Product details

Few talents are as important as story telling to managerial success-- not only for giving a memorable speech or entertaining colleagues around the water cooler, but in getting your point across in a meeting, crafting an effective memo or e-mail message, or persuading a superior to support your proposal. Managers who have mastered the basic techniques of narrative are far more likely to get attention, hold attention, and close the sale. Successful communications should open with clearly defined purposes, start in the middle, omitting antecedent (and sleep-inducing) facts, and begin with vivid, concrete images. Once momentum is created, it should be maintained with a clear sense of direction and suspense. Conclusions should be concise, and used to drive the point home. The convinced audience needs an outline for the specific actions necessary to reach the common goal. Stories can be the best way to package meaning and spur achievement, and can lift individuals and organizations to take the risks that keep life an adventure.