed when something’s out of balance. You feel the gap. You experience it as discomfort, as yearning, as urgency. That gap is tension, and it’s what makes you want to act. Whether you’re reaching for a coffee, changing careers, or stepping into a new relationship — the underlying driver is always that structural tension between your current state and the state you actually want.
In stories, tension is what creates the whole architecture. At the start of Casablanca, Ilsa walks into a bar owned by the man she loved and abandoned years ago. Cue enormous tension. For the next hundred minutes, the film ebbs and flows with that tension, building to a climax and finally releasing with one of cinema’s greatest lines. But here’s the thing about business storytelling — we do it differently.
Great business stories build to their climax and leave the tension right where it is.
Why? Because when you’re seeking to influence or persuade, you want the final resolution to be in the hands of your audience. You build the tension, you make them feel that gap between their current world and a possible future — and then you leave them with a simple promise: If you do this thing, your tension will release.
This is why endings are so important. And why contrast is such a powerful tool. When you can make someone feel the distance between where they are and where they could be, you’ve activated that natural tension-seeking system. They’ll work to close the gap. The size of the gap determines the urgency.
The most persuasive business stories don’t resolve their tension. They hand it to you.
And then they wait for you to reach out and close it.