Author Priya Parker once attended the funeral of a close friend.
1: “The church was packed. Hundreds of family members, friends, and former colleagues gathered in a beautiful room to honor a man who had towered in his field and helped so many,” she recalls in The Art of Gathering. “Sadness hung in the air, and many of us were already crying.
“The minister got up and walked to … continue reading
1: Comedian Baratunde Thurston was in a tight spot.
He was hosting a comedy event that was part fundraiser, part party. The location? The Brooklyn Brewery.
“On the evening in question, it was cavernous, rowdy, loud, and full of people full of beer,” Priya Parker writes in The Art of Gathering. “There actually wasn’t a stage, or even an elevated platform.
“People had been eating and drinking for a while already; … continue reading
1: Remember the time we had “seven meetings in a row, and the fourth one goes badly, and we go into the fifth meeting distracted and spent,” Priya Parker writes in The Art of Gathering.
Or, “right before entering a bat mitzvah, we receive a text from our boss that our article has been killed.”
Or, we “walk into Thursday small group at our church late after crawling through … continue reading
Last week, we looked at how Fred Bryant savored a real-life “mountain top” moment.
Savoring is: “The capacity to attend to, appreciate, and enhance the positive experiences in one’s life,” Fred and his co-author Joseph Veroff write in Savoring: A New Model o Positive Experience.
When we savor an experience, we call forth feelings of joy, gratitude, pride, awe, or pleasure. Savoring also enhances our sense of connection with … continue reading
1: World Bank executive Stephen Denning had just spent the morning teaching a master class on storytelling to seventy executives from private and public sector organizations.
He had shared his story about how a health worker in a remote town in Zambia found the answer to her question about the treatment of malaria on a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website. This simple story inspired the World Bank to embrace … continue reading
1: To tell a great business story, there are many things we know, writes Stephen Denning in The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling.
Like:
“Storytelling is an ancient art that hasn’t changed much in several thousand years.
The effective use of storytelling in organizations involves crafting and performing a well-made story with a hero or heroine, a plot, a turning point, and a resolution.
A storyteller catches and holds the … continue reading
1: Until recently, leadership and storytelling were thought to live in two separate worlds.
Stephen Denning describes himself as having made a “career of scoffing at touchy-feely stuff,” he writes in The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling. “Like most other business executives, I knew that analytical was good, anecdotal was bad.”
Stephen was an executive at the World Bank, “but had it been any other large, modern organization, the discourse … continue reading
1: It was the mid-1990s. Stephen Denning was successfully climbing the managerial ladder at the World Bank, the large international organization which lends billions of dollars to developing countries to help eliminate global poverty.
Stephen describes himself as a “quintessential left-brained, analytical kind of person. Clear, crisp, succinct, bottom line: that was me,” he writes in his book The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling. “And as you know, big organizations … continue reading
Getting better at getting better is what Rise With Drew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we at PCI are doing in our quest to earn a spot on Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For.
1: We start today with a passage from author Fred Bryant.
“A vast … continue reading
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” —Helen Keller
1: Together, J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia have sold more than 300 million books. These two British authors continue to impact the world of fictional fantasy and leave a footprint on our modern culture.
“But what most people don’t realize is that without their friendship, … continue reading
