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Leadership

Strategic Storytelling for Business

The notion of telling stories in business is at times a bit suspect – as if telling a story was the same as spreading a falsehood. Or perhaps a bit too frivolous for the “serious” nature of the work we do. Or a bit too theatrical, pushing us well outside our comfort zone.

Doug Stevenson, founder and chief story teller at Story Theater International (and his amazing side-kick and muse, Deborah Merriman) have cracked the code on “strategic storytelling” for business. I had the wonderful opportunity to join three others in a retreat at Doug’s studio recently.

Doug draws heavily on his acting training and Hollywood experience to bring “the magic of storytelling” into a business setting. He breaks down the essential elements of story and teaches how to craft a compelling tale that captures attention and sticks with you for a very long time. Most importantly, he instructs business people in how to make their point using story. For storytelling in business is more than just spinning a good yarn or telling a story to get a few yucks. Much more than that.

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Leadership

Leaders as Creators

An artist looks at their work in a totally different frame of mind than does a mechanic. The artist sees infinite possibility. The mechanic sees a problem to be solved. The artist has a vision. The mechanic has a job. The artist works in iterations, continuing to add to the creation what is needed. The mechanic works by elimination, until the source of the dysfunction is found. The artist creates, the mechanic fixes.
As a leader, you are often in the “mechanic mode”. People bring you problems to be solved, work to be done, decisions to be made, dilemmas to be fixed. And that is a valuable and ever-present part of the role you play.

But how often do you play the role of creator?

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Challenges

Persistence and the Art of the Pivot

The idea of pivoting comes from lean startup – starting with a business idea and testing it in the real world with real customers (potential customers at this point) very early and very often. You test and explore and learn as an early step with a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) or just enough to get started. The hard reality is that more ideas fail due to not finding a market than due to poor execution. Build it too fully without testing it with the market and you are likely to miss the mark. You tend to overbuild. You might miss some brilliant insight from a customer that makes a real difference in your product or service; one that you would have never stumbled upon in the inner sanctums of your garage or home office. In lean lingo – one learns quickly, fails fast and avoids the tendency to over-engineer or perfect things before the customer (and their wallet) has their say.

As you test and learn and fail, you “pivot” or make changes and tweaks that make your product or service or business model better. You don’t lose sight of your goal; you just recognize that the path to get there might look like this:

crooked line

So today I share with you a real life story of pivots and of persistence. And it is my story.

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Leadership

10 Ways to Flex and Grow Your Innovation Potential      

Are you an innovator? Chances are, you’ll reply NO quickly and emphatically. Innovators, you think, invent complicated things – like iPhones or driverless cars or drones. Or they toil for years to find that next big breakthrough in science, finding that previously unknown virus or a cure for a disease. Or you think innovation is about inventing things – rather than ideas, processes, and social advancement. And you probably think big: Madame Curie, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Jeff Bezos, and the like.

But I think each of us, as a member of the human species, has the potential to innovate. To find novel solutions to current problems. To find new ways to skin a cat (although I have no earthly idea why anyone would want to skin a cat).

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Intention

Can you Spot the Differences… and Should You?

What bonds might be created, what dialogs might open if we sought to find what is similar between ourselves and others – especially those others who we paint in colors that are different than ours? What compassion might flow? What relationships might emerge? What might we do differently if we looked for similarities rather than opposites?

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Evergreen Leadership

Evergreen Circle: Shape the Future

If you are someone who:

  • Wants to make a positive change in their professional life
  • Is starting or growing a business
  • Is making a career change
  • Are wanting to have a meaningful retirement and/or second career
  • Wants to realize their full professional potential – in their current job or a new on

You will want to read more.

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Dynamics

A Minute to Get It: How to Get Your Audience’s Attention and Action

In our last post, Myra Cocca discussed ways leaders can communicate in times of change. Today, I explore a related topic – how to get a share of the attention when people are bombarded with information – at work, home, in the car, and in the community. In a message-saturated world, how do you get someone to read your email, open your letter, spend time on your website, peruse your blog, listen to your presentation – and then take appropriate action?

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Leadership

Top Ten Books for Leaders

In Leadership is an Art, Max DePree tells us that “buying books is easy; owning them is not.” He goes on to explain that, “Good readers take possession of what they are learning by underlining and commenting and questioning. In this manner they ‘finish’ what they read.” He ends his introduction by saying: “You can read this book quickly; but I hope you cannot finish it quickly. It will be worth a lot more to you if you finish it, if you have truly made it your own book.”

DePree also shares that leadership is NOT learned by reading, alone – and I fully concur. But I also know that leaders who are thoughtful and open themselves to new ideas WHILE they get their hands dirty leading, grow into better and better leaders. My mantra is that LEADERS READ.

My list of top ten comes with a disclaimer – these are NOT for learning to manage or supervise. They are in my area of specialty: transformational leadership.

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Learning

Top Ten Books for Self Development

I often get asked what books I recommend for certain topics; so in this series, I’ll share my top 10 recommendations for books on: Organizational Change, Self Development, Leadership, and Entrepreneurship. I’ve culled through hundreds of books and selected those that I refer to over and over and over again. These are the ones that are dog-eared, stuffed with notes and Post-its.

My hope is that you’ll share the titles of the books that inspire and inform you… as it is not too late to put then on my wish list for Santa.

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What India Traffic Taught Me

I’ve walked, taxied and driven in most major US cities. I’ve experienced my fair share of NYC cab rides and Chicago traffic jams. None of this prepared me for moving about in India. Here’s what it was like and what I learned from it.

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Evergreen Leadership