3.1 Leading with narratives

After defining the goals, means, and technologies, your work earnestly begins. What looks good on paper requires surprisingly large amounts of work to realize. Development means an infusion of resources such as money and personnel; many were absent when you did the groundwork. You might also require agreement from business leaders who are new to your ideas. A good narrative is the tool you need to yield to make things happen, empowering you to take control of the situation.

Narratives are powerful because they tap into the way humans naturally process information. Our brains constantly make chains of thoughts that become stories from all the facts we process. Several psychological factors are behind this, including an emotional stake in the narrative, relatability, predictable arc, contextualization, and the moral or lesson made. All of these lead to the fact that we instinctively grasp for meaning even when facing the most random events.

A good narrative has a clear purpose (what do you want), engaging characters (the business units), conflict and resolution (there’s an issue we have to solve to prevail), emotional appeal (we get to innovate, which is inspiring), relevance (we did something similar in the past, so let’s do it again), and clarity. You can tell a good narrative in many ways, both short and long versions and the story never changes, making you feel flexible and responsive to different situations.

In IT, narratives serve as a bridge, translating technical concepts into stories that resonate with technical and non-technical stakeholders. Often, it takes the influence of several parties to reach an agreement on developing something new, and narrative is essential for this repetition. While everyone contributes to crafting these narratives, the IT architects lead and steer the building of many narratives with their profound overall understanding of all the nuances.

Building a narrative starts with understanding the audience and preparing a story they can realistically understand. Usually, you start with the problem, for example. Then, you introduce the solution as a hero. Your solution will likely require several activities done in phases so that you will tell about those. Use analogies and metaphors where possible because they improve the relatability of what you are attempting to say. Highlight the benefits and outcomes, then end with a call to action.

Here’s a brief example of one potential narrative:

Our sales are unnecessarily slow because we don’t have an online shop for our customers. Let’s develop an online store. We will unify our pricing, find an efficient service to run our online store and determine how click-and-ship logistics should work. We are something like a sausage stand built underground; there’s not even a sign on the topside. We need to get that visibility. We could reach +10 % in sales monthly if we do this. A bit more. Let’s make sales great again!

Congratulations. You just successfully launched a new eCommerce platform for your company. The business leaders liked the idea, and the salespeople loved it, although they had slight reservations about this Internet thing. Your IT department is already in full swing, completing the rites of IT project management.

Despite all the planning and preparation, failure is always a possibility. In such instances, narratives become even more vital for you and your company. You face a choice: Do we attempt to learn from this and salvage the project, or call it a day and walk away? It’s so easy to walk away, preventing any actual growth. However, figuring out what went wrong and communicating about the situation sufficiently so that you still have the support of all critical stakeholders requires narrative again.

For example, if the previous project was in trouble because integrating with a legacy application proved difficult:

The online shop we built is running, but the integration with the logistics doesn’t simply work. Customers are complaining more than ever, and we fear we may lose even our most loyal customers because of this. The online shop implementation highlighted that our logistics were in much worse shape than we thought. We will work tirelessly to fix this integration. It should be running much better next week and will be top-notch next week.

We need to switch the product X that is causing the issue. We have analyzed the situation carefully and can do this. We have just opened a wall for the restoration project and found rot. Of course, we know how to fix that; it’s just an extra hurdle. Next time we plan implementations, we analyze the status of our legacy systems before proceeding. On the positive side, this new product X will be slightly cheaper to maintain yearly.

Phew. You may have just offered a glimmer of hope and something actionable for your company. You also have control of a narrative before it controls you. Not all narratives are benign. Some fill the vacuum automatically if you don’t fill it yourself. In a critical situation, it is always worth being proactive and fine-tuning the message with the help of the managers around you. Their insights and perspectives can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your narrative.

You must have better-than-average communication skills to lead people into realizing your plans. You have to be able to tailor your communication style to different audiences. You have to methodologically create narratives with clarity and adapt to the concerns of your stakeholders. Building narratives requires listening to existing narratives to understand what works in a context. Listening to what the business leaders say and interpreting what they say is also a mandatory skill.

When repetition is required, repeat yourself. If your core narrative doesn’t change, but only you tell it changes, your narrative has a more significant impact. Sometimes, you need patience and persistence for a long time before you get what the company needs. When there’s an issue or a risk, never quiet down the concerns; face them with complete transparency. Being open and honest about challenges, risks, and trade-offs creates credibility and trust, making you feel resilient and determined.

Visual aids to the narrative always help convey complex ideas more effectively. Whenever you recognize you are about to face a high-stakes conversation, try to create one picture that encompasses the core of your narrative. Never start with it, and explain your picture. It’s a backup for when the critical stakeholder doesn’t understand the idea. When you attend every critical meeting, you are more prepared than the rest, and people respect your ideas, knowing you have done your homework.

Here’s a warning, though, and a critical one. Not everything requires a narrative, and you, as an architect, shouldn’t be known as the one who always gives 10-minute lectures in every meeting. If the situation doesn’t require a narrative, shut up and see what others think of the topic. You use your tools when necessary. Also, listening to others may teach you about new concerns or ideas to improve yours.

As an architect, you are a thought leader. You build narratives and use them effectively as a tool. If you are an introvert (many architects are), you are more analytical, and figuring out what should go into the narrative is easy for you. You have to do the leg work, too. You can always ask to discuss the topics with others and present your narrative for feedback. People react to that well because you focus on solving problems and delivering value. Sometimes, you shorten long discussions by summarizing a synthesis of the views of all stakeholders.