As 2020 begins, many leaders will be confidently presenting new strategies and most people will be wearily dismissing them. There’s a story behind this common disconnect. To download a PDF version of this article, click here. To watch our short video series where Paul shares insights from this article, click here. Mind over what matters […]

When developing a strategy, it’s essential to talk to as many people as you can from different parts of your organisation. As this story suggests, you’re likely to find something you hadn’t considered. In this episode, we welcome Paul Ichilcik to the podcast! Paul, who joined the Anecdote team a few months ago, is filling […]

A great way to help your strategy stick is to craft a story your leaders can tell that explains why your company made its strategic choices. This strategy story is typically told without notes, includes some of the leader’s anecdotes, tackles the more obvious anti-stories, and is well suited to larger gatherings where the full […]

 Strategy stories are important but they’re not exactly life and death, right? Well, actually, you’d be surprised. Our very first strategy story was for the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) back in 2009. TAC is the government insurer for any injuries sustained on the roads in the Australian state of Victoria. It plays a key role […]

Warning: This article contains explicit language. Do not read if you might be offended. Have you ever had the feeling that you and your colleagues are all on the same page, and you feel good about how everyone understands what’s happening? I had an experience last week that illustrates just how illusory that feeling can […]

A lot has been written recently about how Jeff Bezos and his executives run their meetings. Amazon has made it very public that their senior team (the S Team) has banned PowerPoint, and that each meeting starts with a six-page narrative memo which the executives read and absorb for up to 30 minutes before the […]

In this episode of Anecdotally Speaking, we explain what it is that Mark and I do for work, why some stories work for some audiences and not for others, and the difference between the typical ‘brand stories’ we see and the one we share today. Lots of companies have ‘brand stories’. The problem is that […]

Gerry Lynch is the general manager of Mars New Zealand, the food and retail business that gives us Mars bars, M&Ms, MasterFoods and Whiskas, to name just a few of their brands. The company, which employs a couple of hundred people, is also a regular finalist in, and winner of, New Zealand’s long-running IBM Kenexa […]

Time is one of my most valuable commodities. It’s probably the same for you. So anything that wastes time reduces productivity, right? And that’s something we all want to avoid. The overwhelming view of stories in business is that they waste valuable time. This is demonstrated every time I run one of our programs or […]

Companies often mistake planning for strategy. This seems to be particularly true of large organisations. A few years back, we got a call from a large company headquartered in the Netherlands. Their head of strategy felt that their people didn’t understand the company strategy – a common concern across most big businesses. The strategy group […]