Narrative Strategy and Storytelling for Organisations
Helping organisations solve communication, engagement and change challenges through story
What do we do with stories once we have them? We turn them into qualitative data, which feels tricky. How do you add up stories? Quantitative is the first preference for a reason. Numbers feel trustworthy because the method is visible to everyone. Two plus two is four; anyone can check the work. Stories have no single formula, so they feel loose and impressionistic. It is easy to dismiss them as unquantifiable anecdotes.
Robert Burns' line, "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry," encapsulates storytelling's core elements: reversal and reveal. Aristotle’s concepts of peripeteia and anagnorisis aid in processing life’s challenges. Storytelling offers emotional regulation and insight, proving essential for both personal and workplace encounters with adversity.
You are the narrator; this is your strategy. I work with clients to help them discover their narrative for business or personal purposes. This means they must become the narrator. It starts with a conversation that explores your story, and I start asking questions
Conferences are not selling satisfaction. They are building something harder to measure and more valuable: belonging, connection, intellectual momentum. Post-event surveys were designed for product testing and customer service. Their job is to measure satisfaction: did the event meet expectations, what would you score it, would you recommend it to a friend? An experience that makes someone fly interstate for three days, sit in a room with 300 people they mostly don't know, and leave feeling like their work matters.
I had to synthesise the findings that needed to reach the executive leadership team. And the authentic communication captured in the last question changed my whole presentation. The biggest key themes and learnings were now framed in their own language.
If you are a member of the comms team in government or organisations, you have heard this many times. The decisions have been made, the policy set, the announcement is coming, and the strategic comms plan has been written. The first round of content has been deployed, and this is the first follow-up with the project team. And this is the feedback.
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…
People working in communications, content, and marketing are thinking about their value. AI can produce copy quickly. Suggest your next strategic move or find holes in your comms plans. It is fast, reliable and never misses a deadline. Where does storytelling training fit into a world where everything that is known about the tricks of the trade of communication is still in an LLM? Why learn about or upskill in storytelling when it is all there for us to explore?
I have facilitated numerous workshops, strategy days, narrative sessions, and conference experiences. Regardless of the setting or participants, a consistent pattern emerges. Typically, the most senior, outspoken, or confident individuals are the first to contribute, filling the room with their perspectives. However, as the session transitions to deeper reflection, it is often a quieter participant who introduces a profound idea, causing everyone to pause and absorb the insight.
At the end of a period of strategic thinking and planning, I normally hear from leaders who want a narrative strategy. When they start managing the process of rolling out the strategy. They ask to tack stories onto the strategy. But this is not ideal. The stories should be embedded in every step of the process. From listening, collecting, collating, and activating your narrative. Especially now, in this time of convergence of changes. AI is reshaping how work gets done. Instability is rewriting assumptions about markets, supply chains, and workforce planning. People are carrying personal disruption into professional spaces in ways that are hard to ignore. Change is not arriving from one direction. It is arriving from everywhere at once.
Narrative Strategy and Storytelling for Organisations 