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What if your culture metrics could feel as real as a story told around a campfire? We sit down with technologist and humanist Andy Sitison, CTO of Share More Stories, to unpack how long-form narratives—analyzed with AI—can reveal what surveys miss: the emotions, values, and motivations that drive people to show up, speak up, and stay. Andy traces his path from early internet waves to machine learning, then to a sabbatical that reset his compass toward human connection. The result is a platform that treats stories as data and data as a bridge to empathy.

We get specific about the middle space between qualitative and quantitative research. Instead of five voices in a focus group or a sea of anonymous clicks, hundreds of stories become analyzable signals—joy, anxiety, altruism, need for structure—scored at scale and mapped for patterns leaders can act on. A standout insight from YMCA work shows altruism positively correlating with achievement, flipping a common corporate assumption and offering a blueprint for hiring, support, and service design. The bigger surprise: sponsors are often moved to tears reading the first story drops, realizing they’re seeing their people clearly for the first time.

The conversation also leaps from boardrooms to bays. Andy explains the ghost pots initiative on the Chesapeake—derelict crab traps that kill wildlife and drain watermen’s incomes—and how side-scan and forward-scan sonar can make recovery fast enough to change incentives. It’s a masterclass in aligning tech with trust and local knowledge to create win-wins. Throughout, we return to a core principle: protect human agency as AI scales. Step outside the production engine, ask better questions, and measure what matters to people, not just what’s easy to track.

If you’re ready to turn listening into a leadership advantage—and to see how empathy can be operationalized without losing its soul—this conversation is your roadmap. Subscribe, share with a colleague who lives in spreadsheets, and leave a review telling us the one story your organization needs to hear next.

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