Cedar doesn't bloom and disappear. She stands, shelters, and heals, and the whole forest depends on it.

In this episode, we talk about what it takes to build narrative practice that doesn't burn out, dry up, or blow over when leadership changes or funding shifts. Cedar grows slowly, roots deeply, and provides shelter year-round. Her fallen needles feed the soil. Her oils protect her without aggression. In temperate rainforests, she's a keystone species: remove cedar, and the whole system shifts.

We make the case for evergreen narrative infrastructure over seasonal storytelling. We talk about why strategic pace is not the same as urgency: fast, efficient, impactful, just not urgent.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why root work comes before visible growth, and what that means for StoryLab Sessions and trust-building. The argument against treating storytelling as a seasonal activity. How ethical storytelling guidelines and consent practices function like cedar's natural defenses. What it means to be a keystone in your organization, and why that's a vulnerability if it's held by one person. And why slow growth is key to the work of health and justice organizations.

--

🔗 Stay Connected

Take the Quiz → Discover where your organization most needs storytelling

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Lean more about how we can work together at https://madisonmurphybarney.com/entangled-health

Reach out with questions and inquiries at mbarney@entangledhealth.com

Beavers are ecosystem engineers. Their dams create wetlands, improve water quality, support biodiversity, and benefit species they'll never meet. That's the argument for narrative infrastructure at its most expansive.

In this episode, we talk about why a single story is not a strategy. Rather, a story bank and healthy narrative infrastructure create conditions for stories to do their work across time, across campaigns, across staff turnover. We make the case against siloing storytelling in the comms department, because beavers don't build as individuals, they build as a colony, and narrative strategy is organizational infrastructure that everyone maintains.

We also talk about planning for winter, about building narrative reserves when things are flowing so you have what you need when they're not. And about repair: the dam breaks, you fix it.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why a story bank is a dam and not a filing cabinet. The ripple effects of narrative infrastructure. The case for making storytelling everyone's work, not just comms. Why building from existing organizational assets beats importing frameworks from somewhere else. What beavers and disaster response have in common.

--

🔗 Stay Connected

Take the Quiz → Discover where your organization most needs storytelling

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Lean more about how we can work together at https://madisonmurphybarney.com/entangled-health

Reach out with questions and inquiries at mbarney@entangledhealth.com

Most organizational partnerships and coalition storytelling efforts fail because they're modeled on extraction, not reciprocity. The Three Sisters give us the antidote.

The Three Sisters is a traditional Indigenous agricultural system developed primarily by the Haudenosaunee, at least 3,000 years old. Corn, beans, and squash planted together in the same mound. Corn grows tall and provides structure. Beans climb the corn and fix nitrogen in the soil that feeds everything. Squash spreads along the ground, protecting the soil and deterring pests. Together they're more space-efficient, drought-resistant, and nutritionally complete than any one crop alone.

In this episode, we talk about what strengths-based collective leadership looks like when each partner contributes what they're built to contribute. We make the case for reciprocity in storytelling: the process of gathering stories should also build trust, surface strategy, and strengthen the community's own narrative capacity. And we talk about why sequence matters, because you can't plant everything at once and expect your garden to grow.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why different contributions beat identical efforts in coalition work. The difference between extractive storytelling and ethical storytelling that returns something to the soil. Why the Story Lab comes before the strategy and the listening comes before the design. How the same framework travels but always adapts to place.

--

🔗 Stay Connected

Take the Quiz → Discover where your organization most needs storytelling

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Lean more about how we can work together at https://madisonmurphybarney.com/entangled-health

Reach out with questions and inquiries at mbarney@entangledhealth.com

Circulation without infrastructure is just wandering. In this episode, we meet the orb weaver spider, referred to in many Indigenous traditions as Grandmother Spider, and explore what her web-building teaches us about narrative infrastructure.

The orb weaver doesn't start with the pretty spiral. She starts with structural threads connecting far-off but key anchor points. Then she builds outward, thread by thread. She dismantles and rebuilds daily, because maintenance is not failure, it's the work. And she doesn't chase. She builds a system and then senses what it catches.

We talk about the Nepal story from John Paul Lederach's work: after their civil war in 2006, community groups formed "spider groups" that traveled to each divided community, listening, eating together, and listening some more. They called it a practice of collective empathy. Thread by thread, they built a web of understanding before anyone was ready for the big gathering. This is the episode where we say the thing we're always saying: story is not fluff, it's infrastructure. And Grandmother Spider has 3,000 species to back it up.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why narrative strategy starts with anchor points, not campaigns. How story banks work like webs: you build the infrastructure and then the stories you need for moments you couldn't predict are already there. The case against the one-and-done storytelling project. What the Nepal spider groups teach us about building understanding before convening. And what doula wisdom has to do with sensing over chasing.

--

🔗 Stay Connected

Take the Quiz → Discover where your organization most needs storytelling

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Lean more about how we can work together at https://madisonmurphybarney.com/entangled-health

Reach out with questions and inquiries at mbarney@entangledhealth.com

The most powerful coordination doesn't come from a single leader running the show. It comes from circulation, from service, from organisms doing their work and creating conditions for the whole ecosystem to thrive. In this episode, we kick off the Wild Lessons series by looking at what bees can teach organizations trying to build trust with communities, coordinate across coalitions, and move from extractive storytelling to something real.

We dig into the "Paradox of Coordination" that entomologists named in the 1950s: how do whole collectives achieve common purpose without centralized control? We talk about John Paul Lederach's work on movements that fly like bees and thread like spiders. And we make the case that circulation, showing up where people actually are rather than convening them where it's convenient for you, is the foundation of community-driven strategy.

If your organization defaults to the town hall, the survey, or the annual report scramble, this one's for you.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why bees circulate instead of convene, and what that means for how organizations engage communities. The difference between extracting and pollinating, and how the act of listening can also be the act of building. Why iteration beats events: the case for retainers, story banks, and sustained narrative infrastructure. What it looks like when different roles serve a shared ecosystem, and why coalition work depends on it.

--

🔗 Stay Connected

Take the Quiz → Discover where your organization most needs storytelling

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Lean more about how we can work together at https://madisonmurphybarney.com/entangled-health

Reach out with questions and inquiries at mbarney@entangledhealth.com

In this episode, we shift the lens from organizations to communities. When institutions move quickly communities often experience something very different:

• Listening fatigue
• Extractive storytelling
• Broken feedback loops
• Policy and operational choices that don’t reflect their needs

Story-driven strategy does not require slowness. In fact, it will make you faster, more efficient, and more impactful, just without the pitfalls of urgency.

--

🔗 Stay Connected

Take the Quiz → Discover where your organization most needs storytelling

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Lean more about how we can work together at https://madisonmurphybarney.com/entangled-health

Reach out with questions and inquiries at mbarney@entangledhealth.com

In this episode of The Entangled Health Podcast, we explore the hidden cost of urgency inside organizations.

In public health, philanthropy, nonprofits, and health systems, urgency is often rewarded. Grant deadlines. Political pressure. Board expectations. Media cycles. The need to show impact now.

But urgency and strategy are not the same thing.

And when it comes to storytelling, community engagement, and trust-building, urgency can quietly undermine the very outcomes we’re trying to create.

In this episode, we unpack the difference between speed and urgency.

Story-driven strategy can move quickly. A Story Lab Session can create clarity in hours. A listening strategy can be designed in weeks.

But trust cannot be rushed.

If you’re a decision-maker navigating pressure right now, this episode is an invitation to move with ethical velocity instead of fear-driven speed.

Because if we want systems that heal, we cannot build them at the speed of panic.

--

🔗 Stay Connected

Take the Quiz → Discover where your organization most needs storytelling

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Lean more about how we can work together at https://madisonmurphybarney.com/entangled-health

Reach out with questions and inquiries at mbarney@entangledhealth.com

What happens when an organization carves out 2-3 hours for genuine conversation about storytelling? In this episode, we explore the StoryLab session: a structured visioning process that meets organizations exactly where they are and helps them see where storytelling could take them.

We break down the four lenses of listening that shape every session (listening, capacity, budget, and operations), explain how assessment transforms into actionable vision, and make the case for why strategy built on deep understanding outlasts strategy built on assumptions. Whether you're considering a partnership or simply curious about what intentional storytelling infrastructure looks like, this episode pulls back the curtain on how meaningful, long-term impact begins with a single conversation.

In This Episode:

• Why a StoryLab session is fundamentally different from a discovery call or intake meeting
• The four diagnostic lenses: listening, capacity, budget, and operations
• How we move from "where you are" to "where you could be" within a single session
• The concept of storytelling interventions as building blocks toward culture change
• What organizations actually receive after a StoryLab session
• The "evergreen" principle: designing for longevity, not just the immediate project
• Signs your organization might be ready for this kind of strategic conversation

Key Takeaways:

1. Deep listening changes everything. Most organizations have never been asked what they want their stories to do. Starting with that question, rather than jumping to tactics, reshapes what becomes possible.

2. Strategy emerges from understanding, not templates. A five-year storytelling strategy isn't a rigid plan imposed from outside. It's a constellation that takes shape as you understand an organization's true capacity, constraints, and aspirations.

3. Constraints are information, not obstacles. Honest conversation about budget, staffing, and operational realities doesn't limit imagination. It grounds it in what can actually be sustained.

4. Each intervention builds toward something larger. A single story project has value on its own, but when designed intentionally, individual projects compound into organizational culture shift over time.

5. Storytelling infrastructure outlasts storytelling campaigns. The goal isn't content production. It's building systems and practices that allow stories to do ongoing work for communities and organizations.

Questions to Reflect On:

• What stories is your organization telling right now, and who's doing the telling?
• If storytelling were fully integrated into your work five years from now, what would be different?
• What institutional knowledge is at risk of being lost if you don't capture it intentionally?
• Who in your organization would steward storytelling work, and do they have
  the capacity to do it well?

--

🔗 Stay Connected

Take the Quiz → Discover where your organization most needs storytelling

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Lean more about how we can work together at https://madisonmurphybarney.com/entangled-health

Reach out with questions and inquiries at mbarney@entangledhealth.com