Welcome!. Where does everyone come from? Welcome!

WelcomeWelcome!!

Where does everyone come

from?

WelcomeWelcome!!

Dear Mr. Denning,

I've died and gone to heaven! Thank you so much ….. I am over the moon to be coming to Washington DC for your conference…. All the best…..”

An Email from one participant

Where does this event come from?

WelcomeWelcome!!

Today: 9 am to 5pm:

The Secret Language of Leadership

Break

Madelyn Blair: Story & Collaboration

Lunch

Jim Stuart: The journey of leadership

break

Victoria Ward & Stephanie Colton: Storying and De-storying

This evening: 6 pm:

For any who would like to hang out together:

Les Halles: 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Or (if that is too crowded)

Elephant & Castlealso: 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Tomorrow:

9:00 am - 5:00 pmNational 4-H Youth Conference Center7100 Connecticut AveChevy Chase, MD

What this weekend offers:- A wide diversity of approaches

- You won’t like everything

- keep an open mind, & you’ll find a rich set of resources

- educational and entertaining and interactive

- This is a journey: You won’t complete the journey in one or two days

- The weekend is what you make of it

We don’t/can’t

promise heaven!

The secret Language of leadership

www.stevedenning.com

A funny thing about leadership:

Everybody talks about it and yet nobody seems to know precisely what it is.

What do leaders actually do?

What do they do at 9 am on Monday morning?

A. The concept of leadership

Problem

?

Analysis

?

Solution!

?

The Western Intellectual tradition…

Get their

attention

Stimulate

desire

Reinforce

with reasons

Effective presentation to get action

Inspiring inattentive, difficult audiences

The Secret Language of Leadership

Book to be published in September 2007My newsletter is offering advance chapters:

February ‘06: The Secret Language of Leadership March ‘06: Getting the Audience’s AttentionApril ‘06: Eliciting Desire for Change

May ‘06: Turning Any Argument Into A StoryJune ‘06: Structuring A Whole PresentationJuly ‘06: Wow them with PowerPoint (really!)

To get the newsletter: www.stevedenning.com

www.stevedenning.com/slides/Smithonsonian2006.ppt

www.stevedenning.com /slides

/smithsonian2006.ppt

These slides are available from:

Or: subscribe to my newsletterat www.stevedenning.com

Tell a 60 second story about:Either

• A time when you found out what an organization

was really good at

or• A time when you faced adversity in your work

Let’s apply the narrative diagnostic

to those two stories

1. When and where did it happen?

2. Who is the protagonist?

3. What are the three acts of the story?

4. Is it minimalist or told with a lot of context?

5.Tone: positive, negative or ambiguous?

Let’s look at each of the five questions


Did the story actually happen?

Or is it one that might have happened?

Or is it an imaginary story set in the future?

I had a job in a firm … and my boss was horrible to me … eventually I solved the problem by leaving

It’s likely to be a true story

The story you just heard…




Here obviously the hero is the speaker.

Sometimes the hero/heroine isn’t obvious.

And it could have been told with another person as the protagonist

I had a job in a firm … and my boss was horrible to me … eventually I solved the problem by leaving

Same story – different protagonist

The supervisor in firm had an employee who just didn’t fit in …eventually the problem got solved when the employee left.

For exampleCan the audience

identify with

the protagonist?



3. What are the three acts of the story?


The structure of any storycan be seen as having

three acts

Act 1: The hero at a certain point in space and time

Act 2: ……………. has a problem

Act 3. ………that eventually gets resolved in some way

The structure of war & peace

Act 1: Pierre, a Russian count

Act 2: ……………. Can’t figure out his life

Act 3. ……… gets entangled in the war and marries natasha

The end

Every story can analyzed into 3 acts

The structure of Hamlet

Act 1: Whine, whine, whine

Act 2: ……………. To be or not to be

Act 3. ………………………I’m dead

The end

http://www.rinkworks.com/bookaminute/

Every story can analyzed into 3 acts

The structure of our 60 second story

Act 1: The speaker had a job

Act 2: ……But the boss was horrible

Act 3. ……………..The speaker solved the problem by leaving

The end




3. What are the three acts?

4. Is it told in minimalist style or is told with a lot of context?

Does it have the sights and sounds and smells ….?








Act 1: I had a job

Act 2: ……my boss was horrible

Act 3. ……………..I solved the problem by leaving

Positive tone

Act 1: I had a job

Act 2: ……my boss was horrible

Act 3. ……………..My life was destroyed

because I had to leave

Negative tone

Why are we doing

this?

Using story as a tool requires

understanding the pattern

underlying the narrative

We are not talking about this….

We are not talking about this….

Let’s all gather round the corporate campfire

Why are we doing this?

Understanding different narrative patterns & their uses is a key to using storytelling as a leadership tool

I’m trying to make you aware of the underlying narrative patterns

Why are we doing this?

“this is horrible! You aredestroying the magic of storytelling!!!”

“No! understanding the principles of harmony doesn’t destroy of love of music”

Now analyze - the story you just

heard- The story you just told1. When and where did it happen?





What’s my story got to

do with leadership?

Get their

attention

Stimulate

desire

Reinforce

with reasons


The story of who you are

A funny thing about leadership:

Everybody talks about it and yet nobody seems to know precisely what it is.

What do leaders actually do?

What do they do at 9 am on Monday morning?



What is leadership?It’s actually very simple.

Leadership is about changing the world.

What is a leader?

A leader is someone who changes the world.

And what is being changed?

It might be a change in your organization, or your community, or your family, or your town, or your country, or even your planet.

What sort of changes are we talking about?

The change might be a big or small ….It might be local or global…


If you are entirely, happy with the way the world is, then you have no need for what we are going to talk about today.

But for all the rest of us, we would all like to change the world in some way.

But first, we have to decide what we want to change…

• Unexpected finding from my research: big problem in leadership: leaders never make up their mind which change.


Exercise #1: selecting your change

So let’s take a moment to reflect.

For the purpose of this workshop, I want you to focus on one particular change that you would like to effect in the world.

It will have three parts.

(a) the particular domain of the world you would like to change;

(b) what’s wrong with it now and

(c) what would it look like if the problem could be fixed?


We often underestimate the difficulty of what we ask

• 1993: Lou Gerstner comes to IBM: from hardware to services• 1996: Jim Wolfensohn at the World Bank from lending to “the Knowledge Bank”

•2001: Jeff Immelt at GE from process-driven to “imagination at work”


Understanding who you are leading

Let’s write the story of the person who doesn’t want to implement your change:

The story will end:

“That’s why this person does not want to change.”

Exercise #2:


Understanding who you are leading

Exercise #3:Get into a group of two and select a change…

One of you will put yourself in the shoes of the person who needs to change, and tell their story as persuasively and coherently as you can.

•Tell it in the third person. And it ends, “And that’s why this person doesn’t want to change…

•Then the other participant will tell the same story in the first person. It ends, “And that’s why I don’t want to change.”

Now analyze the stories you just told







Getting to grips with your OSM


Getting to grips with your OSM

Exercise #4:

What do you have at stake in the change?

Are you willing to make that commitment at this time?

Are you having a genuine OSM moment?

How do you inspire

people to want to change?

Get their

attention

Stimulate

desire

Reinforce

with reasons


The most difficult…

The most important…

Get their

attention

Stimulate

desire

Reinforce

with reasons


The story of who I am

A springboardstory

How & whyit works

•I will explain what I am about to do

•Then I will do it

•Then we will come back and see how it works


The Zambiastory

The story of why it works

The story of How it works

If you have heard these stories before…





5. Tone: positive, negative or ambiguous?

analyze each story:Don’t just sit there!

4 5 6 7

4 5 6 7

4 5 6 712 3 89 `

12 3 89 `12 3 89 `

12 3 89 `

12 3 89 `

12 3 8 9 `

12 3 8 9 `

12 3 89 `

1 2 3 8 9 `

4 5 6 7

12 3 8 9 `

“Go and look into information”

February 1996

Why don’t we share

our knowledge?

“Go and look into information”February

1996

We’re a bank,

remember?

Persuasion method Efficacy

How does one person persuade many?

Charts with boxes and arrows

Chart

Socialization

Externalization

Combination

Internalization

Tacit

Tacit

Tacit

Tacit

Explicit

Explicit

ExplicitExplicit

Nonaka: The Knowledge Creating Organization

A manager contemplates the knowledge spiral

Persuasion method

Efficacy


Charts (boxes, arrows)

Zero

Rational argument

Knowledge Management caters to the critical issues of organizational adaptation, survival and competence in face of increasingly discontinuous change.

www.brint.com

What is knowledge management?

FACTIn June 1995, a health

worker in Kamana, Zambia logged on to the CDC web-site in Atlanta and got the

answer to a question on how to treat malaria

June 1995, not June 2015A small remote town, not the

capital Zambia, not a middle income country CDC, not the World Bank

We need to invest in the necessary systems, in Washington and worldwide, that will enhance our ability to gather development information and experience, and share it with our clients…

President WolfensohnOctober 1, 1996

Announcement at the Annual Meeting 1996

Persuasion method

Efficacy


Charts (boxes, arrows)

Zero

Zero

Impractical

Dialogue

Rational argument

HighStorytelling

Story to spark action

True

Truth Positive

DetailPurpose

OutcomeActionPositi

veMinimalist

Springboard story

1.Springboard storytelling

Storytelling that can communicate a complex idea and spark action.


True

Truth Positive

DetailPurpose

OutcomeActionPositi

veMinimalist

Springboard story



The findings of neuroscience

Human brain

Cortex


Human brainCortex

Mammal BrainLimbic system


Human brainCortex


Reptile Brain

Not smartbut quick

Story with an unhappy ending

Human brainCortex


Reptile Brain

Fight or flight!

Reactionis fasterthanconsciousthought!

Story with a happy ending

Human brainCortex

Mammal Brain

Reptile Brain

“Warm floaty

feeling”Endogenous opiate reward


True

Truth Positive

DetailPurpose

OutcomeActionPositi

veMinimalist

Springboard story



The Little voice in the head

The springboard story

There are two listeners…

The Listenerthat I see

Just think of the emails

building up in my office!

Let me tell you about Zambia


You tell a story in a way that elicits a second story…

How do you stimulate the little voice in the

head?

(You give the little voice something to do…)


Let me tell you

about what happened in

Zambia

What if we

tried thisin roads?

Maybethis could work in

finance?

Could this

help us in Russia?

Imagine if I had a websitelike that….

Of course, we would need

to get organized

We would needbudgets ….

We would needto get people

involved ….Why don’t we do it?


Everybodyloves their

own creation!


True

Truth Positive

DetailPurpose

OutcomeActionPositi

veMinimalist

Springboard story



Get their

attention

Stimulate

desire

Reinforce

with reasons



A springboardstory

Story of whyit works

Story of How it works


The Zambiastory




2. Who is the Protagonist?




The story of who I am :

Washington DC, 1996Steve Denning

I had job....which I was losing-- I launched KMContext

Scary, but Positive

The story of who you are

Another way to get people’s attention

The “we’ve got problems”

story

The Bank has experience in building knowledge infrastructure

Africa Regiondecides to

implement best practice

system

March 1995 July 1995 Africa Regioninstructs staffcompile best

practice

September 1995 Best practicesystem opens

for business byIntranet, phone

and E-Mail

December 1995

Widespread useof gender andparticipation

pages

Reconnaissanceof otherogarnizationsexperience

Development of best practice system in AFRTD

Decide toimplement best practicesystem

March 1995

Reconnaissanceof otherogarnizationsexperience

July 1995

Instruction tocompile bestpractice

September 1995 Best practicesystem opensfor business byIntranet, phoneand E-Mail

Decemb er 1995

Systematic IECefforts throughthe Region’snewsletter

Managementencouragementof the bestpractcicemanagers

Staff skepticism:“it won’t workin the WorldBank“

“We don’tknow what bestpractice is”

Only one CVP(FPD) has bestpracticemanagers

“This is notreally our job”

As volume ofmaterial expands,user friendliness

becomes aproblem

“CVPs can’tagree what bestpractice is”

????Widespread useof gender andparticipation

pages

Dectember 1995


The Zambiastory








The Zambia story

Zambia, 1995

Health worker or CDC?

Health worker.... Had a question-- CDC answered it

minimalist

Positive



The Zambiastory








The story of the little voice in the head

1996?

Little voice in the head?The little voice .... Is stimulated-- to tell a new story

minimalist

Positive

The story of how it works


The Zambiastory








Two stories of the reptile brain

Conceptual space

The reptile brain

The reptile brain.... Is quick to respond.. to a positive storyminimalist

Positive



The Zambiastory








The story of the little voice in the head

1996 (?)

Little voice in the head?The little voice .... Is stimulated-- to tell a new story

minimalist

Positive

The story of how it works

Another example

The “how it works”

story

Country information

and statistics

Booksand

articles

Spreadsheetsfrom

previouswork

Most frequently

askedquestions

The story of how it will work

Texts of Previous reports

Relevantexpertsin the field

Relevantanalytic

tools

Lessons from

previousexperience

Just in time

Just enough

Texts of relevant

correspondence

Relevantpolicies & guidelines

Country information

and statistics

Booksand

articles

Spreadsheetsfrom

previouswork

Most frequently

askedquestions

The story of how it will work

Texts of Previous reports

Relevantexpertsin the field

Relevantanalytic

tools

Lessons from

previousexperience

Why not also the client?

Texts of relevant

correspondence

Relevantpolicies & guidelines

Get their

attention

Stimulate

desire

Reinforce

with reasons


A springboardstory



The “we got problems”

story

Is this the full picture?

Get their

attention

Stimulate

desire

Reinforce

with reasons

•A springboard story•A “common memory” story •A story of who we are•A word-picture of the future•An extraordinary offer •Story of an opportunity

• Story of how it works• Story of why it works• Facts, analyses- Projections• Scenarios• Work plans• Cost-benefit analyses• Schedules• Risk analyses

•“We got problems” story•Story of who you are•An opportunity•Facts, data, analyses.•A question •An image•A frame •An offer •A surprise •A challenge •A metaphor•A joke•A “common memory” story

Get their

attention

Stimulate

desire

Reinforce

with reasons


A springboardstory




story

Now let’s

try this out…

Take the change you’ve

selected…

Think of the person who

needs to change…

Get their

attention

Stimulate

desire

Reinforce

with reasons

A springboardstory





story

Exercise 5: Communicating Who You Are

1. What is the overall theme that you would like to communicate in your presentation?

2. Think of an incident in your life that (a) is relevant in some way to your theme and (b) involves a change in direction of turning point in your life. Describe it briefly

3. What is the date and place of the incident?

4. What happened as a result of the incident?

5. What did you learn from the incident? Is this linked to the theme of your presentation?

Get their

attention

Stimulate

desire

Reinforce

with reasons

A springboardstory





story

Exercise 4: Template for crafting the springboard story

1. What is the purpose of your story?

2. Think of an incident where change happened.

3. Who is the single protagonist?

4. When and where did it happen to him/her?

5. Does the story fully embody the change idea?

6. What would have happened without the change idea?

7. Has the story been stripped of detail?

8. Does the story have a happy ending?

9. Does the story link to the purpose? “What if..” “Just think…” “Just imagine…”

Get their

attention

Stimulate

desire

Reinforce

with reasons

A springboardstory





story

Exercise 6: The Story of How the Change Would Work

1. Imagine (hypothetically) that the change has been successfully implemented.

2. Identify a protagonist who is typical of your audience.

3. Tell the imaginary story of how such a protagonist would encounter the changed situation, particularly how it would be different from the way that the situation is today.

4. Are the benefits to the protagonist clear?

5. Are any downside costs or risks for the protagonist covered?

Get their

attention

Stimulate

desire

Reinforce

with reasons

A springboardstory





story

www.stevedenning.com/slides/Smithonsonian2006.ppt

www.stevedenning.com /slides

/smithsonian2006.ppt

These slides are available from:

Or: subscribe to my newsletterat www.stevedenning.com

Documents

Welcome!. Where does everyone come from? Welcome!