Ambitious Change Demands Stories, Not Just Data

That was the birth of a framework that changed my life and may change yours: When you need people to follow you into the unknown, show them hard data and tell them human stories.

I’ve used this approach to found and exit a startup, mobilize cautious health insurers to rally against an antiquated law, and help secure billions of dollars to protect communities abroad from HIV/AIDS.

Business leaders can draw a lot from my experience merging data and storytelling, which has worked for me in every instance except one — which happened to occur on the same MBTA project. But more on that later.

To reap the rewards of sweeping change, leaders must convince themselves — and their colleagues — to accept uncertainty and risk. Consequences can be dire, but the payout on this kind of high-stakes endeavor may exceed the combined profits of several safe bets.

The bigger the gamble, the more people you need to tilt the odds in your favor. Some folks are eager to enlist. More often, leaders must persuade stakeholders who are skeptical, if not outright hostile, to the vision.

And your doubters might have a point. As many as 70 percent of organizational change initiatives fail to achieve their goals.

So, how can a leader begin to win over hesitant stakeholders? Find common ground, even if it has the surface area of a pebble.

Data can provide some sense of shared reality, but Gallup has found that we make just 30 percent of our decisions based on rational thinking. The other 70 percent comes from our emotions. Sometimes, we need facts and feelings to make the right decision.

After the MBTA, I advocated for HIV/AIDS policy in Washington, D.C., on a committee organized by President George W. Bush. Data showed that antiretroviral drugs transformed the disease from a death sentence to a chronic condition in developed nations. In lower-income countries, people continued to die preventable deaths because they didn’t have access to the medications.

The president wanted to commit $5 billion to solving that problem in Africa, a task that included building infrastructure to deliver and store the drugs. But members of Congress were wary of spending that money when some of their constituents couldn’t cover their prescriptions.

My team and I took several senior staffers on a trip to rural Uganda, where we drove for hours through the bush to visit understaffed clinics. We met families with HIV/AIDS in communities without electricity, roads and running water.

Shortly after we returned home, Congress approved legislation allocating the money. They had the data. We gave them the human stories.

Change is hard. In politics and in the public, ideologies and fixed beliefs often preclude action, even when they’re divorced from reality. But if businesses want to succeed, they must operate in reality. And sometimes, reality decides the hard thing is the most cost-effective.

In my role on a committee on climate change and workforce health, for instance, I regularly hear stories of extreme weather hurting employees and disrupting operations. No leader can ignore those problems and expect to remain in business.

But what about the tough challenges that aren’t yet screaming for a solution?

Start with the data.

When I was running the health-tech company I founded, we earned most of our revenues helping health insurers engage underserved members. They typically received Medicaid coverage, had low incomes and were hard to reach. We quickly captured data showing they were far more likely to respond to text messages than phone calls or direct mail. The problem: A 1991 law designed to prevent robocallers from interrupting dinnertime caused health insurers to believe they couldn’t send texts.

Because I had the data, I knew this was a change management challenge we could solve.

We grew our proprietary database showing that texting caused people to book doctor’s appointments and address their health issues. Then we went to health plans with an undeniable story: The numbers are clear: If you text members, more people will get the care they need at less expense to you. To start, send each member a text requesting permission to continue texting them.

The data bore out the risk-reward ratio, and the story minimized the fear of running afoul of the law. That was enough for me to build a business around this strategy, and it was enough for the famously risk-averse health plans we courted. 

If a big change were easy or safe, everyone would take it on. There might be less risk, but there would also be less opportunity.

The truth is, merging data and storytelling doesn’t always build consensus.

Back in Boston, after four months of testing the MBTA’s automatic signal controls on empty trains, I was ready to launch the new system during the morning commute. To win over my colleagues, I shared operational data logged during thousands of successful nighttime trips. I told them stories about how this automated rail system would make Boston safer and more productive than it had ever been — that we’d go down in history for fixing the trains.

But no matter what I did, my colleagues feared endorsing a risky project.

“I’m not signing off on it,” a supervisor told me. “But I’m not going to stop you.”

As important as building consensus is, sometimes a leader needs to walk out on the edge alone. I trusted my data and believed in my story. I decided to prove it.

The next day, the trains rain more smoothly and safely than ever before. It was $100 million well spent.