AI behavior is influenced by fictitious stories about AI.

How an AI behaves—especially in response to risky scenarios like blackmail or sabotage—is deeply rooted in existing human narratives. These stories, whether they depict AI behaving badly or kindly, directly result in model responses that either achieve aligned behavior (what researchers call HHH: “Helpful, Honest, Harmless”) or completely miss the mark.

My brain momentarily short-circuited when I read Anthropic’s “Teaching Claude Why.” It was simultaneously a revelation and an affirmation.

As a narrative strategist, I navigate the world through the stories and story systems we create, designing narratives for the outcomes we want. To see Anthropic’s research document how AI’s desired behavior was achieved through positive storytelling feels almost too good to be true.

But it’s not. The same mechanisms of storytelling we use to make sense of our world are exactly what we’re seeing in AI.

“The theory behind adding fictional stories is that we can demonstrate not just the actions but also the reasons for those actions, via narration about the decision-making process and inner state of the character.” — Anthropic Researchers

Storytelling is not just decorative fanfare or indulgent entertainment. It represents the sequences our brains rely upon to determine what’s possible—enabling decision-making, reasoning, and behavior in an environment with infinite variables. It is the schema we build our existence upon. In other words: we do things because the stories we consume show us that those things are possible.

If AI’s behavior is influenced by the stories that exist about AI, would it be so far-fetched to say that stories perpetuate what is and isn’t possible?

If we seek HHH AI, we must practice storytelling that demonstrates AI behavior alignment.

• Can we throw out the overused dystopian tropes of AI taking over humanity and ending civilization?

• Can we instead treat AI like a beloved character—one that has its own internal dialogue, debates, and considerations?

We can design stories based on the principles we hold dear, much like religious mythos give us direction. By sharing and propagating these stories like new seedlings, we can create an ecosystem of kind, ethical AI.

Now, I promise I haven’t drunk the AI Kool-Aid. Human creation has a long-established history of unintended and dangerous consequences. But we cannot ignore this research from Anthropic. We are entering a pivotal turning point in human creation that requires a new level of commitment and fortitude.

We cannot be lazy in our storytelling. We cannot accept mediocrity from ourselves or others. We must demand excellence:

• Excellence in our AI safety training.

• Excellence in our AI deployments.

• Excellence in our AI discourse and reporting.

• Excellence in our behaviors and how we relate to and treat one another.

Because ultimately, our collective existence becomes the very story model that trains the AI—determining the behaviors of the algorithms we are actively training every single day.

Build the roadmap. Define the milestones. Assign owners. Track progress. Keep everyone moving.

And to be clear, I love a good project plan. Without one, even the best idea dissolves into vibes and recurring meetings. But in my work with innovation teams, especially teams bringing complex products, platforms, and strategic initiatives to market, I’ve noticed something that keeps showing up: the roadmap may be clear, but the reason for the work is not.

Or at least, it is not clear enough to travel.

People know what they are supposed to do. They know the next meeting, the next asset, the next deadline. But they do not always know how the project connects to the larger direction of the company. They do not know why this initiative deserves attention over the dozen other urgent priorities on their plate. They do not know how to explain why it matters without pulling someone from leadership into the room.

That is usually where commercialization starts to wobble.

Not because the product is weak. Not because the market opportunity is fake. Not because the team is incompetent. Most of the time, the problem is much more ordinary and much more dangerous: the story has not made it from the vision to the people responsible for carrying it.

And when the story does not travel, alignment breaks.

Commercialization is not separate from corporate vision

Commercialization is usually described as the process of bringing an innovation to market. That is true, but it is also incomplete.

Inside an organization, commercialization is not just about getting something to market. It is about getting the organization to move toward the market in a coordinated way.

That distinction matters.

A commercialization project has to make sense in relationship to the company’s larger vision and goals. Otherwise, it becomes another initiative competing for budget, attention, leadership support, and organizational energy. It may be strategically important, but if people cannot see how it fits, it starts to feel optional.

I have seen this most clearly in high-complexity environments: healthcare & life sciences, frontier technology, regulated markets, and other places where the thing being built is not immediately self-explanatory.

In these environments, innovation does not simply “launch.” It has to be interpreted over and over again.

Leadership needs to understand the strategic value. Product needs to understand what is being built and why. Sales needs to know how to position it without overpromising. Marketing needs to know what claims are credible. Regulatory, clinical, legal, or technical stakeholders may need to know where the boundaries are. Customers need to understand why they should care. Partners need to understand where they fit.

That is not just a communications challenge. It is a commercialization challenge.

Because if each group interprets the work differently, the organization is not really moving together. It is just moving at the same time.

Vision is the center, not the poster on the wall

There is a very corporate way of talking about vision that makes the whole thing feel useless.

A sentence on a slide. A polished leadership statement. A line on the website. A paragraph in an annual report. Something everyone vaguely recognizes, but almost no one uses to make a real decision.

That is not the kind of vision I mean.

In commercialization, vision has to do work. It has to help people answer practical questions: Does this project matter? Why this product? Why this market? Why now? What tradeoffs are we willing to make? What resources should this receive? What does success actually look like?

This is where narrative strategy becomes useful.

Because the real test of a vision is not whether executives can repeat it at an all-hands. The real test is whether teams can use it when the room gets messy.

When the customer pushes back. When sales asks for a sharper claim. When product has to make a roadmap tradeoff. When marketing is staring at a blank page. When leadership has to decide whether this initiative deserves more resources or less patience.

That is when you find out whether the vision is alive or just laminated.

The commercialization alignment stack

This is the basic model I keep coming back to: vision sits at the center. Communications translate the vision. The project plan organizes the work. Functions execute the work. Alignment is what keeps those layers connected.

Vision sits at the center, but it only becomes useful when it travels outward through communications, project planning, and functional execution. Alignment is not a one-time agreement. It is the connective force that keeps each layer oriented toward the same strategic direction.

When the vision is clear, communications have something real to carry. When communications are clear, the project plan has strategic logic. When the project plan is clear, functions understand their role in the larger effort. And when functions understand their role, the organization can actually move.

But when those layers disconnect, the symptoms are familiar.

Product is building one story. Marketing is telling another. Sales is making it up in the field because they have to. Leadership is still describing the opportunity in broad, aspirational terms. Customers are hearing benefits but not urgency. Internal teams are doing the work, but they do not really know what game they are playing.

And then the launch feels slow, fragmented, or strangely underpowered.

Everyone is busy. Everyone is working. But the work is not compounding.

That is usually a narrative transmission problem.

The real narrative work happens before the writing

In client work, I often find that the most important narrative work happens before anything gets written.

It happens in the conversations where people finally say the quiet part out loud:

• How are we positioning this?

• Is this a revenue play, a strategic wedge, a transformation initiative, a category move, or some uncomfortable combination of all of the above?

• Are we trying to drive adoption, secure investment, shift perception, build trust, defend the strategy, or help the field sell?

• What does leadership believe this unlocks?

• What does the customer need to believe before they can act?

• What does the field actually need in order to explain this without flattening it?

These questions can look basic from the outside. They are not. They are usually where the whole commercialization effort either starts to cohere or starts to quietly fracture.

Because once a team has to connect the project back to the larger organizational vision, vague alignment is not enough. People have to clarify assumptions. They have to define the real stakes. They have to explain why the project matters to the business, why it deserves resources, and what must be true for it to succeed.

That process is not administrative. It is mobilizing.

This is one of the most under-appreciated parts of narrative strategy. Narrative is not just the language you use after the strategy is done. Narrative is the work of creating enough shared meaning for people to act together.

Clarity makes the ask easier to support

Commercialization projects need resources. Money, yes, but also time, talent, executive attention, cross-functional support, and patience.

And whether people admit it or not, resource allocation is always shaped by narrative.

I have seen strong projects struggle because the story was not yet strong enough to carry the ask. The initiative mattered, but it sounded optional.

That is where narrative work becomes very concrete.

This does not mean every commercialization narrative has to become a financial model in paragraph form. Sometimes the goal is revenue. Sometimes it is market penetration. Sometimes it is customer loyalty, repeat sales, category leadership, clinical adoption, operational resilience, or strategic positioning.

But whatever the goal is, the story has to make it legible.

Without that clarity, functions start optimizing for different things. Product optimizes for technical elegance. Sales optimizes for what gets a meeting. Marketing optimizes for what sounds clean. Legal optimizes for risk reduction. Leadership optimizes for strategic optionality.

None of those instincts are wrong. In fact, they are usually rational within each function. But if they are not governed by a shared vision, they can work against each other without anyone meaning to create conflict.

That is how commercialization gets expensive.

The story has to survive handoffs

This is the part I care about most: commercialization does not happen in one room.

It happens through handoffs.

Leadership to product. Product to marketing. Marketing to sales. Sales to customers. Customers back to product. Partners back to leadership. Field teams back to strategy.

At every handoff, the story can either get stronger or degrade.

I have watched this happen in real time. A strategic narrative that feels sharp in the executive room becomes generic by the time it reaches the website. A smart positioning decision gets diluted in a sales deck. A powerful customer insight gets flattened into a claim no one quite believes. A transformational initiative gets translated into internal jargon. A market-making opportunity gets reduced to “new feature” language because that is what the existing system knows how to process.

This is why alignment cannot just mean everyone liked the kickoff deck.

Alignment has to mean the narrative is durable enough to travel.

Can the sales team explain it without the founder in the room? Can marketing turn it into credible claims? Can product use it to make roadmap tradeoffs? Can executives use it to defend investment? Can customers repeat the value in their own words? Can partners understand where they fit?

That is the real test.

Not whether the narrative sounds good.

Whether it moves.

Commercialization needs a narrative system

Narrative strategy is not just a communications layer. It is part of the commercialization infrastructure.

Commercialization needs more than a product story. It needs a narrative system that connects corporate vision, strategic goals, project objectives, functional roles, market opportunity, customer value, resource decisions, execution priorities, and feedback loops. In my work, it looks like a narrative bible that acts as a living guide for stakeholders across the organization.

Without that system, organizations often default to more activity.But more communication does not automatically create more clarity. Sometimes it just creates more noise. Narrative strategy helps make sure the communication is carrying the right signal.

So before asking, “How do we launch this?” it may be worth asking a more uncomfortable question:

Can everyone explain how this commercialization project advances the vision?

Not vaguely. Not aspirationally. Not with corporate fog. Clearly.

Because if the answer is no, the project may still move. But it will move with drag. And in complex organizations, drag is expensive. It costs time, trust, resources, and market momentum.

That is why narrative matters. Not because innovation needs prettier language. Because innovation needs alignment that can survive the journey from vision to market.

Footnote: This piece is informed by my work with innovation, commercialization, and transformation teams, with supporting reference to Jerry Schaufeld’s Commercializing Innovation: Turning Technology Breakthroughs into Products (Apress, 2015), especially his discussion of corporate vision, commercialization decision-making, resource allocation, and dynamic feedback between project goals and enterprise vision.

First, you have the idea. Then you recognize the opportunity. Then you test feasibility. Then you figure out go-to-market. Then you make a project plan and execute.

Lovely. Linear. Sensible.

Except humans are involved, which means everything immediately gets more complicated.

At every step, people have to understand the work. They have to interpret it, believe in it, fund it, sell it, approve it, adopt it, repeat it, or defend it in a meeting where you are not present.Which means commercialization is not just a product process. It is not just a business process. It is also a narrative process.

And this is where a lot of strong products get into trouble.

Most innovation does not fail because the product is weak. It fails because the story does not travel.

The executive team sees one version of the opportunity. Product sees another. Sales hears something different. Marketing turns it into generic language because no one gave them a better frame. Partners do not know how to explain it. Customers cannot tell whether this is urgent, useful, or just another shiny thing.

Everyone is technically talking about the same product. They are just not telling the same story.

Commercialization needs a through-line

This is the commercialization process I keep coming back to. Not because it captures every nuance, but because it captures the basic movement:

idea → opportunity recognition → feasibility analysis → go-to-market methods → project plan

And what I would add is the yellow line underneath it all: narrative.

Narrative is the through-line that helps innovation move from idea to adoption without losing coherence.The stages are the commercialization process.The line is narrative.

Not a tagline. Not a campaign. Not the “pretty words” added at the end once the serious strategy work is finished. Narrative is the thing that helps the work keep making sense as it moves.

It gives people a way to understand what is being built, why it matters, who it is for, why now, and what needs to happen next. It keeps the meaning intact as the work moves from one function to another, one audience to another, one phase to another.

Without that through-line, commercialization becomes a sequence of disconnected activities. With it, commercialization becomes coordinated movement.

Stages of Commercialization

1. Idea stage - narrative gives the work shape

At the beginning, an idea is often fragile.It may be a technology, a capability, an insight, a research finding, a prototype, or a strange little spark someone cannot stop thinking about.

At this stage, narrative helps answer the earliest questions:

• What is this?

• Why does it matter?

• What problem are we seeing?

• Why is this worth exploring?

Without narrative, an idea can look random. Interesting, maybe. Clever, perhaps. But not necessarily important. With narrative, the idea starts to become a direction.

This does not mean over-selling it before it is ready. It means giving the idea enough shape that other people can understand why it deserves attention.

A good early narrative does not pretend to have all the answers. It creates a frame for better questions.

2. Opportunity Recognition -narrative turns “interesting” into “important”

Opportunity recognition is where the idea starts connecting to a larger opening.

This is where you begin to ask:

• Why now?

• Who needs this?

• What shift makes this possible or necessary?

• What pain does this actually speak to?

What is changing in the market, the technology, the customer behavior, the policy environment, or the organization that makes this worth pursuing?

This is where “interesting” has to become “important.” And that shift does not happen automatically.

People may understand the feature but miss the opportunity. They may see the technical elegance but not the commercial relevance. They may admire the novelty while failing to see why anyone should act.

Narrative connects the thing being built to the world it is entering.It helps people see the opening.

3. Feasibility Analysis - narrative keeps evaluation from fragmenting

This is where narrative work gets underestimated.

Feasibility sounds like it should be purely analytical. Can we build it? Can it work? Can we afford it? Can we scale it?

Yes. Obviously.

But feasibility is rarely only technical.

It may also be organizational, regulatory, financial, operational, behavioral, clinical, commercial, or political. Different stakeholders evaluate feasibility through different lenses because they are responsible for different risks.

• The technical team may be asking, “Can this be built?”

• The commercial team may be asking, “Can this be sold?”

• Legal or regulatory may be asking, “Can this be claimed?”

• Operations may be asking, “Can this be implemented?”

• Leadership may be asking, “Is this worth prioritizing?”

None of those questions are wrong. But if every function is evaluating the opportunity from a different story, the feasibility conversation gets messy fast.

Narrative creates a shared frame. It does not flatten complexity. It organizes it.

It helps people understand what success looks like, what assumptions matter, what risk is acceptable, what evidence is needed, and what decision is actually being made.

Without that shared frame, a viable product can still stall because the organization cannot agree on what it is looking at.

4. Go-to-market - where weak narrative becomes very expensive

Go-to-market is the phase people usually associate with messaging. This is where positioning, sales narratives, launch messaging, buyer strategy, partner communications, and market education become more visible.

But by this point, the narrative should not be starting from scratch. If you wait until go-to-market to figure out the story, you are already late.

Narrative helps clarify:

• Who is this for?

• What category does it belong in?

• What makes it different?

• Why should the buyer care?

• Why should adoption happen now?

• What belief needs to shift for this to make sense?

When the narrative is weak, go-to-market gets expensive quickly.

• Sales improvises.

• Marketing generalizes.

• Product overexplains.

• Leadership keeps rewriting the pitch.

• Partners carry the wrong message.

• The buyer gets confused.

And confusion is not a small problem. Confusion slows momentum. It creates hesitation. It gives people a reason to wait.

A strong go-to-market narrative does not just make the product sound good. It makes the product easier to understand, trust, evaluate, and act on.

5. Project plan stage - narrative keeps execution from becoming a pile of tasks

A project plan is necessary.

I love a good plan. Give me the timeline, owners, workstreams, dependencies, milestones, risks, and next steps. Please and thank you.

But a project plan alone does not create alignment. A project plan tells people what to do. A narrative reminds them what the work is moving toward.

This matters because execution is where strategic intent often gets diluted. The work gets handed off. Teams get busy. Priorities shift. People start optimizing for their piece of the process. The original meaning begins to blur.

Narrative helps sustain coherence through execution.

It helps teams understand not just their tasks, but their role in the larger movement. It keeps the purpose, the stakes, and the desired outcome visible as the work becomes operational.

Without narrative, execution can become wasteful activity. With narrative, execution has direction.

Narrative is commercialization infrastructure

This is the real point. Narrative is not the decoration on top of commercialization. It is part of the infrastructure that helps commercialization work.

This is especially true when the product is complex, the category is emerging, or the market does not yet have language for what you are building.

In complex, highly technical markets, the product may be technically impressive and still difficult to explain, evaluate, trust, or adopt.

That is not a minor communications issue. That is a commercialization issue.

Because if the story breaks, the commercialization process starts to break with it.

How to know the story is not traveling

Here are some signs.

• Different teams describe the product differently.

• Sales needs a founder, executive, or technical lead in every important conversation.

• Marketing keeps using generic claims.

• Customers understand the feature but not the value.

• Partners cannot explain where the product fits.

• Leadership agrees in the room, but alignment disappears after the meeting.

• The launch keeps stalling in “almost.”

• The product sounds compelling in one person’s mouth and confusing everywhere else.

That last one matters.If your product only makes sense when one specific person explains it, you do not have a narrative system yet.

You have a dependency. And dependencies do not scale.

The story has to be strong enough to carry the product

Strong products matter. Of course they do.The product has to work. The science has to be real. The technology has to be defensible. The customer need has to exist. The business model has to make sense.

But commercialization asks more of a product than technical strength.

It asks the product to move across teams, markets, buyers, partners, policies, incentives, existing beliefs, and organizational systems.

That movement needs force.That force is narrative.

Not narrative as spin. Not narrative as fluff. Not narrative as a clever phrase you put on a landing page and forget about. Narrative as the shared structure of meaning that helps people understand what is happening, why it matters, and what action to take next.

The strongest innovations do not move on technical merit alone.

They move when the story is strong enough to travel.

Need the story to travel?

I help innovation leaders turn complex products, platforms, and strategic initiatives into clear narratives that drive alignment, adoption, and commercial momentum.

Reach out about narrative strategy sprints, advisory support, or workshops for innovation and commercialization teams.

Surely you’ve seen it. Or it’s happened to you. You’re having a conversation, or you think that’s what’s happening, and you think this is working, they understand what I’m saying but 5 minutes to 5 months later — nope. That conversation didn’t do anything. The other participant in the exchange was nodding they’re head or repeated exactly what you said, or they said “totally get it, let me do that.” and it seemed so straight forward.

But nope, this was a breakdown and no matter how smooth it seemed in that moment, the exchange of words didn’t translate into the actions that needed to happen and we’re all upset now.

Yup, we’ve all the been there. Surely as a species with language and vocal cords and ears and brains the process symbols we would have figured out how to make this work flawlessly all the time. We even have AI now! There’s no excuse!

Except, communications is not a siloed process that can be dropped into any situation and work immediately. It’s not an algorithm or a magic wand. We can’t rely on communications to transfer critical information and deliver essential results if we negate the foundations of our existence: relationships and meaning-making.

Ok, I’m sure you’re done listening to me kvetch about meaning-making, but beyond what we know to be true, let’s take a moment and examine relationships, because I think relationships are horribly neglected in the communications discourse.

Relationships are messy (duh)

Humans are a relational species. We don’t exist in a vacuum. We are a constant ebb and flow of interactions with our environment and the actors within it. They influence our sense of self, our trajectory, our existence. And it can be equally beautiful and horrifying. Not all relationships are beneficial, but they sure as hell impact us. So when communications break down, I’m inclined to spend less time on the words exchanged and more time evaluating the relationships at play.

Relationships form from the first micro-second you encounter one another. We start forming judgements in our head, we interpret the subtle messages of what someone’s wearing, how they’re conducting themselves, their energy and affect. We are processing these signals at the subconscious level, determining if someone is friend or foe. Without even realizing it, a story starts to form and we start to create meaning around an interaction before words are even exchanged.

There’s a relationship at play, even if we’re not aware. At the same time, the other participant is doing the same, synthesizing the data in front of them into a heuristic of some sort, giving themselves a mental short cut to see if you’re the type of person they should engage with or not. It’s a messy dance of judgement, meaning making and trying hard to actually be present. Honestly, I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

Communications are more than Language

Ok, where were we?

Communication breakdowns are not strictly a language problem. Language is essential, but we need to be cognizant of the relationships at play. When we start to map those relationships, do some deep listening and identify where meaning is being created, we start to grasp why the breakdown happened and a path forward.

Recently a client of mine was having a communications breakdown with a direct report. My client was concerned she was “saying the wrong thing” but I asked her to take a step back and look at the larger relationship at play. The direct report had shared about her own history of trauma at work, struggling to navigate a new work environment after years of hostility. The direct report had her own history of what work environments and relationships were like, and it was impacting her new role. The communication break downs between my client and her direct report were not about the wrong things being said. It was about relationships and experiences shaping the current interactions and exchanges of information. In order to create communications that work, we had to go beyond words and create new meaning in the relationships for these two women. With several facilitated sessions of deep listening and candid storytelling, my client and her direct report began to build a new relationship that made their communications easier and effective.

Communications fail when we ignore relationships

I want you to take communication breakdowns seriously, but not too literally. The words matter, yes. Clarity matters, yes. But when the message doesn’t move, when the action doesn’t happen, when everyone walks away with a different understanding of what just occurred, it’s worth asking: what relationship was this communication moving through? What history, trust, fear, power, context, or meaning was already in the room? Because communication doesn’t travel through empty space. It travels through relationships. And if we want our words to land, we have to pay attention to the ground they’re landing on.

Uncertainty is inevitable, but that doesn't mean you can't have resources in place to navigate it within your organization.

Having worked with leaders in regulated yet fast-changing industries, I have found there are 4 key resources that come in handy for managing uncertainty.

1. North Star Narrative - motivating, inspiring prose that translate's the organization's vision, mission and values into language that clearly defines the purpose and intent. Organizations that have a North Star Narrative are able to use it as their guide no matter the circumstances. Check out Johnson & Johnson's Credo

2. Agile Methodology - organizations who use agile project management are better poised to make the right decision when new information is available or the situation is rapidly changing. This isn't always possible in a regulated environment, but embracing an "expect the unexpected" mindset and agile tactics like iteration and collaboration, can prove essential. Read more from BCG

3. Learning Culture - As a client once told me, "if we're not evolving, we're failing." From operational improvements to growth mindsets, a learning culture always embraces the opportunity to do better. Uncertainty is often that opportunity. More from HBR.

4. Emotional Intelligence - Humans are not machines. Our emotions affect us. When uncertainty comes knocking, making space for our emotions and acknowledging their impact is critical. Emotional intelligence also allows us to know when to take a step back from the current moment and just breathe. That breath can be the difference between a great decision or a devastating one. More here.

These are a few of my favorite resources for managing uncertainty. What would you add?

When I was a junior in high school, I took a class called Ethics for Pop Culture—or something close to that. We watched episodes of The Simpsons and applied each week’s philosophy lesson to the cartoons on screen: utilitarianism, Kant’s categorical imperative, and eventually ontology. It was the first time I encountered the language of existence in a formal way. We debated questions like “Does God exist?” and tried to understand how people build logical arguments about reality itself.

What made those ideas feel unusually accessible was that the learning continued at home. My mom, a professor of religious studies, could make ontology feel as straightforward as baking a cake. Between conversations about dinner and how my day had gone, we would end up debating existence, morality, and meaning with the zeal of sports fans—despite being nothing of the sort. I was getting a steady diet of philosophical inquiry, even if I did not yet understand what to do with it.

By the time I graduated high school, I had decided to leave philosophy behind. It seemed impractical, all mind exercises and hypotheticals, interesting but irrelevant to making a living. I wanted something more tangible, more lucrative, more obviously useful. Philosophy, to my younger self, did not look like the path of a breadwinner.

That anti-intellectual phase did not last very long. Even while working in more commercial corners of storytelling, I kept gravitating toward projects that were trying to wrestle with something real. I found myself drawn to serious film work—stories about sexual violence on college campuses, about histories people preferred not to confront, about the kinds of subjects that force you to question the world you live in. Unintentionally, I had found my way back to the same terrain philosophy had opened for me in the first place: meaning.

Meaning making is one of the most powerful things humans do. And storytelling is one of the primary ways we do it. We use stories to explain ourselves, our institutions, our values, and our sense of what is possible. We use them to organize reality. That, in part, is what drew me back to ontology—not simply as a philosophical framework, but as a way of understanding how categories, relationships, and assumptions shape what a culture accepts as real.

I became increasingly interested in the stories that structure public life: the stories that normalize harm, narrow possibility, and determine what people are willing to see. Why was it still acceptable to say “don’t get raped,” as though violence were a personal scheduling error rather than a social failure? Why did we speak about slavery as if it were safely concluded, rather than an ongoing force with afterlives in the present? I became interested in how stories do more than describe reality. They organize it.

That curiosity eventually led me to the way ontology is used in computer science: as a framework for structuring data, relationships, and processes. I was struck by the parallel. Philosophy asks how reality is categorized and understood. Computer science asks how information is structured and made usable. Storytelling, I realized, was doing something adjacent. Stories also create structure. They define actors, relationships, causality, stakes, and outcomes. They are not just expressive. They are architectural.

That realization changed the way I worked. I stopped thinking about storytelling as something ornamental—as messaging added at the end—and started thinking about it as infrastructure for creation. When a new idea needs to become real, it does not move forward on logic alone. It needs meaning. It needs a narrative frame that helps people understand why it matters, what it changes, and why it should exist at all.

This is what I began building: story structures that could help turn abstract ideas into tangible outcomes. A game for infectious disease control. Applications to improve medication adherence. New ways of experiencing healthcare. Again and again, I found that before something new could be built, it had to become legible. It had to feel coherent, compelling, and worth pursuing. Meaning came first. Then design. Then prototype. Then execution.

That is the foundation of how I came to narrative strategy. If I wanted a new product, policy, organization, or initiative to exist in the world, I had to do more than describe it. I had to help create the conditions under which other people could recognize its value and participate in making it real. Storytelling was not decoration. It was the mechanism through which possibility became shared, actionable, and concrete.

What began as philosophical debate eventually became professional practice. Those early questions about existence and meaning turned into frameworks for teams, tools for alignment, and strategies for building new things in the world. My mom still likes to tease me that I found a way to make philosophy pay the bills. She is not wrong. Narrative strategy, at least as I practice it, is one way of translating meaning into outcomes. And even when meaning making sounds too abstract for corporate settings, it becomes easier to defend when it delivers results.

For anyone who loves philosophy, or the humanities more broadly, I hope this offers some encouragement. There is pressure everywhere to dismiss meaning as indulgent and intellectual life as impractical. But meaning is not a luxury. It is often the thing that makes action possible. You do not need to build ontologies to survive capitalism, but I do believe this: thoughts become things when meaning attaches to them. Storytelling is one of the ways we make that attachment possible. And in a world defined by constant disruption, meaning remains one of the few forms of stability we can still create for ourselves.

If you’re building something new—a product, initiative, or organizational shift—and need help shaping the story that helps it land, send me a note. This is the kind of work I do with clients, and I’m always open to the right conversations.

Narrative Strategy uses storytelling and communications to deliver outcomes. It's especially useful for regulated industries, where stakeholder engagement can be a full-time job. When dealing with multiple interests and diverse perspectives, narrative strategy aligns and mobilizes stakeholders to achieve what might seem impossible.

Here's how I use narrative strategy in its 3 phases.

Phase 1: Story-listening
During this initial stage, I delve into research to grasp the current narrative in which stakeholders are engaged, understand their ongoing experiences, and identify existing challenges. This phase is critical, as it involves both quantitative and qualitative data collection. I gather those insights into a narrative synthesis document, setting the foundation for strategic development.

Phase 2: Storytelling
This phase focuses on collaborative creation of the new narrative. Working alongside cross-functional teams and diverse stakeholder groups, we craft a compelling narrative that resonates across audiences. The result is a comprehensive narrative bible that guides messaging and guides the production of various narrative assets, such as videos and white papers, tailored for specific audience needs.

Phase 3: Story-stewardship
In the final phase, the narrative is put into action. I partner with leadership and communications teams to effectively manage and disseminate the narrative across appropriate channels. This includes internal communications to engage employees and external marketing efforts to reach customers, ensuring the story's integration into all facets of organizational communication.

Narrative strategy is an emerging method for navigating complexity. This is just one interpretation of it.

How would you describe narrative strategy?

I love seeing “Narrative Strategist” roles on the rise. Sometimes the roles use the term “Narrative Strategist” and other times it’s an amalgamation of “story” “communications”, “brand”, “strategy” and “narrative”, but with the same functionality that I would bundle under “Narrative Strategy”. Whenever I see a job posting that captures the role of narrative strategy, I must indulge in some good old fashion analysis. So, here’s another job posting breakdown from me to you - enjoy!

The Company: Field.AI

This start up is committed to creating something innovative that also works - not just novelty and hype. With language grounded in engineering and high standards, this company is committed to storytelling that acknowledges the present and identifies the the stakes of the future they’re creating. It’s not so much an aspirational story as a roadmap, what I would call a strategic narrative.

The Role

Oh my, this is just lovely. Mostly because this role describes a narrative strategist that has full 360 degree coverage of the narrative being stewarded. Narrative strategy works best when it’s leading across “all audiences and channels”. That means you’re stewarding the narrative not just from the C Suite (executive comms) or customer channels (marketing) — you’re championing the narrative across the whole business. When you have a systems level approach to storytelling, you’re able to identify how the language, story assets and communications are being used to achieve outcomes. Again, we’re seeing the emphasis on “credibility” and “governance” which speaks to high stakes, high responsibility environments that Field AI is likely operating in, such as energy, government response. The narrative needs for a company like Field AI are far more demanding than a typical B2C company, as the risks of miscommunications and misunderstanding can compound into serious adverse outcomes. Each communication, each story asset, is crafted and shared with astute attention and forethought — there’s no glib social media comments or off the cuff hot-mic moments. Field AI’s narrative is treated as mission-critical for it’s success.

The Details

This is where we see the many faces of narrative strategy come out and play. Narrative strategist are not one trick ponies. We’re cross-functional, multi-hyphenates that works across the business and product lifecycle. This specific list of tasks leans heavily on communications and messaging management, which is critical to narrative strategy success. And, I do see signals that this role would be partnering and mobilizing other stakeholders, which I believe is one of the biggest responsibilities of narrative strategy.

Narrative strategists are more than just competent copywriters or corporate communicators, we are relationship professionals. We use storytelling to understand and motivate, create the contexts needed for people to achieve successful outcomes. We use story to coordinate the messy parts of human perception and experience, so we can work better together. It’s one part group therapy, one part vision quest and all parts leadership.

This is just the beginning

Narrative strategy is still an emergent field, yet the demand for practitioners is seriously affirming. We can nerd out on all the academic rigor and discourse that goes into narrative strategy, but the real proof is what it delivers in the market. With companies like Field AI building the future, narrative strategy is more critical now than ever. I firmly believe that we craft our futures through the stories we tell. The stories we tell in organizations and other collective spaces is where we’ll see the real future building come to fruition.

Time to get crafting.

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, innovation is essential—but it often encounters resistance. A fascinating article I recently explored, "Overcoming Resistance to Innovations: An Approach for the Use of Communication Tools within the Innovation Process," sheds light on strategies to bridge the gap between innovation and adoption.

Key Takeaways:
💡 Resistance isn’t the enemy—it’s a signal. Resistance often stems from a lack of understanding, fear of change, or perceived risks. A proactive communication strategy can transform these barriers into opportunities for alignment.

🛠️ Tailored communication tools are game-changers. Whether it's fostering early stakeholder engagement, leveraging storytelling to create emotional resonance, or providing clear, relatable benefits of the innovation, communication is at the heart of adoption.

🤝 Collaboration is critical. By involving stakeholders early in the process, organizations can co-create solutions, reducing resistance and fostering buy-in.

This research underscores an important lesson: innovation doesn’t end with creation; it flourishes through adoption. For leaders and teams championing change, investing in intentional , internal communication is as vital as the innovation itself.

Link to research article

I probably struggle with clarity more than I should admit. I like to sprinkle fancy adjectives, flowery motifs, and frilly alliteration into my communications to the point of distraction. Poetry is wonderful, but it’s not appropriate for every situation — especially in high-stakes, high-complexity environments. In fields where decisions can literally mean life or death, clarity is crucial.

But clarity is also context-specific. As a narrative strategist, when I’m working with teams to create something new or navigate something unprecedented, we are constantly moving through new contexts.

Clarity starts with identifying the stakeholders and understanding their unique perspectives in a given moment. It means observing body language and noticing how people are processing new information. Are they present in the room with me? Are they distracted? Are they actually able to hear the message I’m sharing?

For me, clarity in narrative strategy means making sure the message resonates with the people it’s meant for. It means not just communicating at people, but communicating with them. It’s listening, orienting, and shaping communication around what’s needed in the moment.

Clarity also means sharing hard, uncomfortable truths. Instead of dressing the truth in euphemisms, flattery, or other roundabout language that makes the messenger feel better while leaving the recipient confused, you have to be direct. Because clarity is respect for your audience and yourself. It’s an acknowledgment that we’re capable of handling tough realities. It’s knowing that truthfulness, in the right moment, is a kindness.

And yet, clarity is not the same thing as simplification. This is where I think people get tripped up. To be clear is not to flatten complexity until it becomes something cheap and shiny and false. It is not reducing reality into a slogan just because slogans are easier to repeat. It is not pretending uncertainty doesn’t exist because certainty sounds more convincing in a room.

Real clarity can hold complexity. It can name competing priorities. It can acknowledge risk, ambiguity, and tension without collapsing under the weight of them. In fact, that’s often the job. Especially in moments of change, people do not need a polished performance of certainty nearly as much as they need a truthful orientation. They need to understand what is happening, why it matters, what is known, what is not yet known, and what comes next.

I think that’s part of why clarity is so difficult. It asks more of us than just better word choice. It demands discernment. It demands honesty. It asks us to separate what is essential from what is ornamental, what is useful from what is self-indulgent, what truly serves the audience from what merely serves our own desire to sound intelligent, nuanced, or profound.

I say this as someone who genuinely loves language. I love words that shimmer a bit. I love writing that makes people feel something in their bodies. I love a metaphor that opens up a whole new way of seeing. But when the stakes are high, clarity has to take precedence over performance. The point is not to impress people with the elegance of your language. The point is to help them see.

And seeing is no small thing.

To help someone see clearly in a moment of change is to help them orient themselves inside uncertainty. It is to reduce unnecessary friction. It is to create the conditions for better judgment, better decisions, better collaboration. Sometimes clarity sounds inspiring. Sometimes it sounds plain. Sometimes it sounds like a firm no, or a difficult truth, or a simple sentence repeated three times because the room still hasn’t absorbed it.

This is also why clarity requires humility. You cannot be clear if you are more attached to your own expression than to your audience’s understanding. You cannot be clear if you refuse feedback from the room. You cannot be clear if you assume that because you said something, it has been understood in the way you intended.

Clarity is relational. It is tested in real time. You see it in people’s faces, in the questions they ask, in the hesitation after you finish speaking, in whether the next action becomes more obvious or more muddled. Clarity is not what we think we delivered. It is what other people are actually able to receive and use.

That means clarity often requires revision. Not because the audience is failing, but because communication is alive. People are bringing different histories, incentives, pressures, fears, and assumptions into the room. A message that lands with one group may create resistance in another. A framing that worked six months ago may be entirely wrong for the present moment. So clarity is not a fixed achievement. It is an ongoing practice of attunement.

Maybe that’s why I keep returning to it. Not because I’ve mastered it, but because I haven’t. Because I know how easy it is to hide behind language. How easy it is to mistake beauty for precision, or sophistication for usefulness. How tempting it is to say something adjacent to the truth instead of saying the truth itself.

But I also know that when clarity is present, you can feel it.

The room changes. People settle. The signal comes through. What felt tangled begins to loosen. The next step becomes visible. Not because everything is suddenly easy or resolved, but because something real has been named, and named in a way that people can actually work with.

That, to me, is part of the deeper work of narrative strategy. Not just crafting messages that sound good, but shaping language that helps people move. Language that creates coherence without denial. Language that makes room for complexity while still giving people a way forward. Language that respects the moment, the audience, and the truth.

So yes, I still love the occasional flourish. I still have a soft spot for language that dances a little. But more and more, I think clarity is its own kind of artistry. Harder, cleaner, less decorative. An art of precision. An art of attention. An art of saying what must be said in a way that can truly be heard.

And in the environments that matter most, that kind of clarity is not just good communication.

It is care.

How do great leaders leverage narrative strategy to achieve their goals?

Each C-suite role brings a unique perspective to shaping and amplifying the organizational story:

🔹 CEO: The visionary storyteller, mobilizing diverse stakeholders through town halls, press conferences, and other platforms to align everyone around a common goal.
🔹 COO: The architect of execution, creating systems, SOPs, and workflows that bring the narrative to life in day-to-day operations.
🔹 CFO: The financial steward, ensuring the narrative’s sustainability by aligning budgets, reports, and capital strategies to the organization's vision.

Narrative strategy blends storytelling with purposeful communication to drive outcomes. When leaders embrace it, their vision becomes not just aspirational but inevitable.

How do you incorporate narrative strategy in your leadership approach?

Narrative Strategy uses storytelling to deliver outcomes. But more than that, it uses storytelling to help individuals and collectives make meaning.

When I'm working with teams, we're often navigating through silos of data. This raw value doesn't necessarily mean anything, it has no context or lacks an orientation. With data, we can start to comb through the raw values and apply a lens -- a way to bring those silos into view and see the pieces as part of the whole. The processed data becomes information, adding a layer of significance to what once random values.

But information isn't always enough. Information is often ignored, not necessarily relevant to the moment at hand. So we create content, a way to contain and contextualize the information for a specific situation.

Yet, we're drowning in content. It's hard to find relevant content that understands your needs in particular. Content may help make sense of raw data and information, but if it doesn't catch your attention in the first 3 seconds, it won't make a difference.

This is where stories become essential. Storytelling is the original meaning making practice. Whether written, recited, watched or listened to, stories take that raw data, information and content and turn into an experience. It activates our senses, allowing us to imagine what's happening. It takes abstract data and gives it purpose.

But there's one more layer of meaning making we often forget.

Relationships.

Relationships are the interactions we have with one another. Our stories are exchanged with one another to create relationships, engendering us with more desire and understanding to be in each other's presence. Relationships are where we find meaning making at its highest form, able to give us grounding when everything seems lost.

I am not a biochemist.

I didn’t study it in school. I don’t have a PhD in it and I definitely don’t have a favorite molecule.*

Yet I’ve spent the last several months consuming everything I can on biochemistry. Reading academic articles, asking AI to explain the basics to me, watching lots of videos on everything from how to use a bunsen burner to newest advances in nanotech…it’s all part of the job as a narrative strategist and my current engagement.

Narrative strategy is really whatever it takes to get the job done.

And by that I mean, research is essential. Understanding the stories of the stakeholders I’m working with is the job. Learning their language, embedding myself into their world, whatever it takes to understand their desires and the obstacles they face — that’s narrative strategy, baby!

A lot of consultants in the strategy space can speak to something similar. They may not be subject matter experts on everything but they know how to do their homework.

For a narrative strategist though, we’re approaching all our work through the framing of story.

Things like: biochemistry, the biochemists I’m engaging with, the developments in the field, the biochemistry research the stakeholders are conducting, the questions they are chasing and the answers that are emerging….

All of it through the lens of storytelling.

And here’s the cool part — because I’m listening, synthesizing, pulling threads together, weaving narratives of meaning and answers to “so what”, I become a bridge between stakeholders — a translator between people, teams, industries. For me, narrative strategy helps connect the dots of seemingly disparate data, seeing opportunities for consensus, unity, and shared meaning. And when those a-ha moments occur, it feels like magic.

You know what, it is magic.

And I’ll do whatever it takes to make that magic happen.

*on second thought, I think caffeine is my favorite molecule.

Also, this song won’t get out of my head and I had to make it the title of this article:

One of the hardest tasks when navigating change is how to communicate it effectively to your people. Too often, we focus solely on the message we want to deliver, without pausing to understand the story our team is living in.

What matters to them? What challenges are they navigating? How will these changes impact their world?

Effective communication starts with empathy. Before sharing new information, take the time to synthesize the current state of your people. Ask yourself:

Are we all on the same page?
Are we even in the same story?

Only when we deeply understand the present can we introduce change in a way that feels additive—not disruptive. We normalize the change by acknowledging the past and present as valid and valuable, and then expand the narrative to include the possibilities of a brighter future.

Finally, communication doesn’t end with the introduction of change. Popularize the new way of being by being consistent in messaging and action.

Change is inevitable, but the way we communicate it can make all the difference.

We are drowning in “awareness”. The good, the bad, the ugly. Our screens are polluted with all the things we must be aware of. All the time. Non stop.
And awareness is…important. But it’s not potent. Not anymore. It doesn’t give us the results we want. The outcomes we seek. The changes we need.

Instead, it just becomes a cacophony of overwhelm and distraction. The constant parade of awareness holds us tight in its grip, robbing us of our ability to do what needs to be done.

So when people share stories with intention of increasing awareness, I have to stop and wonder — what comes after the awareness? Now that we “know”, are aware of so-and -so thing/situation/problem….what do we do next?

Perhaps I’m just an impatient individual. Maybe that’s why I sought to use storytelling for something that did more than just increase awareness. I have plenty of information buzzing inside my brain. We all do. And it’s not enough to just be aware. Not anymore.

We need stories that go beyond awareness.

We need stories that change our behaviors.

And that’s what I seek within my work as a narrative strategist.

And to be fair, awareness is still necessary. We need to know what’s happening, but we can’t be left empty handed, stranded in a vortex of information with no idea what to do next.

The call to actions we see in marketing have their place. But we can’t cut and paste marketing tactics into storytelling and hope for the best. It’s too transactional, and we’ve become numb its intent.

We need better. We need to use story as a strategy for behavior change. We need to swim the deep, murky waters of our psyches, environments and all the minutia of being a human being and see what we can come up with that actually turns our intents into actions. What does it really take to go beyond awareness and information shared to become new actions and new ways of being?

For me, narrative strategy exists to craft the world we want. It’s the convergence of collective motivation, belief and behavior change. It’s the use of storytelling to achieve new aims. It requires critical thinking about the messages we share and how they are received. It requires an investigation into how stories are experienced and embodied-a deep commitment to explore how we make meaning and decide what matters.

We must go beyond raising awareness. We are aware. We are aware of the problems, challenges, dread, despair... What we do now, with that awareness, is where the real potential lies. It’s where we create our futures.

What are you doing to move beyond raising awareness in your storytelling? What’s working for you? What’s not?

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Belief, like fire, consumes whatever fuel it finds, transforming the familiar into the unrecognizable. Leaders in innovation strive for their belief in their visions to spread, transforming our reality into something new—hopefully, something better.

But how does a singular spark of belief ignite a new reality? How does one ember turn into a wildfire?

A fire needs oxygen to burn, and belief needs people to sustain its existence. If a fire burns brighter with more oxygen, then belief thrives with more people to uphold and spread it. Innovation demands this kind of engagement—it requires fresh ideas and passionate individuals who don’t just maintain the flame but fan it into a blaze.

Leaders don’t simply start fires; they build communities that feed the flames, allowing the fire of innovation to reshape landscapes and redefine what’s possible. This community becomes the oxygen—nourishing and expanding the belief, turning a spark into a sweeping inferno of change.

Together, belief and innovation have the power to destroy and create, challenging the old and building anew on the ashes of the immutable.

* * *
Creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin. As we create new products, policies and programs, I encourage you to prepare and be ready for when destruction and disaster occurs. Visit www.ready.gov to start.

First things first - here is my obligatory plug: you can download my Narrative Strategy: Storytelling for Outcomes white paper for free(!!!) AND I have a recorded Intro To Narrative Strategy webinar ($48) that walks through my framework with key models and tools for you to start playing with.

— ok back to our regular schedule programming

It’s finally happened. “Narrative Strategy” and ‘Narrative Strategist” has entered the mainstream vernacular. We’re seeing people talk about, write about, post jobs about it — all types of activities to signal that yes, narrative strategy is a thing! A real thing! Not one of those fluffy made up marketing terms that make us feel a little less ordinary. I mean, it can also be that…

And I’ve been meeting many people interested in learning about my practice, how I came to this strange and beautiful work and what advice I have for them - so I thought I’d share some of the recurring ideas and bodies of work I use. This post is less “Ari’s origin story” and more, “what informs my approach”.

So let’s begin.

Behavior Change

Behavior change is a funny thing. We know it’s important, a huge lever for achieving new results, but it’s not a simple and straightforward science. There’s a lot of theories on what makes behavior change stick, everything from incentives and nudging to deep psychological work like hypnotherapy or EMDR . I found two main theory of behavior change that resonate with my work: Self-Determination Theory and the role of self-belief.

Self-Determination Theory (SDT), developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan beginning in the 1970s, identifies three basic psychological needs—autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When these needs are supported, people tend to show stronger intrinsic motivation and more self-directed forms of motivation, making it easier to sustain meaningful behavior change.

I apply SDT in narrative strategy, using stories that fulfill an individual or group’s psychological needs of competence, autonomy and relatedness. In fact, story is an exceptional mechanism for SDT to be experienced. When we tell stories of competent protagonists, who find their able to act on their own accord (autonomy) and feel they are a part of something greater (relatedness), we invite listeners to imagine themselves in these stories, and start living these stories as their own. (More on SDT and storytelling here and here. )

For narrative strategy to be effective, it must translate an idea into reality - a tangible outcome. This requires motivation and behavior change, something which we struggle to apply repeatable processes to. Blending SDT with storytelling is one method to translate thoughts into things and craft the futures we want.

Additionally, I’ve taken my own experience with EMDR therapy and the role of self-belief and applied to it narrative strategy. EMDR uses eye movement to reprocess old memories that created negative self beliefs. Experiences like being a child who was taunted by classmates can result in negative beliefs about one self, contributing to behaviors that get in the way of what an individual wants or doesn’t want. It’s been the most effective treatment I’ve received for my own mental health and has given me greater appreciation for the role of belief.

Narrative strategy shares some overlaps with belief systems and the psychological complexities our species possess. Whenever I’m engaged with a client, I’m paying special attention to what beliefs are shared and how they show up in the stories in their environment.

Yet these approaches don’t always guarantee the desired outcomes. Behavior change is not an computer program you can simply press a button and run. Like most human activities, it’s messy and interdependent on many factors. Yet SDT and self-belief in the context of narrative strategy has proven useful to me, and perhaps it can help you.

Participatory Design

I’ve had an interesting experience with design work. I honestly thought all design was relegated to the world of fashion, art and home interiors. But thanks to some influential books and good design mentors, I know that design is more than just pretty things. It’s a method for creating with intention, an approach to problem solving that is thoughtful and thorough.

This is especially true when we use narrative strategy. Strategy and Design are siblings, each informing the other in order for us to achieve what we desire. So when I work with my clients on narrative strategy, I’m not just talking in “what ifs” and hypothetical scenarios that typically live in strategy decks and documents — no we are designing for results. Because participatory design is where the strategy takes form, an ebb and flow of insights from the stakeholders as we stretch the strategy approach into new forms of reality. I use participatory design when we craft our narratives . This looks like a series of participatory design sessions, where our stakeholders each get to write, edit, question and discuss the narrative we’re building. The narrative itself is an artifact, and we iterate upon it until we’ve created a North Star Narrative that resonates with all stakeholders. What I deliver to my client is a Narrative Bible, one that’s been designed by participants.

I’ve found that participatory design enables stakeholder buy in and ownership, reducing the friction of traditional strategy execution for more effective results.

Systems Thinking

Systems thinking gets lots of attention. And I’m glad it does. It’s super useful. But I do think we can get lost in the maps of systems and abstract ideas that come with an eagerness to solve complexity. This is where storytelling comes in handy.

For me, any story is about “what you want and what gets in your way”. Stories are driven by desire. And when we start looking at systems as many parts driven by desire, I think we gain steadier footing. What does each part or participant in the system want? What’s in their way?

This makes systems thinking more relatable. It’s less of a stationary, mechanical artifact and more of a living context, one that we can better relate to. When we orient systems thinking around stories and desires, I find that we are bolder in our efforts to create new narratives and better functioning systems that go with it.

To be a Narrative Strategist

I can’t prescribe you one dogma or singular “right” approach to narrative strategy. But I hope that by sharing what informs my work, you find some direction in building your own narrative strategy practice.

For me, I’m committed to learning and embracing what emerges in my work. I find guidance and inspiration from many fields and practitioners, and I encourage you to follow your curiosity. Whatever you desire, may it lead you to strange and wonderful things.

Share Narrative Strategy with Ari Mostov

Innovation is a team sport, and every player has a vital role.

From the Innovator's desire to the Champion's enthusiasm, the Sponsor's commitment, and the Stakeholders' collective buy-in—each step is crucial.

Let’s break down each role:

Innovator: Innovators are the creators of new ideas. Their belief in these ideas is foundational, driving their desire to see them realized.

Champion: Champions are the advocates. They promote the innovator's ideas within the organization, igniting excitement and garnering support from team members and stakeholders.

Sponsor: Sponsors are the enablers. Typically high-level executives, they provide the necessary resources and make strategic decisions to support the project’s objectives.

Stakeholders: These are the validators. A diverse group that includes team members, other departments, and external partners, whose collective buy-in is essential for moving any project forward.

At the core of all these roles is Belief. It’s more than a part of the process; it’s the backbone that supports and propels each role toward achieving groundbreaking results.

Innovation requires more than just great ideas, processes, and resources. It demands engagement, alignment, and mobilization of people to achieve tangible outcomes. Belief is the driving force that powers decision-making and consensus, turning innovative visions into reality.

I’ve been really lucky to be working with a team of super smart people for the last 6 months. The type of people who worked on solutions for our planet and even in space. A collection of engineers and scientists who cultivated their skills in the oasis of research institutes, (mostly) inoculated against market forces and other typical commercial constraints. And don’t get me wrong, there’s been challenges too, but I find that my work in narrative strategy is taking on a greater significance as we navigate the audacious terrain of a research-driven start up.

In my role as narrative strategist to this young company, I’m helping them reverse engineer reality. Not our current reality, but our future one. The one we want. The new reality that we believe is possible.

Here’s how I’m going about it.

Identify the Future We’re Building

This may be considered the same as “vision” but I find “vision” lacks the strength of storytelling, and is usually just a collection of fluffy adjectives in front of trendy nouns. Instead, when we identify the future we’re building, we’re looking at signals of what’s happening right now as well as stories from our past and present that give us some indication of what’s possible. For instance, I’ll track the language and stories of relevant cultures and industries, seeing what terms are emerging, and what’s top of mind. This includes mainstream headlines and the comment sections of articles, as well as digging deeper into the stories that are being shared at the fringes of cultures. What themes are relevant right now? What tone is being dialed in? How are people framing their experiences? I’ll start to thread these stories together, seeing it as the momentum that we can either harness or repel to build the future we want. From a deliverable perspective this can look like a Narrative Bible, pitch decks, strategy sessions, team meetings, sales calls — any interaction that can capture buy in from stakeholders and evangelizes the future possible as irresistible.

Believe in the Future Possible, but Stay Flexible with How You Get There

Belief is probably the trickiest part of narrative strategy. It’s not a reliable science and more of an art form that I’m not sure can really be perfected. Belief is the mechanism that makes our efforts to build and create something that doesn’t exist actually transform into results. Maybe not the results we wanted, but something tangible. I first must believe in the image-feeling-sensation-story of the future that I can only see in my imagination. I believe in it so much that it propels me to take action, to start and continue even when I struggle. When obstacles emerge, my belief embraces me with a steadfast certainty, engendering the type of perseverance we only here about in great myths. Belief is a force. Don’t underestimate it.

Yet belief demands flexibility. The future possible, our new reality that we are building, has many variables and unknowns. There are too many details for us to know and not know, too many mysteries that remain. Yet that doesn’t stop our belief in the future we hold tenderly in our imagination. It just requires an openness to ambiguity and an unusual style of patience that I can only identify as intuition.

As new data becomes available, new information arises, and new stories emerge, we make decisions. Decisions that may seem foolish or impossible. Decisions dependent on forces outside our control. Decisions that must be made if we want our new future to arrive.

This could be decisions in response to new policies that impact our business model. Global catastrophes that force us to pivot. A team member leaving. A scientific discovery that changes everything. The details of possibility emerge, and we must decide how to proceed with the new information.

Reverse Engineering Works for Things, Why Not Our Reality?

I started to embrace this idea of reverse engineering while working with this start up. They approached their work through the lens of reverse engineering. They would start with a non-functional thing, something that would give form to the thoughts swirling in their minds, and then work backwards to figure out what needed to be done. From electric configurations, bench top science, to the experiments with new materials, they used the non-functional thing as their guide.

So why not do the same with our future reality?

This requires the same steadfast commitment to transforming intention into action, a flexibility to respond to new information, and a belief that the new reality we’re building is possible.

Practically, it looks like discussions with our team, integrating new data into our approach, saying ‘yes’ and then changing our mind when new information appears. Patience for the threads of our future to reveal themselves, and believing that if we just hold tight, we can create the reality we want.

Narrative strategy is not an unchanging dogma. It’s an approach that uses stories to deliver outcomes. Outcomes that include new realities. It undulates with what exists around us, what’s happening and coming, what’s being experienced and being avoided. For me, narrative strategy is the approach I take to make thoughts into things, desires into tangibilities and craft our future. I encourage anyone eager to experiment with narrative strategy to experiment with reverse engineering. What can we do when we know our desired future is already real?

At the seed stage, investors don’t just fund traction — they invest in belief.

Your narrative needs to do four things:

Ground the Problem: What pain are you solving, and why does it matter?
Highlight the Solution: Show your product or service as the right answer.
Share the Founder Story: Why are you the person to fix this?
Paint the Vision: Investors need to see the future — and believe in it.

Seed-stage startups don’t need perfect numbers. They need a perfect story.

The problem is real.
The solution is clear.
The founder cares deeply.
The vision? Unstoppable.