Our Mission

Narrative Research Group (NRG) was formed in order to connect people at work with educational offerings designed to integrate personal and workplace identity; that is, NRG promotes becoming more of oneself at work.

We do this connection-making by:

Developing and co-developing teaching tools and workshops for instructors: The tools NRG co-develops, sponsors and the workshops NRG hosts are all designed to help engage thoughtful reflection and integration of who a person is at work and in one’s personal life.
Publishing a Summer Research Report and Winter Research Report: NRG’s commitment to publishing the NRG Summer and Winter Report helps to share the results, trends and overall impact and needs of those current programs bringing narrative identity tools to transition moments in an individual’s life-work path.

Whether an individual is a police agency leader, new finance professional or proven leader of a non-profit encountering change, or a college student seeking a new job, NRG’s work focuses on understanding the deep connections possible during instructor led classroom work, professional development and career coaching to where a person’s narrative can be adjusted to ensure personal effectiveness, responsiveness and engagement in a work-life truly worth living.

Meet The Executive Director

Professor of Technology and Leadership at Roger Williams University. His PhD research study and his supported model for integrating work-life storytelling are internationally recognized. He is the founding board member and primary Story Creator for The Sports Mind Institute. Dennis also is a Board Member of the Human Science Research Institute; Executive Director at the Narrative Research Group, Inc.; and Chief Learning Officer at Financial Executives International. “Dr. D’s” calling in life is to serve students to make sense of their life-work path in a positive efficient manner to help increase the likelihood of living an engaged life worth living. He lives in South Kingstown, RI with his family and their 2 Australian shepherds.

Dennis Rebelo, Ph.D.

Tools

Our “Narrative Identity Tools” – presentations, booklets, and train-the-trainer workshops – have helped individuals move through voluntary and involuntary life and work transitions. By researching and reporting on how narrative teaching and training tools can be worked into professional training and teaching, adult and younger students are able to catch sight of who they are in relationship to who they want to become, always honoring the past chapter and now reality en route to a positive possible future. The organizations below have directly benefit from our work this year.

Organizations We’ve Helped

One Summit

Our work with this non-profit supports the Executive Director providing a foundation for personal narrative related to individual storytelling for Navy SEAL volunteers, pediatric cancer survivors and their families. NRG strives to help One Summit increase organizational narrative understanding in its work to pair Navy SEALS with children battling with cancer. NRG provides access to narrative executive coaching from NRG’s Executive Director along with narrative resource research and workbook supporting executive storytelling. The initial goal of supporting the development of the organization’s consciousness to storytelling as a way to shape the organization’s relationships with its stakeholders was achieved. NRG anticipates continued focus in supporting the good work of ONE SUMMIT. NRG will continue to be a intellectual capital "on demand" resource as ONE SUMMIT explores and expands its narrative.

New England Association of Chiefs of Police

NEACP: New England Association of Chiefs of Police Our work included the creation of a video introduction to “Leading through Narrative: rethinking your policing agency through a storytelling lens.” NRG also provided the printing of StoryPathing™ workbooks for the Mid-Managers “Understanding Your Leadership Capacity” presentation. Our work supporting police leadership will continue to include evolving materials for the support of executive leadership and mid-managers in agencies throughout New England actively associated with the NEACP.

Turn Up RI

The #Turn-It-Up RI Youth Summit continues to offer leadership development opportunities to RI Providence area students from Middle-School to High-School. At the 2017 #Turn-It-Up Youth Summit, NRG worked with Summit Leaders to open up opportunities for narrative identity work. NRG provided StoryPathing™ workbooks to help support students developing their education-work narrative, while Youth Summit Leaders identified highly ambitious and motivated students to qualify for engagement in the StoryPathing™ College Essay Program. Three Students were awarded StoryPathing™ program booklets and offered coaching to development their college essay.

Pivot the Hustle

Motivated by the collaborative programing between Roger Williams University’s School of Continuing Studies and the RI Department of Corrections, NRG’s Executive Director helped shape the self-discovery modules of the first-of-its-kind Career Readiness Program, Pivot-The-Hustle. NRG also provided Dr. Rebelo as a primary instructor for the program launched in the Minimum Security section of the facility. This program has evolved and NRG’s support has been through co-developing and sharing “how” narrative identity development support materials and instructor training can be offered to serve this initiative.

Center for Dynamic Learning

NRG has worked in providing resources for the Center for Dynamic Learning (CDL) as a way to reconsider its organizational narrative. In personalized work with CDL’s Executive Director the founder’s narrative was more fully honored and integrated into that organizational story worth telling. It’s future narrative – from a performance perspective – was re-considered as a way to tell the past story connecting to the now state of the non-profit en route to an encouraging possible future story supporting both the evolving science and arts desires of students within an integrated portfolio of fee-for-service offerings to Rhode Island schools. This final potential organizational narrative, once realized, also more fully incorporate the skills, interests, motivations and passions of both co-executive directors in a way that showed more balance and a clarified purpose of CDL’s evolving mission.

Tony Collins Foundation

NRG become interested in supporting former New England Patriot, Tony Collins, in part because of his rich and dynamic personal narrative. After a recording setting career as a running back, Tony’s story had unexpected turns and disruptive collisions ushering off the NFL field. NRG’s Executive Director personally saw lessons in Tony’s narrative, its possible meaningful integration into the lives of young men and women, and a way-forward for Tony himself to engage his non-profit in a more compelling, personalized and give-back manner. NRG supports Tony in his speech placement and its evolution within school-networks and non-profits; its connection to NRG related tools in contextually relevant ways included working Tony’s story and his book into the curriculum for the Pivot-the-Hustle Career Readiness Program.

Non-Profit

TO UNDERSTAND AND SHARE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE ROLE OF NARRATIVE AND INFORMATION BY PERFORMING ORIGINAL RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENTAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WORK. THIS CORPORATION IS ORGANIZED EXCLUSIVELY FOR CHARITABLE, EDUCATIONAL AND SCIENTIFIC PURPOSES, INCLUDING FOR SUCH PURPOSES, THE MAKING OF DISTRIBUTION TO ORGANIZATIONS THAT QUALIFY AS EXEMPT ORGANIZATIONS UNDER 501(c)(3) OF THE INTERNAL REVENUE CODE, OR CORRESPONDING SECTION OF ANY FUTURE FEDERAL TAX CODE.