A few months ago, in my car on the way to see a client, I heard an interview on the radio. There was this lady who had been nominated for the title ‘Cleaning Lady of the Year’. The woman told the journalist about her work in a way that completely surprised me. She was so […]

Imagine you’re in a meeting and one of your colleagues makes the bold statement, ‘We need a big initiative here. It’s really the only way to have an impact’. Now, you know that small initiatives can also spark big changes, but just disagreeing with your colleague is unlikely to change their mind, or anyone else’s. […]

Two years ago Mark and I flew to New Delhi to run a public Storytelling for Leaders program. This public program was an extended version because we combined a day on business storytelling with a day of what we call story-listening, that is, collecting stories in an organisation and using them to instigate culture change. […]

Business stories don’t need to be fancy. They should be told just like you would tell it if you were catching up with a colleague informally. I would tell this one when chatting to senior leaders about how they can model the behaviour they want–in fact they must. Or it would be good as an […]

Sometimes it’s a good idea to finish a story so that the audience has to put some pieces together to get what the story is about. When someone puts some work in understanding a story they own it and it’s more meaningful for them. As an example, my 21-year-old daughter told me this story the […]

By Amanda Marko, an Anecdote Partner based in the USA One way to think of a good business story is as a roadmap that points listeners toward an intended emotion or insight. But even with the best of intentions, a story can get off track or lose its way. When it comes to driving, the best advice […]

Anjali Sharma is the Managing Director of Narrative: The Business of Stories and an Anecdote Partner for the Storytelling for Leaders Program in Singapore and Malaysia. Adam works as a corporate communications head in a hospital. He is just about to announce a new initiative to the entire hospital: the formation of a Pediatric Rapid […]

By Christopher Kogler, an Anecdote partner based in the USA. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing a senior sales manager for a big box retail operation on the West Coast of the US and asked her to share a few of her secrets for success with me. Danielle shared the 3 principal keys she […]

Your willingness to share a failure can have a powerful effect. I remember this one clearly. It was a real punch to the gut. I was standing in the foyer of the Melbourne Fire Brigade headquarters when I received the call. The voice on the other end of the line was a new client: ‘I’m […]

By Paul Joosten, an Anecdote Partner based in the Netherlands ‘In our company, I like to work with people who have the courage to make mistakes!’ So said the new Vice President of Oracle Northern Europe, Ad Nederlof, in his kick-off speech in June 1994. Was he serious? Did I hear him right? We worked at Oracle, […]