Fast Company calls it an ‘idea-driven narrative’. This genre, made famous by Malcolm Gladwell, takes a simple (but important) idea and uses research, case studies, and personal experiences to enable the reader to see the world from a new perspective. Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki, is a notable addition to this enriching genre. I […]

Have you ever used the technique we call a ‘dotmocracy’ to get a group to prioritise a set of ideas/initiatives/actions? Each person is given five sticky dots (red ones usually—the ones you find placed next to paintings in a gallery to denote they’ve been sold). Each dot-carrier is then invited to place any number of […]

I was in New Zealand for a couple days this week. I caught up with my colleagues at Future of People and Organisations (FPO) – more about FPO in a future post. It reminded me that I should tell you about the project Stewart Forsyth, on of my fellow directors, and I did for an […]

The term ‘business narrative’ hasn’t really taken off, yet I’m finding more and more people in organisations are drawn to these techniques because traditional approaches have failed them. I would love to hear how other organisations are using business narrative and to aid us in finding one another I thought we could start using the […]

A couple of days ago Steve Jobs made the commencement address to students at Stanford. He tells three simple stories about himself with great effect. Jobs understands the power of narrative.

Narrative techniques can be applied effectively across a wide range of business issues—the more difficult the better. I’ve been recently working on how to use business narratives to align customer service with a company’s brand promise with my colleagues at BCS. Paul Stewart and Janelle Barlow (the founders of BCS) have written a great book […]

It’s interesting how a word affects what we do. Take ‘storytelling’. This is a hot topic in business and marketing today evidenced by the books appearing on the subject. Here is Steve Denning’s new book and here’s one on branding. Each one, however, focuses on telling stories. There are very few instances where practitioners are […]

Chris Atkinson has written a book on how to make better presentations using a narrative approach. His blog and website (beyond bullets) brim with practical ideas. Well worth a look.

Successful anecdote circle facilitation hinges on the judicious use of open, story-eliciting questions. I’ve dashed off this short guide on how to create effective questions for anecdote circles. Let me know if it’s useful. Technorati tags: questions, anecdotes

Until recently (yesterday actually) I have differentiated two types of organisational stories: those crafted to persuade an audience—this approach is typified by Steve Denning’s work at the World Bank and is called ‘Organisational Storytelling’; and stories that retell the day-to-day events which occur in a workplace—Dave Snowden popularised this view of narrative in his work […]