In fall of 2003, I got this hair-brained idea to document 100 great examples of organizations of all sizes and shapes using business storytelling. To do this, I enlisted the help of hundreds of people. I stopped at 81 on New Year’s Eve of 2005. Why? Because what I started to notice was that not [...]
Oh me, oh my. At the last minute on a Friday night, I found myself on a flight from Chicago O’Hare to Phoenix. Which meant a middle seat in coach class. Seated to my left at the window was a woman in her early 30s. I learned she’d just secured a corporate communications job in [...]
Just released! A 2015 book (101 More Ways to Make Training Active by Elaine Biech) that contains several activities on business storytelling that the author has gotten readers permission to use. My contribution is on the power of story in training to get attendees to realize they already have valuable knowledge/skills on a specific subject they’re [...]
Here’s a terrific short article by Caren Neile, PhD, ATMS, CL, on storytelling as a business tool, published in Toastmaster, February 2015. You can link to it here: http://business-storytelling.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Telling-Tales-at-the-Office.pdf The article covers: Why storytelling in business Who tells stories in business Four tips on what makes an effective story When are stories used in business What is [...]
WooHoo! When Karen Dietz and I were writing Business Storytelling for Dummies, we searched high and low for the latest and greatest research on story use in business to incorporate into the book. Well, here’s a new piece of research by Keith Quesenberry and Michael Coolsen at Johns Hopkins cited in “The Irresistible Power of [...]
Once every couple of months I drive 42 miles, which takes me 53 minutes, to AutoNation in Chandler, AZ to get my 2005 Honda CRV serviced. Now I know you’re probably thinking that this makes no logical sense. That there must be a Honda dealer closer to where I live. And you’re right. There is. [...]
Over the weekend, I saw a posting about business storytelling on a LinkedIn group. It references this article on a website called MindTools.com written by James Manktelow and the Mind Tools Team. I decided to comment on the posting and to write a letter to James and his team. Why? Even though the piece raises [...]
One of my favorite weekend activities is to read the New York Times. What caught my eye about this interview by Adam Bryant with Dawn Zier, chief executive of Nutrisystem in his Corner Office column, wasn’t her background or management team approach, but her response to Adam’s last question, “How do you hire?” To which [...]
In my December 2013 interview with Emma Murphy of The Change Source, I was able to weave new information and client examples not found in Chapter 16 of Business Storytelling for Dummies into my responses to her questions: What’s causing more and more organizations to embrace storytelling within their change communications? How can we get [...]
