Data narratives
Answer first, evidence second, ask third: the executive narrative structure, and how to use AI as a drafting partner without letting it sand off your point.
Analysts naturally tell stories in the order they lived them: here's what I looked at, here's what I tried, here's what I found, and finally — with ten seconds of meeting left — here's what I recommend. Executives process in exactly the reverse order. The fix is the oldest structure in consulting, and it works because it matches how busy people actually listen:
- The answer. One sentence, first. 'The refund spike is transit damage on Gear items, almost certainly caused by April's packaging switch; it's costing roughly $X a month and there's a targeted fix.'
- The evidence, in three beats. Localized (one category, one channel), timed (bends in April), mechanism-matched (damage reasons tripled while everything else shrank). Each beat is one chart-sentence from the previous lesson.
- The ask. What you need decided, by whom, by when: 'Approve the fragile-flag audit and packaging exception for Gear; decision needed before the holiday-volume ramp.'
Everything else — methodology, alternatives killed, the fragile-flag caveat — goes in the appendix, present but not presented. The narrative isn't dumbed down; it's sequenced for a decision. The depth is one question away, which is exactly where a decision-maker wants it.
Drafting with AI without losing your edge
Turn my findings memo [paste] into an answer-first executive narrative: 1 answer sentence, 3 evidence beats (each mapping to one chart), 1 specific ask with owner and deadline. Constraints: no hedging words (somewhat, fairly, quite), no jargon, keep MY uncertainty statement about the fragile-flag audit intact and prominent - do not soften it, do not bury it. Then give me a version that is 30% shorter, and tell me what you cut so I can veto.
Two instructions matter: protecting your uncertainty statement (AI's instinct is to smooth it away, and smoothing it away is how analysts get burned), and the 'tell me what you cut' clause — AI trims quietly, and sometimes it trims the point.
AI drafts have a tell: every sentence the same length, every point weighted equally, a faint press-release sheen. Read the narrative aloud once and roughen it where you stumble — shorten the answer sentence, let the key number stand alone. Sixty seconds of your voice on top of the machine's structure is the ratio that works.