Changing people’s minds can be tough, especially when they have strongly entrenched views. It turns out that story is a powerful weapon, albeit a surprising one, that can really help turn a ‘no’ into a ‘yes’. In September, I was running our Storytelling for Leaders program for a group of Vice Presidents of a global […]

Some of the most important parts of stories are specific moments. It’s these particular moments that we think of when remembering a story we’ve been told. The Heath brothers published their latest book, Moments, in late 2017. In it they explain how our lives are made up of moments – when you pass your driver’s […]

Storytelling is quickly being realised as an essential skill in business. When done right (and well) stories save time, demystify strategies and make messages stick. In 2013, Laurie Lawrence won the Senior Australian of the Year Award for his lifesaving program, Kids Alive – Do the Five. In this interview after winning the award, Laurie […]

Leaders all over the world are discovering that with a few skills and some practice, they can become the communicator and presenter that stands out from the crowd. Asia is no exception. Some leaders like Jack Ma use storytelling naturally and effortlessly. For example, in this video Jack answers Obama’s first question with a story […]

In my work with Anecdote over the last 13 years, I’ve come across thousands of stories. Some of them have had a huge impact on people. They’ve revealed weak spots in organisations, changed cultures, and inspired people to achieve far beyond what they believed they were capable of. In most cases, a story has the […]

Imagine if someone tells you that the single biggest thing you can do to improve your organisation’s performance in the next 12 months is to stand in front of the entire organisation and bare your soul: your vulnerabilities, your fears, the low points in your life as well as the highlights. And once you’ve done […]

A few weeks ago I had dinner at a friend’s house. At the table, my friend’s 9-year-old daughter challenged me with a riddle. You might be familiar with it. A father and son are involved in a serious car accident. The father dies instantly while the son is airlifted to hospital in a critical condition. […]

There are many ways to think about the term ‘organisational culture’. A favourite perspective from decades ago is ‘Culture is the way we do things around here’. It can also be useful to think about culture as an image, like on a TV screen, that is made up of millions of individual pixels. In the […]

To reignite creativity, innovation, and learning, leaders must rehumanize education and work. Brene Brown Anecdote was formed on 11 August 2004. At our first board meeting we discussed our purpose. It was possibly one of the shortest ‘purpose’ discussions I can imagine. The phrase ‘helping restore humanity to the workplace’ was immediately suggested and we […]

We often see people making one of two mistakes in their storytelling. They either don’t tell a story at all, or they go overboard and turn it into something you’d read in a Stephen King novel. The danger of either mistake is that your audience will lose interest. So how do you make sure that […]