GOT QUESTIONS?
This page answers common questions about leadership clarity, narrative overload, storythinking, AI in human systems, community building and Alex Searle’s work as a speaker and advisor. Explore the questions below to see whether these challenges resonate with you.
What problem does Alex Searle solve?
I help founders and leadership teams who feel overwhelmed by complexity, constant change, a lack of organisational alignment and competing priorities regain clarity.
Most organisations don’t fail because of poor strategy or lack of intelligence. They struggle because their communication, decisions, and direction are fragmented.
Rethinking the stories leaders and organisations tell themselves and others (storythinking and storytelling) is how we reduce narrative overload, clarify what matters and help people move forward together with confidence.
What is narrative overload?
Narrative overload is what happens when leaders and teams are surrounded by too many initiatives, messages, tools and expectations, without a clear organising story and strategic communication framework to support it.
It shows up as constant firefighting, misalignment across teams, and the feeling of being busy but not clean. Addressing narrative overload is a leadership and communication challenge, not a motivation or productivity issue.
How do I know if narrative overload is my real problem?
Narrative overload shows up when leaders feel busy, capable and well-intentioned, but something still isn’t clicking.
You might recognise it if priorities keep shifting, initiatives multiply without clear outcomes, or teams interpret ‘the strategy’ differently depending on who you ask. Meetings are full, decks are polished, and activity is high, yet decisions feel heavy, alignment is fragile and momentum is hard to sustain.
If you’re repeating yourself without traction, firefighting instead of shaping direction or sensing that the organisation is moving but not together, narrative overload is likely the issue. It’s not a productivity or motivation problem: it’s a clarity and sense-making gap at the fundamental story level.
What is storythinking?
Storythinking is a strategic narrative framework for leaders and organisations.
It treats story not as marketing or performance, but as a tool for problem-solving, sense-making and decision clarity.
Storythinking helps organisations re-author the story they are currently living inside, so actions, priorities and communication (and ultimately culture) can begin to align again.
How is storythinking different from storytelling?
Storytelling focuses on expression. Storythinking focuses on structure.
Rather than asking ‘How do we sound better?’, storythinking asks ‘What must be understood for better decisions to happen?’ It’s used upstream of marketing, culture and strategy - where clarity is created before messages are shared. This is what directly empowers better leadership decision making.
What’s the real goal of a better story?
The goal of a better story is participation.
When the story inside an organisation becomes clearer and more honest, communication stops being defensive or performative. Curiosity increases. People feel safer asking better questions, naming uncertainty and contributing ideas rather than protecting positions.
A good story creates the conditions for willingness and bravery: the willingness to engage, and the bravery to think, speak and collaborate beyond job titles or silos. Over time, this leads to healthier communication cultures, stronger collaboration and genuine community: not because people were told to align, but because they finally understand what they’re part of and why it matters.
Who does Alex work with?
I primarily work with:
CEOs and leadership teams from organisations with 20–200 employees navigating growth, change or complexity
Founders and business owners from startups and SMEs
This includes startups, scale-ups and established organisations across technology, energy, health and creative industries.
How does this help leaders get results?
Clear stories create clean decisions.
When leaders clarify the narrative their organisation is operating within, teams move faster, trust increases, and energy is spent on what actually matters. Results follow because people understand the problem they’re solving and the role they play in it.
How does AI fit into this work?
AI accelerates output but it doesn’t create meaning.
My work helps leaders integrate AI without losing human judgment, values, and connection. Storythinking ensures technology supports clarity and community rather than amplifying confusion, noise, or shallow optimisation.
My AI enablement business, Humble, is dedicated to realising this for small-to-medium organisations.
What does Alex speak about?
My talks focus on:
Leadership as sense-making under pressure
Story as strategic infrastructure
Communication in an AI-accelerated world
Community, trust, and social learning
Human skills that technology cannot replace
Keynotes are practical, grounded and designed to shift how people think, not just inspire them. Book me to speak here.
Can I book Alex to speak or run a workshop?
Yes. I work with organisations globally on:
Keynotes
Leadership workshops
Strategy and communication intensives
Engagements are tailored to the organisation, audience and context.
I regularly speak at leadership offsites, conferences and internal strategy sessions across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
What is the Amplify Your Story workshop?
Amplify Your Story is a focused engagement for leaders who need narrative clarity.
It helps founders and teams clarify positioning, sharpen communication, and align internal understanding, especially when messages feel diluted, confused or stuck.
What is the Million Dollar Pitch Deck service?
The Million Dollar Pitch Deck focuses on investor communication and strategic narrative.
It helps founders articulate their idea, value and direction clearly, so investors understand not just what the business does, but why it matters and where it’s going.
What is Humble Mind?
Humble Mind is a community-driven learning ecosystem focused on communication, leadership and social learning. We empower professionals, founders and business owners with the art and science of building communities and bringing people together.
Humble Mind is also a community of its own, with over 600 members from 30+ countries. Members can join for free, getting access to live podcast recordings, the regular newsletter, take part in 1-1 Matchups and enjoy access to other valuable tools relating to the method, mindset and momentum of building intimate, high-value communities that matter.
What is the Community Builder’s Bootcamp?
The Community Builder’s Bootcamp is a cohort-based programme for people building communities inside or alongside businesses. It is held 2-3 times per year.
It’s a 4-week live training experience for like-minded professionals, founders and community-curious leaders who want to build authentic, intimate and valuable spaces online.
The bootcamp covers everything from defining your community’s purpose to building engagement rituals, running your first events and scaling with practical soul and purpose (not spam). The most important work is going to focus on how to hold space and develop deep, trusted relationships for those in your growing circle.
There's also an in-depth workbook, space for practice and plenty of opportunities to connect with your fellow cohort along the way.
Where can I follow Alex’s thinking?
I regularly share ideas and essays on:
Leadership, curiosity and creativity
Storythinking, storytelling and conversation as human technology
Community and social learning
Communication and humanity in an AI-driven world
I post via the regular LinkedIn newsletter Explorer’s Notes and on Substack.
You can also listen to long-form conversations on the Humble Mind Podcast, where we explore these themes in depth.