Written by The surge of storytelling: What it means and what it doesn’t.
Storytelling is everywhere, featured in job titles, strategy documents, conference themes, and LinkedIn posts. It’s touted as critical in business communication, culture, and leadership. There’s a lot of excitement and commotion, for good reason.
As much talk as there is about storytelling, there is also confusion. People see storytelling as both a solution and a trend, but they miss what’s truly powerful: narrative strategy. The difference is subtle but important. A single story can be memorable, but stories on their own have limits. Narrative is what turns “a story” into “stories”; it’s how content evolves into a strategic direction.
Why Narrative Is More Than Communication
Too often, organisations confuse communication with narrative. They share information, produce content, and sometimes add an anecdote as a nod to storytelling.
Information isn’t narrative. Many organisations say they value storytelling but treat it as an afterthought rather than a core strategic tool.
Let’s unpack what a story is, how it functions, and when to use one. Next, we will look at what narrative is and how to use it effectively.
What is Story?
Ads for storytelling, strategy, and communication pop up in my social media feed constantly. According to many of these ads stories are structured pieces of content that fits into a communication stragety. Many promote books or formulas for story structure, promising that using a template will get your message across. This focus on structure is only part of the picture. It is more important to focus on meaning first, and on structure second.
Popular frameworks like the hero’s journey, five-step formulas, and story arc cheat sheets have their place. I also use formulas and structures when I teach. They are great for reducing the fear of the blank page and help people begin writing. But my focus for the beginning of each workshop is teaching message and meaning. The structure comes next to serve the meaning, not the other way around.
The Power of Meaning
A story isn’t powerful because it follows a familiar story arc. It’s magic because it carries meaning. Stories transfer something from the storyteller to the story listener: conflict, learning, or possibilities. The format is the scaffold that holds up the meaning.
This is where narrative strategy comes into play.
Why Narrative Strategy?
We’ve reached a point where content alone isn’t the goal. AI can generate decent content at scale and speed, but the real magic of storytelling comes from being human. It comes from walking around in an embodied form. It involves living through contradiction and noticing details. It’s about connecting all the randomness of life into some sort of meaning. And increasingly, there is hunger for work that’s authentic and meaningful.
Narrative strategy fills this gap. It asks deeper questions than traditional content strategy. It’s not just about what we’re saying, but what people interpret and make of it. It’s not just about campaigns, but the larger narrative that connects everything. The dots and connective tissue that come from connecting real lived stories to the bigger picture we are part of.
Well, at least the way I do it. I gather people together in a room or virtually. For projects that require scale, I also use an app to collect stories. We co-design and synthesise to find the bigger picture. The connective theme that runs through all of the stories. To find the on-the-ground lived experience of change stories, customer success stories, and employee experience stories. From community engagement to business growth, it’s about deciding which messages are worth sharing. It’s also about moving people towards big picture goals.
The Role of Question Design
To discover the strategic stream of stories that flows through organisations, communities and events, one must design the right questions. Before gathering stories, I always hold a strategy session to define the problem we’re addressing. If we don’t frame the problem well, we won’t ask the right questions. Without the right questions, we won’t get meaningful stories. Many efforts fail here. They jump straight to content strategy without thoughtful question design. This results in thin, repetitive, or, at worst, manufactured-feeling stories.
This is particularly important when creating narratives around complex challenges. People closest to the issue know which questions matter. They understand which ones feel patronising. They also identify which ones open up space for something hopeful and true. Narrative strategy is about creating the conditions for better stories to emerge, not just collecting them.
Making Stories Work
This approach is especially important when working with lived experience, culture change, or employee engagement. It is crucial for communities tired of repeating the same pain points with no progress.
I saw this when I worked with a Disability Action group at a local council. They were hesitant at first, and understandably so. They had been telling their stories for years with little or no effect. The act of sharing them was emotional, exhausting and at times retraumatising. They were being asked to return to experiences of exclusion and inaccessibility without a strong sense that anything would change. We worked together to ensure their stories would be handled with care. We shaped them into quotes, anecdotes, and story assets. They can be easily shared within the council to erase the need to repeat them.
We also created a strategic narrative, a directive piece of content to be used in submissions and discussions about built environment projects. This is the power of a narrative strategy. It shapes stories into a bigger system of influence. It supports planning and advocacy. This approach prevents people from telling the same painful story repeatedly.
Narrative strategy is not decorative; it’s directional.
From Stories to Signals
Narrative strategy helps organisations to stop treating stories as isolated assets. And start seeing them as signals about culture, beliefs, friction, readiness, and what futures people can imagine. Gathering those signals enables stronger communication, engagement, and strategic alignment. That’s where the real value lies.
It also changes how we think about communication channels and formats. There isn’t one perfect medium for stories; it depends on the audience, context, and what people engage with. Narrative strategy asks: What do people pay attention to? The answer might be a meeting, workshop, Teams or Slack channels, or a campaign. The key is finding the format where the story can land and avoiding communication systems where stories do not naturally flourish within the company. For example, the use of a change champion’s Slack channel over an email that may be missed.
A Call for Coherence and Meaning
Narrative strategy is for organisations and communities that are tired of reactive communication, content mills, and words with no heartbeat. It is about coherence, meaning, humanity, context, and sense-making; it is more than content. It’s not just helping organisations tell better stories, but understanding the larger narrative underneath. It involves finding the connecting themes. It requires designing better questions. It includes gathering richer stories and focuses on building communication that moves us into a desirable place.
Because that’s what we crave, not more noise, not content for content’s sake, not another message lost in the void. What people need is a narrative they can relate to that moves towards solutions.
Helping Organisations Connect the Dots
If your organisation sits on a pile of disconnected stories, messages, lived experiences, insights, or ambitions, you are not alone. But fear not, it is possible to find the bigger narrative, find the right questions, and build the connective structure so stories can do their job.
Narrative strategy isn’t about making things sound nicer or wrapping ideas in prettier language. It’s about helping people make meaning, create momentum, and move toward something larger than any single piece of content ever could. A new future, more connections through engagement and fulfilling strategic goals.
I have crafted a NotebookLM to help answer questions and share insights into my process of constructing strategic narratives. It contains blogs, case studies and random musings. Ask a question, watch the explainer video or check out my case studies. I would love to hear your feedback. Get in touch!
Storytelling Built For Innovation 