There are many reason those who work with strategy like to quote Eisenhower’s idea that plans are useless but planning is everything. One of those reasons is that in planning we tell stories.
The role of stories in human cognition is well-understood to be absolutely central and also deeply problematic. We understand a largely non-narrative reality in narratives and so often end up suffering from an illusion of control and a tendency to over-estimate the sense that can be found in the world, we construct simple causal mechanisms where no such mechanisms really exist and we underestimate complexity.
That said, narratives, or stories, are powerful devices for compression of complex information into ordered sets. In one sense we can see narratives as a way to process information effectively – and when we say that we make sense of something, that process is usually connected with a series of stories around how things work. These stories have allowed us to flourish and to the extent we actually can control things, we control them through narratives and stories.
Narratives, akin to the strategic maps used in warfare, help compress and sequence complex information, aiding us in making sense of the surrounding reality. They serve as the compass that guides us through the labyrinth of existence, enabling us to assert control over situations and make conscious choices.
That is why stories are so important in strategy work.
That is also why they can be very dangerous, and we have to use them carefully.
Lawrence Freedman, in his magisterial history of strategy, devotes one of the last chapters to the idea of stories and scripts. He points out that stories and scripts have all of the risks and drawbacks that we have already mentioned, but then also notes that they have certain advantages. More than anything, they allow a group to act in a consistent manner without central synchronous coordination.
The narrative logic provides an asynchronous device for group coordination. If we all believe the same story, and have internalised it – and that story has a strong narrative logic – well, then that logic will guide our decision making effectively even if we cannot coordinate in realtime.
Another advantage of stories is that they break nicely. If we end up in a story very different from the one we thought we were in, it will be almost impossible not to recognise that and react to it. Story dissonance is stark and easy to detect, and so forces us to recognise when the story we wanted to tell is falling apart.
In strategy work there are several different ways to use stories, scripts or narratives.
The first, and perhaps simplest, is to use a target narrative. This is a story we would like to be able to tell at the end of a project, and if crafted in the right way it will be a good way to keep a project on track over time. Comparing the target narrative to what is actually happening is also a good way to check in on a project and see where it is progressing in the right way and where it is deviating from the path we set out to explore.
A target narrative is close to what is sometimes called pre-mortem, a method for exploring project weaknesses that asks the simple question “We failed. How did it happen?” at the outset of a project, and forces a discussion about ways in which failure can be pre-empted or the risk of failure mitigated in different ways.
The key difference between target narratives and pre-mortem is simply that target narratives asks another question, namely: “What is the note we would write at the end of the project if it was a success?”.
This can be broken up in quarters, or even in weeks if we want to run the project like a soap opera with a series of “writers” managing the week-by-week progress of the project as unfolding within a larger narrative arc. My preference is to have half-yearly or yearly narratives, but when things are more uncertain creep down to quarters.
That said, I can imagine a very effective project group that gathers every Friday to write out next week’s episode in a project and huddles around what the key conflicts, wins and developments will be if they get their wishes through — and I can also imagine that in a tight-knit and committed team that would be quite fun.
Writing a target narrative is not a committee assignment. One person should hold the pen and then others can edit – or a small number of people write their own and then compare and contrast to get to a final version.
The key things to keep in mind when writing a target narrative are, at least, the following.
Be concrete. Try to think of this as the note you send to the leadership of the company to report on your progress — be wary of being too abstract or fuzzy (i.e. avoid things like “we revolutionised marketing by leveraging synergies”), and seek to list concrete actions that had real impact. Here, as elsewhere when you think about metrics, it is helpful to think about different kinds of accomplishments. There can be some room for activity metrics, but focus on capabilities built and real impact on a larger stage. What changed because of the project? Why?
Read the narrative critically. Is it realistic or is it just a pipe-dream? The narrative needs to have both a narrative probability and logic to it – it should describe what happened and why, and in doing so should focus on plausible mechanisms that connected activity and impact in ways that make sense. Be wary of taking credit for things that you know you could not impact (i.e. “We stopped the price war by launching a marketing campaign” or similar statements).
Write the narrative out to the point where it outlines what is next and what follows on the successful completion of the period you are reporting on,
These elements of the narrative work help keep you grounded and focused on what really matters – the believability of the narrative given where you are. Using a target narrative is, amongst other things, also a way to check in on your current state of affairs. If the narrative reads as completely unbelievable, you need to explore why – what is it that makes it unbelievable?Why do you believe that it would not work?
The narrative here becomes a diagnosis of the current state of the organisation you are in.
The second way of using narratives is in pre-mortems. It might be a morbid thing but writing a note that explains why the project failed badly and had no or little effect (which is really one of the most tragic outcomes, given that we each have but limited time in this world). A good premortem tracks the failure much in the same way that the target narrative does – aiming for logic, believability and coherence in the story you are telling.
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Project management with target narratives requires breaking the narrative down into component parts and then periodically re-integrating them into the narrative and do what we can call a “narrative check-in”, where you look at the target narrative to understand if it is unfolding in the way you intended to. It is highly likely that it is not and finding out why is absolutely key to progress and learning.
All project management is built from an expert construction of cadences and very strong meeting design – and target narratives are no different. Building around these narratives forces you to have a strong sense for not just a number or a KPI but the overall diagnosis of the world around you.
One reason a target narrative can fail, even if the component parts may be progressing well, is that it has become largely irrelevant in the environment you are in. When composed, the note that you had envisioned you would send would have been a win for your organisation, but now it matters less because the overall environment has moved on and the strategic situation you are in has also changed. This is something a narrative picks up better than if you are just working with a basket of OKRs or KPIs.
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In conclusion, narratives, scripts, or stories, are powerful tools in our strategic arsenal. Despite our tendency to become entangled in them, they offer an evolutionary advantage in envisioning the future. Instead of combating this with an abstract notion of rational behaviour, we should leverage it as a strength, understanding that the art of strategy lies as much in the human mind as in our environment.
The Craft Book 