Narrative Change Management Storytelling Archives

11 Mar

Motivation Story about losing $100 or winning $100

Yesterday, I finished crafting a Narrative for a Life Sciences organisation on Digital Transformation. Of course, I don’t work in the Life Sciences industry but I know how best to elicit information, shape a story and impart the storytelling skills to leaders of the organisation who need to manage this change. Whilst I was developing the Narrative, it was evident to me…

04 Jul

Safety Pin Story Explains Manufacturing Efficiency

Recently, I worked with a CEO of an organisation on delivering a story of a new formed strategy of the business. The new strategy was designed as a response to several changes in the organisation. One of the change was, all steps of manufacturing their product, a semiconductor chip from design, conceptualisation to final test and assembly used to be under their…

19 Feb

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…

28 Jan

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…

08 Aug

“Our head of sales, Natalie is excellent.. and I wish everyone was like her.” “Mariam is top of class in her grades, hope all students can become like her.” “Sandy is a great writer, she always comes up with best articles.” We have all heard such statements and perhaps rolled our eyes when listening to them too! Often the teller of these …

03 Apr

Change Storytelling: Super Smart People Need a BIO Story

Karen is responsible for Change Management in her organisation. Every time she announces a change initiative, there is group of people who would hijack her presentations. They question everything and anything which usually dampens the little enthusiasm that exists for change. This group of people are super smart people. Karen’s biggest worry, for a long time before any change announcement, was this…

01 Apr

Change Storytelling: What is wrong with how I am doing it?

“Please turn on TunnelBear (a secure VPN service) when you travel overseas and use hotel WiFi.” This is what a well-wisher has been telling me for years and I have had a standard response to this advice, “Yes” but the truth is, I never turned TunnelBear on because it was an effort which I was being asked to make for something I…

06 Sep

Change Storytelling: A Smart Way To Talk About Smart Factories

If you conduct meetings with senior business leaders with an objective of getting approval on key messages for important internal and external comms, then this blog is for you. In the coming weeks I may have to meet senior business leaders of a semiconductor factory to take them through a story that their leadership team and I have worked on in a…

18 Aug

Digital Transformation: Correct doesn’t always connect

Over the last few months, whilst running Digital Transformation Storytelling Programmes, I asked several rank and file staff (impacted by the change), “Why do you think your organisation is changing?” After hearing several responses, I can confidently say that rank and file staff’s worldview is, all change initiatives are driven by profitability and there is no care or concern for people on…

02 May

Change Management Storytelling: Words That Matter

Words are not just a mechanism of conveyance. They are a mechanism of influence. Given below are three research based findings from Robert Cialdini’s book Pre- Suasion: A Revolutionary Way To Influence And Persuade that prove that words are a mechanism of influence. 1) WORDS THAT CONNOTE ACHIEVEMENT Studies have shown that subtly exposing individuals to words that connote achievement ( win,…