Author Archive

In storytelling manipulative?

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —October 3, 2008
Filed in Business storytelling

Here is my test for whether a skill is manipulative: “Would it lose its power if people knew exactly what you were doing and why?” …

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Common Ground and the Role of Stories

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —October 3, 2008
Filed in Anecdotes, Collaboration

Last week Mark and I agreed to each develop a plan detailing how we were going to meet our targets. I opened up Excel and …

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Brain rules

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —September 30, 2008
Filed in Insight

I’m reading John Medina’s Brain Rules and thoroughly enjoying it. Here’s a snippet illustrating his humorous style while making an important point. Any learning environment …

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Brand stories

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —September 27, 2008
Filed in Anecdotes, Business storytelling

Marketing folk confuse me sometimes. For example, they talk about brand stories yet they forget the story bit. For example, if you Google the phrase …

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Quote on listening

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —September 22, 2008
Filed in Communication

“The best way to persuade people is with your ears – by listening to them.” Dean Rusk listening, persuasion

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Tackling large domains in communities of practice

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —September 16, 2008
Filed in Collaboration

One of our clients is a large engineering firm (perhaps Australia’s largest) and I’ve been working with them over that last 12 months helping to …

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Context is king

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —September 10, 2008
Filed in Culture, Selling

In case there are still people out there who believe we act as rational decision makers, take this scenario. You’re in a shop to buy …

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Storytelling as a study technique

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —September 9, 2008
Filed in Business storytelling

A few posts ago I described one of the reasons why stories are memorable: they evoke emotion. But stories are also memoriable because they create …

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Finding stories

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —September 8, 2008
Filed in Business storytelling

Tell stories to hear stories Listen to stories to remember your stories Mark and I penned these observations while developing our course on storytelling. The …

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Seven personal skills for effective collaboration

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —September 3, 2008
Filed in Collaboration

It’s easy to talk about what collaboration is or is not or the types of collaboration. What’s difficult is to change your practices (read behaviours) …

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