Archive for May, 2008

Building your analogy repertoire

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —May 30, 2008
Filed in Business storytelling, Collaboration

Collaborative conversations are characterised by people building on each other’s ideas, one idea sparking another. I saw a good example last week while helping a …

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A mystery story that explains irrational behaviour

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —May 30, 2008
Filed in Anecdotes

Over at the Bumble Bee, Ken Thompson provides an excerpt of Ori Brafman forthcoming book, Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. It’s a terrific …

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The head office pattern

Posted by  Mark Schenk —May 29, 2008
Filed in Anecdotes, Collaboration

Smart people hate being told what to do. In many of our projects we see the ‘head office pattern’ where HO is seen as a …

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Lost knowledge?

Posted by  Mark Schenk —May 26, 2008
Filed in Anecdotes, Fun

The building in the left foreground of the image is the historic Hyde Park Barracks Museum in Sydney. The building at the back behind the …

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I know what you are thinking stories

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —May 26, 2008
Filed in Business storytelling

Many business audiences like to hear stories that are directly relevant. So if you are a civil engineer, for example, it’s likely you’re not that …

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What do you notice about these recent books on collaboration?

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —May 25, 2008
Filed in Collaboration

They are all written by single authors. Is it too difficult to write a book collaboratively? By the way, the first and third books are …

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Women’s memories are more speech-filled than men’s

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —May 24, 2008
Filed in Business storytelling

Contrary to popular belief, new research is showing that woman don’t talk more than men (see here and here). They do, however, recall more of …

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Expertise: talk the talk vs walk the talk

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —May 23, 2008
Filed in Communication

Social scientist, Harry Collins, has spent his career hanging out with gravitational wave physicists and learning to talk like one. Harry’s research is on expertise …

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New Whitepaper: Three journeys—A narrative approach to successful organisational change

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —May 22, 2008
Filed in Collaboration

David Drake (renowned narrative coach) and I have written this white paper to pull together our thinking on how to use our three journeys approach …

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Finding customer stories

Posted by  chandni —May 20, 2008
Filed in Anecdotes

Every organisation has a set of values, most even live by them, but how many have successfully embedded the right behaviours that reflect those values …

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