The Stories We Tell

The men who drove Smajo Bešo's family from their homes were not born violent. They were ordinary people, neighbours, friends, men who came for coffee. What changed them was a story someone told them about who the enemy was. They believed it. And then they acted on it.

No organisation is anywhere near that edge. But the mechanism is one every leader handles daily: people build their understanding of who they are from the stories they're given. And when change arrives, a restructure, a merger, a new direction, it rewrites that story before any plan has been explained. What looks like resistance is usually people defending who they thought they were.

Leaders tell stories every single day. About what this organisation stands for. About who matters and who doesn't. About what is acceptable under pressure. Most leaders don't realise they're doing it. But their people are listening to every word, watching every decision, and building their behaviour around the narrative they're being given.

This talk gives leaders the tools to tell that story deliberately, especially when everything around them is uncertain. It introduces a way of reading the story their organisation is currently telling, and reshaping it into one people can follow.

Why hire Smajo for this

A perspective on narrative that no other speaker can offer.

Smajo has seen what happens when the wrong story takes hold at the most extreme scale imaginable. That experience gives his analysis of organisational narrative an authority and urgency that no case study or business school framework can match.

A practical approach, not just a concept.

This talk gives leaders a clear way of seeing the story their organisation is already living by and the tools to change it deliberately. This is not a talk about the importance of storytelling it is a talk about how to change the story your organisation is living by.

Directly relevant to change and transformation programmes.

Most change management approaches focus on process and structure. This talk addresses the thing that actually determines whether change succeeds: whether people trust the story their leader is telling. It complements and enriches any existing change programme.

Credibility that holds in senior rooms.

Smajo has seen what happens when the wrong story takes hold at the most extreme scale imaginable — and spent two decades studying it in the environments where human potential is shaped or destroyed. Awarded an OBE by King Charles in 2023 for services to genocide and Holocaust education. Speaker at Parliament, the Cabinet Office, and the House of Lords.

Your audience will leave with

• Leaders who communicate change deliberately, who know what story they are telling their people, and can reshape it when it’s the wrong one

• A clear way of identifying the story a team or organisation is currently living by and the tools to reshape it if it’s the wrong one

• Reduced friction during restructure or transformation organisations where people follow the change because they trust the story their leader is telling, not because they have no choice

• A new way of thinking about resistance — not as a problem to be managed, but as information about the story people are being told

Popular topics within this talk

Why people resist change and what to do about it

Resistance is not irrational. It is a response to a story. This talk reframes the change management challenge from a process problem into a narrative problem and gives leaders the tools to address it at the source.

Culture as a story, not a set of values

Culture is not what’s on the wall. It’s the story people tell each other about what’s acceptable, what’s valued, and what happens when things get hard. This talk shows leaders how to read that story and how to change it.

Leadership communication during uncertainty

When organisations are under pressure, leaders fill the silence. The question is whether they fill it deliberately or accidentally. This talk gives leaders the tools to communicate with clarity and authority, especially when they don’t yet have all the answers.

The story your organisation is already telling

Every organisation is living inside a narrative right now. Most leaders don’t know what it is. This talk gives them a way to find out and a structured process for changing it if it’s the wrong one.

Working with Smajo

Smajo works closely with event organisers to make sure the talk lands in your specific context. This talk is available as a 45-minute keynote designed to open or close a change programme event or as a 60-minute keynote with structured reflection time. It pairs naturally with a half-day workshop for leadership and change teams.

Get in touch to check availability, discuss fees, or talk through whether this is the right fit.

© 2026 Smajo Beso OBE