Ron Shaich, the influential founder and longtime CEO of Panera Bread, earned a reputation for his impactful talks that shaped the company’s direction.
“While every speech I gave was different, the underlying storyline was always the same,” Ron reflects in his book Know What Matters.
“Here’s where we’ve come from. . . Here’s where we are today. And here’s where we could be tomorrow—if we get a few … continue reading
1: It’s a three-dimensional world. However, many leaders lead in a single dimension.
Imagine an organization as a three-dimensional space. We call the three dimensions “It,” “We,” and “I,” Fred Kofman writes in The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership.
The “It” dimension refers to the tasks, systems, and processes that make up the company.
“It” is about increasing sales, reducing costs, gaining market share, and growing shareholder … continue reading
1: Paraag Marathe‘s first major task as president of the San Francisco 49ers was to build a new stadium.
The team’s former stadium, Candlestick Park, was falling apart. As in, actually falling apart.
The team’s owners, the York family, had decided they would never move the team to another city.
The other option was to build. Which would be no easy task. “Imagine a nearly $2 billion project that … continue reading
1: We have a tall task.
Our goal is to persuade our audience to change behaviors and set out on a new course.
We begin by getting their attention. To do so, we go negative.
“Negative stories, questions, or challenges wake us up. They activate the reptilian brain, suggesting fight or flight,” writes Stephen Denning in The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative.
What … continue reading
1: Define problem Analyze problem Recommend solution.
This sequence is the “normal” or “rational” way of communicating, Stephen Denning writes The Secret Language of Leadership. “It’s an appeal to reason—a model that has been the hallowed Western intellectual tradition ever since the ancient Greeks. . . And it works well enough when your aim is merely to pass on information to people who want to hear it.”
But what if … continue reading
1: “It was just the worst meeting you ever went to,” Craig Dunn recalls in Stephen Denning‘s book The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative.
“We had insults thrown at us. There was a lot of anger and disappointment. People had lost faith in the firm,” he remembers. “And they had good reasons for feeling the way they did. We all had to face the … continue reading
1: Imagine we are standing in line at the grocery store.
“Scientists Discover 4,000-Year-Old Television Set in Egyptian Pyramid,” reads the tabloid headline on the magazine rack beside us.
We shake our heads and smile. Seriously? We question the reliability of the story. Not our belief as to when television was first invented.
“When we think we know something to be objective truth, our immediate reaction to news indicating the … continue reading
Different goals. Different stories.
Yesterday, we looked a the power of a springboard story.
1: As leaders, we want to have many different types of stories in our leadership tool belt. We are wise to “employ a variety of narrative patterns for different aims,” Stephen Denning writes in The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling. “The point is that there is no single way to tell a story. Instead, narrative … continue reading
1: “Human communication has its own set of very unusual and counterintuitive rules.” Malcolm Gladwell tells us.
Exhibit one: If we want to inspire people into action, providing detailed scenarios doesn’t work.
Why? “Even if believable when disseminated, such scenarios quickly become discredited as the future unfolds in unexpected ways,” Stephen Denning writes in The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative.
1: “Organizations often seem immovable,” Stephen Denning writes in The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling.
The good news?
“They are not,” he notes.
So, how can we possibly move the immovable?
“With the right kind of story at the right time, they are stunningly vulnerable to a new idea,” he observes.
His book provides a guide to finding and telling the right story at the right time. His premise? The … continue reading
