Shared Fiction Cooperation Model
Create shared stories that let large groups coordinate flexibly
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 98%
Human beings cooperate flexibly in enormous numbers because they can create and believe shared fictional stories. The story may concern a nation, religion, corporation, currency, law, or social identity; what matters is that enough participants recognize it and expect others to do the same. That mutual expectation converts an imagined construct into a coordination mechanism. Symbols, rules, and institutions then make the story visible and actionable, while repeated compliance builds trust. The framework does not imply that shared fictions are false in a dismissive sense. Instead, it distinguishes their intersubjective power from the objective reality of physical objects and shows how narratives become infrastructure for collective behavior.
Origin
Extracted from Masters in Business, where Yuval Noah Harari explained the mechanism behind humanity's unusual capacity for flexible, large-scale cooperation.
Core principles
- 01Large-scale cooperation depends on shared beliefs.
- 02A useful fiction can coordinate behavior without being objectively real.
- 03Trust gives symbols such as money their practical power.
- 04Stories must be mutually understood to support collective action.
How to run it
- 1
Specify the cooperation goal
Define what many people must do together and why personal relationships or direct supervision cannot scale far enough.
Pro tip Describe the desired behavior in observable terms.
Watch out Do not begin with a slogan before defining the coordination problem.
- 2
Identify the shared fiction
Find or formulate the story that explains who participants are, what they value, and why cooperation is legitimate.
Pro tip Use concepts people can repeat and recognize easily.
Watch out A story understood differently by each faction may increase conflict.
- 3
Encode the story
Express the narrative through names, symbols, rules, rituals, contracts, or units of value that guide action.
Pro tip Connect abstract beliefs to recurring decisions.
Watch out Symbols without consistent behavior quickly become hollow.
- 4
Build mutual trust
Demonstrate repeatedly that participants can expect others to honor the shared rules and meanings.
Pro tip Make trustworthy behavior visible across the group.
Watch out A few prominent violations can undermine the entire coordination system.
- 5
Monitor cooperative output
Observe whether the story continues to produce coordinated behavior, especially as the group grows or conditions change.
Pro tip Ask newcomers to explain the story in their own words.
Watch out Do not preserve a narrative merely because it is traditional.
In the wild
People accept paper notes and digital balances despite their limited intrinsic usefulness because they expect other people to accept them too. The shared story of monetary value enables strangers, institutions, and countries to exchange goods at immense scale.
→ A widely shared belief becomes a universal system of economic cooperation.
A growing company defines itself as a protector of customer privacy, embeds that identity in product rules and incentives, and makes privacy decisions visible. Employees who have never met can then use the same narrative to resolve ambiguous choices.
→ The shared mission coordinates decentralized decisions without constant executive intervention.
Common mistakes
Confusing fiction with deception
An intersubjective story need not be a deliberate lie. Its defining feature is that its social power comes from shared belief rather than physical properties.
Relying on words without trust
A compelling narrative cannot sustain cooperation when institutions repeatedly violate the expectations it creates.
Ignoring competing stories
Participants may belong to other communities whose narratives override the one being introduced.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for leaders, institution builders, marketers, and strategists shaping collective identity and trust.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for situations where coercion, technical interoperability, or direct incentives fully determine behavior.
From the transcript
“Our real advantage is the unique ability to cooperate in very large numbers.”
“It's because we are the only ones that can tell fictional stories and believe them.”
“The real material from which money is made is not gold or paper. It's made of trust.”
From the episode
Interview With Yuval Noah Harari: Masters in Business (Audio)
Yuval Noah Harari