Anecdotally Speaking

We have something special for you this week! With Shawn on leave, Mark is joined by Mike Adams, Anecdote’s Head of Story-Powered Sales, and James Mills, Global Vice President of Sales at Mars Wrigley: https://buff.ly/3Cu32pW

James shares some of his favourite anecdotes to use in the workplace and his best storytelling tips. The episode is the first of many where we’ll have a guest like James share their experiences with story. We hope you enjoy it!

This week, Shawn shares the story that you can add to your story bank and use to make a business point. It explains the thinking behind and impact of one of performer Andy Kaufman’s most famous acts.

Shawn recommends the movie Man on the Moon: https://buff.ly/3xmUJcw

And he says the story reminds him of the one he shared in 154 – Less is more: https://buff.ly/3PAWY2S

This week, Mark shares a story from Freakonomics based on research undertaken across a series of childcare centres in Haifa, Israel. You can find the original Freakonomics article here: https://buff.ly/3Doohdh

It’s a nice, compact story that you’ll be able to tell quickly. If you share it at work, we’d love to hear what business point you made with it! Feel free to utilise the comments section below!  

Anecdote Principal Rod Grundel is currently in Europe running some accreditation programs. If you’d like to catch up with him in the coming days, email us at [email protected].

This week, Shawn shares a scientific story that will be useful for anyone with a mathematically oriented audience. He found it while looking for stories for our data storytelling program, Story-Powered Data: https://buff.ly/38nNgAv

And you can read about it in more detail in this Quanta Magazine article: https://buff.ly/3P2ZZbp

Mark rates this story a 5/10, while Shawn gives it 8 or 9/10. So we’re curious, what rating would you give this story? Tell us in the comments below!

This week on Anecdotally Speaking, Mark shares a story that combines negative and positive stories he could have told independently. In doing so, he provides examples of what to do and what not to do, particularly when innovating. 

The story follows the attempts of two different teams to achieve the first powered, controlled flight—teams led by Samuel Pierpont Langley and the Wright brothers. It reminds Shawn of the story of how James Dyson designed and produced the first bagless vacuum cleaner, which he shared in episode ‘032 – Dyson innovation really sucks’: https://buff.ly/2Jwj3yj

Shawn’s been reading about Richard Branson, so this week, he shares an anecdote from the beginning of Virgin Records. Thanks for tuning in! 

The anecdote depicts Branson’s leadership style through his interactions with Mike Oldfield, the composer and musician behind Tubular Bells (https://buff.ly/3CGmq3x). He doesn’t argue with the people around him but influences them.

Mark takes the lead this week and shares a story within a story. He explains how Ted Turner founded CNN, Cable News Network, after remembering the World War II story of General Erwin Rommel and his clever, unexpected strategising.

Shawn and Mark remind our listeners that free tickets to our upcoming events (https://www.anecdote.com/events/) are available for those wishing to evaluate our programs (https://www.anecdote.com/story-programs/) for use within their organisation. If you’re interested, send a note to [email protected], and we’ll get back to you!

This week on Anecdotally Speaking, Shawn shares a story from Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, Revisionist History. You can find the episode here: https://buff.ly/3dalCsJ

The story follows the introduction of the triplicate system for prescriptions in the United States, the true impact of which wasn’t realised until decades later. 

Shawn mentions a blog post he wrote about adapting podcast stories for use at work: https://buff.ly/33MNado

And our Story-Powered Data program: https://buff.ly/38nNgAv

He invites listeners who want to learn more about the program to contact us at [email protected]. 

Mark invites listeners interested in evaluating our Story-Powered Sales or Storytelling for Leaders programs for use within their organisation to contact us.

We are happy to provide free tickets to our upcoming events for this purpose: https://buff.ly/2MLs7US

This week, it’s Mark’s turn to share a story! And he’s chosen a short but sweet one for us!

Mark and Shawn list a few business points you could make with this story, including:

- Our formal education doesn’t cover everything;

- Make an effort to remember people’s names; and

- Little things make a big difference, especially in leadership.

Can you think of another that Shawn and Mark don’t mention? Tell us what it is in the comments!

Welcome back to another episode of Anecdotally Speaking! This week, Shawn shares an anecdote about the original King Kong film: https://buff.ly/3S0TTe5

He found it in this Tom Hanks interview in the New York Times: https://buff.ly/3PVSRxY

Did you know that you can subscribe to Anecdotally Speaking podcast emails? We’ll notify you every time we release an episode and include a list of business points you can make with that episode’s story! To subscribe, fill out the subscribe form on our podcasts webpage: https://www.anecdote.com/podcasts/