Fact vs Story

Photo courtesy of Ed Robertson on Unsplash

You need both to grow your startup, but make sure you’re building off the facts.

There’s a concept in conscious leadership called “fact versus story.” It’s a simple concept that basically states a fact is something a video camera might record, and a story is how we interpret that fact. The difference means everything recognizing this should be something change-the-world entrepreneurs do every day.

The entrepreneurs I know are big storytellers. Their stories are about knowing exactly what the customer wants, having the perfectly designed and conceived product, lamenting employees who don’t know what they’re doing and not wasting time trying something that didn’t work before.

These aren’t facts or even reasons or arguments. They’re stories the brain contrives to keep them safe, part of the fight/flight mechanism we employ unconsciously to protect our self-esteem and will to carry on. The problem arises when the story we tell ourselves doesn’t keep us safe but risks exposing us to worse problems.

The point is that we have to recognize when we’re telling a story. And the easiest way to do that is to capture the facts. So the facts of a situation or anything that a video camera might record, for example. If we look at QuickBooks and see that our revenue is up 10% versus the previous month, we are registering a fact. If an employee regularly shows up five minutes after a meeting start time, that can be a fact. If we conclude that the employee is bad and doesn’t respect the founder, we have made up a story about him or her.

By listing out the facts of any topic or issue about which you are meeting or having a discussion, you insert a little gap between stimulus and response. Putting this space between the fact of your tardy employee and the story of his or her threat to your authority will allow you to ask them, after a meeting, why they have shown up late.

A similar dynamic would take place when you receive customer feedback. In the heat of the moment, you might very well interpret their constructive criticism as a sign they hate your product. But you couldn’t know this unless you asked them, and they told you, right? And, in the meantime, you might discount what should have been excellent advice.

When you separate fact from story, you get different interpretations — some positive, some negative — of the same set of facts. The savvy founder will establish a solid framework of facts before allowing the team to begin constructing a story around them. I have found that one of the best ways to do this is to set aside ample time at your quarterly retreats to review the facts around marketplace data, new consumer research, financials and so on. Then, at your monthly strategy meetings, review the key performance indicators you’re tracking to be sure the story you’re telling about your company is true.

I strongly advise the companies I work with to establish an organizational rhythm by using these meetings to connect the dots week to week, month to month, and quarter to quarter to identify any gaps between the facts and the stories they’re making up to explain or understand them. This not only makes business sense, it also makes psychological sense. Many founders are overly positive (count me among them). The stories we tell tend to overshoot what’s actually happening or downplay the negative. Conversely, those with negative predispositions tend to under-appreciate facts about what they’re likely doing right.

Both of these mindsets can be very disturbing to the psyche and to mental health. So, getting into a habit and practicing facts versus story is a great way for entrepreneurs to be more realistic about their business and more even- keeled about the decisions they make.

Let me know how you’re doing to make fact-based decisions a core part of the way you run your change-the-world company.

Sincerely,

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All credit to my ghostwriting partner, Dave Moore, who is instrumental in getting my thoughts out in a coherent manner & into these blogs. Thanks Dave!