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Do a magic trick

If you want a story that will “make them see” once and for all, that you are right, you have missed the point.  There are many points of view, you look at mine and I might be willing to look at yours.  But if you over control a story, it makes you very boring and

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Show them how it's done

Certain lessons are best learned from experience— but much of the time you can’t manufacture an experience for someone.  When the experience of failure is too expensive or disastrous to endure – story can simulate an experience so a learner can vicariously live the moments before, during, and after an event in the theater of

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Point the way

An exciting future story reframes present difficulties as “worth it.” Big projects and new challenges can be difficult and frustrating particularly for people who weren’t in on the decision-making process. Without a vision, meaningless frustrations suck the life energy out of a group. With an engaging vision huge obstacles shrink to small irritants on the

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Get people thinking

Storytelling is a great way to prompt introspection without putting people on the defensive.  Do you ever wonder “What were you thinking?” or worse, “How does you sleep at night?”  I do.  Yet, any effort to “MAKE” someone think about his/her actions only pushes them away.  If you really want them to back up and reconsider the

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Make a connection, fast

Share an experience via story about that person that brings him/her alive with detail.  Your story of admiration and gratitude towards someone who embodies the qualities, skills, vision, or values you want to share, it demonstrates humility and gratitude. Humility and gratitude are vital in good leadership and are the essence of personal dignity.  Your

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Make a presentation

When you hunt for a story, focus on the concept you need to illustrate and ask someone to help you come up with ideas.  Once you have found one watch or read the scene again closely, pull out descriptions that set the scene in context for people who are not familiar with the big story. 

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Popular Posts

Paradox: Root Cause of Polarization

According to Pew research, disdain between opposing political parties in America has doubled in the last 30 years, coincidentally the span of my own consulting business, Group Process Consulting. My efforts to document true stories about these escalating conflicts inadvertently produced a set of oral histories across the years: Territorial Games (1997), A Safe Place

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Contrasts, Not Conflicts

 “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”  Groucho Marx Troublemakers erode trust faster than we can build it back right now. Yet, many of these “troubles” are invented conflicts that distort predictably contrasting values. It helps to know what to look for. And once

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Storyteller’s Confession: My Secret Mission

I’ve been trying to infiltrate the halls of power for decades. My secret mission is to increase the diversity of thought by teaching those without a voice how to tell their stories and by teaching leaders how to find and retell stories that broaden everyone’s understanding.

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Stories with a Moral Blueprint – part 8 of 8

We need a Magic School for Storytellers Thirty years before J. K. Rowling created Harry Potter, Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series imagined a magic school that taught apprentice sorcerers how to avoid abusing the power of magic. Le Guin points out early in the series that “even to light a candle is to cast a

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Stories with a Moral Blueprint – part 7 of 8

Truth in Storytelling When I wrote the first edition of The Story Factor twenty years ago, I began with the idea that people don’t want more information. They want faith in you and your positive intentions. I never suspected that two decades later we’d be discussing an explosion of stories that intentionally undermine this faith. Without

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