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Coherent: Why Connecting the Dots Matters in Data Storytelling

Michael Lee, MBA
Sep 22
4 min read

Updated: Nov 12

Coherence is what makes the difference between numbers leaders hear — and stories leaders act on.

The Problem With Jumbled Stories

Picture this. You’re in a boardroom and the analyst begins:

“Profits are down 20%.”
“Turnover has risen to 25%.”
“Customer satisfaction is 65%.”

All true. But with no links, the room is confused. What’s driving what? What do we do next?

It’s like hearing The Tortoise and the Hare out of order:

First the hare naps,
then the race begins,
and finally the tortoise wins.

The facts are right, but the meaning is gone. That’s what happens when stories lack coherence.

What We Mean by Coherence

Coherence is about flow. It’s the connective tissue that ties findings into a chain the audience can follow:

Cause → Effect → Implication.
Employees → Customers → Revenue → Profit.

Without coherence, insights sound like noise. With it, people see a system — and systems are what leaders act on.

The Psychology of Flow

The human brain craves connections. When we see fragments, we instinctively try to piece them together into a whole. This is the core of Gestalt psychology — our minds don’t process isolated parts, we look for patterns. When data is presented as disconnected points, the audience feels uneasy, even lost.

Memory reinforces this need for structure. The serial position effect shows that people remember beginnings and endings best, but only if the middle flows. A scrambled sequence isn’t just harder to follow — it’s quickly forgotten.

Trust also depends on coherence. As Daniel Kahneman explains in Thinking, Fast and Slow, people prefer a coherent explanation over a complicated but accurate one. That doesn’t mean we should distort the truth. It means clarity builds credibility, while disjointed detail creates doubt.

Finally, coherence is what turns stories into action. Narrative transportation theory shows that when people are absorbed in a story, they are more likely to believe it and act on it. Flow doesn’t just help people remember. It moves them.

That’s why coherence matters. Without it, the brain either tunes out or invents its own story. With it, the audience remembers, trusts, and acts.

A Restaurant Case Study: From Data to Flow

Take this restaurant chain:

Sales dropped 20% in Q2.
Repeat customers fell from 40% of revenue to 20%.
Employee turnover rose from 10% to 25%.
Service ratings slipped from 4.3 to 3.6/5.
Menu size expanded from 50 to 80 items, raising costs by 15% without lifting sales.
As a result, profits shrank 15%.

Individually, these are just numbers. But once connected, two coherent chains emerge:

Chain 1: The Revenue Path

Employees (25% turnover) → Service Quality (3.6/5) → Customer Satisfaction (65%) → Repeat Customers (–50%) → Sales (–20%) → Profitability ↓

Chain 2: The Cost Path

Menu Expansion (+30 items) → Operational Complexity & Costs (+15%) → Profitability ↓

Now the story is clear: two different paths — one through people and customers, one through product and costs — both converge on the same painful outcome: profitability squeezed.

Extracting the Three Main Points

Here’s how coherence turns this flow into three executive-ready storylines:

Employees → Customers
- Turnover jumped from 10% to 25%.
- Service ratings fell from 4.3 to 3.6/5.
- Satisfaction dropped to 65%.
- Main Point #1: Employee instability drove a customer experience problem.
Customers → Sales
- Repeat customers halved (40% → 20%).
- Sales fell 20% in Q2.
- Main Point #2: Customer experience decline translated directly into lost revenue.
Product → Profit
- Menu expansion raised costs 15% but delivered no revenue gains.
- Profits shrank by 15%.
- Main Point #3: Product strategy increased costs, squeezing profitability further.

Each point flows naturally into the next. Employees affect customers. Customers affect sales. Product decisions affect costs. Both revenue and cost paths converge at profitability.

This is coherence in action: simplifying complex connections into a story leaders can follow, remember, and act on.

Practical Techniques for Building Coherence

Here are five ways to make your data stories flow:

Storyboard Before Slides Sketch the chain first. For the restaurant, you’d draw: Turnover ↑ → Service ↓ → Satisfaction ↓ → Repeat Customers ↓ → Sales ↓ → Profit ↓and separately Menu Expansion ↑ → Costs ↑ → Profit ↓.If it makes sense on paper, it will on slides.
Use “Because” Links
- “Sales fell 20% because repeat customers halved.”
- “Repeat customers halved because service quality fell after turnover spiked.”
- “Profit shrank because costs rose 15% while sales fell 20%.”
Anchor in Three Steps Structure your narrative: Opening (context) → Main (findings + flow) → Closing (insight + action).
Test for Shuffle If you can shuffle your slides and the story still works, coherence is missing. Order must matter.
Zoom Out Before Zoom In Start with the system (employees → customers → revenue; product → costs) before drilling into details. This gives your audience a map before the journey.

Why Coherence Drives Action

When stories are coherent:

Leaders see the logic.
They trust the analysis because it feels complete.
They act faster because they understand both causes and consequences.

When stories are incoherent:

Leaders feel uneasy, even if the numbers are right.
They get stuck on defensive questions (“Are we sure about this dataset?”).
Action slows, sometimes fatally.

Coherence isn’t just clarity. It’s credibility. It shows you’ve thought through the links, and that gives leaders confidence to act.

Closing: Connecting the Dots

Data storytelling isn’t about listing findings. It’s about connecting them into flow.

A coherent story takes scattered facts — turnover at 25%, service ratings at 3.6, repeat customers halved, sales down 20%, costs up 15% — and shapes them into three clear narratives: