What Narrative Strategy Is
Narrative strategy is not a set of techniques for “how to communicate.”
It is not a catalog of clever turns of phrase, effective lines, or ice-breaking patter. Instead, it asks a question that comes before any of that: it discerns the essential nature of the relationship that lives in the ma—the in-between—with another person; it decides what kind of relationship I am trying to build with this person; and it asks through what narrative that relationship can be realized. In other words, it is not a matter of technique. It is a matter of how one is.
This distinction looks small but is decisive. People who start from technique can reach only for as many moves as they have in their drawer; their work becomes a matter of fitting a method to a situation. But when you start from a way of being, forms arise without limit, shaped by the moment. Precisely because the source is one, the forms can be endless.
Take, for Instance, a Certain Concert
Let me offer a small incident as an entry point.
An acquaintance of mine was playing in an orchestra. A renowned conductor had just begun a symphony—the first movement, which opens quietly—when, at that very moment, a phone rang in the audience. And it would not stop. The conductor immediately halted the performance, turned to face the audience, and began to lecture them. Not a simple word of caution, but a full reproach, going so far as to invoke the time and effort the orchestra members had poured into the concert.
It goes without saying that the person who let the phone ring was in the wrong. Switching off one’s phone is basic courtesy. The conductor’s anger, in itself, was surely justified—it was the flip side of a deep seriousness about the music.
And yet I want to pause and ask: was there no other way to handle it?
Suppose that person was someone unaccustomed to classical music—someone attending a concert for the very first time. Lectured in front of everyone, that stretch of time would likely become the worst experience of the evening. And they might never set foot in a classical concert again.
What is happening here is not a question of whether the response was skillful. It is a question of what kind of relationship that response brought into being in that space.
The Lecture Conjures “Judge and Judged”
That lecture, in truth, blended three aims. Restoring order—returning to a state where the performance could continue. Conveying a norm—showing that this is a manner to be observed. And processing emotion—the anger of having one’s effort trampled.
The lecture compressed all three into a single act. As a result, the last of them—processing emotion—came to the fore, and for the person on the receiving end, it became a public execution.
But there is a deeper problem. However sound the lecture’s content, however sincerely it invoked the players’ effort, it conjured a single image of relationship: the one who judges, and the one who is judged. The one who instructs, and the immature one who is instructed. The instant that image takes hold, the other person is cast out of the shared space.
In our world, the dominant way of handling things is to scold, lecture, caution—to respond by condemning the act. But most of these start from this same image of “judge and judged.” That is why they work in the direction of breaking the relationship.
So, What Kind of Relationship Do You Want to Build?
Here I want to invert the question. Not “how do I respond?” but “what kind of relationship do I want to build with this person, in this space, right now?”
Starting from that question, forms of response arise without limit.
For instance—stop the performance, turn toward the audience, and stay in silence, taking your time. Simply wait for the quiet to return. Add not a single word, and trust that the space will recover its stillness on its own. This is an attitude that treats the other as a full and capable presence. It faces the exact opposite direction from a lecture, which treats the other as “an immature person who must be instructed.” Silence trusts the other’s autonomy.
Or—speak again, quietly, of what this piece means to you and the players. Not as condemnation, but as sharing.
Or—respond with humor. Something like this. Stop the performance, turn to the audience: “This piece has many quiet passages all the way through. So if you’re tired, you might just doze off. But—that woke you up, didn’t it? (laughs) The orchestra and I have worked our hardest for this performance. We’d be glad if you enjoy it. Now, from the top. Oh, and switch off your phones (laughs).”
The relationship this humor conjures is the exact opposite of the lecture’s. The line “that woke you up, didn’t it?” pulls the person who let the phone ring back onto the side of the whole audience. A targeted public shaming is reframed as “a little something that happened to all of us.” Even the person who rang the phone can move to the side that laughs. No one loses face.
What deserves attention is that “the time and effort the players poured in”—the very thing that lecture invoked in earnest—is present here too. “The orchestra and I have worked our hardest. We’d be glad if you enjoy it.” The same content, pointed in the opposite direction. In the lecture, it becomes a weapon of condemnation: “you trampled this.” Here, it becomes an invitation to share: “we put this much into it, so please enjoy it with us.”
The order matters too. First the laughter loosens the space and pulls the person back onto the side of the whole audience; only then comes the earnest word. Because they are made to laugh first, the “we worked our hardest” that follows does not turn heavy, does not become imposition. Were the order reversed—the effort spoken first, the laughter after—the scent of a lecture would linger. And at the very end, the reminder about manners is placed in the lightest position, wrapped in laughter: “Oh, and switch off your phones (laughs).” Add a reason here—”to keep the space quiet,” “out of consideration for those who came to listen”—and it becomes an explanation of a norm, sliding one notch back toward “the one who instructs.” Precisely by omitting the reason and letting it land lightly, the image of relationship holds to the end. The space is kept as a single relationship turned, together, toward the music.
Forms Arise Without Limit; the Source Is One
What matters here is that these not be read as a “collection of clever comebacks.”
Waiting in silence, speaking of what the music means, responding with humor—on the surface these are entirely different acts. But the root is completely one. Each serves the same image of relationship: “do not cast the person out of the shared space,” “keep this space as a relationship turned together toward the music.” The forms differ; the essence is the same.
This is why “always respond with humor” is wrong in two ways. First, it turns the approach into a norm. Second, it makes humor itself the goal. Humor without essence is humor that has failed to read the ma, and it will always fall flat—and when it falls flat, the damage is great. That humor worked not because it was humor, but only because its form matched the relationship that conductor must have wanted to build in that moment: a single space in which to enjoy music together.
Ma cannot be filled by technique. For ma is the very sensitivity to feel where you and the other person stand in your relationship right now. The work of a narrative strategist is not to expand a repertoire of responses. It is to sharpen that sensitivity until you can draw the blueprint of a relationship. Once the blueprint is drawn, the words rise of their own accord.
This Is Not About Concerts
And here is the real point.
This is not about concerts. It is about every space in which scolding, lecturing, and cautioning are the dominant response. Boss and subordinate inside a company. Parent and child inside a home.
Anger sliding into excessive violence, into harassment—such problems are constantly in the news now. A lecture and an act of violence differ in degree, not in kind. Both start from the same image of relationship: judge and judged. That image is the root.
Anger and lectures slide into violence and harassment at the very moment one can no longer trust the other as an autonomous being. The instant you stand on the premise that “this person cannot behave correctly unless instructed, corrected, controlled,” the ma vanishes. You strip away the margin that should exist between you and the other—the space for them to notice for themselves, to right themselves on their own.
That a lecture does not wait for the other’s words, and that violence does not acknowledge the other’s existence, share the same root: the disappearance of ma. Harassment might even be called the name for a state in which ma has been lost from a relationship.
A boss corners a subordinate, a parent corners a child, using “rightness” as a shield. The person believes they are guiding, disciplining. It is precisely because there is no ill will that it is so difficult: the person cannot see that they are stripping away the ma.
What a Narrative Strategist Can Answer
Here is the territory a narrative strategist can answer to.
It is not the dimension of technique—”how to scold,” “how to caution.” It is to help the person reclaim, for themselves, the question: “what kind of relationship am I trying to build with this person, right now?” To re-form the very image of the relationship.
The story of the concert conductor works because it is a low-risk entry point. A small example in which no one is deeply hurt. You let the reader take hold of the key—”the image of relationship”—there, and from there you can lead them, just as they are, into a heavier reality.
Let me leave one reservation at the end. It is not that lectures and anger are entirely without effect. There is, indeed, a seriousness that can be conveyed only through genuine anger. There are moments when anger forges a relationship. It is only that, in most cases, lectures and anger work in the direction of breaking the relationship—I leave it here as a matter of tendency, not as a verdict. The final judgment I want to return to your own sensitivity.
For that, too, is a matter of narrative strategy—a matter of how one is.