“You know, I’ve shared that article about stories you sent me with other prosecutors in my office.”

It was an attorney friend of mine telling me this.  He’s a deputy chief assistant district attorney here in Georgia.  Here is the article he was referring to this article I found on the power of storytelling.

“I don’t understand why people can’t see the stories.  They’re right there in the reports!”

Regardless of the type of organization, most companies have some sort of reports …

I spent six years in the world of recruiting and learned behavioral interviewing questions back then.  The idea behind behavioral interviewing is that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, so ask the interviewee to tell you about their past experience related to important aspects of the job you’re interviewing them for.

Behavior based interview questions start with phrases like…

Tell me about a time when…

Can you give me a specific example of how you…

Describe a problem you’ve encountered with…

I know …

When I first entered the world of professional speaking, I was taught by some wise mentors to interview a sample of future audience members.  Later I learned of other professional speakers who send out surveys to collect information about their audiences rather than conduct interviews.

I stuck with what I learned first, the person-to-person interviews, probably because I learned it first.

Then, I was doing interviews – for a magazine article not a speech – and wanted to interviewed two subject matter experts (SMEs).  I …

The Catalyst Story
 

In the last post, we talked about the Business Story Producer which is a method to get people to start sharing business stories.  As part of the steps, you, as the person facilitating the group, should tell a Catalyst Story to activate the business story sharing.

Rather than mechanically running through the steps, let’s start with a Catalyst Story, then break down what makes for a good Catalyst Story.

 

My first professional experience was as an ensign in the Navy.  For those …

Lately I’ve become obsessed with drawing stories out of other people’s lives.  Specifically, I want to help draw business stories out of organizational leaders and subject matter experts so they can use them in presentations and for training others.

I haven’t really found much written on the topic of pulling business stories out of other people – if you know of some good resources, please add descriptions or links to them in the comments below.

In an effort to see what people were doing, I approached a few colleagues I …