What do I do?

At a closed doors conference recently, I got asked many times, “Great title. But what do you do?”
The truth is that, although my title is Chief Storyteller, I’ve long since stopped working with people to tell better stories. Stories and narrative techniques are still part of the toolbox but only occasionally the end result.
I realise the question may be another consequence of the categorising instinct. The question behind the question is often “What box can I put you in?”
And our work doesn’t fit in the standard boxes.
At heart it’s about helping people see alternative ways of thinking about their world. Seeing other perspectives. Reaching real common understandings. Breaking out of entrained patterns.
Which still doesn’t answer the question. I like that.
I spent a lot of time in narrate’s early years with advisers insistent on boxing it up, usually around limited ideas of culture and communications. Yet in the last 18 months we’ve done projects around branding, leadership, HR, visioning and strategy.
Time to drop the boxes altogether…