Posts by Esther Choy
Why Introverts Are Storytelling Superheroes
I have a confession: I’m an introvert. This might be surprising if you know what I do for a living. I’m an introvert who loves to tell stories, and I even love to teach groups of people how to tell better stories. I firmly believe introverted business leaders can tell some of the most compelling…
Read MoreUse Leadership Storytelling To Connect With Everyone
When Hubert Joly took the helm at Best Buy from 2012 to mid-2019, one of his first moves was to get managers to connect with their employees. Specifically, he wanted managers to understand their employees’ dreams and then connect those dreams to Best Buy’s vision. To have employees share so deeply, relationships must be built.…
Read MoreAce Your Performance Review With These 3 Storytelling Tips
Everyone dreads the annual performance review, especially those tasked with reviewing others. That manager you are nervous to meet with is likely dreading the meeting more than you are. Can you make it easy, if not enjoyable, for them? Is this a pie in the sky idea? Not if you deploy this one leadership storytelling…
Read MoreHow Leadership Storytelling Can Win You A Job
Elizabeth has worked at the same global company for 28 years. Because of that, she’s far more used to sitting on an interviewing panel asking the questions than being the one participating in any kind of job search. Even when she has moved on to other jobs within the company, most of them have been…
Read MoreWhy Is Leadership Storytelling So Powerful?
“I’m in the storytelling business,” says Oprah Winfrey. “I believe that the humanity that all of us share is the stories of our lives, and everybody has a story. Your story is as important as the next person’s story.” Oprah knows the power of storytelling. What’s true for media mogul Oprah Winfrey is true for…
Read More3 Basic Storylines You Should Be Using In Business Contexts
Every person’s life is rich with material for stories! And storylines create an easy-to-digest structure to your audience. When it comes to sharing our stories, it is helpful for listeners if we structure them in a well-organized manner. We can do this using the five basic storylines that work best in business contexts. Whenever…
Read MoreWhat Is Leadership Storytelling Anyway?
When I started Leadership Story Lab 10 years ago, I got a lot of blank stares whenever I said “I teach leadership storytelling.” People would search for the closest thing they knew. “You mean, like writing children’s books?” Now, a decade later, almost all responses I hear are in the variety of, “oh, I just…
Read More5 Ways to Make Networking A Lot Less Awful
According to informal polls, many people would rather get poked in the eye than attend a networking event. But by using storytelling techniques, you can make networking less torturous and… dare I say… even fun. Networking events can become fun when they break out of the expected ruts and when we begin to learn from…
Read MoreWhat Christmas Songs Can Teach You About Leadership Storytelling
For some people, Christmas songs are an invitation into divine mysteries. For others, they’re a precursor to days with “earworms”—catchy tunes that get stuck in your head. Whatever your own experience, Christmas songs are as much a part of the holiday atmosphere as crowded parking lots and eager children. Why have some of these songs…
Read MoreEvery Leader Needs To Know About Narrative Economics
The field of economics is highly quantitative. Storytelling, on the other hand, is creative and literary. One would think these disciplines have nothing in common. This had been true until Nobel-Prize-winning economist Robert J. Shiller released his new book Narrative Economics. In it, Shiller argues that economic narratives—contagious stories that can alter people’s economic planning—…
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