Telling Stories

You may not have noticed it, but there is war quietly raging in the offices and boardrooms of the business world.  On one side of the battlefield stands evidence-based analysis, empirical research and a solid grasp of cause and effect. Meanwhile, massed across the valley are the forces of story-telling, narrative and opinion.  If only a ceasefire could be negotiated and peace were to break out; decision making, planning and problem solving would be far easier and vastly more effective. But don’t hold your breath. For the time-being, they seem hell bent on destruction.
 
If you’re not certain about this, just turn on your TV or listen to a radio show on current affairs.  Be it a show on politics, the economy, society or sports, listen long enough and you’ll hear something a little like the following exchange;
 
Host: “This is an interesting development, now over to Chris for some analysis;”
 
Guest/Commentator: “Thanks Martin, I think it’s pretty clear that this means [insert compelling speculative statement and some further exciting narrative]”
 
In some respects, this can be seen as no big deal but in fact, it serves as an insight into how the two competing worlds of analysis and narrative are locked in something of a turf war, scrapping over their own very different definitions of the truth.  And make no mistake, it’s a zero-sum game and the stakes are always high.  What we’re encouraged to accept as analysis is opinion, guess work and highly subjective.  It is also, most of the while, extremely convincing.

 
 
When opinion, narrative and storytelling (which are both vital elements of human interaction) take over, they have a dramatic impact on the effectiveness of our decision making. Storytelling helps us paper-over the gaps in our knowledge, encourages to apply faulty time lines, makes us feel comfortable about jumping to conclusions over what’s happening and about what we should be doing about it.  In very simple terms, narrative is a hothouse for producing the illusion of certainty.
 
Furthermore, if we’re the sort of team or organisation that focusses on people and is quick to point and blame, narrative will give us all the comfort we need to carry on in this damaging direction.  When ‘facts’ are fluid or completely absent, virtually any solution can be made to fit virtually any problem. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
 
As a firm that has worked with 100s of organisations over the past decade, some small, others enormous, we have steadily recognised a fascinating pattern in this area.
 
Namely, that the overwhelming majority of companies operating without an established problem solving method (one that demands objective analysis) tended to focus most of their problem solving activity on the behaviours of their workforce.  In practice, most of their solutions would fit neatly into what we now describe as The 3 R’s:
 

• Re-Train
• Re-Write
• Re-Communicate