“The most powerful thing wasn’t the recommendations, though those were invaluable, it was seeing our organization’s real story clearly.”
An Organizational Narrative Assessment is a deep cultural diagnostic that uses documentary research methods and organizational psychology to uncover the real story of your organization, not the one in your strategic plan, but the one your team is living every day. Through confidential interviews, observational research, and narrative synthesis, I reveal the gap between the story your leadership thinks you’re telling and the experience your staff is actually having. Then we work together to close that gap. This isn’t your typical consultant assessment. I use the same interviewing techniques I developed as a documentary filmmaker; creating space for truth, listening for what’s unsaid, and finding the narrative patterns that explain everything.
Conducting ED reviews or considering leadership changes and need objectivity. (This is where I typically get most of my Organizational Narrative Assessment work)
Taking over and needing to understand the cultural landscape before making moves.
Something feels off but you can’t name it. Tension, turnover, or unexplained dysfunction.
Preparing for major strategic changes and need a cultural baseline first.
The culture that got you here won’t get you there. Time to professionalize without losing what makes your organization unique.
Cultures are colliding after a merger, acquisition, or major restructuring.
The typical Operational Narrative Analysis process takes 4-6 weeks to complete with an optional 3-6+ month Chief of Staff engagement afterwards to operationalize the changes.
I conduct confidential one-on-one interviews with staff across all levels of your organization. These aren’t your typical consultant interviews. I use documentary interviewing techniques,open-ended questions, deep listening, creating space for what’s unsaid.
I take everything I’ve learned and craft it into a narrative report using anonymized quotes, visual synthesis, and thematic analysis.
I present findings to leadership (or the board) in a format that invites honest conversation, not defensiveness. Then we facilitate sessions to co-create “the story you want to become.”
Most assessments end with a report. This one can lead to a Fractional Chief of Staff and Operations Officer engagement where I help you operationalize the changes.
Here is what changes when you do this work:
“The goal isn’t perfection. It’s alignment. When your organizational narrative is coherent, when what leadership says matches what staff experiences, everything else gets easier.”