Storytelling Article in Reader's Digest

It was a thrill when the editor of Reader's Digest-Asia asked me to write an article on Corporate Storytelling in conjunction with my presentations at the Singapore Storytelling Festival and Asian Congress of Storytellers last fall. It was even more thrilling to see the published article in the September issue.

I hope you agree that the graphics are terrific! The content is based on my book, Around the Corporate Campfire, and includes new material, such as an interview with a sales and marketing executive at Microsoft, where a major storytelling initiative was launched in FY2007. The article is at http://www.corpstory.com/Storytelling.pdf

Storytelling in Singapore

Appearances at the Singapore Storytelling Festival and Asian Storytellers Congress kicked off a particulary busy fall season in the world of Corporate Storytelling. I had a crowded schedule for my first trip to Singapore, presenting three full-day workshops and delivering a keynote address between August 28th and September 6. During that time our client and host, the National Book Development Council, not only treated all the presenters to a number of lunches and dinners featuring favorite specialties of Asian cuisine, but also took us on a city tour.

Interest in organizational storytelling is exploding worldwide, and even though most people in Singapore work for the government, they're eager to learn how U.S.-based companies are using stories as a management tool--and how they can, too. All three of the Corporate Storytelling workshops packed the room to nearly overflow crowds, and the participants were fully engaged and totally delightful.

Media coverage of the events included broadcast and print interviews, including an article I authored for a local newspaper. One interview is poste online at: http://www.howtotellagreatstory.com/byot/byot74.html

If you'd like to attend next year's storytelling events in Singapore, the dates are set for August 22 - September 7. Information on this year's festival will be supplemented with the new brochure as soon as next year's offerings are booked. To learn more, go to: www.bookcouncil.sg/sisf

Death by PowerPoint

A helpful tool when used properly, Micrcosoft PowerPoint has been abused so much that the mere mention of the program causes eyes to roll. Who hasn't sat through countless presentations in which the speaker relied on PowerPoint to prompt every word? It can make your eyes glaze over just thinking about how utterly boring that is!

On the contrary, an especially effective presentation is one that engages all three learning styles: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. That's what stories do--and that's one of the key reaosns they're powerful. Stories also help the speaker get away from a nervous dependence notes. Once a person begins telling a familiar story, he/she begins talking in a natural manner--and that facilitates personal connections with individuals in the audience.

If you're among those who dread slide presentations, or if you simply want to have a good laugh, take a look at comedian Don McMillan's entertaining parody of the most common abuses of PowerPoint, "Life After Death by PowerPoint". Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLpjrHzgSRM

Tips on Assessing Corporate Culture

UK-based Melcrum Communications regularly produces reports that help organizations power up their communications, and a recent publication should be especially useful for those who are unsure about the most effective ways to power up performance. Entitled "Driving a High-Performance Corporate Culture", the report features case studies from companies such as IBM, Dell, Ford Motor Credit Company, Gap and Pitney Bowes.

The full report is currently being offered at a reduced rate of $660 (normally a report like this would be $775). An Executive Summary can be downloaded free at http://www.melcrum.com/offer/culture/07d/

Interest in Personal Storybooks Exploding

Publication of personal memoir books is exploding, according to an article in the Ontario Business Edge. The article features two Canadian women whose businesses specialize in personal memoirs, both of whom entered the business after losing loved ones whose life stories they never knew in depth. Now they both help others capture the stories of loved ones--or themselves--before it's too late.

According to the Association of Personal Historians, thera re 79 million people in the U.S. appraoching retirement, and 37 million are at least 67 years old. "Many feel compelled to capture the stories of their aging parents before it is too late," says Jeanne Arthur, president of APH. Those who have already lost parents regret they didn't capture their stories and are motivated to record their own.

How about you? Have you thought about interviewing your loved ones so you have a better understanding of their life experiences and can create a family legacy? You may want to check out the services of APH members near you. Or like me, you may choose to record your own interviews with one or both parents or other loved ones.

To read the entire Business Edge article, go to http://http://www.businessedge.ca/article.cfm/
newsID/15418.cfm

Storytelling for Stress Relief

If, like me, you've never thought of storytelling as a therapeutic practice, you also may find a press release from a media company in Toronto to be of interest. CNW Group issued a release last week about the increasing stress levels among the population of the B.C. interior region as flood warnings continue to be issued.

The threats of flooding "put many people under high levels of duress and anxiety at the prospect of displacement, evacuation and damage to personal property", the release says. One official recommends talking with outers as an effective stress reliever. "Storytelling is the natural human way of processing stress andprocessing an event", says Gerry Smith,Vice President of Organizational Health at Shepell-fgi. "It may seem simple, but communicating what we're feeling, what we're going through is our automatic coping mechanism and helps us a great deal."

To read the entire release, go to http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/
May2007/10/c7125.html

The Halo Effect

An interesting new business book, The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig, advises readers to take most business books (other than his, I assume!) with a grain of salt. His assertion: Information offered in most books of business advice claim to be insights on the findings of scientific research, but instead, he says, the information is little more than good storytelling. The authors relate what happened and make specious connections between supposed causes and the results.

Rosenzweig says that good companies run by effective leaders do many things right, so everything they do benefits from the halo effect of the whole. As a result, it's difficult, without appropriately scientific study, to point to any one practice as the reason for their successes. I agree. In my book, Around the Corporate Campfire: How Great Leaders Use Stories to Inspire Success, http://www.aroundthecorporatecampfire.com celebrates the successful practices of widely admired companies, many of which deliberately use stories to convey their values.

Stories help leaders paint a clear picture of thier vision and how individual employees can succeed in their organizations. The stories make it easy for employees to understand how they can enact the values and support the vision in their own particular jobs. But storytelling is just one leadership tool from an array of practices that collectively produce the desired results. What's exciting to me is that many of the most admired business leaders point to storytelling as one of the keys to their success.