Debugging the Narrative
Early in my tech career, as a self‑taught programmer stepping into the open‑source world, I thought I just needed to get better at coding. My instinct was always technical: solve the puzzle, fix the bug, write the code.
Then came the morning I spent staring at yet another thoughtful but firm response to a proposal I had labored over. The feedback was precise and generous. But it landed like a door quietly closing. Something was not working.
That was when I realized the problem was not just technical. It was narrative.
My ideas were not connecting because I could not clearly explain why they mattered. Worse, the way I communicated them—overlong, tangled, buried in implementation detail—often masked weak or incomplete thinking.
This was my first encounter with a surprising truth that would follow me into leadership: precise thinking and compelling storytelling are not opposites. They are interdependent.
From Hacker to Narrator
At the time, I believed good work spoke for itself. Especially in open source, the ethos seemed clear: “If you build it, they will merge it.”
But the reality was more nuanced. Even excellent contributions needed narrative clarity to gain traction. The leaders I admired did not just write better code. They communicated with context, purpose, and vision.
They made their thinking legible. In doing so, they built alignment, trust, and momentum.
Storytelling as Structured Thinking
Eventually, I began to treat storytelling like another form of structured reasoning. Just as I debug code by looking for missing logic or hidden dependencies, I began debugging my communication.
Here is the structure I came to rely on:
Context: What is happening right now?
Catalyst: Why is change needed? Why now?
Exploration: What have we tried? What have we learned?
Call to Action: What should we do next?
Desired Outcomes: What will success look like?
If I could not fill in these pieces, I probably was not ready to persuade anyone, or even to make the decision myself.
Make Me Care
Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter recalls a narrative commandment he learned from fellow filmmaker Andrew Stanton: “Make me care.” The audience, not the author, decides whether the story matters. Their goals, fears, and context are the soil in which any idea must take root.
I learned this the hard way. More than once, I submitted a carefully crafted open-source patch, only to discover the maintainer didn’t even want the feature. Progress came when I framed changes in language that matched the project’s ethos and immediate priorities. When I showed I understood the community’s context and aspirations, my proposals landed. And even when they weren’t accepted, my voice earned credibility for the next time.
“Make me care” is also Sales 101. My dad spent some of his career in marketing and sales, and he taught me that the conversation always starts with what the customer already values.
In business, the customer is often the business itself. When I coach teams to practice business‑aligned autonomy, I’m really asking them to tell stories that reflect the company’s goals. What’s the catalyst? What problem are we solving? What beliefs guide our choices? Where do we want to end up?
Structure helps. But story and audience are inseparable. If you haven’t earned the audience’s care, structure alone won’t save you.
Strategy Is a Story
As I moved into broader leadership roles, storytelling became essential far beyond the pull request: customer roadmap reviews, board decks, investor conversations, team realignments, crucial one‑on‑ones.
Tools like Wardley Mapping or Crucial Conversations aren’t just frameworks. They’re narrative scaffolding. They help you sequence context, catalyst, options, and outcomes.
The goal isn’t polish. It’s clarity. And clarity creates motion.
Coaching with Narrative
Today, I coach my teams of engineers, PMs, designers, scientists, and operators to think narratively. When they propose a feature, advocate for a change, or navigate conflict, I ask:
What is the situation?
Why does it matter now?
What have you tried or discovered?
What exactly are you proposing?
What will be different if we do it?
This discipline sharpens communication. More importantly, it sharpens thinking.
Closing Thoughts
Strong leadership is not just about making good decisions. It’s about making your thinking accessible and meaningful so others can follow, align, challenge, or build on it.
If your proposals are falling flat, don’t just rework the message. Debug the story underneath. And make your audience care.
What story are you telling today—and who needs to care enough to build it with you?
