Balancing narrative and data

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —December 8, 2005
Filed in Business storytelling

Freakonomics made it click for me. Narrative on its own is entertaining, informative, makes it real and even inspiring but it’s rarely effective on its own to persuade the hard-nosed number-crunchers which dwell in every organisation. Conversely, data is dry, clinical and reasonable but rarely hits you in the guts with excitement to take action. Freakonomics is a book of anecdotes which drips with data. Gladwell did a similar job with Tipping Point and Blink but his data was less in your face.

With this observation in my head I was reading Hari Tsoukas’ new book Complex Knowledge and was bowled over by this quote by Jerome Bruner:

There are two modes of cognitive functioning, two modes of thought, each providing distinctive ways of ordering experience, of constructing reality. The two (though complimentary) are irreducible to one another. Efforts to reduce one mode to the other or to ignore one at the expense of the other [emphasis added] inevitably fail to capture the rich diversity of thought.

A rich business communication entwines data with narrative. Data subtly informs us that time, effort and rigour has been applied. Narrative provides meaning conveyed through experiences. Proponents of narrative techniques have generally downplayed the importance of data; they are hanging on to that pendulum which is swinging away from the logical-scientific perspective. This table, also from Hari’s book, neatly describes the features of these two modes of thought:

 

Logical-scientific

Narrative

Objective

Truth

Verisimilitude

Central problem

To know truth

To endow experience with meaning

Strategy

Empirical discovery guided by reasoned hypothesis

Universal understanding grounded in personal experience

Method

Sound argument

Good story

 

Tight analysis

Inspiring account

 

Reason

Association

 

Aristotelian logic

Aesthetics

 

Proof

Intuition

Key characteristics

Top-down

Bottom-up

 

Theory-driven

Meaning-centred

 

Categorical

Experiential

 

General

Particular

 

Abstract

Concrete

 

Decontextualised

Context-sensitive

 

Ahistorical

Historical

 

Non-contradictory

Contradictory

 

Consistent

Paradoxical, ironic

About  Shawn Callahan

Shawn, author of Putting Stories to Work, is one of the world's leading business storytelling consultants. He helps executive teams find and tell the story of their strategy. When he is not working on strategy communication, Shawn is helping leaders find and tell business stories to engage, to influence and to inspire. Shawn works with Global 1000 companies including Shell, IBM, SAP, Bayer, Microsoft & Danone. Connect with Shawn on:

Comments

  1. Bob says:

    If you haven’t seen it, you might consider a book by Karl Scheibe called “The Drama of Everyday Life”. It’s a “dramaturgical” view of human behavior, motivations, and meaning. It examines the internal drama’s we all carry around and act out in social settings — those plots, intrigues, and schemes that color our perceptions, influence our behaviors, and occupy our internal dialogue.
    I think the reality of internal dramas also helps to explain the power of narrative – to its nearly universal appeal when accomplished with some mastery, as well as to it’s more constrained influence when it is done with less flair.
    It seems to me drama is the older part of the human psyche, and that rationality is its more recent bedfellow. That leaves open the door for some interesting speculations regarding the relationships between the two.

  2. Thanks Bob. I’ll check out Karl’s book.

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