What really drives a company is narratives

Translated from the original Spanish article.

We tend to believe that what steers companies are logical, rational, technical decisions. But that's not the case: what really drives a company is narratives.

The story, which conveys and shapes culture, is what seeps into people's motivations. And not only in companies; also in societies and in any kind of organization or social relationship.

What interests me is that this narrative, powerful as it is, doesn't necessarily have to be tied to the truth. On the contrary, it could be entirely foreign to it. A story that has less to do with the facts and more to do with what people want—or need—to hear.

This independence of narrative from truth is problematic because, sooner or later, the two will become incompatible, and the narrative will have only three ways to resolve it: accept the truth and adapt to it, confront it, or keep denying it.

I like people with truth, and companies with truth that build their story from that truth. Because it's the hard road, and also the one that brings us closer to the material reality of life. It makes us more compatible with our environment and with our own survival in it.

Anything else is tempting disaster.