Today, if you host a panel discussion and not have women on the panel, be sure that you will be trolled for that. The deeper understanding of how this pressure is not really helping can be understood with the story of a leaders from a large MNCs. In 2019, I asked a client of mine why, when most of their competitors were talking about smart initiatives, they were talking about gender diversity...
Finding a data insight and believing you can now make the change happen with the insight alone, is one of the common data storytelling mistakes. To understand this let us look at what happened with Sam and his team. Sam and his team worked hard to find an insight from the data they had received from their ecommerce team. They finally had a meaningful insight after weeks of slicing and dicing the...
In my upcoming book Storied, I have written a little bit about communication challenges specific to women in workforce . In this short read I share one of them, a self inflicted issue which secretively transforms itself in to a roadblock to women's stories being told. Despite being aware of this issue, I am a victim too. Let's begin with me. August 2019, Japan, I was starting a new project. I was...
Data tells us what is happening but leadership is about what can happen! In this short blog I share my key learnings from a recent experience of working with a client, who I was helping build a data driven story for business planning purposes. Here is what I observed 1) Intuition : We already had some hypothesis based on our intuition that was built on our experience in the domain. For example...
To use corporate storytelling to bring an organisation's goal to life is a good practice.However, if the goal is not concrete, it is highly unlikely you will be able to move people in to action. You will leave a group of motivated employees not knowing what to do next. *In 1960's when Boeing prepared to launch the design of the 727 passenger plane, its manager set a goal that was deliberately...
Corporate Storytelling lacks adoption due to its wrong positioning. Gifted, creative, charismatic and confident are words associated with storytellers. And this very association demotivates corporate leaders to want to adopt an identity of a corporate storyteller. Fair enough, I would say, because all the adjectives associated with being a storyteller seem far fetched for a time poor corporate...
Knowledge is useless, the problem is that knowledge is not understanding. Storytelling is a great tool to shift knowledge in to understanding. In this blog I share how despite having access to so much knowledge we are unable to retain women in workforce. Knowledge is something that you accumulate through learning. Understanding is something that you know because you have lived through it, direct...
Data analysts often find themselves in a situation where they don't know what the insights behind the data are. Here is a simple way to handle such a situation. The application of these strategies is not limited to data analysts but to anyone who is wants to be good at data storytelling. Last week I conducted a workshops on Data Storytelling in UAE and Malaysia. During the workshop I got the...
A real story of the use of Storytelling for Artificial Intelligence. Samantha is the President of a FMCG organization that has launched an AI project. The goal of the project is for every department within the organization to have an AI-led initiative. This has caused some unrest in the non-technical departments who fear AI. One such department is Human Resources. These departments do not...
Tell me about yourself? What is the story you tell when asked that question? If you have ever wondered what is the best answer to that question, then this blog is for you. In 2006 Melbourne, there was a sense of anxiety in the office corridor conversations amongst my team members. A new boss was starting next week. She had a reputation of being a hard task master. Not many people liked her, and...
Is storytelling a perfect plan even possible in today's VUCA world? An architect has a plan in place, we call it the blueprint. Blueprint is executed to perfection, or at-least that is the goal. As such an architect's day to day task is mostly predictable. A gardener however, deals with immense uncertainty. She is not sure if the seed will become seedling, if the sunlight will be enough, if the...
Storytelling creates motivation required for any change implementation. This blog is for you if you are like Azira. Azira is responsible for learning and development for a MNC. At the end of each year she thoroughly researches relevant learning opportunities, conducts surveys to find out what is the learning need in her organisation, has conversations at all levels and then puts together an...
Stories that work on social media almost always fail in a corporate boardroom. And that has created a problem, we tend to believe that what we see on social media is what storytelling is but it is not. Let's not forget that the success metrics for social media storytelling is reach, likes, share and comments. Success metrics for corporate storytelling is - revenue and profit or put simply, making...
When you're listening to a speaker tell a story, if the speaker is a good storyteller, it will connect with you and you will be inspired. The connection happens because through the speaker's story, resonance is created and you feel seen, heard and valued. Even if the story is about the speaker or someone else, you are able to find yourself in it. For a storyteller on the stage Connection Who is...
In a corporate setting we are obsessed with many C's of communication : Clear, Credible, Concise. But we often ignore the most important C, which is connection. Connection is the key to action. Communication‚Üí Connection ‚Üí Action Having worked in and with corporates for over long time now, I have learnt that most corporate leaders are able to build connection and catalyse an action if they learn...
Just before dinner last night, my daughter and I were on the phone to my mother. At one stage during the call we had a big laugh. Later, during dinner my husband asked, " Why were you guys laughing?" I asked him, "Do you want the facts or the story? His response, which I had already anticipated was, "Just give me the facts, no time for a story." My daughter is better suited to give facts. So, I...
The biggest roadblock to effective data storytelling is this statement I hear repeatedly, "But I don't know what the insight is." As someone who works with data analysts a lot, I have been looking for ways to remove this roadblock. A few years ago, in my research on this topic, I stumbled upon a sequence of analysis used by radiologists ( Radiologists are medical doctors that specialise in...
It was not uncommon for me to aimlessly scroll on my phone during pocket times. Pocket times are little pockets of time you find in between meetings, whilst you are commuting or just waiting for someone to arrive at some place. A couple of years ago, I recognised the need to stop this aimless scroll default I had developed. I became intentional about what content I would consume in these pocket...
If the topic you are talking about is a mundane topic like digital disruption and you start by stating what is already known to the audience which could sound like this, " Digital is disrupting the way we work and live", this guarantees only one thing – you will be ignored. Don't say the obvious! How about you make it different by making it personal, tell a story which makes a point that digital...
Today we start our Storied Book Club. In this book club I show up every Friday and share a storytelling insights from my upcoming book Storied: Drive Your Corporate Success Today. Let's begin with where it all began for me. Lesson 1 : Speaking versus Communicating While I was in high school, I lost a debate competition. I was devastated, especially because before the results were announced so...
We tend to view stress and burnout in terms of the short-term demands of a sprint: the rush to meet a deadline or prepare for an important presentation. But the demands of a marathon take a different kind of toll on us. As we mark the one-year anniversary of the first pandemic restrictions, now is a good time to look at the effect that twelve months of worry and uncertainty have had on our mental...
Often when we feel restless, movement and action helps relieve that tension. That is exactly why some of us go for a run or a walk and others connect with friends and family. By default, when a vacuum gets created, we feel the need to fill it with some sort of an engagement. What comes easy in this time is being on social media platforms, a sort of an engagement that demands nothing, I mean going...
The theme for this year's International Women's Day, is "Women in leadership, achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world." Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and UN Women's Executive Director Phumsile Mlambo-Ngcuka's statement called out the sobering reality that COVID-19 has taken a disproportionate toll on women world-wide, from poverty to violence to a disproportionate share of...
Imagine being in a meeting, and your male co-worker interrupts you, then condescendingly explains something he thinks he knows more about, then continues to take over the discussion. In another meeting, a male co-worker dominates the discussion and goes on and on and on. Taking input only from other male co-workers and disregards any information from female co-workers. These are frustrating...
Kara Goldin, the founder and CEO of Hint Water, turned an idea that struck her one day at the kitchen table into a $150 million a year business. Along the way to building a popular lifestyle brand, Goldin discovered the power of storytelling to grab attention and attract loyal customers. "It's really important to bring your personal story into the brand identity" Goldin told me during a recent...