Why narrative? And why now?
In my two recent posts on The Value Proposition - here and here - I introduced the notion of the inner dialogue which comes into play when we consider an offer from a brand: indeed, when any value judgement is required.
This dialogue, I suggest, is created by the interplay of various "comparative narratives" within the mind of the customer. The narrative model of customer decisioning, I hope, moves us beyond the long-standing and unhelpful value debate between the traditional neoclassical (rational, conscious, maximising utility) and the behavioural (emotional, semi- or unconscious) models, enabling a quite radical yet common sense understanding of the dynamics of the customer's entirely central role in the realisation of value.
This, in turn, should inform how we can more productively think about innovation, the value proposition, the positioning of brands, and the messaging approaches so important in our go-to-market.
I should mention, before we move on, that (as noted below) I'm keen to distinguish narrative from story-telling. This imperative has been helped by recent and very well-received work on the the commercial role and value of narrative thinking by three leading economists: Mervyn King and John Kay in their excellent manifesto Radical Uncertainty, and Robert J. Schiller in his book Narrative Economics.
Narrative vs story
Although there is a natural connection between narrative and story, the two are far from synonymous. And while much has been written about the power of story, narrative’s role, impact and importance have remained comparatively unexplored and, therefore, unexplained.
Stories we can usefully think of here as “narratives loaded with emotion”. In fact, a typical role of any story in human communication is to use emotion to activate pre-existing - or to introduce new - underlying narratives that inform and direct evaluation, decision and commitment.
In order to be understood at all, of course, stories need to reference familiar narratives, whether these are cultural or national in nature, or just old family jokes. A story without references is likely to be nonsensical to the recipient.
It’s these narratives - and perhaps more so, in order to extract broader learnings from the process, the connections that link them and the dynamics that dictate their shifts - that reward close scrutiny.
Narratives as scripts
I first came to understand the importance of narrative in the work of the leading psychologist and proponent of Transactional Analysis, Eric Berne. Readers who are not directly familiar with his work or the discipline of TA, may be familiar with its trademark framing of relational dynamics: for example, “I’m OK. You're OK. He’s Not OK”.
A central pillar of this therapeutic approach is an exploration of the powerful, hidden narratives that a patient may have internalised as a child. Prior to their being surfaced, these remain out of the reach of the conscious mind, yet can continue to dictate feelings, decisions and behaviours that are either positive and nurturing, or compromising and destructive to well-being.
Berne, in order to bring his philosophy to life, refers to the more common among these narratives in terms of fairy tales: to pick one example, Cinderella and her hoped-for rescue by the perfect Prince. When unpacked, however, these stories come to be understood as unconscious scripts which, when triggered, are enacted by the patient without full awareness.
This concept of narrative as script is core to our project. Narratives are understood as sense-making machines, bundles of ‘soft code’ through which we decipher and navigate a complex and often intimidating world.
We can usefully imagine these narratives as ‘speech bubbles’ that drift in and out of, around and underneath or behind our conscious mind. However, as mentioned above, until they’re surfaced and acknowledged, they will tend to remain unexpressed and non-verbal.
“My value as a human being is dependent on Facebook likes” … “Some of the most interesting people smoke cigarettes” … “You can’t trust anyone” … “I deserve a treat when I get to payday” … “Real men always look like they know where they’re going” … “Anyone would be drinking a lot if they had my problems” … “My body is acceptable (or not)” …
If we have doubts about this, we can recall what happens when an individual is asked - perhaps as part of a research programme - to articulate their values. Typically, we can point to our values and the beliefs that underpin them, we can usually apply them in a hypothetical situation (“What would you think if … or how would you respond when …?”), and yet we are unable to list them.
It’s worth mentioning, in passing, that the processes of many, if not most, of today’s well-known lifestyle gurus (The American Tony Robbins is perhaps the most famous of these) who offer personal transformation are, whatever method they use, typically seeking to challenge and ‘rescript’ the inhibiting personal narratives of their customers. One of the most common narratives that they aim to uproot and replace is the ‘self-limiting’ belief of not deserving financial success, often referred to in such circles as ‘the poverty mindset’.
The origins - in the individual or across an entire culture or society - of such narratives will vary widely. What is clear is that - no matter how restrictive or compromising they may be for the individual - such beliefs are hard to change. Which accounts partly for the cultish overtones and religious fervour common to such programmes.
Narratives, along with the often-opaque values and beliefs and the causative experiences that underpin them, are not merely ideas that can be easily swapped out. Even in cases where they are consciously identified, articulated and separated out from each other, and proven to be problematic, we as humans tend to strongly resist letting go of them. They are, we could say, wired into our psyche.
Narratives as navigation
Recently, in their important book Radical Uncertainty, the prominent economists John Kay and Mervyn King make extensive use of their own concept of the “reference narrative”, which they clarify as “a story which is an expression of our realistic expectations”.
The authors are, as we can see, less stringent than us in distinguishing narrative from story. Nevertheless, they are consistent and persuasive in arguing that such narratives are both intrinsic to being human, and uniquely powerful tools for dealing with life.
We cope with the future by organising our lives around reference narratives. These reference narratives are not necessarily worked out in specific detail, but they provide a basis for planning and the framework for day-to-day choices. We change the reference narrative in response to disconfirming events, but infrequently, and discontinuously. And we do not construct these narratives in isolation. We discuss them with family and friends. We take advice from professionals. We benefit from the collective intelligence accumulated and readily available in the various communities in which we live. We are not defective versions of computers, trained to optimise in small world problems. But human beings with individual and collective intelligence evolved over millennia.
John Kay and Mervyn King, Radical Uncertainty, 2020
The authors take pains to emphasise the empowerment and decisiveness conferred by humans’ constant reference to narratives. And a significant pillar of Radical Uncertainty’s argument aims to directly challenge the contemporary rush to certainty, that has led to a corporate and financial over-dependence on what they call the “small world”, data-fed, predictive models of economic behaviour that contributed, for example, to the global financial crisis of 2008.
Narrative is not simply a synonym for verbal communication. Nor is verbal communication less ‘scientific’ than algebraic or other symbolic communication. To cope with radical uncertainty we try to form a coherent and credible answer to the question ‘What is going on here?’ This effective use of narrative is in sharp contrast to the idea that narratives are a recourse of ill-informed and ‘biased’ agents who prefer storytelling to computation …
… Narrative reasoning is the most powerful mechanism available for organising our imperfect knowledge. Understanding the complex world is a matter of constructing the best explanation - a narrative account - from a myriad of little details and the knowledge of context derived from personal experience and the experience of others.
John Kay and Mervyn King, Radical Uncertainty, 2020
Key to grasping both the human empowerment and human frailty conferred by narratives is that they are neither framed by, nor expressed as, patterns of rational thought. Their efficacy is determined by their operating independently of, and much faster than, a consciously constructed rationale.
This otherwise advantageous quality, we should note here, also opens a dark side to the power and prevalence of narratives in human beliefs, behaviours and decisions. In bypassing the critical mind, they can be accessed, even rewired, for the benefit of commercial and political actors who have learned to leverage the tools of digital - and in particular social - media.
Paradoxically, while we each own and apply our own unique combinations of narratives, their attributes of being at once rational and emotional, conscious and unconscious leave us susceptible to influences that may be highly positive or profoundly toxic. We are both empowered by our value narratives, and made vulnerable by their nature.
This is why, for example, we may find ourselves both intrigued and appalled by so-called “nudge” theory and application. We suspect that, while on the one hand such interventions are often benign in their intent for us, on the other, our own “soft code” is being hacked.
Putting this very current and growing concern to one side for now, and to sum up, human beings - our customers - have always carried sets of narratives with them throughout their lives.
We instinctively refer to these narratives - or combinations of them - when faced with a decision. This inner dialogue is rational and emotional, conscious and unconscious.
The interplay of narratives expresses and, when triggered, activates our personal values. They are the building blocks of how we assess and make value choices.
Understanding how human narratives work is thus a critical source of insight and competitive edge when we are looking to the market for clear, actionable road signs to future value creation and growth.
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