Alberto Terol

In art, and almost everywhere else, we connect dots and fill gaps, using the least possible energy.

In the image above, a few strokes suggesting a human figure and a shadow, only becomes meaningful because we complete it in our mind. The painter Carlos Martín Jiménez leaves space and the spectator finish the work. The beauty does not sit in the pigment but emerges in the act of interpretation.

Organizations operate in exactly the same way.

Human beings like to think of themselves as rational. Jonathan Haidt, in “The Righteous Mind”, describes something different: we are not rational beings but rationalizing beings. Reason often works as a press secretary, justifying intuitions and prior beliefs. When reality clashes with what we believe, we rarely update the belief, we reinterpret reality, so it fits the belief.

Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance pointed to the same phenomenon decades earlier: when facts create discomfort, the mind adjusts the story, and this is why narratives matter.

Narratives reshape industries

In business history, industries have not been transformed only by technology. They have been transformed by shifts in narrative.

Netflix did not simply move from DVDs to streaming. It reframed itself from a distribution company to a technology and storytelling platform. That narrative shift allowed it to disrupt Blockbuster and later compete with studios.

Microsoft under Satya Nadella moved from a Windows-centric worldview to a cloud-first, growth-mindset culture. The technical pivot to Azure was inseparable from the narrative pivot about identity.

Apple’s “Think Different” was not an advertising campaign. It was a declaration about who the company was for. The narrative preceded the products that later embodied it.

Narratives reallocate capital. Narratives mobilize talent. Narratives reshape ecosystems.

The Golden Circle

While communication can dress the mannequin, narrative builds the body.

When we work deeply on the “why” and the “what for”, the “how” begins to self-organize. Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle captures this elegantly: purpose at the center, then strategy, then execution. When people understand the reason for existence and the direction of travel, operational solutions emerge from within the system.

In transformation programs, resistance often signals narrative incoherence rather than execution flaws. If people cannot connect the dots, they fill the gaps with their own assumptions. If the story is not articulated, another one will take its place. Those leaders that decide not to show up or do not communicate frequently and purposefully, are committing suicide.

In Change Management, we are shaping meaning, we help organizations see the figure in what first appears as scattered strokes. A transformation without narrative is a sequence of initiatives, a transformation with narrative is a movement. And movements change industries.