Throughout my career, I’ve relied on story telling to reinforce abstract concepts or make announcements more memorable. Whether it’s oxen, elephants, monkeys, or camels, stories about animals are easy to remember and therefore more likely to be repeated. I’ve always want to tell a story which involved a platypus but I never really had a good rationale….
During my career I’ve often used animal stories to help illustrate specific points, reinforce behaviors, or to provide colorful rallying cries. Whether it’s elephants, monkeys, or camels, stories about animals are easy to remember and therefore more likely to be repeated. The heart of good communication is repetition. When I originally introduced the story of the…
The abstract for ‘When Consumers and Brands Talk: Storytelling Theory and Research in Psychology and Marketing’ caught my eye: Storytelling is pervasive through life. Much information is stored, indexed, and retrieved in the form of stories. Although lectures tend to put people to sleep, stories move them to action. People relate to each other in…
Sometimes you have to think outside the camel. At a recent management offsite, I adopted the phrase “Think different, act different” as a rallying cry for the team. I was trying to emphasize the dangers of group think so I reminded them of the story of ten monkeys in the cage. I didn’t just want…
Why is change management so hard? I believe it’s because most humans fear the unknown. Change jeopardizes daily routines, modifies inter-personal relationships, and – most of all – forces us to deal with the unknown. The classic Who Moved My Cheese? tells the story of four creatures in a maze and how they react when their…
Do you need an informal way to convince your coworkers that your organization could benefit from performance management? That the principles of managing by walking around could improve your organization’s alignment? Here’s a poem that was written more than 150 years ago that might help: The Blind Men and The Elephant John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)…