Facilitator, not author
A mission statement handed down from on high is easily ignored; a Story of Us co-created by the team becomes living culture. The leader guides the excavation rather than writing the script.
Resilient TeamRelational Game
Building Your Narrative
confusing jargon→one clear voice
The Goal
Create a shared, human-centered story that everyone can repeat.
Ideal For
Sales teams, product launches, and strategy alignment.
The Shift
From confusing jargon to one clear voice.
The Neuroscience
Stories integrate logic and emotion by engaging mentalizing — understanding others' thoughts — and neuroimaging research suggests that activity in regions linked to reward and social processing can help predict which persuasive messages take hold.
The Team Narrative Canvas, step by step
- Origin (10 min)"Why were we created?" The team excavates its founding story — the problem that made this team necessary.
- Best-of (10 min)"A time we were at our absolute best — what does it say about our superpowers?" Individual stories first, then the patterns.
- Comeback (10 min)"A time we failed but learned — what does it say about our resilience?" Failure stories, told safely, become identity assets.
- Weave the Story of Us (15 min)Draft answers to the three identity questions — why do we exist (purpose), what do we stand for (values), how do we win (strengths and strategy) — using the excavated stories as evidence.
- One clear voice (10 min)Compress it into a version everyone can actually repeat. A story nobody retells isn't a story; it's a document.
The techniques, and why they work
Stories as evidence
Purpose and values claims only stick when anchored to real moments the team lived — the greatest hits that prove "this is who we are."
From the research
The thinking behind this lab, published in full: