1: Let’s go back in time to when you were dating. Perhaps that is you right now.

“Now, what happens to you when you go out on your first date?” Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer ask in their powerful book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.

Let’s say you start talking about yourself. And you keep talking about yourself. You spend the whole date talking about yourself.

What’s going … 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: “Seven hundred happy passengers reached New York after the Titanic’s maiden voyage.”

This week we are looking at the key elements of what author Stephen Denning calls a “springboard story.” This specific type of narrative “performs the most useful thing a leader can do: communicate a complex new idea and inspire action to implement it,” he writes in The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling.

A springboard story is authentically … continue reading