My Hub History of Activity
Book Club: Transparency, by Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, James O'Toole
In their recent book, Transparency, this trio of authors - each famous in leadership circles in their own right - point out that the higher up the organizational ladder you get, the less likely people are to speak the truth to you. It's not that they lie. They just tell you what they think you want to hear. Speaking truth to power is one of the most difficult things in a hierarchy for large numbers of people.
You need to change your company story: time to slay the monster
I'm reading Christopher Booker's 'The Seven Basic Plots: Why we tell stories'. He says there are, as you can tell from the title, just seven basic plots to all stories. While you look at his list of the seven plots, think of your 'company story' and which of these it fits most clearly into (What do you mean 'we haven't got one?' Every organization that wants to go somewhere, that wants its people to be engaged and motivated, has to have a story it tells about itself - who we are, where we are going, why we come into work each morning).
True Leaders are CSOs - Chief Storytelling Officers
I like this, from Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstralle's book Funky Business:
"True leaders are CSOs - Chief Storytelling Officers. They provide the focus, inspiration and meaning that the organization has been crying out for.
"The Danish children's book author Hans Christian Andersen is probably, at times, more useful in the corporate trenches than management prophet Peter Drucker.
Leading through true stories: a new approach
I'm fascinated by slideshares like the one below, because they teach us how to communicate more effectively - how to tell stories more effectively. Note how few words there are, yet how powerful the communication is.
