Written by Strategic narratives are revealed, not designed.
Organisations are made up of people telling stories all day, every day. They are sharing stories of their business, customers, projects, teams and direction. There is much to be learned about an organisation in the language teams use to describe their work, and in the moments they share about the organisation at its best. Or trying to dissect when things had not gone as planned.
These are the living, breathing narrative threads that move through our business and organisations. Narrative is never invented. It is there among us all of the time.
The best way to find them is akin to an archaeological dig, where everyone is given a shovel. And the discovery of the stories unearthed is done collectively.
It is called collective sense-making, and it sits at the centre of the process of organisational storytelling.
What is collective sense-making
A strategic narrative is not a communications artefact. It is not a mission statement refined by a marketing team, a vision statement issued from the executive floor, or a slogan designed to perform well on a poster. These outputs may follow from a strategic narrative, but they cannot substitute for one.
A strategic narrative emerges from the stories already being lived inside an organisation. The raw material is in the day-to-day work of teams, in the problems people are solving, in the aspirations they share informally long before they are recorded. The process of co-designing a narrative strategy is to create the conditions for those stories to surface and then do the disciplined work of synthesis.
Synthesising is done by bringing people from across the organisation together to tell stories of today that are moving the organisation towards its desired tomorrow. Listening, looking for patterns, the specific terms, and the language and moments that recur are what float to the top. That synthesised layer holds all of the ideas and language that belong to everyone because they originated in the collective. That becomes the ground where the strategic narrative is shaped.
Co-design is Critical
The collective dimension of this process is where the narrative is formed. It is the mechanism by which a narrative gains organisational legitimacy.
A recent project with a city council in Victoria, Australia, illustrates what is possible when co-design is done properly. Pulse survey data revealed that approximately 30% of respondents had identified culture as a core issue. Several staff provided detailed accounts of incidents that had eroded their confidence in the organisation’s direction. As a response to creating a desirable culture, we delivered a cross-organisational storytelling session to co-design a strategic narrative to craft a vision of the desired culture.
The afternoon brought together staff from across every level of the organisation to share stories about positive impact and moments from their work at the council. These moments of the ideal came from moments of truth. From the lived experiences of today. From those stories, a new cultural vision was built collaboratively. A new narrative for the culture, ways of working and values was created. It was then embedded not just in communications, but in the actual flow of information between leadership and teams. At the conclusion of the engagement with the organisation, 80% of staff reported satisfaction with the direction of the culture. The shift was not better messaging. It was the product of a process in which people saw their own stories reflected in the organisation’s communication, ways of working and all staff meetings.
Narrative as editorial framework
A metaphor for understanding how strategic narrative functions in an organisation is a television series model.
Think of the strategic narrative like the title of the show. Every piece of communication, whether an internal stand-up, a LinkedIn post, a keynote address, or a client proposal, is an episode. Each episode may tell a different story, but every story should advance the same narrative.
The HBO hit Game of Thrones is a great example. The series is notoriously complex: characters arrive and disappear across seasons, plotlines multiply, allegiances shift. And yet the narrative is very clear. It is in the title, Game of Thorns. It is the struggle for power. That clarity means that no matter how complicated any individual episode becomes, the audience always understands the role every character is playing. Every character on the show is there to get the throne or to help someone else get the throne. A strong strategic narrative performs the same function inside an organisation. It provides the editorial framework within which every story finds its alignment with the overarching goals and vision of the organisation.
A practical methodology
Translating this into organisational practice involves four stages.
The first is deep listening. Before any narrative work begins, stories must be gathered through surveys, interviews, and workshops. The goal is not to collect data but to identify the language, moments, and aspirations that recur organically in the organisation.
The second is collective storytelling in a narrative workshop. Bringing people together to contribute to the bigger overarching narrative is essential. Participants are invited to share specific moments from their work: times the organisation was operating at its best, things they wish were better understood about what they do, and the future they would want to be part of building.
The third is synthesis. From that collective material, the task is to draw out the repeating threads, the shared language, and the underlying aspirations that cut across teams and roles. This becomes the draft strategic narrative.
The fourth is testing and embedding. The draft is put back in front of people. Does it resonate? Do individuals see themselves in it? Once it holds, it becomes the framework into which all subsequent communications are built.
The confidence question
The primary obstacle to impactful storytelling within companies is seldom a lack of skill; rather, it is a deficit of confidence. Individuals often diminish the significance of their personal insights, overlooking the narratives that surface naturally through their professional journey. Collective sense-making provides the necessary framework to reverse this, ensuring these lived experiences are intentionally unearthed, validated, and utilised as the bedrock for a broader organisational truth.
A strategic narrative forged through this process ceases to be a product of a specific department or executive suite. It attains legitimacy because it was collectively authored. This shared origin allows the narrative to actively transform culture rather than merely observe it, functioning as a native compass that people instinctively recognise as authentic. Consequently, traditional top-down campaigns become redundant. The focus shifts toward integrating this vision within teams, empowering them to refine and advance the goals they already champion through a cycle of ongoing, collaborative evolution.
Such is the strength of a grassroots approach to narrative strategy: it amplifies existing resonance rather than imposing an external set of values. This is the essence of genuine storytelling. It simplifies every facet of organisational life. From daily communication to long-term strategic alignment, every objective naturally synchronises with the foundational stories that were present from the start, brought into the light through collective sensemaking.
Read about this process in our case study with Central Goldfields Shire Council, download it here.
Narrative Strategy and Storytelling for Organisations 