A NARRATIVE INTELLIGENCE® PRACTICE

Everything you're building runs on narrative.

What do you want the narrative of what you’re building to be and do?

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What's Narrative Got to Do With it?

When something is not working, we usually look to things that appear related to it, to fix it.

WHEN WE NEED MORE BUYERS

We look to marketing or sales.

WHEN PEOPLE ARE BURNING OUT

We look at workload or time management.

WHEN A TEAM IS STRUGGLING

We look at culture or leadership.

WHEN THE IDEA IS NOT CLEAR

We look to the messaging.

WHEN WORK HAS STALLED

We revisit strategy.

Sometimes we’re trying to build something but can’t quite get the idea clear enough to explain it. Or we know what we want to create but can’t get other people to see what we see.

Nothing is unrelated to narrative.

Narrative Architecture®

Build with the narratives you want.

Whether you’re building a company, a product, a team, a project or something else, there will be things you want people to understand about it. What it is. Why it exists. What matters. What people can expect and what you want to be true in the experience of it.

Narrative Architecture® helps you consciously define and integrate the narrative you want for what you’re building.

That means thinking beyond what you say about it. The narrative needs to make sense in the decisions you make, how things are done, the experience people have and what becomes part of how what you’re building actually works.

For a founder

It can influence what gets built and how the business grows.

For a company

It can move through leadership, culture, systems and teams.

For a product

It can influence who it is built for and what assumptions get built into it.

For a campaign or movement

It can determine what people are being asked to believe and whether they see themselves in it.

For your own work

It can influence what you believe is possible and the choices you make as a result.

Narrative Architecture® helps you consciously define and integrate the narrative you want for what you’re building.

What We're Seeing

Sometimes you can see it in the results.

People aren’t buying, the message isn’t landing and the mood of the team is off. Growth has stalled and the leader is struggling to see or explain what’s going ‘wrong’. The strategy makes sense on paper but it’s not translating into execution.

Sometimes the signs are in how they impact people.

Burnout. Chronic stress. Second-guessing. People are going quiet. Leaders are unaware of their narratives and how they impact what is being built and the teams supporting the work.

And sometimes nothing has gone wrong.

You’re starting something. Building a product. Raising investment. Developing a campaign. Changing direction. Trying to work out the big idea behind what you want to create.

Narrative is part of all of it. It influences how things play out.

What Becomes Possible

When narrative pressure is no longer running things, people stop working against the system and start working with it.

A Stronger Proposition

People understand what you’re building and why it matters.

Better Engagement

Buyers, teams and the people you need to bring with you have something they can understand and respond to.

Behaviour Makes More Sense

You can see what’s behind patterns that keep repeating and restore things quicker.

Things Move Forward

You solve problems faster and keep things moving forward.

Everything is Coherent

The idea, message, behaviour and experience are not pulling in different directions.

Problems Surface Earlier

You can see what’s developing before it becomes harder or more expensive to change.

Where Narrative Intelligence Can Help

Whatever you’re building and wherever you are in the process, narrative influences the results and what happens next.

Building sometging new

A company. A product. A campaign. A movement. A project. A body of work. Finding the idea and narrative capable of leading it.

Growing

Founder-led growth. Scaling. New buyers. Investment. New markets. Bringing more people into what you’re building.

Communicating

Messaging. Value propositions. Campaigns. Launches. When what you mean and what other people hear are not the same thing.

Leading

Growth. Pressure. Leadership transitions. When the narratives held by leaders start showing up in behaviour and results.

Executing

When the idea is clear but execution is pulling it in different directions.

Culture

Burnout. Chronic stress. Overwhelm. Imposter syndrome. Highly capable people feeling inadequate or leaving. Engagement falling, sick leave and attrition rising. Culture and wellbeing initiatives are introduced, but the same experience keeps returning because the narratives producing it have not changed.

AI

When AI systems introduce, reinforce or scale narratives of their own.

HOW WE WORK

We start with what you're building and what is happening around it.

That could mean looking at the narrative behind a behaviour or result. Working out the idea underneath something you’re trying to create. Understanding why the message isn’t landing. Seeing where the narrative has shifted as something has grown. Or examining the narratives an AI system is introducing into the work.

From there, we work at the level where the narrative is operating.

ENGAGEMENTS

Narrative Intelligence in Practice

Different situations call for different kinds of narrative work. Each engagement starts with what you are building and what needs to be understood, established or changed.

The Big Idea

What’s the big idea behind what you’re building?

For founders, companies and others who need to get clear on the idea that can become the centre of gravity for what they’re building.

Sometimes the idea is there from the beginning. Sometimes there are pieces of it, but they haven't quite come together. And sometimes you only realise it's missing when you try to explain what you do, write the value proposition, decide who it's for, raise investment or work out what comes next.

We work with you to get clear on the argument or belief at the heart of what you're building and articulate it in a way that can become its centre of gravity.

From there, the question becomes: if we really believe this, what does it change?

That idea can then shape what belongs, what doesn't, what you say, what you build and where you go next.

Begin the Big Idea

Narrative Coherence™

Is what you say you stand for what people actually experience?

For companies, organisations, institutions and others that want to understand whether what they say they are, believe, promise or stand for is coherent with what people actually experience, see and hear.

Narrative Coherence™ starts with what you already say about who you are, what you believe, what matters to you, what you promise, or what people should be able to expect from you. We look at where that narrative should be recognisable and what people are actually encountering.

The work reveals where the narrative is already coherent, where there are gaps or contradictions, and uses Narrative Intelligence® to explain why they exist. It also shows where alignment may now be needed, whether that means something needs to shift in practice, become clearer, be communicated differently, or the narrative itself needs to change.

Because what you say about yourself can only carry so much weight when people's experience is telling them something different.

You leave knowing where your narrative is genuinely aligned, where people's experience differs from it and why, and what needs attention. That gives you the clarity to protect what's already working, address contradictions that could be affecting trust, relationships or experience, and build from a narrative that is in alignment.

Begin Narrative Coherence

Narrative Audit™

Know the narrative(s) influencing relations and results.

For organisations, companies and others who want to understand why the same thing keeps happening and what narratives may be influencing relationships, behaviour, results, or how buyers engage.

We listen to the stories people tell about vision, challenges, leadership, success, failure, and what they are building. We identify the patterns, the contradictions and the narratives influencing behaviour beneath awareness. We bring those things together to identify the narratives that help explain what you're seeing and how they are operating across different parts of what you've built.

Narrative Intelligence® helps explain why these narratives are operating as they are, what sustains them, and what they are producing.

We name what is operating. The output is a Narrative Architecture Document™: an account of the narrative(s) running things so you can address the source and move forward faster.

Commission a Narrative Audit

Leader Narrative Intelligence™

See the narratives you’re leading from.

A 12-week Narrative Intelligence practice for leaders who want to understand the narratives they are operating from, how those narratives are influencing the way they lead and what they’re building, and learn how to work with and use their narratives differently.

By leaders, we mean a founder, CEO, business owner, team leader, project lead, creative lead, community leader, movement leader or somebody responsible for the direction of something they are building.

Leader Narrative Intelligence™ works with what is actually happening as you lead. You learn to recognise the narratives you’re operating from, understand what they’re based on and what they may be producing. You learn to recognise when a narrative is not supporting where you’re trying to go. And you practise choosing narratives that better support what you want to do.

That can change what happens next.

Instead of a narrative unconsciously determining what you do, you can become aware of it, question it, test it or replace it where required.

You leave with a practice you can continue using in work, relationships, challenges and opportunities that come with leading.

Begin Leader Narrative Work

Narrative Immersion™

Sometimes you need to see the organisation from somewhere else.

For organisations and leaders who want stronger teams, better relationships between different parts of the organisation, and greater understanding of the problems, assumptions or ways of working that may be affecting how people work together.

There are things about someone else’s work that are difficult to fully understand without experiencing them. Why something takes so long. Why a team works the way it does. Why a decision was made. Who has authority over what. What another role actually involves. Those ideas can inform narratives people hold about the organisation and how they relate to each other.

Narrative Immersion™ gives people who affect one another’s work direct experience of working realities they don’t normally encounter for themselves. And through Narrative Intelligence® we explore what the experience revealed: what surprised them, what became visible, what they understand differently, and what happened to the narratives they held beforehand.

The experience gives the organisation a different kind of intelligence.

What emerges can give you another view of what's happening inside the organisation. What assumptions held up? What changed? What became visible? Is the problem actually where people thought it was? Has something changed in how people understand or relate to one another?

Narrative Immersion brings that intelligence together so you can see what the experience has revealed across the organisation, what helps explain it, and where there may be something worth addressing or taking forward.

Begin Narrative Immersion

AI Narrative Intelligence™

AI is not narrative neutral.

For those embedding AI into how they operate and what that is doing to their narrative.

As you increasingly integrate AI into communication, operations, leadership workflows, customer experience, and internal systems, you embed a new worldview and inherit the assumptions, narratives, judgment patterns, and interpretive structures built into those technologies.

Most organisations have not examined what narrative their AI environments are actually transmitting or whether it reflects what they are building.

AI Narrative Intelligence™ works with leaders and organisations to make that narrative visible, define what it should be, align AI behaviour with organisational intention, and build the human capacity to sustain that alignment as AI evolves. AI is already changing culture.

Explore AI Narrative Intelligence

What's the Narrative® is a Narrative Intelligence® Practice.

Ebi Lewis

Founder & Narrative Intelligence Lead

Linda Ligios

Associate, Narrative Intelligence

What are you building?

If you want to understand the narratives shaping it, or get clear on the idea at the centre of it, let’s talk.

Let's Begin