The anecdote below, told by a participant in a recent workshop, really made me stop and think. There are lots of lessons it, not least of which is that seemingly innocuous actions can have a big influence on a person’s decision to join an organisation. A friend of mine had applied for a fantastic new […]

This week I have been talking to people about foundational stories and how they are important for reinforcing the core vales and direction for everyone in the organisation. HP has a well know foundation story about Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard starting their little electronics company in a garage with a measly $500. Within this […]

On the recommendation of Johnnie Moore, I read A Perfect Mess by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman. I was really looking forward to this book because it held the promise of providing an interesting view of issues dear to my heart: chaos, complexity and messiness (I also hoped it might give me good reasons for […]

Here’s an interesting story Bob Sutton recently received from a US Marine in relation to his excellent book, The No Asshole Rule. It’s a terrific sensemaking story because I can imagine people will have strong opinions about what the Marine did and so the story will easily start a conversation that will help the participants […]

Imagine if you could get people to talk on camera about their achievements and mistakes. The result could be a powerful, especially if you use these stories to get people talking. Here’s a tiny example on a topic dear to my heart: how to convey complex information simply. In this clip Massimo Vignelli talks about […]

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I’m reading Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn. It’s a terrific book. This story struck my funny bone so I thought I’d share it with you. Each day an elderly man endured the insults of a crowd of ten-year-olds as they passed his house on their way […]

This morning (Happy Easter!) I started writing a paper on a narrative approach to lessons learning. I’m at the point of gathering my thoughts and had the idea of sharing some of them as they occur to me. I hope it’s not too ill-informed but if that’s the case I’m hoping you’ll help me correct […]

Occasionally, anecdote circles don’t work. Sometimes, people don’t get a lot out of them. In the feedback session for the leadership program mentioned on Wednesday one of the participants had this to say: I attended one of the anecdote circles and, no offense meant Mark, but I thought it was a bit of a waste […]

I am in a plane to Brisbane reflecting on the second delivery of a 2.5 day leadership program we have helped develop for the Australian arm of an international company. A large part of the program used anecdotes collected from within the organisation on leadership behaviours and their impact. The feedback from the participants was […]

In 2001 Shell collected a bunch of stories and put them together in a booklet now know as the Blue Book, but with the official title of Stories from the Edge: Managing Knowledge through New Ways of Working within Shell’s Exploration and Production Business. It’s a landmark publication because it shows that a company in a […]