Tag Archives: Jonah Sachs

Lessons from Business Storytelling in Constructive Personal Narrative

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Business Storytelling books and resources have proliferated, drawing many lessons from Hollywood’s storytelling business and from advertising, public relations, and marketing.

David Epston

David Epston

Michael White

Michael White

Yet business readers may be less aware that more than two decades ago, Australia-based family therapists Michael White and David Epston asserted that people experience personal problems when the stories they tell about their lives do not represent their actual experiences.

They offered ways for people to “re-story” of “re-author” their personal narratives in their now-classic Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends

Michel Foucault

Years after White and Epston built on French philosopher, Michel Foucault’s Post-Structuralist/Modernist analysis of narrative, Paul John Eakin integrated literature, cognitive science, ethics and social criticism in his intriguingly-titled books, Living Autobiographically: How We Create Identity in Narrative and How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves 

Eakin echoes Foucault’s view that cultural and social “discourses” influence the narratives people develop about themselves and others, and he, like White and Epston, suggests that personal narratives can be modified to reduce subjective discomfort. How Our Lives Become Stories

Though White and Epston led their clients’ introspective analysis of personal narrative, philosophers like Foucault, and perhaps even Eakin, would argue for the viability of self-guided introspection.

-*When have you used stories to help others solve problems?
-*When have you heard stories that helped you resolve issues?

Related Resources:
Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire

Whoever Tells the Best Story WinsWhoever Tells the Best Story Wins: How to Use Your Own Stories to Communicate with Power and Impact

The Elements of Persuasion: Use Storytelling to Pitch Better, Sell Faster & Win More Business 
Tell to Win

Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story

The Leader's Guide to StorytellingThe Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative

Winning the Story WarsWinning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell (and Live) the Best Stories Will Rule the Future

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Business Stories as Narratives

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Paul Smith

Paul Smith

Paul Smith’s book, Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire, builds on thought leadership (references below), with tools to develop effective business narratives in response to 21 business challenges and “five 5 E” leadership scenarios:

• Envision Success
• Environment for Winning
• Energize the Team
• Educate People
• Empower Others

Smith explains that business effective stories are:Lead With a Story
• Simple
• Timeless
• Inspiring
• Respectful
• Easy to understand
• Segue easily into appropriate learning modes for various ways of taking in information
• Compatible with business discourse

Peter Guber

• “contagious” (amenable to retelling and viral broadcast such as the “purposeful narrative” discussed by Peter Guber – see previous posting below)

• proof-points

He explains “four levels of discourse” to understand story as a rhetorical device, and suggests using more than one of these in memorable business stories:

• Exposition explains with information
• Description makes vivid with compelling details
• Narration tells a story or explains a sequence
• Argumentation convinces with logic or evidence.

In addition to these elements, Smith recommends weaving in:
• Metaphors
• Emotion
• Realism

• Surprise “to sear the entire story in your audience’s long-term memory” because memories consolidate shortly after an event (or its story) happens

• Specific, familiar examples of outcomes that have occurred to individuals like themselves, and vivid individual characterizations

• Style: Use the CAR mnemonic to “drive” a story:

o Context: Sufficiently-detailed time and location of the story to “set the stage” for dramatic action and “lesson”
o Action: Catalyst, turning point, climax and final action towards resolution
o Result: The outcome, and its importance or “lesson learned.

Smith’s book joins an expanding list of valuable references to increase business narrative impact:

Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell (and Live) the Best Stories Will Rule the Future

Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins
The Elements of Persuasion: Use Storytelling to Pitch Better, Sell Faster & Win More Business

The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative

Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story

Related Posts:

-*What elements do you consider when crafting a business story for greatest impact?

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Five Elements to Construct a Good Story

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Robert Dickman

Robert Dickman

Robert Dickman and Richard Maxwell weigh in on storytelling as a business persuasion tool in their book, The Elements of Persuasion: Use Storytelling to Pitch Better, Sell Faster & Win More Business

Richard Maxwell

Richard Maxwell

They discuss storytelling as a persuasion method in this four minute video

They assert that a high-impact story contains the following elements:

1) Passion conveys authenticity, and makes the story memorable

2) Protagonist or hero (which might be an individual, group, or community) can be respected, liked, and engages and inspires interest, caring

3) Antagonist presents a challenge to the Protagonist, and this conflict engages interest and caring about the characters and outcome

4) Awareness, in which the protagonists, antagonists, and observers learn something, the kernel of the story’s dramatic impact

5) Transformation, or meaningful change during the story

Nancy Duarte

Nancy Duarte

These elements have also been identified by well-known story experts including Nancy Duarte, whose books, Resonate and slide:ology, have been best-sellers.

Annette Simmons

Annette Simmons

Annette Simmons  is another expert whose book, Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins: How to Use Your Own Stories to Communicate with Power and Impact, has garnered attention.

Jonah Sachs

Jonah Sachs

Jonah Sachs’ 2012, Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell (and Live) the Best Stories Will Rule the Future, weaves together examples from various disciplines including marketing, advertising, classic mythology, as well as psychology and biology.

He characterized it as “a call to arms”, but its more practical contribution is highlighting the transformative power of social media in contemporary story-telling aimed at influencing and persuading.

-*What elements have you seen in stories that have most persuaded and motivated you?

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