We’ve all heard it. “That’s how we do things around here.” It brooks no argument and is a strong signal that changing the behaviour might be difficult. That is, of course, if you tackle the issue directly. An alternative might be to use this little story that was told by a taxi driver as I […]

I did a blog post in February about reconnecting with an old friend of mine, and how she is one of the most gifted storytellers I know. In that post I said I would be sharing some more of her stories, and here is one she shared with me recently. A few years back, I […]

I love little simple techniques than are practical, increase understanding and stick in your mind. I wrote about one of these in a book review I did on The Power of Positive Deviance by Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin and Monique Sternin. In the book they gave the advice of working with groups; “Let silence speak”. […]

I’ve been in San Diego for the past three days – mainly holiday but with two speaking engagements for the annual leadership get-together for Sharp HealthCare. Its one of my biggest ever gigs with over 700 people present for each of the days. At lunch yesterday with some of the folks at Sharp, one of […]

I have just got back from running our first ever Storytelling for Business Leaders course in Wellington, New Zealand last week. I thoroughly enjoyed the day, had a great group who told some terrific stories, and I am sure taught me as much as they learnt off me! It was also a real treat to […]

From a story perspective, Christmas is a prolific time of year. As we gather with friends and families we recall the memories of the past and create new stories as presents are unwrapped, as turkeys emerge from the oven (or the Weber BBQ in the Schenk household), as Dads relive past triumphs with a half-century […]

I found myself watching parliamentary question time today on TV (OK, I was tired. I did yoga for the first time last night). There were lots of questions about when exactly did the leaders of the government and the opposition know about Qantas CEO’s, Alan Joyce, decision to ground his airline. It was a heated […]

I saw a TV advert recently that I believe is going to be a complete marketing failure. A campaign that is not going to make one ounce of difference in getting people to buy that product. Why? The power of social norms. As mentioned in a previous blog post, people are highly sensitive to social […]

I love short stories that say so much. Being a Kiwi, this is an incredibly exciting time for me with the Rugby World Cup currently underway in New Zealand. As part of keeping up to date with all the current news about the cup, the teams and the players, I came across this blog on […]

I heard this story from one of our workshop participants. We were talking about values and how they play out in practice. Their organisation, a government department, has ‘fun’ as a stated value. With that in mind Janet (not her real name) thought it would be fun to take her team on an outing to […]