Narrative and Numbers in Storytelling

Aswath Damodaran, noted valuation expert and professor, says in his book, Narrative and Numbers, that the valuation of the company is driven by the narrative you believe about it. That drives the assumptions and the reasoning behind the valuation.

Now, we have seen examples where the narrative and the numbers do not match. Is it all only understood post-facto?

The story is like the leading indicator of the company. If the story breaks, over time, that shows up, in the financials, in the loss of customer trust and more. But when you are within a system and tasked with communicating the story of the company, how do you do this? It gets murky.

One simple storytelling method is to look at the voice of the story. Imagine any well-known story. Now think of it being told from a different voice. The story remains the same. But does the tone and highlight change? Now, imagine telling the company's story from the customers' point of view. Removes a lot of what we call too-good-to-be-true statements in business parlance.

Possible to also adopt for businesses to avoid unreal illusions?