The “business book” version of Harry Potter
By: Bethany Crystal
Tags: Business, People, Stories, Books, Harry Potter

What we can learn from Harry Potter

Think of how much we learn about love and friendship and perseverance through reading a book like Harry Potter. Let’s use a super relatable example of a narrative structure used well in this book and how it taught us about character motivations and reliability. (And okay, I’m going to say something here that may shock you if for some reason you’re one of the three remaining people on Earth who hasn’t read Harry Potter yet. If that’s you, then stop reading now.)

Spoiler alert: Dumbledore dies.

Not just dies, but Snape kills him. In cold blood. Right there, on the balcony with his wand. While Harry is watching.

Damn.

For me, this was one of those moments in literature that really came to define how I looked at life, death, love, and friendship. I read this book super early on in my life, while I was still a sponge for information, and it may have been one of the first characters outside of a Disney movie that I came to love who was then taken away from me. Of course, we get over this, yes. But then we also learn from it. And we learn how much of a badass Harry Potter becomes afterward — we know exactly why Harry needs to avenge his death. We know about his parents and their deaths, and we understand, even if we will never truly relate, to the reasons why he has to ultimately take on all of the horcruxes, destroy them, and eventually go toe-to-to with the evil Voldemort.

Part of the beauty of this sequence is that it takes a lifetime to get there. Seven books and over 1 million words in all. Was the payoff worth it? Just look to how much the Harry Potter franchise is worth, and you tell me.

Now, let’s try one more thing. I’m going to tell the Harry Potter story in a business book inspired anecdote. Ready? Here we go:

Harry Potter as a business book case study:



In this local school district, the unthinkable happened: The headmaster was murdered. Not only that, but the murderer remained at large. The remaining faculty and students had all the signs of early onset panic, not to mention questions from parents at home and the unrelenting press inquiries. In the 1,000 years since Hogwarts has been the pre-eminent wizarding institution, it was this murder that might put it all at risk. What could they do? But, as we’ve discussed earlier in this book, sometimes the greatest leaders emerge from the least likely of places. In the end, it wouldn’t be the headmaster-in-training or any other senior faculty who would reclaim the honor and dignity of this venerable institution, but a boy. You see, this boy had a decade’s worth of anger and revenge building up in him about murders like this. His parents had also been murdered, and, particularly early on in his school years, he was called out regularly for “being different.” (He had a peculiar scar above his forehead and a strange connection to snakes.) It turned out that, over the years, this boy, Harry, had established something similar to a paternal relationship with Albus Dumbledore. And Albus had, in turn, been teaching Harry, too. When Dumbledore was murdered, Harry rallied his friends together and committed them to a pact. They met in secret, practicing illegal spells on school property and training for a potential future battle. Eventually, these friendships, and the skills they acquired together, saved the school from the battle of the millennium, thereby saving the school, and most of those inside. This is why it’s important to always encourage the “kids who are just a little bit different.” You never know who will have a chip on their shoulder big enough to save your entire world one day.

Something tells me this wouldn’t quite rally the same kind of emotional turbulence inside that would get people dressing up like wizards and taking quizzes about which sorting house they belong inside for decades to come.

Maybe the trouble with business books isn’t that they aren’t telling stories. Maybe it’s just that we aren’t telling them the right way.