Closing the Strategy-Narrative Gap in Organizations

Most organizations don’t fail because they lack strategy. They fail because they have two of them: the strategy leaders intend and the story the organization actually believes. That gap is where momentum dies. On paper, the company is “customer-obsessed,” “AI-enabled,” “focused on value” but in conversation, people talk about firefighting, politics, legacy metrics, and what will really get rewarded. The narrative (not the slide deck) is what people use to make decisions and when the story and the strategy diverge, execution follows the story every time. This is the Strategy–Narrative Gap: the quiet distance between what leaders say and what the organization hears, internalizes, and acts upon. We've seen this gap develop long before we see performance issues. You can diagnose it in five minutes just by listening: How do people explain the work? What do they say we’re really trying to do? Strategy sets direction. Narrative generates belief. Only when the two match does change accelerate. What story does your organization actually believe right now?