Table of Contents
Why I built Narrative Alchemy
I started this brand because I kept watching smart leaders lose years to a problem they didn’t know they had.
For example, in 2022, I worked with the CMO of a storied tech outfit who’d spent $40,000 on a rebrand. New logo. New tagline. New deck with 47 slides and a color palette that tested well in focus groups. Six months later, her sales team still couldn’t explain what the company actually did.
She didn’t have a messaging problem. She had a narrative infrastructure problem.
They hired consultants who delivered strategy decks.
They hired agencies who delivered campaign assets.
They hired comms directors who delivered content calendars.
None of those solve for narrative infrastructure. So leaders kept grinding. Kept iterating. Kept “aligning the message.” And kept wondering why nothing stuck.
I got tired of watching that cycle. I built NA as a brand I wish had existed when I was on the other side of the table—one that installs the system that makes everything else work.
The pattern: why strategy stalls
I’ve spent two decades advising Fortune 500s and the last six years inside local government. Different sectors. Different stakes. Same pattern:
Leaders have data. Leaders have talking points. Leaders have “communications plans” thick enough to stop a door.
What they lack is narrative infrastructure—the system that governs how an organization understands itself, aligns its choices, and explains its value with precision. Without that infrastructure, I’ve watched the same three failures surface in boardrooms from Dallas to Denmark:
Decision quality collapses. Teams react to the loudest voice instead of executing strategy.
Alignment fractures. Everyone rows hard—in different directions.
Legitimacy erodes. Stakeholders stop believing you know where you’re going, so they write their own story about what you’re doing.
Every senior leader I meet is working harder than ever. Very few are moving with purpose.
The diagnostic: three signs your narrative infrastructure Is broken
Here’s the diagnostic I run in the first 30 minutes of any engagement. If these sound familiar, you aren't failing—you are just missing the architecture that makes clarity possible.
1. Your executive team can’t agree on what success looks like—without pulling up a slide deck. If your leadership can’t articulate the win in one sentence, your organization is optimizing for activity instead of intent.
2. Your best people are confused about priorities—so they default to whatever is loudest. When there’s no shared frame to interpret decisions, talent gets wasted on motion that doesn’t compound.
3. Your stakeholders can’t explain your value—so they fill the gap with their own story.
Customers. Donors. Residents. Partners. If they’re guessing what you stand for, you’ve lost control of your legitimacy.
The difference in action: 22 Minutes vs. 6 Months
A North Texas organization brought me in last year because “communications weren’t working.” The mayor’s office was frustrated. The community was disengaged. Internal meetings had become trench warfare.
That wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was structural.
Three departments were independently pitching the city council on conflicting budget priorities. Each had data. Each had slides. None had a coherent story about what the city was building or why it mattered. The council kept punting decisions. Staff kept relitigating the same arguments. Six months burned with nothing to show for it.
Once we installed the narrative architecture—a shared frame that connected individual projects to a unified vision of what improves for residents—the entire system shifted.
One unified narrative. One coherent ask. The council approved the full budget request in 22 minutes.
Messaging didn’t fix the problem. Narrative coherence did.
Defining the system: narrative infrastructure in action
Narrative is not storytelling. Narrative is the operating system that structures meaning.It is the logic that determines:
Which problems your organization exists to solve.
How your decisions map to that purpose.
What improves for others if you succeed.
Why your approach is the right one, right now.
When that operating system is installed, three things happen:
Decisions accelerate. Your team has a shared frame to interpret complexity.
Alignment tightens. Everyone can see how their work advances the same priority.
Trust compounds. Stakeholders understand the through-line from purpose to proof.
Without it, organizations drift—often without noticing until momentum is already gone4.
Each issue will tackle one challenge facing leaders who want to move their organizations with conviction:
Diagnose where narrative breaks down inside your operation.
Structure decisions so they compound instead of contradict.
Manage stakeholders who hear different versions of the same story.
Convert organizational noise into clarity that drives action.
Build permission structures for bold moves.
My goal is simple: Make leaders dangerous in the best way—clear, aligned, and unconfused.
What comes next
Future editions will include:
Narrative autopsies of executives, civic leaders, and brands.
Case studies from global consulting and local government work.
Field notes on decision-making failures inside real organizations.
Tools you can use to install your own narrative infrastructure.
If you’re a leader who wants to make better decisions, earn trust, and move your organization with precision, you’re in the right place.
Next week: Why your executive team keeps re-litigating the same decisions—and the one conversation that fixes it.
Narrative Alchemy is written by Ronell Smith, a narrative strategist who has spent 25 years helping organizations build the infrastructure that clarity requires. Subscribe to get each issue delivered to your inbox.