Communication

Have your answers questioned

This blog entry onOpen Forum got me thinking. Specifically this paragraph: "Find some truth tellers. The first thing every CEO must realize is that everyone is lying to him (her too). It just happens. They didn’t coin the phrase “shoot the messenger” for no reason. There are many wonderful organizations out there for CEOs that provide truth-telling services. Vistage is an international group whose tag line is something like “Have your answers questioned.” It’s pretty clear that their ideal customer is the CEO who [...]

By Aiden Choles|July 7th, 2009|Categories: Communication, Leadership & Decision Making, Narrative|Tags: Communication, leadership, Narrative|0 Comments

How we see the problem

A father and son were travelling home from a rugby game late one night in the 1970s when the dad pulled the car onto the shoulder of the rural, desolate highway and asked his son to take over the driving. As hard as it was for him to admit, the father said his eyesight was failing him and he didn't think it safe for him to stay behind the wheel. So the son took over, and it didn't take him [...]

By Aiden Choles|April 28th, 2009|Categories: Business, Communication|Tags: headlight, mark twain, problem solving|0 Comments

Why organisations struggle to adopt social networking internally

CIO magazine reported on a research piece done by The Burton Group on why large organisations find it difficult to adopt social networking internally when their employees use it so easily outside of work. Some of the key issues identified are the same ones that have hamstrung many KM initiatives. Here's an excerpt from the article, I especially like the quote in bold towards the end of the final bullet point ... "Some vendors are saying employees will go in and naturally fill these enterprise [...]

By Aiden Choles|March 29th, 2009|Categories: Communication|Tags: Communication, KM organisational culture, social networking|0 Comments

Stories more compelling than facts

A futurist named Marvin J. Cetron who apparently predicted 9/11 has just released the outcomes of a study that Cetron’s Forecasting International carried out for the Pentagon. This report outlnes several possible prime US terrorism targets and it makes for interesting reading. The report outlines 10 potential scenarios. What makes them really compeling (and chilling) is the narrative form in which they are written. It proves what we have always advocated: using story or narrative is much more compelling and convincing than using [...]

By Aiden Choles|September 28th, 2008|Categories: Communication, Narrative|Tags: Communication, Narrative, story terror|0 Comments

Business Science killed the Narrative Star

There's a constant challenge we face when working with narrative material in business - that at some deep level, employees feel a resistance to telling anecdotes and stories in the organisational setting. Sometimes the resistance is direct, "We don't get paid to tell stories!". Somewhere in our history as people who have sold our souls to business, we have lost track of our natural ability to a) tell a story, and b) recognise when we are in fact relating a [...]

By Aiden Choles|February 20th, 2008|Categories: Communication, Culture|Tags: business, business science, Communication, Narrative, oral tradition stories|0 Comments

Have your answers questioned

How we see the problem

Why organisations struggle to adopt social networking internally

Stories more compelling than facts

Business Science killed the Narrative Star

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