The importance of the red thread narrative

Photo by freie-kreation

The challenge lately for professional communicators (communicators with a capital C, as I like to say) is that communications is currently a hot topic, a business priority and a leadership quality. This is good for capital C communicators, of course. But because everyone must communicate all day, every day, too many people (communicators with a lower case c) think they know what good communication looks like. This is not as good for you if you’re a communicator with a capital C, as—in my experience—what most people really know is what bad communication looks like. I’ve read strategy plans that lack missions, visions and goals/objectives. I’ve read product upgrade announcements that begin with three paragraphs describing the product team and project background. I’ve reviewed leadership updates that hit on 20 key topics over the course of eight paragraphs. What I’m seeing over and over is that what looks at a glance like a well-structured communication often turns out to be a lot of thoughts (using a broad, generous definition of a thought) organized into paragraphs and bullets on a page. What they’re lacking is a thread for their narrative: the theme that takes the reader from the main point or goal through the logic that supports it and then into action (what it is the writer wants the reader to think, feel or do). Without this thread—commonly called the red thread narrative—readers are left to their own devices to wander through a sea of words trying to find their own way to the main point.

Taking a cue from Ariadne

According to Greek mythology, a woman named Ariadne gave her beloved, Theseus, a ball of thread (for maximum visualization, I like to assume the thread was red) to guide him out of a labyrinth after he achieved his mission of slaying the Minotaur. Ariadne also gave Theseus a sword, which probably helped. Without the thread, though, Theseus would never have found his way out of the intricate maze; no one ever had, including the Minotaur itself. Without the thread, Theseus wouldn’t have survived, wouldn’t have saved his fellow Athenians from an annual sacrificial ritual and wouldn’t have gotten the girl. In other words, he wouldn’t have achieved any of his goals.

So it goes with communications. If we can’t navigate our way through the labyrinth of thoughts and paragraphs, if we continue to run into dead ends, if we think we should turn right when we were supposed to turn left, we have failed before we really got started.

Land your main point first and well

Our brains are constantly scanning for input, analyzing it and making on-the-fly calls about whether the input is valuable or irrelevant. If the input is valuable, it goes into storage for immediate or future use. If it is deemed irrelevant, it gets discarded. Patterns and context are helpful indicators of relevance in the largely unconscious process of evaluating input.

When we present a disjointed narrative—or worse, fail to clearly articulate the point of the narrative—we essentially leave audience members to come to their own conclusions. Some may find the red thread themselves. Some may find a thread of a different color. Some may simply decide the narrative is irrelevant to them and discard it.

It isn’t always clear what the main point is even to the author until the draft process is underway. I was asked to help an HR team with an engagement survey communication at one point. As written, the draft felt like a report-out: X percentage of you think we do this well; Y percentage of you think we don’t do that well. It was fairly dry reading and probably nothing the audience didn’t already know. The survey, after all, was simply collecting their perspectives to give insight to leadership. As I talked it through with the HR lead, though, the real message became clear—and it was nowhere to be found in the draft. The key successes, opportunities and percentages were just supporting evidence. The real message from leadership was, “We asked. You told us. We listened and here’s what we’re going to do about it. More to come.” That’s a powerful message: We, your leaders, care about your experience and we’re taking your feedback to heart. Following on the heels of that key message, the percentages took on a new life. Paired with measurable actions to create a better experience, we were able to send a much more authentic, personable, impactful communication—which ultimately set the tone for a regular cadence that was amplified across push channels (emails and videos) as well as dialogue channels (meetings, one-on-ones and internal social channels).

Support your key message throughout

Your key message doesn’t stand alone, of course. Whether you’re aiming to engage or persuade your audience, or whether you’re showing them the connection across seemingly unrelated topics that come together to support the overarching message, the red thread must track throughout your communication.

I recently worked on a red thread narrative for the energy industry, which is addressing a complex set of circumstances. There are geopolitics, macroeconomics and carbon emissions agendas. There is the increasing energy crisis and the necessity of meeting rising energy supply needs now. Then there are all the social and cultural agendas impacting businesses, industries and employees around the world: technology advances and vulnerabilities; evolving talent expectations for inclusion, well-being, satisfaction; and a new type of authentic leadership style to help organizations navigate it all.

As we worked on the narrative, we literally changed key themes and topics to red font. From the first paragraph to the last, if you pull out the red content, you can follow the logic of the narrative and easily—without any additional reading—find the four themes the narrative supports. It’s such a simple exercise but the visualization is powerful. There are, of course, many other ways to think of it. The Minto Pyramid Principle® uses the concept of grouping of ideas on the same subject in a logical way that always—when done correctly—forms a pyramid. Tim Pollard writes in The Compelling Communicator about “getting from the “stuff” to the story.”

I find the red thread to be a strong visual that makes the concept of a solid, organized narrative easy to explain and easy to remember for non-communicators. It’s all about guiding the audience through the maze of content just as they would follow a red thread out of a complex maze.

Follow the red thread

In an email- and app-enabled world, a lot of content makes its way onto our radars, presented as official communications (with a capital C). Often, they are really a lot of thoughts organized into paragraphs and bullets on a page. To ensure you’re helping your audience follow the red thread of your narrative:

• Land your main point clearly and right up front in your communication. Ideally, you’ll have engaged your audience with that point so they’ll want follow the red thread through to the end. If nothing else, you’ll have ensured that those who don’t have the appetite to read further will at least know your key message.

• Support and reinforce your main point throughout. If you have something to say that doesn’t follow your red thread, save it for another communication.

This blog was originally posted on LinkedIn on 24 May 2022.