Just Story It

The best way for a leader to persuade people to accept a counterintuitive health message is to craft a compelling narrative.

What a great story and insights this article contains. With lessons for us all in leadership, marketing, and social change.

Here is Kenneth Lin, a leader in public health, who shares his story of resigning his position because of clashing narratives. And his frustration with the truth narrative losing out. But he doesn't give up. He keeps going, and shares his insights about grand narratives, leadership, and perseverence with us.

For example -- are you telling micro or macro narratives? If you are telling micro narratives and expecting social change, it won't happen.

And how do you share a narrative that counters people's beliefs when those beliefs contain inaccurate assumptions? Every leader and social change agent wants to know the answer to that one.

Lin might not solve all of these problems in this blog post, but his insights about leadership, stories, and social change are worth the read and give us hope when meeting roadblocks.

This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it 

Since 2003, Brazil has had a yearly conference where business people gather and share stories about how they succeed in creating benefits for society and their business.

What a great article to charge up your week!

This article updates us about what has happened to companies since sharing their stories with each other at a conference in 2003.

What happened? After telling and hearing stories, the companies scaled up their social efforts.

As the author says, "The companies told us that after the conference, they generated new and interesting partnerships, and even a whole new way of building these partnerships. They also reported an impact on the growth of their business. And it was definitely clear that presenting at the conference propelled more positive exchange and dissemination of their good practices.”

Now that's the power of business storytelling!

I also like this quote from the article: "It is clear that storytelling can scale up change in business and society. Through stories, we can connect business interests to societal issues. There are lots of opportunities out there. It is like Peter Drucker said: 'Every single social and global issue we face is a business opportunity in disguise'."

So how are you going to use your stories this week to build partnerships in your business, and link your work to societal needs?

There are big opportunities out there to share your stories, grow your business, and do some good :)

We are the stories we are told. Each of us alone and all of us together are the living embodiment of all the stories we have heard and all the stories we have told each other. Narrative shapes our behaviors, our thoughts, our actions.

The original title of this article is "The Universal Language of Story." But there's no new there. The article is OK but missed the point of the video referenced in the post, I think.

What IS news about the article is the 20-min. TED video. In the video, Jane McGonigal shares her passion for how gaming and storytelling together can make a better world.

The extent of my electronic gaming consists of Solitaire, Majong, or Sudoko on my phone or iPod. But after watching this video, I'm inspired to take the leap into online gaming.

What Jane does in this video is share how storied games train us in ways that allow us to pull together for the social good. Now that's amazing and a fabulous twist on how and why linking gaming and storytelling into our business practices could lead to amazing results.

Then make sure you watch the video on "Beyond the 'Like' Button: Digitally Addictive Storytelling and the Brain" in the next post here in this collection. The 2 go hand-in-hand and will really open your eyes.

So watch the video, get your creative thinking cap on, and game on!

Marshall Ganz is a lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and board member of Friends of Justice.  

Politics aside, this is a brilliant article for any leader about the power of storytelling, enrolling people in your vision, and getting over sharing your personal stories.

Marshall Ganz shares the key elements of effective storytelling and suggests how to get started. In sharing his own story he teaches us all.

Don't miss this article -- it's a fabulous read and applicable for all leaders or organizations, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits seeking to make an impact.

We’ve all heard the old saw that “one death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.” It’s the guiding principle of public relations for those engaged in building support for humanitarian causes.

This article is about several issues facing journalists. How is this relevant to nonprofit storytelling or social cause marketing a business might be doing?

Because of 'compassion fatigue.' The article asks how to deal with it. As the author says, "Heart-rending anecdotes are like heroin—the first leads to more and more hair-raising anecdotes. How do we continue to move or inspire audiences subject to an endless parade of woe? (With worse woe?)"

Here are a few solutions:

1. Make sure the parade of woe is part of a complete story arc where negative emotions are transformed into hope or other positive emotions.
2. Make sure you include a call to action -- simple ways for people to participate to combat the overwhelm (and it doesn't have to be about donating)
3. If you want to go even deeper, have the narrator share his/her take-away from the experience or how the experience has changed them, taught them something, or provided some insight.

Now journalists cannot incorporate all of the suggestions above. But a nonprofit or business can. I hope these ideas help!