Written by “So why now? Why are we doing this?”
“Because the head of transformation said so.”
I was working on a digital transformation project for a large bank. My job was to create the roadshow content and the deck that would go out to employees explaining the change process.
I was talking to one of the lead engineers to help me understand the ‘why’. Why this change? What would we gain? What would we lose if the change wasn’t implemented?
He didn’t have an answer. He responded, “The CEO just decided. That’s why.”
This conversation has stayed with me because it captures something I see over and over again in change communication. Organisations tell people what is changing. They tell them when. They tell them what’s expected. But often they skip the ‘why’.
And without the why, change communication just doesn’t land.
The “Why” Gap
People don’t resist change because they’re difficult. They resist because they don’t understand why it matters. Or care why it matters.
When employees hear “we’re implementing a new system” without context, they will fill in the blanks with their own story. Often a story guided by fear or cynicism. And as we know, rumours spread faster than any official update.
The ‘why’ is what gives people context and reassurance. It’s the difference between “this is happening to you” and “this is why we’re doing this together.”
Where this gets tricky is that sometimes the people communicating the change don’t know the ‘why’ either. They’ve been handed a decision and told to roll it out. The reasoning either was never communicated or got lost between the boardroom and the town hall.
By the time any message reaches the people who need to hear it, it’s been through layers of processes and people. Each step up the ladder is another gap between the person directly affected and the person who made the decision. The original framing gets polished, reframed, and edited. By the time it gets added to a deck, it’s unrecognisable.
The Complexity Problem
Back at the bank, I redirected and tried another approach. If we couldn’t explain why, could we at least explain how the new system worked?
“It’s very complex,” the engineer said. “There’s no one person who understands the whole thing.”
This was not good, no clear picture of where we were going. No one could explain the system in full. And they wanted me to put this in front of their people as a reassuring message.
This was not something I could do, for obvious reasons.
This is a very common situation; it happens more than most leaders want to admit. Modern organisations are complex. Systems are interconnected. Decisions ripple across departments in ways that are hard to trace, let alone explain.
The instinct is to simplify. To polish up a clean narrative that makes everything sound intentional and under control.
But employees aren’t fooled. They live inside this complexity every day. When the official story doesn’t match their reality, they stop listening, and trust erodes. The polished narrative becomes background noise to the rumours that thrive in its stead.
A Different Approach: The Roadmap Metaphor
So here is what we did instead.
Since no one could explain the whole system, we stopped trying to. Instead of one big narrative that pretended to have all the answers, we built a roadmap.
It was a metaphor we mapped to a road trip. With scenic stops along the way.
Each stop was a micro-story. A small, easy-to-understand update about what was happening now. What had just changed and why it mattered.
We released these stories on a timely basis, tied to the actual pace of the transformation. When something changed, people heard about it. When something was coming, they got a preview.
And the destination? We were honest: we didn’t know where the road ended. This was a complex system change driven by marketplace pressure. Competitors were moving. The bank had to keep up. It wasn’t a visionary master plan. It was survival.
We framed it as an adventure into new territory. Honest about the uncertainty. Clear about what we thought was coming next. Treating it like an exploration rather than a predetermined journey.
It wasn’t a polished, perfect narrative. It was a place where everyone could make sense of the journey together.
A Practical Framework
If you’re working in change communication, here’s what I’ve learned:
Find the real why. Dig past “because leadership decided.” There’s always a reason underneath, be it market pressure, customer feedback, or survival. Find it and name it, even if it’s uncomfortable.
Admit what you don’t know. If no one understands the whole system, say so. If the destination is uncertain, acknowledge it. People can handle uncertainty. What they can’t handle is being lied to.
Use micro-stories. Stop trying to explain everything at once. Release small, timely updates that people can follow. Each story is a stop on the journey. Make it digestible, specific, and connected to what they’re actually experiencing.
Create a shared metaphor. Give people a mental model for the journey. A road with stops. An adventure into new territory. Something they can hold onto through all of the complexity.
The Power of Honest Narratives
The most powerful strategic narrative isn’t the one that has all the answers.
It’s the one that’s honest about what you don’t know yet.
When we stopped pretending we could explain everything and started telling smaller, truer stories, we created something versatile and interesting. People tuned in instead of tuning out. They asked questions instead of listening to rumours. They felt like they were part of the journey, not just passengers being moved from one place to another.
Surveys and town halls and polished decks have their place. But they don’t capture what people actually feel. They don’t create the shared understanding that makes change possible.
Stories do.
If your change communication isn’t landing, the answer probably isn’t more information. It’s honest and human. More willingness to say “we don’t have all the answers, but here’s what we know right now.”
That’s where trust lives. And trust makes change stick.
Narrative Strategy and Storytelling for Organisations 