To Celebrate Black History Month Let’s Make Space For Stories

I recently shared on Forbes about why we must dare to make space for stories– the kind of stories that require us to take risks, the kind of stories that are challenging, complex, or mundane. But the truth is in order to become great storytellers, we must first become great story collectors. This Black History…

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3 Obscure Business Storytelling Books Every Leader Should Read Now

For some time now, storytelling has been understood as a powerful leadership tool. There are many business storytelling books out there. Most of them describe storytelling as a strategy to provide information in a quick and memorable way. As neuroscientist Paul Zak’s studies have demonstrated, stories give audiences “better understanding of the key points a…

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Engage Your Audience Immediately With Business Storytelling [Client Story]

“How do you engage your audience?” Megan asked her team when preparing for a presentation for the C-suite. She wanted to make sure their presentation would draw in their audience from the start. As the market-facing design lead at a national consulting company, she was helping the firm transition their visuals to match their evolving…

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3 Business Storytelling Strategies That Will Help You Explain Complex Ideas

Long gone are the days of polymaths like Leonardo DiVinci with the skills of an artist, doctor, engineer, sculptor, architect, and so on. Today, in our increasingly complex world, we are more likely to be specialists, with deep knowledge in one particular discipline. Knowledge is often siloed as a result. This silo effect can even…

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Two Powerful Strategies To Help Leaders Explain Complicated Ideas

In my Forbes article How Do Leaders Communicate Complex Ideas?, I shared insight from two interviews I conducted with leaders from very different fields — healthcare and Jewish education — who regularly deal in complexity. In this companion article, I share two additional strategies they use to link complexity to simplicity — metaphors and imagery.…

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Leadership Communication: The Power of Appreciation

The Thanksgiving holiday gives us a taste of what it’s like to take a moment to reflect and share about what we are grateful for. But even though turkey leftovers are wrapped up in the fridge and the travel is behind us, the gratitude and taking the time to show appreciation to those around us…

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