Madelyn Blair’s company name Pelerei represents two root words that mean “lifting people up.”  She made up the name as a hidden reminder of who she is and why she is here.  Learn more about Madelyn’s books: Riding the Current and Essays in Two Voices.

In Essays in Two Voices Madelyn offers a simple process for two people to better understand an issue with by examining an issue together by sending short essay responses back and forth.  We have so little time for pure inquiry, this process occurs when you have time for it, minimizes hidden agendas and gives permission to think a bit deeper and take some risks.

Her book Riding the Current is an excellent way to look at the stories we tell ourselves about what it takes to “stay current” and test out a new story that might make it a bit easier than we think

Madelyn discusses how Twitter, Facebook, Linked in, and other social media platforms showcase great stories told in non-traditional ways. She reiterates that stories don’t engage because of technology but because the story is interesting.  Stories aren’t interesting without the creative tension of conflicting values or some obstacle blocking a goal.

When I asked if Madelyn had seen many storytelling mistakes she noted that when someone discovers storytelling, they want to use it everywhere and tell a story even when they don’t need one.   When a story is needed she says some people confuse a simple narration of events with a story.  Narration without tension or dilemma won’t engage listeners like a real story.  And she recommends you ensure that the tension or dilemma in your story relates to the business situation.

During a discussion of Madelyn’s success using the principles of appreciate inquiry, we both credit Doug Lipman for the advice that “if you listen well enough, you can listen a story out of someone.” Listening is vital to appreciative inquiry and storytelling.  Merging the principles of both creates a flow of communication that steadily deepens understanding.

Madelyn shares a storytelling exercise she uses with groups to improve mood, reveal core values, transfer important wisdom, or reveal pockets of wisdom important enough to share.  She asks the group to pair off or gather in small groups and to “Tell each other about a project you are really proud of.”

MP3 Download or play this

Feed link: http://ia700704.us.archive.org/16/items/StoryFactorPodcast017/StoryFactorPodcast017.mp3

The best part of this podcast may be when Madelyn’s husband shows up and gives her a bouquet of red roses for their 40th anniversary! But the rest of it is pretty good too.

This week’s conversation begins as Madelyn Blair (www.pelerei.com) describes the idea of Narrative Intelligence.  She describes a quick process she recently used at a Knowledge Management conference.  Small groups address a theme (in this case lifetime learning) tell their own stories, summarize these stories into “Chapter titles” – a great idea that saves some of the context from their stories but condenses the time frame needed to share with the larger group.

We then discuss the effectiveness of using story as the primary learning vehicle for facilitating women’s leadership workshops.  Because so much of leadership depends on context … women’s stories reveal the specific learning opportunities for women.  And gender isn’t the only learning group that  works this way.  Any group dealing with a similar context will create their own tailored workshop perfect for their context when story is added to frame generalizations like competency of leadership.

Madelyn is also a master of adapting to technology without drowning in information.  She shared her insights in a book called “Riding the Current” reviewed as “an excellent manual for knowledge workers, managers, and executives.” Her focus is staying up to date and she regularly updates the book on her website as tech trends shift.

I like Madelyn’s advice about email: Keep our emails short and people will respond in kind. It works on me.  My editor’s last two emails contained eight and five words each and my responses were five and four words each..Brevity is a gift we can all give.

Feed link: http://ia700606.us.archive.org/12/items/StoryFactorPodcast016/StoryFactorPodcast016.mp3

Lea Thau, creative director of TheMoth.org for a decade (2001-2010),

Lea teaches business people not so much how to tell personal stories, but  how to use the principles of storytelling to shape strategy, to roll out new initiatives, or frame business proposals.  However I learned most by asking more about her process at the Moth and with her radio show, Strangers.

Lea Thau is interested in stories with high stakes.   Experienced with the anti-hero stories that dominate the Moth, she looks for stories that contrast the darkest dark with light.  This is kind of extreme sports of storytelling.  It takes, “hours, and hours, and hours” to get it right.

Where she used to spend hours coaching storytellers to tell a story that reduced itself down to a well rehearsed twenty minute performance, she now gathers hours of interviews that must be edited down.  She never has less than 5 and has had up to 20 hours of audio recordings that she edited down to a short twenty minute show.

How in the world does she pick and choose from that much material?

“The first rule is that, what happened ≠ the story of what happened.”

Lea Thau, Former Moth Creative Director

This gives  some perspective on the kind of time it can take to research, develop and tell a powerful story.  When we are lucky, the right story pops into our mind just when we need it. Art can be spontaneous. On the other hand, finding the right story can also take a lot more time than  business people expect. If you love the power of stories, don’t  balk when the process gets complex and finding the core meaning feels like hard work.

 At the end of the day, storytelling is not a checklist, it is a process. 

As a master editor Lea shares one of the primary principles that help her choose – and will help you choose from all the possible detail of an event which details to include.

Editing is about making choices based not only on what actually happened but on which details will demonstrate the meaning of what happened.

Lea’s new show Strangers on KCRW (also a podcast) explores what she sees as a deep cultural shift in how we define “friend” and “stranger.” Is a person you have never met a stranger, even if you’ve been playing video games with them for years? Who is your friend? One episode dives into the world of online dating. One examines the difference between growing up rich and growing up poor. Another explores the happy marriage of two exceedingly normal people who had an arranged marriage along with hundreds of other couples at the 2005 “Moonie” wedding along in Korea.

Lea Thau had a nose for stories and an ear for storytelling perfection.

Feed link: http://ia601200.us.archive.org/6/items/StoryFactorPodcastEpisode15/StoryFactorPodcastEpisode15.mp3

Lea Thau, creative director of TheMoth.org for a decade (2001-2010),

Lea teaches business people not so much how to tell personal stories, but  how to use the principles of storytelling to shape strategy, to roll out new initiatives, or frame business proposals.  However I learned most by asking more about her process at the Moth and with her radio show, Strangers.

Lea Thau is interested in stories with high stakes.   Experienced with the anti-hero stories that dominate the Moth, she looks for stories that contrast the darkest dark with light.  This is kind of extreme sports of storytelling.  It takes, “hours, and hours, and hours” to get it right.

Where she used to spend hours coaching storytellers to tell a story that reduced itself down to a well rehearsed twenty minute performance, she now gathers hours of interviews that must be edited down.  She never has less than 5 and has had up to 20 hours of audio recordings that she edited down to a short twenty minute show.

How in the world does she pick and choose from that much material?

“The first rule is that, what happened ≠ the story of what happened.”

Lea Thau, Former Moth Creative Director

This gives  some perspective on the kind of time it can take to research, develop and tell a powerful story.  When we are lucky, the right story pops into our mind just when we need it. Art can be spontaneous. On the other hand, finding the right story can also take a lot more time than  business people expect. If you love the power of stories, don’t  balk when the process gets complex and finding the core meaning feels like hard work.

 At the end of the day, storytelling is not a checklist, it is a process. 

As a master editor Lea shares one of the primary principles that help her choose – and will help you choose from all the possible detail of an event which details to include.

Editing is about making choices based not only on what actually happened but on which details will demonstrate the meaning of what happened.

Lea’s new show Strangers on KCRW (also a podcast) explores what she sees as a deep cultural shift in how we define “friend” and “stranger.” Is a person you have never met a stranger, even if you’ve been playing video games with them for years? Who is your friend? One episode dives into the world of online dating. One examines the difference between growing up rich and growing up poor. Another explores the happy marriage of two exceedingly normal people who had an arranged marriage along with hundreds of other couples at the 2005 “Moonie” wedding along in Korea.

Lea Thau had a nose for stories and an ear for storytelling perfection.

Feed link: http://ia601200.us.archive.org/6/items/StoryFactorPodcastEpisode15/StoryFactorPodcastEpisode15.mp3

Lea now has her own show called Strangers on KCRW – a podcast I also highly recommend.

The Moth finds stories from submissions but also hunts them down.  They may decide “we want a story from an astronaut” or work with a celebrity to find a story. One thing is sure, they work for a very long time with every storyteller to deepen the emotional themes and create an optimal structure and delivery. It sounds painful to me – but I can’t argue with the results.

“The biggest part of the process is not shaping or rehearsing the story – it is getting to that emotional core.”

– Lea Thau, Former Moth Creative Director

Lea points out that many people who tell stories of dark events are invested in demonstrating some kind of happy ending that simply isn’t true.  One sign is that “the narrative structure just won’t go there.”  There are unresolved truths that go deeper than a pretty ending and that’s what makes the story authentic and interesting

The first part of the Moth process is to dig deep.  When Lea uses the Moth format, she says in the beginning it is just a long conversation over several sessions. Like a  lengthy interview she searches for interesting elements, important events and looking for a story, asking questions like: “What else were you going thru at the time? “Why did you make that choice?” etc..

She often has the story in her mind often before the teller knows what it is.

The Moth coaching process is based on critique and direction. The teller must meet the standards of the director. Direction more than coaching, the process is more prescriptive  than the process  we “corporate storytellers” use.  Lea said, “You almost have to break them” pointing out that “nobody can see their own blind spots. No one really knows the darker sides of the own stories. “ it sounds like a bit of tough love to “get them to see this is not the story you thought it was” and see if they are ready to keep going.

At the Moth the Creative Director has an “enormous” amount of authority – more than the storyteller.  I find this fascinating since one of my primary objectives is to keep my thoughts and my ideas out of a story.

This podcast replaces a longer podcast that included my edited version of Lea’s interview.  Lea was horrified by the audio quality – as you know I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to making all the audio levels consistent, etc.  So this podcast is my recap of our conversation.  She was worried that crappy audio of her voice would harm her reputation as a radio personality.  This makes a lot more sense when you hear about the coaching process she uses for Moth Stories.

Feed link: http://ia600803.us.archive.org/17/items/StoryFactorPodcast14_201401/StoryFactorPodcast14.mp3

And most guitars have more than one story…

Guitars are known by the stories of those who loved them and the music they created.  When Ian opened his guitar shop, he didn’t so much sell guitars as tell their stories.

Ian Rhodes not only found his way back to his passion for playing guitar, he started blogging about it – way back when blogging meant you had to know how to code.

People “may not have come in with the idea they wanted to buy a guitar” but talking about guitars and swapping stories were so engaging Ian said people often left with a guitar anyway. With his blog and his easy way of swapping tales with customers, Ian was soon treated like a guitar expert.  His shop was successful and fun.  After ten years he was ready to move on.

A data geek at heart, he started playing around  technology and realized that what people want from a website – is the same kind of expertise he offered in his guitar shop.

“People love an expert who can tell a story.”

Content marketing is all about establishing yourself as an authority.

Ian is clear that real life experience is the key to building authority and evolving the story of WHO You Are and WHY You Are Here.  The story has to be valid and credible. Paid advertising can’t overcome a weak story OR a lack of experience. That is the baseline. Ian has that and more.

He uses technology and measures to “listen” to his customers and help others do the same.  He analyzes  data like “bounce rates” (who leaves your site without looking at another page), runs A/B testing to compare and contrast different ways of telling a story, and tracks other analytics to capture and refine the “experiences” of users and prospects as they interact with a website and social media. Just as he responded to conversations and reactions to his stories in person in his guitar store,  he digs into the data,  experiments with variables to increase responses, and responds in person.

I asked Ian “What works?”

“Employee biographies, quirky information, any kind of detail that communicates your story.”

Of course, quirky doesn’t qualify until he tests it in terms of  strategic intention using measurable and meaningful tests.

Ian’s passion for stories and curiosity about response is a perfect combination of the art and science of storytelling.

Feed link: http://ia600503.us.archive.org/14/items/StoryFactorPodcast013/StoryFactorPodcast013.mp3

“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing; it feels like a story.”

– Jim Signorelli

Jim believes that the best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing; it feels like a story. Have a look at Jim’s agency website at esw-storylab.com he practices what he preaches with website design and content.

If technology and techniques get ahead of an organization’s understanding of what it means to use story to communicate to guide your brand, the best technology won’t compensate for a weak story. Not all ads can tell a story (banner ads can’t tell a story) but that doesn’t mean a company can’t “act like a story” or “live their story.” It all boils down to the idea that everything about the company employees, communications, products, and every customer experience is already telling a story. Explicitly naming that story brings congruence to an organizations ability to stand for something meaningful.

Jim commented on a recent kerfuffle over the distinction between narrative and storytelling suggesting that in narrative there is no end to the story. Neither of us care much for wordsmithing narrative and story are pretty interchangeable. But Jim thinks it IS important to realize that living a story means there are many overlapping beginnings, middles and ends. For any client, the prevailing individual stories build themes. Jim helps clients select one overriding belief or statement above the rest.

Being unique is as much about who you aren’t as it is, who you are. It takes discipline.

Skills in facilitating group process can help you save your clients from disappearing into rhetoric and over-generalizations. Getting specific – choosing the one – can easily turn into word-smithing. Any leadership team is full of smart people with egos who can get attached to a pet story in a way that distorts the search. Finding the common denominator is a group process of trying stories on for size, investigation, and asking the hard question – Yes, that is the story we want to tell…but is that really true?

Feed link: http://ia600708.us.archive.org/27/items/StoryFactorPodcast012/StoryFactorPodcast012.mp3

Happy 2014!!  One of the best interviews yet!!

Jim Signorelli approaches story using a tried and true process.

“We want to look for joiners rather than buyers.”

After gathering the back story and the facts, they conduct an archetypal analysis asking the team to individually choose the archetype that best represents their brand.

Jim asks each member of the senior management team to choose which archetypes and values best explain their brand. He offers the traditional twelve archetypes developed by Carol Pearson http://www.herowithin.com the warrior, rebel, explorer, magician etc. and asks individuals to choose the  archetype they think captures the brand.

Jim and his team look for overlap and inconsistencies and facilitate the group by letting them figure out: How do we resolve this? Who are we really?

Jim says the Provider archetype is very popular with insurance, banking, any service organization.  Also popular is the Explorer, for instance a restaurant that is all about finding new tastes and textures. He had a real estate company choose the Outlaw because they think other realtors charge too much and they rebelliously promote the idea that people should “Keep what’s yours.” Their brand included a lot of humor – a good trait of the truly rebellious.

Group dialogue and discussion helps the team refine and reconcile the different points of view, ultimately finding the one belief or value that expresses their brand.

Jim Signorelli describes his agency’s archetype as the “regular guy, straight shooter.” I think you will agree.

Feed link: http://ia601006.us.archive.org/28/items/StoryFactorPodcast011/StoryFactorPodcast011.mp3

Episode 009 Personal Storytelling in Business

Jane thinks there is definately a role for personal storytelling in business. The best application is when you can turn a case study into a case story by making it more personal…making it about the people. She teaches this with a NASA case story that you can request by contacting Jane on her website www.ovicinc.com.

Listen as she describes a Jetta car commercial as an example of the element of surprise in good storytelling technique.

Jane says the biggest obstacle convincing business people that stories work is the idea that taking the risk of sharing a piece of yourself will pay off instead of making you regret being vulnerable. The goal is to get comfortable with sharing something you might not be comfortable sharing. Revealing imperfection is a fast track to trust. No one is perfect so it isn’t as big of a risk as you might first assume.

We discuss various ways to pull a story out of others and ways to handle stage fright.

Jane says the best part about teaching business people how to use stories is when someone goes from “paper to people” and starts telling their stories without notes. She loves it when a client realized that not only is storytelling better, but it is easier as well.

Feed link: http://archive.org/download/StoryfactorPodcast009/StoryfactorPodcast009.mp3

Jane Praeger’s thirteen years of documentary filmmaking helps her coach executives and improve their presentations. She says,

“I realized I could bring all I learned about narrative, theme, characters…to the business world… where it was missing.”

Initially Jane delivered media training. One day a client complained, “Everyone falls asleep when I speak.” He sent Jane a video but “he didn’t seem too bad.” Only after she read his speech did she understand the problem.

Rather than go into media training mode and film him speaking she spent the entire session helping this man rework his content, his thesis, and his point of view. Most importantly they added stories and made it suspenseful. She said they never got around to using the camera but told him “go try this out and call me in three weeks and we will do some camera work.” After he didn’t call she checked in. He told her “I don’t need media training anymore! Everyone is awake and I even get applause now!” Media training was targets delivery and performance but most of the time it is a content problem.

The best part for me is how Jane explains using suspense and surprise makes stories exciting.  Here is a clip from the end of one of Jane’s documentaries.  Heart stopping, suspenseful, and packs a punch.  Have a look:

Feed link: http://ia801002.us.archive.org/26/items/StoryFactorPodcast008/StoryFactorPodcast008.mp3