Harnessing the power of personal and organisational narratives, for transformation and future success

Leaders live in a world of stories like everyone else. As a leader you create stories and you tell stories; you have actions to take, and outcomes to secure. You are uniquely placed to shape the future of your organisation; new stories are waiting to be told.

But leadership and organisational life are often filled with relentless activity and complexity. The pace of working life can limit opportunities for reflection, let alone for examining the underlying stories that guide personal or organisational action and identity.

Awareness of the stories that shape you and your organisation is the first step to addressing complexity, to driving positive change and unlocking your leadership potential for the future. What are the personal, relational and organisational stories that have shaped your approach? How do those narratives influence strategy and decision-making? What is important for fulfilling strategy and producing results? What stories really matter?

Or, have your stories become entangled, fused in repetition, and been badly told, resulting in diminished perspective, depleted energy and loss of vision? How can you claim and reframe your personal stories, and infuse your organisational stories with clarity and fresh potential?

Our narrative coaching approach begins with the conviction that inner and outer narratives matter. We create a space in which stories can be uncovered, understood and re-authored. When you engage with your stories consciously and reflectively, something shifts. Your actions begin to align with your values and the futures you envision, and you can move forward with greater coherence, clarity and confidence.

Across all of our lives there are major events or circumstances that alter our perspective or re-order our future. These stories mark our identity and will not be forgotten.

Transformational Narrative Coaching is not only concerned with these defining moments and the stories that build slowly across months or years, but we also pay close attention to the smaller, everyday stories that shape how leaders live, lead and make decisions. Ordinary stories – a conversation that lingers, a tension with a colleague, an unexpected reaction in a meeting, an incident that sparks humour – are significant. Within the ordinary are clues to what matters, what is hoped for and what is feared. Big stories and little stories echo across our lives, and in the coaching space become the ground where transformation can root and grow.

In the professional world, you live much of your time on the frontstage. This is the visible realm of meetings, presentations, decisions and outcomes. It is where others see you act, judge your competence, and respond to your impact. It is the arena of presence and performance, where your reputation is shaped and leadership takes form.

However, while the frontstage is where stories are told in public, it is not where they begin. Behind the curtain is the backstage, the quieter, more personal space where reflection, preparation and recalibration happens. It is where meaning is made, where you weigh your personal values against your public roles. It is where you ask questions you dare not speak, and where doubt may niggle and thrive. It is where your inner critic lives, and Imposter Syndrome roams.

Transformational Narrative Coaching allows access to this backstage. It brings awareness to the relationship between the stories you tell yourself and your public performance. And often there is a significant gap.

Our coaching is designed to address the gap, to integrate your frontstage and your backstage and support your steps into change. Your frontstage becomes less about impression and more about expression. Your story feels more authentic, aligned, a sound basis for addressing the future with more confidence and greater resilience.

As a leader, you live in a world of stories like everyone else. But your position entails added responsibility. Wherever you are located within an organisation, and regardless of your seniority, you must exemplify the overarching story and prepare the ground for new stories.

Leaders make stories, they juggle the needs, demands, aspirations and objectives of people and organisation, and create an invisible line of continuity between them. Great leaders see their world, their organisation, or their team as they are and make sense of them, they see patterns and connections; they create enough distance from ‘now’ to envisage ‘what could be’. They craft a coherent story that envisages the way forward from here.

But the story needs to be told. No one will willingly take action unless they believe what is being said, unless they grasp the essence of the story and it makes an emotional connection. Leaders connect by drawing people into their place in the story. They prepare their teams for purposeful activity by connecting their actions to the purpose and plot of the story. The story must be compelling, authentic, capable of moving a team or organisation towards future success.

How do you tell a compelling story? How do you lead for impact? How can adept storytelling enhance your leadership capability?

The art of storytelling is as old as humanity itself; we understand stories and we tell them because ‘it’s in our genes’. But storytelling has not always been valued in the workplace, driven by necessary data, performance, targets, growth and results. We believe that story not only encompasses these vital indicators of progress and delivery, but engages minds and inspires hearts for even greater success.

Storytelling is often a missing element of leadership training, and our masterclasses speak to a capability that should be an integral part of any leadership repertoire.

Our masterclasses will enable you to start developing your own ‘narrative literacy’: the ability to recognise, reflect on and reshape the stories you live by, and those that circle and define your organisation. You will learn to read your audiences well and translate your insights more purposefully and effectively.

The masterclasses are designed to challenge your thinking, to enhance your communication potential and expand the reach of your leadership influence. But our practical purpose is to equip you well to construct and deliver narratives that are clear, relevant and timely. We will provide a forum for your future practice – telling stories that inspire and catalyse others for action.