We all live by stories. The question is whether we can see them.
Something happens. We interpret what it means. We respond to that interpretation - and our response becomes part of what happens next. This is the thinking underneath everything we build.
Four moves, running constantly, mostly unnoticed.
Signal
Something happens. A message, a silence, a decision, a look.
Story
We decide what it meant, and why.
Response
We act on the meaning rather than the event.
New signal
Our response becomes part of someone else's experience.
What bends the interpretation
What makes stories powerful is that our responses become part of what happens next.
Every story is coming from somewhere.
Locating a story is not an academic exercise. Where it comes from determines what would actually change it - and working on the wrong one is why so many team interventions fail politely.
Story Within — formation
History, identity, assumptions, fears, beliefs, habits, emotional patterns, expectations, and past experience. What am I bringing to this moment that is shaping what I think it means?
Story Between — relationship
Trust, conflict, relational history, repair, belonging, status, and what two people have learned to expect from each other. What have we taught each other to expect?
Story Around — culture
Norms, leadership behavior, systems, rewards, consequences, rituals, and organizational history. What has this environment taught us to expect?
Teams don't just share work. They share meaning.
Stories do not stay inside one person. People observe, compare, and pass interpretations through the team. Individual stories become shared stories. Shared stories become expectations. Expectations become norms. Norms shape behavior.
Teams also build an identity story - who we are as a group. We always pull it off. We hate change. Nobody listens to us. We take care of each other. That story is rarely stated and almost never examined, and it quietly sets the range of what the team believes it can do.
Culture is what happens when shared stories become repeated behavior.
Leaders do not control culture. Their signals just weigh more.
A leader's behavior is evidence. It tells people what is safe, what is expected, what gets rewarded and what gets tolerated - and people believe that evidence over anything written down.
Vulnerability
Model it first.
Honest feedback
Receive it well in public.
Experimentation
Visibly take a risk that might not work.
Accountability
Accept it before you assign it.
Honesty
Respond well to bad news.
People believe the evidence more than the slogan.
Seven moves, in this order.
Notice the signal
What actually happened?
Name the story
What are we making it mean?
Locate the story
Within, between, or around?
Find the noise
What is shaping how the signal is being received?
Trace the loop
What does believing this cause us to do, and what does that create?
Map the network
Where has this story travelled, and how did it become shared?
Choose the next signal
What could we do that creates different evidence?
The work ends in a next signal, not a realization.
Unexamined stories repeat. Examined stories create choice.
This is what Bad Story puts a team through.
The framework is the thinking. Bad Story is where a team actually does it, together, with enough time and distance for it to hold.