Have You Ever Seen An Elevator Pitch in Action?

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Have You Ever Seen An Elevator Pitch in Action?
It takes 40 seconds to ride an elevator to the 61st floor of the Salesforce tower in San Francisco. On the day of the pitch competition, the elevator doors opened and inside stood Salesforce President and Chief Product Officer, Bret Taylor. The door closed and the elevator started to rise. Mars Mundy, one of the eight finalist had a frustrating experience with…
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Change Storytelling : And why must I begin with a Personal Story?

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Change Storytelling : And why must I begin with a Personal Story?
Leadership team of a large MNC is working on a change story. The team is knowledgeable, so eliciting reasons / benefits from them to structure a change story is fairly simple. The reasons/ benefits sound something like this Harmonisation Efficiency Single Source of Truth We have the reasons/ benefits, its now time to wrap a story around them. Once the leadership team…
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Emotion is the Fastest Path to the Brain

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Emotion is the Fastest Path to the Brain
We can prove it scientifically. In academic terms, an “emotionally competent stimulus” is any video or photo that elicits a strong emotional reaction. These images can trigger fear, sadness, joy, hope, shock, surprise, or disgust. The turtle video triggers several emotions at once. Once we see or experience an emotionally charged stimulus, the amygdala—an almond-shaped structure in the brain’s temporal lobe—releases neurochemicals…
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How Singapore Airlines sparked a desire to change in me?

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How Singapore Airlines sparked a desire to change in me?
February 2001, I am sitting in an amphitheatre along with 10 other girls who are all going to become Singapore Airlines flight attendants post a 3 month training program.  Its our day 1 in the Singapore Airlines Training Centre and we are just about to start our orientation. I am expecting for someone to come on the stage and start a powerpoint…
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Challenging Meetings for Women in Workforce

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Challenging Meetings for Women in Workforce
Yesterday, I walked in to a boardroom meeting with 3 gentlemen waiting for me to take them through what I had planned to solve their team’s communication challenge. As soon as I saw dynamics in the room, I knew that I am going to face some challenge today and that awareness really helped me navigate the meeting. At one stage, I made…
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Feeling like an Octopus as a Speaker

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Feeling like an Octopus as a Speaker
“Anjali your voice, tone, pace, pitch, dramatics can improve.” Over the last 3 weeks, I have purposely put myself in a situation where I knew I would get honest feedback on my speaking abilities. I have never been a believer of tone, voice, pitch and dramatics ( excluding pace, which I think is important to manage). My argument has always been speaking…
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Indra Nooyi and Storytelling

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Indra Nooyi and Storytelling
Indra Nooyi was PepsiCo’s first female chief executive. She boosted PepsiCo’s revenue 80 percent during her tenure. One of the most remarkable thing about Indra Nooyi is her ability to storytell. Her videos are shared regularly in women in workforce forums. Here are 3 videos of Indra Nooyi where she story tells beautifully. 1) Women don’t help women enough in workplace  …
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Storytelling: Why do women UPSPEAK?

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Storytelling: Why do women UPSPEAK?
My client Ann ( not her real name ) and I have been working on a story that conveys a very simple point- data insights influence decision making. Ann will be delivering the story to the key stakeholders today. Whilst presenting she changes something unknowingly. Instead of concluding the story with confidence and saying, ” So, that is a great example of…
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