Salespeople detest brand gobbledygook. And it’s no wonder. Have you heard brand lingo lately? Lovemarks, saliency, brand-defined competitive sets, brand character, brand claims, brand personality, 80-slide PowerPoint presentations sprinkled with made-up words and forgettable catchphrases … It’s hard for a salesperson to understand this brand bumf, much less translate it into something they can share […]

We’re all rational beings, aren’t we? If I want to convince you of something, surely I just need the necessary facts or a convincing argument? Well, behavioural science research tells us that this approach simply doesn’t work. This post describes something that scientists have known for nearly 40 years and which organisations stubbornly refuse to […]

In 92 days we’ll be running Storytelling for Leaders workshop in Los Angeles. I’m looking forward to this week in LA because I’ll have just finished a week-long road trip with my brother between San Francisco and LA (should create lots of stories) and we are planning a get together for fellow business storytelling practitioners […]

What do your organisational values actually mean? Do you have a list of 4, 5, 6 one-word, abstract concepts such as integrity, responsive and agile that represent your values? You might even have a few paragraphs describing each value. Most organisations I’ve worked with have something similar and it hasn’t helped them that much. These […]

When you see a poem you know it’s a poem. When you see a screenplay you know it’s a screenplay. Most people, however, have never seen an oral story written down. Probably because it’s an oxymoron. Yet there are times when it’s useful to write an oral story down. For example, when you’re helping a […]

At Christmas, I was in Melbourne with my two kids. All my family live there and I needed to do what I could to ensure there was no disharmony or feelings of favouritism. So I applied Shawn’s guiding principle in these matters: ‘Families are like fish. After three days they start to go off’. So […]

We have talked a lot in this blog about the power that comes from showing how you are like your audience for improving the effectiveness of your communication. From telling stories that show you are like them (The ‘I’m like you‘ story), to using their words, phrases or idioms. There are a number of ways […]

One of the things that we tell people in our workshops is that your stories need to be true, particularly in a business context. Your stories should be genuine and authentic. They must also be accurate, plausible and believable. If they’re not, you run the risk of damaging your credibility. Consider this example of UK […]

The start of a new year is a great time to think about the year ahead. What you want to achieve. What you want to do more of. What you want to stop. Basically to start with a fresh page and think about how you can actively work to create the year you want, rather […]

I like to ask senior executives this simple question: is there a story going around your company that’s causing you pain? I remember asking one HR director this question who immediately sighed and said that their board recently appointed a new CEO. A couple of months after he arrived a new strategy emerged and the […]