Business narrative guidance, alignment & refocus: where is our organisational/brand narrative taking us? Are we acting consistently with it?

We work on the awareness of the Identistory that the organisation tells to its stakeholders.

What kind of narrative of the world and of itself does the organisation tell? What is its inner authentic culture and how is it narrated inside the organisation? And to the clients and the market?

Every organisation is built around an Identistory which explains why it operates in that business, how it deals with it, whit what aims etc. Quite often, though, “official” narratives are distant from real day to day practice: relationship dynamics with coworkers, clients, the market and society aren’t always consistent with what Mission, Vision and the company’s Values publicly declare. Why is that? Oftentimes the narrative has been inspired more by what the company would like to be  rather than starting from what it actually is.

GOAL

Any work on the thinking heart of the company, Board, plus CEO, begins from an alignment of the members’ perception of the new culture: what benefit do they see in it and how much do they mourn for what will be left back. Once change is elaborated and shared, we can chose a new narrative that is consistent and not hesitant.

A Case Study

The board and CEO of a corporation dealing with a major reorganisation worked together to align its members’ vision on the company and the change process so as to co-create a shared and consistent narrative of the new organisational design.

Tools used

Stories to gather the Board members’ imaginary world on what was happening, team coaching and counseling to analyse them and map their content; group creative writing to define their narrative of the changing process and one-to-one coaching and counseling to adapt it to the various areas of the organisation.

The Board was fearing the effect on business of the big change process they had to implement. And this was in some ways blocking their leadership skills in guiding it through such a process. The programme helped them become aware of such fears and share them in a protective and supportive setting, finding ways to overcome them and support everyone in understanding the purpose of such change. It also helped the team in building authentic and intimate relationships, thus becoming a safe base to be used in order to influence the organisational environment and make it more aware and less stressed. Storytelling skills were also enhanced to help them communicate the new Organisational Identistory in the most effective way.

Here is part of the mapping process as it has been portrayed by Sara Serravalle:

The reported cases are all real projects. References to people and organizations have been omitted to protect the confidentiality needed when working in sensitive areas such as identity and relationships.

My services

by Alessandra Cosso

Business and Professional Identity
Narrative Humanities and Relationship Design
Individual and Team Coaching and Counselling

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