Stories About What We Do

Founder + CEO stories | Startup stories | Members’ stories | Movement stories | Impact stories

Real stories that connect a person to their work.

Stories About What We Do are some of the most difficult — and important stories — that we tell. You see them on the TED stage, in investor and donor pitches and at rallies and fireside chats. They inspire action, build trust and generate alignment — and can even change the way someone sees the world.

Today, every leader is expected to have — and tell — a Story About What They Do; if you are a leader, you must be a storyteller, too.

Storytelling works, but not every story works.

Most of what we know about storytelling, we learned from studying literary fiction — which doesn’t always translate to the specific needs of these stories:

  • They need to be strategic — and authentic.

  • You want your audience to feel affected — but not manipulated.

  • You’re telling the story while you’re experiencing it; there’s little distance for reflection.

  • The stakes are high: investment or donor funds could be on the line.

  • The story is unfinished — but it has to end: landing the plane is hard.

Your real story needs to be coherent — in the storyworld, and in the real world.

Stories About What We Do are a unique type of story.

  • The plot consists of real world events (nonfiction) but the timeline includes the past, present — and future (fiction).

  • The story is about your work — but must include personal events.

  • The objective is that the audience takes an action — not that they’re entertained.

  • The object of change is a problem experienced by others (it can also be experienced by the you, but it can’t only be experienced by you).

  • The story is unfinished — or there would be no action for the audience to take.

  • The story is rhetorical — you have an objective.

Tell stories that “work”.

If your story isn’t “working” — it doesn’t feel authentic, isn’t generating action or is generating the wrong action — you’re probably making one of the same common mistakes that others make. Most of the time the real story is much more interesting than the one you’ve been telling — you just haven’t found it yet.

To find your Story About What You Do, a narrative analysis identifies where the story doesn’t work, and Story-Modeling™ — a method using narrative theory, neuroscience, modeling & simulation and communications — reveals the story that does:

  • Close reading of your story

  • Narrative analysis

  • Story-Modeling™

  • Testing and feedback

Start a conversation about what you need here.

Applied Narratology

From a narratological approach, Stories About What We Do are instrumentalized, rhetorical, nonfiction life narratives. Relevant areas of study include unreliable narrators, narrative truth, narrative knowing, memory and narrative identity.

FAQ

  • A career story plots the events that impacted your career, including relevant education, promotions, and job changes. The object of change is your career.

    Stories About What We Do™ plot the events that impacted your work — whether it’s your career, paid work outside your career, or volunteer work. The object of change is the problem you are work to impact.

  • No.

    Organizational storytelling is always in service to the organization. Stories About What We Do™ can be in service to the teller or the organization.

  • If the story you tell about what you do isn’t having the effect you expected, you need a narrative analysis that informs a new version of your story.

    Reach out to start a conversation about working together.

  • In narratological terms, Stories About What We Do are nonfiction rhetorical life narratives.