Working with a couple of academics on a time sensitive project. I'd done the actual research and written a coherent narrative, but it cast aside quite a bit of their writing, since their writing...

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...Write faster.

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Just finished!! It's a lot...

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I’ve collaborated with academics before on consulting type reports. I think the writing styles are just very different - different audiences, typically different objectives, different levels of detail required, etc.. without knowing the details it’s hard to say, but perhaps they’re just coming at it from a different angle?

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True true. We are indeed writing for academics. So if the writing style helps with that audience and the extra PhDs make us seem credible, I guess I can suck it up.
Still extremely annoyed though with the feeling that I've put way more work into this project than necessary. Like if these 2 weren't on the team, I'm sure we could've had a pre-print done 3 weeks ago.

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Has consistently weakened the flow of the piece and has added little relevant information. They simply said "no" to my work and wrote their own thing. I've let them take control of the writing, even though I did the research (and in my opinion, I have stronger writing skills than them, given my observations and previous work for national newspapers).

A month later, it seems like the only thing we've achieved is consensus by steamrolling my opinion as I've given up on pushing my version. The writing is worse and they have provided no critical insights. And our conclusions are out of date because it's been so long so I have to redo the analysis. But I just don't care anymore. All this after I've taken the lead on research and our conclusions.

Is this normal? Is it a good idea to give up power to team members that essentially slow down the process, create unnecessary work for you, and make the product worse, just for the sake of getting consensus?

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Also OP. If this makes you feel better, I too am not a fan of academic writing styles, accountability dynamics, and over-kill to achieve “collaboration” and “consensus”. This may be one of those learning opportunity scenarios... to learn to work with different types of people. In the big picture, your flexibility may give you the upper hand.

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Seems like a very reasonable conclusion.

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Walk us through the process of writing a coherent narrative

Sorry, what do you mean?
The entire process?
If I want to summarize this very quickly, here's what I'd say: Start with what policymakers/decision makers in power need to know. Let everything stem from that. If something isn't actionable, it's irrelevant.
And put those conclusions, and what makes your analysis unique, up front. List examples that bolster your narrative directly. Hand-hold your readers so they don't have to infer, but be concise.

These academics have done much of the exact opposite. They've included random asides that don't contribute to the story. Other things that they've added are logically incoherent and I have to correct them when I find these inconsitencies. And examples that they believe are helping the narrative aren't spelled out and read as other random asides.

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Why do you categorize them as “academics”? Are they PhDs or working in academia?

The particular problem people are 1) a PhD candidate and 2) a tenure track professor.

I have a field-leading phd researcher who is advising the project and s/he has been great. Good writing chops, helpful advice, and SME knowledge.

The former two on the other hand... A very different story. And the adviser doesn't have time to deal with our squabbles.

Who’s the boss? They get to make the final narrative decisions for better or worse.

The adviser, but no one (including the adviser him/herself) has liked the idea of getting that person to pick between two versions because that forces that person to read two manuscripts at once. And also to pick a winner.

I've done 80% of the data analysis (the other 20% done by a person who hasn't been a problem). And I'm the first-author. So publicly, I'm basically the lead. But internally, things are non-hierarchical. I wish I could make executive decisions but I can't.

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