The Challenge: A 25 person team, some of whom had been with the organization for 5+ years and some of whom were brand new to the team after a period of growth, found themselves experiencing tension in new ways. After discovery conversations, we found that much of the tension grew out of a lack of explicitly articulated and agreed upon shared values, direction, and behavior.

The Approach: In collaboration with team leadership, we developed a program to support the team’s growth and evolution that combined leadership coaching with a set of facilitated conversations over 6 months.

The conversations began with a story-based process to surface core values, behaviors, and structures that drive effective team work and advanced the organization’s mission. From there, we crafted an embodied values statement and a set of agreements that would provide the backbone of the team’s culture. With that in place, we turned out attention to the structures that the team would put in place to support their newly articulated values and agreements.

The coaching focused on helping team leaders facilitate effective communication and navigate generative tension in a new way.

The Results: By the end of the engagement, team members reported a 60% increase in ‘sense of community’ within the team and a 100% increased in ‘shared understanding of team identity and values.’ While they still reported some conflict and tension, they also reported feeling more comfortable and empowered to address that tension when it arose.

An unintended consequence of the work was a greater sense of confidence and grounding in communicating about the team’s work both with partners and the larger community.

The Challenge: A foundation-sponsored leadership development program received feedback from participants that, although they had received basic storytelling training as part of the program, they sought deeper support in ensuring that their storytelling practices were ethical and didn’t fall into predictable narrative patterns.

The Approach: After evaluating the storytelling practices of several cohort members, we customized a half-day workshop that would give participants the opportunity to engage deeply with each other while exploring the core concepts of ethical storytelling. The approach, as with all Story & Spirit workshops, was deeply interactive presenting opportunities to examine case studies as well as their own storytelling.

The Results: 100% of participants reported a deeper understanding of not just ethical storytelling, but also storytelling more broadly. Several participants reported using the tools introduced in the workshop to change the way they tell stories at events, fundraising campaigns, and board meetings. In addition, several participants shared that the workshop helped them better appreciate the small moments of change or shift that they’d been overlooking in the pursuit of ‘grand transformational’ stories designed to cater to donors.

The Challenge: The founding Executive Director for a growing social impact organization found that, while she experienced great confidence in leading a team, that confidence seemed to evaporate when approaching funders, potential board members, and other stakeholders in traditional positions of power. She sought help in understanding why this happened and in developing strategies to shift the dynamics.

The Approach: Based on an initial conversation, we crafted a multi-pronged approach. At a cognitive level, we gently unpacked the stories underlying the client’s experience in funder, etc. meetings to bring awareness to the stories operating in the background. We then crafted alternative narratives to shift the client’s mindset going into meetings. We complemented this mental work with somatic and body-based strategies to help deepen the client’s sense of grounding, presence, and confidence both before and during meetings. Finally, we crafted rituals and structures to help the client prepare for meetings and step into a sense of grounded confidence.

The Results: Within 3 sessions, the client reported increased confidence and decreased anxiety. She also received positive feedback from funders and board members who noted a noticeable shift in her energy and demeanor. Finally, the client reported that our work together was associated with a 45% increase in the organization’s fundraising success.