The reason most peoples’ stories are hard to listen to is that they have trouble divorcing themselves from the facts of their everyday lives. They’re slavishly devoted to chronology and detail. Sometimes, to tell a good story, you have to tell a lie or two. Not big ones. You shouldn’t make up events and characters … Read more
President Obama did something very important and powerful in his announcement yesterday about gay marriage. He talked about his family and, specifically, his children: “There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we’re talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn’t dawn on … Read more
I was meeting with a law firm the other day, trying to figure out what set them apart from the competition — their “key differentiators.” As we went over their various strengths, someone observed that “everybody else can say the same things.” And that may be true. Go to any law firm website and you’ll … Read more
Every once in a while in your career you get to work on a dream project. One that’s challenging, rewarding and uses your talents to the utmost. But it requires a client with the guts to do something truly remarkable and the discipline to stick to it. This is the tale of such a project, … Read more
A while back I gave some tips for tightening stories. One of them was to watch out for “and then” syndrome. That is, if you find yourself saying “and then” a lot, what you have “may not actually be a story, but just a long sequence of events.” Then this weekend I came across this video … Read more
Facebook Timeline for brands is the latest hysteria-inducing development in social media. Its introduction has been accompanied by the usual how-to articles screaming TEN THINGS YOU MUST KNOW and FIVE HIDDEN TIMELINE SECRETS THE EXPERTS WON’T TELL YOU and YOU’RE NOT ON TIMELINE YET? YOU HOPELESS RUBE! I actually think the timeline is cool. I … Read more
Most of us know what goes into a compelling story. Relatable characters, dramatic conflict, high stakes. But sometimes the difference between a well-told story and one that puts listeners into a coma is not so much what you put into is as what you leave out. After all, God may be in the details, but not … Read more
This is one of my favorite stories about the power of stories. Every organization has a vast, untapped reserve of great stories with compelling characters at the center of them. As I say in the video, people don’t care about programs, they care about people. So finding someone relatable who embodies that program is essential … Read more
Last year I went to a meeting in Chicago where a group of executives from far-flung divisions of a major company went around the table introducing themselves to the group. They each followed a similar pattern: basically reciting their CVs. “I was head of blah-blah, then I moved over the to the blah-blah division, then … Read more