It's a trap! How to avoid two common narrative missteps in enterprise environments

Co-authored with Cass Fellerman, without the use of AI.

All thoughts and opinions expressed are our own.

The fundamental goal of presenting a novel idea in an enterprise environment is to convert your audience to a new way of thinking, and ultimately to change their behavior.

Whether you’re targeting an audience of one or many, and regardless of your relative position within the organization, there’s a natural tendency to attempt one of two narrative strategies as objectively as possible: either comparing the flaws of the current situation to your ideal future state, i.e., a?counter-narrative; or highlighting what the organization will lose if it doesn’t change to align with your vision of the future; i.e.,?loss framing.

These narrative strategies develop organically because the proposal at the heart of your presentation couldn’t exist without the challenges of the current state. You’ve likely spent significant time and effort to identify these shortcomings and understand why they exist. As a result of that sustained focused attention, the flaws play a dominant role in your internal narrative about the situation, which is reflected in the narrative strategy you present externally.

Counter-narratives

It’s crucial to recognize that your audience will potentially include people (and/or friends of people) who have contributed (directly or indirectly) to the current state you’re challenging with your new idea. While you believe you’re laying out an objective comparison, these audience members are likely to perceive it as criticism and tune you out, or worse, they could internalize your counter-narrative as a personal attack and become adversarial. Simply mentioning the current state repeatedly can undermine your goal by implying that the current state is a valid option for the organization moving forward.

Loss framing

Highlighting the potential negative consequences of staying on the current course poses a similar threat: No matter how much objective research you have supporting your argument, you may unintentionally insult an audience member’s work in front of their colleagues and leaders. When this happens, the humiliated party doesn’t tend to wait patiently until the end of the presentation to share their thoughts. Additionally, loss framing can make your audience feel like they’re being given an ultimatum; no one likes being told what to do. It’s worth considering the balance between positive and negative sentiments in your presentation overall. As you highlight more potential losses, you increase the likelihood that your audience will ironically form negative associations with your novel idea, which is intended to prevent the loss from happening.

Avoiding these traps

When attempting to change people’s behavior, it’s almost impossible to avoid referencing their current environment and how they behave today. However, if your presentation repeatedly takes one step forward (toward your new idea) followed by two steps back (to reference the current way of thinking), it’s unlikely to move the audience any closer to your desired future state. While setting the appropriate context for your audience is vital to the coherence of any narrative strategy, when presenting a novel idea it’s even more crucial to always keep your audience looking and moving forward.