When Narratives and Storytelling are bad

In my work, I sometimes advise clients on stuff (like Artificial Intelligence, US Executive Orders etc.) and sometimes on a meta-level to the stuff – topics like how to create a strategy for something, how to write about/ communicate/ influence/ lead/ manage the risks of something. For example, when I talk with clients about strategy, sometimes it is about the actual content of their strategy, like how they should use AI to beat the competition, whereas sometimes it is about what should be in a strategy, how to communicate a strategy, how to get people to follow a strategy. One of the more popular topics and memes on the meta-level right now is the power of storytelling/ narrative arcs etc. Most of the advice is useful because most business communications aren’t very good in terms of clear, powerful communications. So, making them into powerful stories is a big step forward. Even the simple practice of making the titles of your slides make a point (like ‘We must address these disinformation risks’), rather than just be a noun (like ‘disinformation risks’), where the body of the slide proves the point of the slide, and all the titles of the slides put together tells the story, is helpful. But as a self-appointed unthinker, unasker and unlearner, I just wanted to go against the grain a little and mention the downsides of narratives: When I feed you a narrative, I am imposing on you a way of interpreting the information I am giving you. I am leading you down the garden path, holding your hand tightly in mine, not giving you time to smell the flowers, or to find your own path through the garden. That is powerful for the reasons mentioned above but potential downsides are: 1. If you found your own path to the same conclusions, you might feel more passion and ownership of the conclusion. 2. You might come to some better/ different conclusions if you were presented with the information/ ideas/ intellectual waystations without a narrative. 3. Stylistically, you may not enjoy me imposing a pre-prepared fixed thought process on you. In the discipline of leadership, there are times when we need to be very directive (“Get off this burning aeroplane now!”) versus very collaborative (“How shall we solve this problem together?”). Maybe similarly, in communications we sometimes need to focus the reader/ listener’s attention very closely on a tight narrative, sometimes we need to expose them more to the elements that led us to our conclusions, and let them follow a similar or different path, and come to the same or different conclusions. So let’s use narratives to tell our story, but only be as tight/ directive with our narratives as we need to be. Let’s all use minimum viable narrative communication strategies. #unask #unthink #unlearn #storytelling #narratives