Wolf & Heron

Clarity Alone Won't Drive Action

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 17:00:18 GMT

Stephanie was coaching a client, Lindsay, who was frustrated with one of her employees. The employee wasn’t looping in the right people at the right time.

Lindsay’s conclusion was simple. “He’s just lazy. He doesn’t care if the right stakeholders are involved in the process.”

So Stephanie asked her a different question. “What have you done to make him care?”

She paused. “Well… I explained how important it was.”

Voila! It was clear, logical, and direct… and yet completely insufficient on its own.

When you tell somebody something’s important, you’re just telling them your opinion. They won’t automatically agree with you just because you explained it. Even if you explain it well!

If you want someone to do something with what you tell them—to change behavior, take ownership, or go above and beyond—they have to care first.

To do that, you can lean on Engage Emotion , one of the core superpowers in the Influential Communicator framework.

This Isn’t Just for Presentations

We often coach clients to engage their audiences emotionally when they’re giving high-stakes presentations. But the truth is, it’s a communication superpower for all kinds of moments:

When you’re asking for people to go above and beyond
When you’re navigating resistance or tension
When you’re introducing something new
When you’re trying to build trust quickly
When you’re competing against equally strong ideas

In all of these moments, logic is necessary. But emotion is what will help your message stand out and drive action.

The Real Job of a Communicator

Most professionals focus on getting their audience to understand. But action doesn’t come from understanding alone.

We love the Know-Feel-Do framework as a way to ground ourselves in the desired outcomes of a communication moment: You need your audience to know something.

But if they don’t feel something, they won’t do anything.

Engage Emotion is the superpower that bridges that gap. It’s what turns a clear message into a compelling one.

How to Think About It

Before your next important communication moment, ask yourself:

How do I want my audience to feel?
What would help them care about this message?
What emotional barrier might be in the way?
How do I want to show up to shape that experience?
What does this moment actually need from me as a communicator?

These questions shift your focus from delivering information to creating an experience. It’ll move you from being clear, to being effective.

The Shift

Lindsay didn’t need to repeat herself more clearly. She needed to think differently about the moment.

When you’ve got a team member or leader who just doesn’t seem to want to do something you need them to do, it’s rarely solved with better explanations. Instead, think about what you need them to feel .

Want to Build This Skill?

If this expanded your view of when emotional engagement matters, the next step is learning how to actually do it.

That’s exactly what we focus on inside the Influence Library .

The Influence Library is a membership platform for professionals who want to grow their influence at work.

Inside, you’ll find practical tools to help you communicate more clearly, run better meetings, and show up as a stronger leader in the moments that matter.

Stop Winging It: 3 Steps to Transform Your Check-Ins

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 17:00:09 GMT

Most check-ins drift into the same tired patterns and scripts:

Light chatter: “What’s going on?”
Project updates: “How’s project X?”
A half-hearted attempt to help: “Anything you need help on?”
A vague attempt to connect: “Is there anything else on your mind that we should talk about?”
Rushed, pushed or cancelled meetings

Check-ins fall into these predictable habits because both parties show up and wing them. Clarity is non-existent. People don’t have a clear sense of why they’re there, what they should get out of the meeting, and how best to use the time. How often do you walk into these meetings with no agenda or sense of purpose? This is a wasted opportunity.

Your manager/employee check-ins are an essential leadership tool you should be using to build a foundation of trust and communication with your team. Stop winging it, and bring a leadership mindset to your check-ins—whether you’re the manager or the employee.

On March 19, 2026 we’re hosting a free webinar, Lead With Clarity: Check-In on Your Check-Ins , join to bring more intentionality and structure to these critical conversations..

On March 26, 2026, we’re hosting a hands-on workshop to explore the same concepts in even more depth.

Missed the events? Join the Wolf & Heron Influence Library to access webinar recordings as well as many practical tools that’ll empower you with clearer communication, better meetings, and stronger leadership.

Step 1: Define Success

A meeting without clear desired outcomes is a meeting without purpose. Before your one-on-ones, identify your success metrics. What are you hoping to achieve in the meeting? It’s only once you have that clarity that you’ll be able to structure the meeting in a way that gets you there.

If you’re the manager, you can also experiment with having your team members define success for the meeting. Encourage them to take ownership, but make sure that they don’t just take ownership of “winging it.” Give them a simple framework. Our favorite is to get clear on what you want the other person to know, feel, and do by the end of the meeting.

Experiment with different ideas and get feedback from your employees; every employee has different needs. Consider which topics make sense on a weekly basis and which set you up for longer term conversations. Depending on the frequency of your check-ins, you will likely find that even if you want to, you won’t be able to cover every single topic at each meeting. The more you can step outside of what has likely become a default for both you, the better served everyone will be.

Step 2: Ask Powerful Open-Ended Questions

Too much time is spent in most check-ins updating or directing. Powerful questions demonstrate curiosity and encourage productive conversation. Use open-ended questions (questions that begin with where , when , how , and what ) that help the conversation move forward. For example, instead of asking, “Any hurdles with project X?,” try, “How will you build momentum with project X?” or “What worked particularly well on Project Y that you think you can try again on Project Z?”

Here are a few great powerful questions to try:

What would be a great outcome to achieve during this conversation?
What makes you feel valued at work?
What can/should/will we celebrate?
What workstreams do you wish you could stop doing? Why?
What would you like feedback on?
Where would you like me to let you experiment and learn?
What’s left unsaid?

Consider the purpose of your next check-ins and what powerful questions you might ask to help you get there. For more ideas our Inspired Check-Ins card deck contains over 90 questions like these that can help you transform your Manager/Employee check-ins into truly meaningful touchpoints.

Step 3: Make Your Employees Feel Seen, Heard and Understood with Deep Listenin

Listening is one of the most underrated skills of managers, especially first-time managers. Many first-time managers think they should have all the answers, so they talk a lot and offer advice or solutions. But often, employees don’t want a solution, they just want to be seen and heard.

No matter what, you need to show a willingness to listen, ask follow up questions, and acknowledge what you hear. Create a space where your employee knows you won’t judge, jump to conclusions, or tell them what they “should do.” This will make them comfortable coming to you, asking directly when they want your advice, and growing with you.

What’s Next?

If you want to provide support and clarity to your team, stop winging it and start having one-on-one check-ins with purpose. Whether you take the reins or you empower your team members with tools and ideas, your meetings have the potential to be meaningful opportunities to connect.

Where Clarity Actually Happens: The Overlooked Power of the Manager/Employee Check-In

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 17:00:32 GMT

Many of the people we coach are people leaders who are stressed about supporting their people in the midst of (massive) organizational change. Then pile on the fact that they’re often losing resources and being asked to do more with less. We hear comments like:

I don’t know what to tell my team that will be helpful when I’m frustrated and overworked myself.
Leadership just keeps asking for more.
How do I keep them motivated? We don’t have any professional development money for them.

These leaders think that they have to show up with the answer to everyone else’s problems. They want to be able to provide a solution that will give their teams clarity and direction. They know that’s what their people want. And yet, they’re often ignoring the most critical tool in their arsenal.

Clarity and direction don’t necessarily come from having an answer. They come from connection… and all that requires is a conversation.

The manager/employee check-in is an underutilized and often poorly understood opportunity to motivate your team. But a great check-in can be a meaningful conversation through which managers and employees develop deep authentic connection and trust.

It is where leaders show up for their people. It’s the only leadership routine that can consistently and reliably:

Meet people where they are
Surface roadblocks
Refine priorities
Clarify expectations
Accelerate progress
Build psychological safety

Unfortunately, most leaders treat check-ins as time sinks and low-priority touch points. It turns into a status update on the work rather than a real human-to-human opportunity to connect. Then, when the connection is really important (like in the midst of change) the habit isn’t there.

If you lead one-on-one check-ins but find yourself:

Pushing or rescheduling meetings
Multitasking
Using them for project updates or status reports
Struggling to give the meeting structure
Lacking purpose
Running them on autopilot

…then there’s no way that you’re actually creating a space, and a relationship, that you can use to be an effective leader for your people.

If you want to provide support and clarity to your team, lean into thoughtful conversations and intentional one-on-one check-ins. Stay tuned for the March 16 post for 3 strategies to transform your check-ins into meaningful connections.

On March 19, 2026 we’re hosting a free webinar, Lead With Clarity: Check-In on Your Check-Ins, join to bring more intentionality and structure to these critical conversations..

On March 26, 2026, we’re hosting a hands-on workshop to explore the same concepts in even more depth

Stop Running Meetings. Start Leading Them

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 17:00:28 GMT

Last week, Kara coached Carl, a leader who was getting ready for a working group meeting. It was the group’s first opportunity to meet after their kickoff, and a critical moment to move the group from idea to action. Carl was concerned that people would be reluctant to contribute and then he’d be left alone to do the work without the crucial input from his stakeholders. What Carl needed was some space to get clear on the desired outcomes of his meeting, think through how he was going to run it, and make sure everyone was set up to contribute meaningfully. By the end of the session, Carl felt ready.

You can’t prepare to the same degree for all your meetings. Sometimes all you can do is make sure you have a Zoom link attached to the calendar invite. But for high-stakes moments, the discussions that truly matter and require input from others, you need to go further and approach them strategically. That is one of the clearest ways you demonstrate leadership.

Leadership is more than formal authority; it’s influence. And in a work culture that’s ruled by meetings, your ability to lead effective meetings is critical to your impact.

One of the best tools you can use to approach a meeting strategically is to design it for success, which is where Carl focused his preparation.

The KNOW-FEEL-DO framework is Wolf & Heron’s go-to framework for defining success for any meeting (or presentation). It asks you to answer the following questions:

At the end of the meeting:

What do you want your attendees to know?
What do you hope they feel?
What do you want them to do?

Clarity around this will help you plan everything else: draft materials, design a conversation flow, build slides (but only if you need them), identify critical questions, and more. Ambiguity around your KNOW-FEEL-DO outcomes will result in a meeting that jumps around, is hard to control, and will likely end up being inefficient (at best) or a complete waste of time (at worst)..

As part of using the KNOW-FEEL-DO framework, make sure you’re actually getting clarity. Let’s look at some examples of KNOW-FEEL-DO statements and compare the Okay ideas to Better ones.

On February 24, 2026 we’re hosting a free webinar, Clarity in Action, to learn how to lead meetings that truly get results.

Know

Feel

Do

Okay - I want attendees to know why we’re pursuing this initiative.
Better - I want attendees to understand that this initiative is critical to the new product launch because it will help us roll out at the optimal time (Q2).

Why it’s better: When you’re specific about what you want people to know, you’re also clear about what’s less important. The Better statement suggests that the meeting will focus on how the initiative connects to the timing of the product launch. The Okay statement only hints at the fact that the initiative is important, but doesn’t tell us why.

Okay - I want attendees to feel motivated.
Better - I want attendees to feel excited to participate in the working group because they see how their individual efforts will help create new opportunities for our users.

Why it’s better: The Better statement connects the emotion to the Working Group, and suggests that the motivation will come from seeing their efforts as part of a greater mission. The Okay statement identifies the ideal feeling, but not what is going to activate that feeling.

Okay - I want attendees to help the project.
Better - I want attendees to raise their hand and offer themselves up to lead different workstreams within the project, before we end the meeting.

Why it’s better: The Better statement is extremely specific about what attendees are expected to do. This specificity suggests that a good portion of the meeting should be reserved for assigning lead accountability to the different workstreams, and that social pressure will be a key tool in motivating the action. Again, this shapes your meeting design more effectively than the Okay statement, which hints at the big-picture goal, but doesn’t suggest how to get there.

Your ability to leverage the KNOW-FEEL-DO framework effectively has everything to do with how specific you can be. That specificity is what shifted Carl from feeling anxious about resistance to feeling confident about leading. Specificity gives you guard rails and narrows your focus to what really matters. And this gives you clarity.

Once you have clarity on what you hope to achieve, you’ll find several ways in which this clarity impacts your meeting design:

Double check your invite list: Are you inviting the right people? Who should you exclude or include?
Validate your timing: Is this too much to do in one meeting? Can you break it into several or make it more achievable?
Look at your meeting ramp-up and ramp-down plan: What do you need to do to prepare? What do your attendees need before the meeting to be truly effective? How will your follow-up help to drive your outcomes further?
Design your materials: Slide decks aren’t always the best approach. If you want input, give your attendees a template to complete. If you want alignment around priorities, imagine how you will vote on ideas both publicly and privately.
Examine your structure: A presentation with a Q&A is common, but may not always serve your goals best. A weekly “go around and give me the update” makes the team leader feel informed, but doesn’t give attendees a clear understanding of why they all have to sit through the whole thing. Consider the meeting structure that will best meet your goals.
Consider the emotional arc: How will you engage your audience emotionally based on how you want them to feel?

If you want to be a more effective and influential leader in your workplace, approach your meetings more strategically, especially the high-stakes moments that matter most. When you lead meetings well, you lead the work.

On February 26, 2026, we’re hosting a hands-on workshop to explore the same concepts in even more depth.

Why Most Agendas Fail (and How to Fix Them)

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 02:02:51 GMT

One of the most frustrating things Stephanie and Kara experience is facing a meeting on their calendar with a vague title and no agenda. Or (let’s be honest, it’s not much better) the laundry list of topics masquerading as an agenda. When looking at these meetings, Stephanie and Kara don’t know what’s expected of them, how to prepare, nor what the point of the meeting is at all. But… although we’re all victims of this workplace crime… we’re also the perpetrators.

Just last week Kara titled a meeting “Storytelling Kickoff” that didn’t have an agenda. Stephanie created a calendar invite titled “Call with Lynette.” It too, had no agenda. We were both invited to a blank “Connect.” Stephanie even registered for a webinar months ahead of time, but when the day came, the calendar invitation title was “Webinar” with no description or agenda, so of course she didn’t attend.

So often, we know we need to have a meeting. We have a list of things to work through or decide. AND, time is precious, so we get it on the calendar and promise ourselves to figure out the rest later. But the rest never gets done. And (fortunately, or unfortunately) we can often get away with it, even if we know it’s in poor form.

The reality of it is that most of the time these vague calendar invitations create a murky situation where attendees don’t know what to expect or why they’re there. And worse, it usually signals that the meeting lead hasn’t properly thought through how to facilitate the conversation. The outcomes are (surprise, surprise) that everyone wastes time and only a few things get done. For the high-stakes moments—critical milestones, difficult conversations, large groups, rare meetings—it’s a complete failure of leadership to not think through the meeting and intentionally design the experience in advance.

Most meeting agendas end up being public-facing lists of “items to discuss.” But a thought-through meeting agenda can (and should) be so much more than that. It should be a play-by-play facilitator guide that effectively structures the conversation to engage meeting attendees strategically, and drive toward concrete outcomes.

The biggest shift that you can make is to consider your meeting with the end in mind. Ask yourself, What does success look like? Our favorite way to do this is with the help of the Know-Feel-Do framework.

Before your meeting (ideally before you schedule it, but certainly before it happens), ask yourself:

By the end of the meeting:

What do I want the attendees to KNOW?
How do I want them to FEEL?
What do I want them to DO?

These questions serve you in a variety of ways. If you’re planning the gathering alone, they force you to clarify your goals. If you’re coordinating with a team, these questions help you align around goals with your colleagues. But they do more than that. They inform the meeting's invitation list, timing and flow, key decisions, next steps, and more. They help ensure you’re designing and leading a meeting that’s outcome-driven.

If you’re just getting started on being more intentional with your meetings, consider including these answers in your calendar invite in lieu of your laundry list of discussion items. You might find that just that tweak alone will pique the interest of your meeting attendees.

We’ll go deeper into the Know-Feel-Do framework and how to apply it to your meetings in our upcoming webinar.

A Secret to Presenting Technical Insights: Storytelling

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 17:00:11 GMT

Earlier this month, we talked about why data can be difficult to communicate . Data often lacks meaning, is hard to process, and rarely engages people emotionally. Fortunately, there’s a way to address all three challenges at once.

Storytelling is one of the most effective ways to make your data more compelling. Here’s why.

Stories are memorable.

Or, as we like to say at Wolf & Heron, stories stick. Research shows people recall about 5% of statistics but up to 63% of stories. Think of one of your favorite childhood books. Even years later, you likely remember the core idea, and maybe specific details or phrases. Now think about second grade. You certainly learned things, but it’s much harder to recall those details.

When information is wrapped in a story, we’re far more likely to retain it. Story is what sticks.

At Wolf & Heron, we help people become more effective communicators and storytellers, not just for the sake of it. We focus on this work because storytellers are more influential. Stories don’t just convey information. They help people make sense of it.

Stories engage your audience on two levels. On a rational level, they help people understand how ideas connect and why conclusions make sense. On an emotional level, they surface the stakes, why the information matters and why action is needed.

Story shouldn’t replace your data. Data builds credibility. Story helps your data insight land, makes it memorable, and moves people toward the action you want them to take.

Want to learn how to transform your data into a story? Join our upcoming webinar on January 22nd: Cut the Clutter: Turning Complex Data into Compelling Stories.

A story is a journey. A character moves from a beginning to an end, and along the way, something changes. There is always a transformation. In influential communication, that transformation is often the insight you want to surface or the conclusion you want your audience to reach. The story provides the background and progression that make that insight feel earned and logical.

When you wrap data in a story, you give it context and a point.

Stories activate both logic and emotion (boosting recall and persuasion.)

Your Data Isn’t Landing (and What To Do About It)

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 17:00:03 GMT

Recently, a product manager came to Kara looking for coaching on her storytelling skills and presentation delivery. When Kara asked what was behind the need, the client shared that she often has high-stakes moments with leadership where she needs to secure critical resources, like headcount. These conversations have serious implications for her team and her product’s success.

She knows her data inside and out. The decision she wants to recommend to her executives feels clear to her. She’s prepared… but when she walks into the meeting, her data doesn’t land, and her arguments fall flat.

She knows this because leadership asks questions like: What does this number mean? How do you know? They aren’t seeing the context, the “so what,” or how her data fits into the bigger picture of the business.

Three reasons data fails

Data on its own lacks meaning because it lacks context. If I say global investment in AI reached $189 billion in 2024, it’s meaningless without additional texture. Are we up or down? Is that significant in 2024? What’s the implication? What should you feel about the data?

You can give the number grounding by adding that it’s roughly equivalent to every person in the U.S. spending $600 on AI. You can then suggest the implication: what was once experimental has rapidly become essential infrastructure. Without context, the number itself is meaningless. With it, it becomes powerful.

When it comes to presenting data, every data point needs a clear So What.

2. Data is hard to process.

challenge increases when your audience isn’t as close to the data as you are, or when they’re non-technical.

Numbers aren’t inherently memorable. If you want buy-in or a decision, people need to understand and retain what you’re sharing. You can help that along by sharing a metaphor or walking through the information in bit sized pieces.

3. Data doesn’t engage your audience emotionally.

Data doesn’t pull at heartstrings. While people like to believe they make purely rational, data-driven decisions, we’re far more likely to gain support and alignment when we engage people emotionally as well.

When you’re sharing your data, your delivery (facial expressions, body language, projection, etc.) should make it easier for your audience to understand how you want them to feel.

This is a common challenge, particularly for professionals in technical fields, but it shows up across organizations. When you present a recommendation on a decision, you’re expected to support it with data. Data is what leaders ask for. So why isn’t it landing?

The problem isn’t the data. It’s that the data isn’t doing the work it needs to do.

In high-stakes moments, data alone doesn’t drive decisions. When your data doesn’t land with your audience, you’re likely to experience decision paralysis from them, repeated follow-up meetings, wasted time, and ultimately, lost credibility. Your recommendation may eventually be denied and you won’t get the headcount, funding, support, or momentum you were seeking.

Get clear on your message and influence objective
Add context and meaning that align with your audience and desired outcome
Remove the clutter.

Curious about how to cut the clutter and make your data land? Story is one of the most effective ways to bring clarity and meaning to complex information. Join our webinar on January 22, 2026: Cut the Clutter: Turning Complex Data into Compelling Stories.

1. Data lacks context.

To sum up

Making Meetings Work: Push Meetings Into Motion

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 13:40:47 GMT

Stephanie and Kara both learned early in our professional lives that follow-through matters. As students at Michigan Ross School of Business, it was drilled into us: after an interview, send a thoughtful thank-you note that references the conversation. It was presented as a way to stand out and be polite… a nice finishing touch to remember you by.

But although a thank you is polite, it doesn’t build momentum.

1. Create Continuity With Follow-Up

This is the heart of it. If you want progress, design the follow-through before the meeting even begins. Know your follow-up plan in advance because it’ll shape how you structure your meeting, and what you focus on from a note-taking perspective.

Effective follow-up includes:

A written summary sent to everyone, even those who missed it
Clear owners and deadlines for each action
A scheduled nudge (or two, or three)
A quick huddle if something needs alignment
Visibility into what’s progressing and what’s stuck

This is about creating a pathway, not policing behavior. Your team shouldn’t need to guess what happens next. You should make it easy for them to take the next step.

2. Plan How Insights Will Be Shared, Tracked, or Reinforced

Alignment dies in the dark. If you want momentum, make decisions and insights visible. Create shared documents. Use trackers. Highlight progress at the start of the next meeting. Reinforce the behaviors you want to see.

It might feel like bureaucracy, but it isn’t. It’s clarity.

A shared record:

Reduces confusion
Prevents duplicate work
Builds accountability
Makes progress feel real

If it’s important enough to discuss, it’s important enough to document.

3. Seed the Next Conversation Before You End This One

Momentum happens when a meeting creates something to talk about afterward.

Before you close, ask:

“What will we need to revisit next time?”
“What should people reflect on before we meet again?”
“Where might someone hit a roadblock?”

Planting these seeds makes sure your meeting produces outcomes, not just conversation.

Making Meetings Work | A Practical Series for Team Leads and Managers

Most professionals spend hours each week in meetings, yet too many of those hours feel wasted. At Wolf & Heron, we believe meetings should create clarity, connection, and momentum—not frustration. This article is the fourth and final installment of a series that helps team leads and managers design and facilitate meetings that actually work.

Meetings Don’t Create Momentum. Follow-Through Does.

It wasn’t until building Wolf & Heron that Stephanie understood just how powerful follow-through really is. After our workshops, we offer one-on-one coaching sessions. Over time, we noticed a clear pattern: if we scheduled an email to go out 15 minutes before the workshop ended, including a link to the scheduler, uptake skyrocketed. And when we added a second follow-up a few days later, uptake increased again. Add a third? Even higher.

This isn’t magic. It’s human behavior. People need reminders, prompts, framing, and easy pathways to action.

Yet in meetings, we often skip the very thing that makes progress possible.

Once, when Stephanie suggested a follow-up habit to a client who struggled to get traction with her team, she pushed back. “We talk about action items in the meeting,” she said. “Everyone should own their responsibilities. Why do I need to babysit them?”

It was a fair question. But Sptehanie had two replies:

1. Are you absolutely sure there’s alignment?

Things get lost in translation all the time—even when we all speak the same language. A shared, written record irons out misunderstandings before they become missteps.

2. Do you want to do everything you can to set people up for success, or leave it to chance?

A gentle nudge is not micromanaging. It’s leadership.

Meetings don’t create movement on their own. You have to follow up to see follow through.

Here are four ways to push your meetings into action.

4. Tie Meetings to Habits and Rhythms

One meeting can spark ideas, but those ideas go nowhere without a cadence of touchpoints to sustain it.

Build lightweight habits like:

A two-minute check-in at the start of every meeting
A weekly accountability loop
A monthly reflection on commitments

When follow-through becomes routine, progress becomes predictable.

Meetings Don’t End. They Evolve.

The meeting itself isn’t the endgame. Leaders who master follow-through don’t leave momentum to chance. They design it.

What’s your plan for making your next meeting ripple forward?

Want help timing discussions and transitions? Join the Wolf and Heron Influence Library and grab all the tools mentioned in this article series along with plenty more to help you grow your influence. Register for free!

Bonus:

Making Meetings Work: Facilitate With Flexibility

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 13:34:27 GMT

Early in our Wolf & Heron days, Stephanie facilitated our Influential Storytelling workshop for a major new client. It was a high-stakes moment: 100+ people in the room, a huge win for us, and her first time delivering the workshop solo. She opened with a story she had polished, rehearsed, and delivered successfully many times before.

1. Don’t Rush Learning — Let Insights Breathe

Most meeting leaders cram content into every minute of the agenda, then wonder why people look overwhelmed or disengaged. Real learning or conversation doesn’t happen on command. It happens in the space between the moments you planned.

When your team has an aha moment… pause. When you ask a question and people need time to think… let them. When energy spikes around a topic… follow it instead of shutting it down to “stay on time.”

Your ability to create space for real thinking is what separates a facilitator from a timekeeper.

This is where flexibility becomes a leadership signal. You’re showing that the people in the room matter more than the clock. And when people feel that, they engage more honestly and more deeply.

If you want predictable compliance, rush. If you want true insight, adapt on the fly.

2. Choose Facilitators Based on Skill, Not Title

A manager with authority isn’t automatically a facilitator with influence.

Many meetings fail because the most senior person is asked to run the discussion even if they can’t read the room, adjust their pacing, or support divergent thinking. Facilitation is a skill, not a default privilege of title.

If the goal is alignment, decision-making, or deeper dialogue, choose someone who can:

Sense when the group is stuck
Adjust the format on the fly
Keep dominant voices in check
Amplify quieter ones
Navigate tension without shutting it down

You don’t need the loudest voice at the front. You need the most responsive one.

3. Plan for Transitions and Buffer Time

Most rigidity comes from unrealistic timing. Leaders plan to the minute, forgetting that humans move, ask questions, and need direction. Transitions are real, and they add up.

According to our Breakout Rules of Thumb, you can count on a couple of minutes for each transition. Build that space into your agenda so you’re not squeezing your content or your people.

And remember: every meeting should feel like a breakout . If you’re just presenting, ask yourself whether you need a meeting at all.

Making Meetings Work | A Practical Series for Team Leads and Managers

Most professionals spend hours each week in meetings, yet too many of those hours feel wasted. At Wolf & Heron, we believe meetings should create clarity, connection, and momentum—not frustration. This article is the third installment of a four-part series that helps team leads and managers design and facilitate meetings that actually work.

When Your Plan Meets Reality

But about halfway through, she could tell it wasn’t landing. The room wasn’t leaning in. They weren’t seeing themselves in the story. They weren’t connecting. And instead of adjusting, Stephanie plowed on… After all, she wanted to stick to “the plan.”

When it ended, instead of applause, Stephanie got crickets.

A seasoned facilitator might have paused, acknowledged the disconnect, and used it as a shared moment to explore why the story didn’t resonate. It would have been an easy entry point into the lessons about storytelling that she was there to teach. But Stephanie stuck to the script, and so the tension thickened. The room never recovered. And that client never invited us back.

It was a painful masterclass in what not to do.

That workshop taught us something important: If you’re following your agenda more closely than you’re following the people, you’re not facilitating.

4. Time Questions Realistically

If you ask a room of eight people to discuss a question, expect it to take at least three to four minutes. If you ask them to reflect individually first, add more time. When dialogue is rushed, people shut down; good dialogue is designed to breathe.

Most facilitators underestimate how long high-quality thinking takes. Great facilitators design for it.

Your Agenda Is a Map, Not a Script

The goal isn’t to deliver your plan flawlessly. The goal is to move the group toward meaningful progress. Leading with awareness requires flexibility, not control.

Your agenda is a map, not a script. What will you do when the room veers off course?

Bonus:

Want help timing discussions and transitions? Join the Wolf and Heron Influence Library and grab all the tools from this article along with plenty more to help you grow your influence. Register for free access and check out the Breakout Rules of Thumb for tips on designing meetings that breathe.

Making Meetings Work: Design to Engage Everyone, Every Time

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 13:26:50 GMT

Carissa came to Stephanie frustrated. She had a 15-minute slot with her executive leadership team, and she wanted to understand why her user-research findings weren’t influencing leadership action. She had spent months gathering insights, synthesizing trends, and surfacing recommendations, yet every time she presented them, leaders nodded politely and moved on. There was no change or follow through.

1. Let the Group Do the Work

If you’re talking for more than half of your meeting, you’re not facilitating, you’re performing. And performance rarely leads to engagement.

The simplest way to invite participation is to stop answering every question yourself. Stop presenting as if the goal is to prove you’ve done your homework. Your audience doesn’t need more polished slides; they need structured space to think, discuss, debate, and generate.

Instead of an open Q&A (where extroverts take over and everyone else hides), shift to structured small-group discussion. Two to four people at a time. Specific prompts. Clear time limits. A focused debrief at the end.

When the group processes the ideas themselves, three things happen:

You get better ideas.
You get broader ownership.
You get momentum that survives the meeting.

When in doubt? Talk less. Facilitate more.

2. Start Small to Build Psychological Safety

People don’t jump from silence to bold contribution. They need to get comfortable and warm up first.

If you want participation, start with low-stakes asks, e.g. short pair-shares, written reflections, anonymous inputs. As confidence grows, increase the ask. This is why our Ramp Up the Ask guide works so well. It helps you design a participation arc that meets the group where it is and brings them along safely.

Carissa understood this instinctively: leaders started by responding to simple questions on the wall before moving into deeper prompts.

Small steps give you the potential to go big.

3. Ditch the Deck

Slides encourage one behavior above all: talking at people. And when you talk at people, they stop thinking for themselves (and check out mentally).

If the goal is alignment, decision-making, or insight gathering, try something else:

A question printed at the top of a poster.
A handful of sticky notes.
A template small groups fill in together.

These tools force engagement. People move, write, point, debate. They become actors instead of an audience.

Our Materials for Meeting Success guide offers dozens of simple alternatives that spark interaction and avoid the monologue.

Making Meetings Work | A Practical Series for Team Leads and Managers

Most professionals spend hours each week in meetings, yet too many of those hours feel wasted. At Wolf & Heron, we believe meetings should create clarity, connection, and momentum—not frustration. This article is the second installment of a four-part series that helps team leads and managers design and facilitate meetings that actually work.

When Talking More Doesn’t Mean Achieving More

So for this meeting, she prepared what most of us would: a clear, polished deck. Fifteen minutes of tight slides. Fifteen minutes of her talking. Fifteen minutes of hoping her message would finally land.

But when she shared her plan, Stephanie challenged her.

“You said your goal was to understand your leaders better. Why are you preparing to talk at them for fifteen minutes?”

It stopped her. A presentation wasn’t going to get her what she needed.

So we flipped the script.

Instead of pushing information, Carissa pulled it. She replaced her deck with a rapid-fire, 15-minute activity. Leaders rotated through four flip charts around the room, each with a single question that mattered to the future of her workstream. They added ideas, reacted to one another, surprised each other, and energized the room.

By the end, Carissa had the insights she needed and (even better) the leaders praised her for running one of the most engaging moments of their morning. She was even invited back.

Carissa didn’t get quieter. She got smarter about designing for participation.

4. Use Visual Scaffolding to Give Structure

Posters, flip charts, worksheets, and templates do more than make a meeting look organized. They create a shared visual anchor for conversation. They help people externalize their thinking, see relationships, and build on each other’s ideas.

This is exactly how Carissa kept her 15-minute activity tight and focused. Each flip chart acted as a container for thinking, which made the conversation more productive.

Scaffolding doesn’t restrict creativity. It unlocks it because the guidance is focused and people have more time to play.

Stop Performing. Start Facilitating.

The more your group participates, the more they own the work, —and the more likely they are to act on it afterward. You don’t have to be the star of the meeting. You have to be the spark.

What’s one place in your next meeting where you can stop talking and let them engage instead?

Bonus:

Want help timing discussions and transitions? Join the Wolf & Heron Influence Library and grab all the tools from this article along with plenty more to help you grow your influence. Register for free access and check out the Ramp Up the Ask and Materials for Meeting Success guides.

Making Meetings Work: Plan With Purpose

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 19:39:56 GMT

We’ve all sat through meetings that looked good on paper but left us frustrated. Stephanie was recently invited to a meeting that included an agenda right in the calendar invite!

Intentional Design vs. Going Through the Motions

Many leaders think that creating an agenda is “designing” a meeting. But intentional design is different. It’s about thinking through what people need, how outcomes will be achieved, and what structure will guide the group to progress. Done well, intentional design makes the difference between meetings that waste time and meetings that move the work (and attendees) forward.

Here are four ways to plan with purpose.

1. Start With Empathy

Most leaders begin by asking themselves, What do I want to say? What do I want to accomplish? That’s natural, but it’s also why so many meetings fall flat. The starting point should be: What does the group need from this meeting?

What do they need to hear? What are they emotionally or psychologically ready to take on? Where are they and what do they need? This is especially critical during times of change, which (let’s be honest) is basically all the time now . But it applies just as much in routine standups or one-on-ones. A meeting designed without empathy can feel rushed, irrelevant, or even unsafe. A meeting designed with empathy creates space for people to engage fully.

2. Clarify What Success Looks Like

The most common mistake leaders make when defining meeting outcomes is focusing only on what people should know by the time the meeting ends. Some go a step further and think about what people should do. But almost no one thinks about how they want people to feel. And here’s the inconvenient truth: how people feel at the end of a meeting will determine what happens next.

Without a clear idea of what you want people to know, feel, AND do, meetings are overstuffed with context, details, and noise. Again, it’s a list of topics, not an intentional, outcome-oriented discussion. A better approach is to set “Know, Feel, Do” objectives:

Know: the specific knowledge people should walk away with.
Feel: the emotional state you want to cultivate (confidence, urgency, ownership, inspiration).
Do: the action that should follow.

Before you send out the meeting invite, clarify your meeting’s Know/Feel/Do by finishing these three sentences:

At the end of the meeting, attendees will know…
At the end of the meeting, attendees will feel…
At the end of the meeting, attendees will do…

By determining all three of these outcomes, you’ll design meetings that are focused, human-centered, and action-driven. Plus, if the meeting planning itself requires stakeholder buy-in, these statements go a long way to getting real alignment.

3. Sketch a Realistic Flow

Translating your outcomes into an agenda goes beyond putting together a list of activities or topics.

Take a brainstorming session as an example. If the true goal is to make a final decision, then you’re not just “generating ideas.” In reality, you need to:

Generate options
Agree on a prioritization framework
Evaluate options against that framework
Vote or align on the best choice
Confirm buy-in and secure commitment

That’s a lot of steps. If you only have 30 minutes, you may need to narrow the scope: maybe end at idea generation and assign a team to develop the evaluation framework for next time. On the other hand, if you can realistically get through all those steps, you’re already well on your way to a crisp, productive meeting.

The key is to lay out every step. Start with where you want to end and work backwards to where the group actually is right now. Then allocate time thoughtfully, including room for transitions and questions. Better to design a process that fits than to overload and spill into “yet another follow-up meeting.”

Making Meetings Work | A Practical Series for Team Leads and Managers

Most professionals spend hours each week in meetings, yet too many of those hours feel wasted. At Wolf & Heron, we believe meetings should create clarity, connection, and momentum—not frustration. This article is the first installment of a four-part series that gives team leads and managers the tools to design and facilitate meetings that actually create follow through.

Why “Organized” Meetings Still Fail

That alone set it above many other invites she sees. The topics were relevant to her, so she showed up expecting that her presence would matter.

But once the meeting started, it became clear the agenda was just a list of “topics to discuss.” The facilitator didn’t have any real process, and the group didn’t have clarity about what it was supposed to achieve. They only made it through half of the items, and even those felt unresolved. Stephanie expected a decision, but instead the group closed with, “We need more information.” There were scattered action items, but they were unassigned and it was unclear whether those were the right next steps. The result? Another meeting on the calendar to circle back. Stephanie left feeling like a lot of time had been spent “meeting” but no real progress had been made.

This happens when the meeting leader or organizer fails to intentionally design the meeting.

4. Get Creative and Get Detailed

Once you have an overall flow for the time together, get creative with how you will spend the time to get to your outcomes. Too much time spent listening to a presentation will undercut all your thoughtfulness to this point.

For each step in your flow, consider:

How can I make this actually engaging?
If I can’t use a slide deck, how might I communicate this?
How can I structure the ways people will talk, write, and share?
Should we do this in partners or small groups before we align as a larger group?

Getting creative with the activities and design of each moment in your meeting will make sure that everyone is truly participating and getting on the same page, and not just watching you talk. The more you ask people to do something during a meeting, the more bought in they are to the follow-ups after.

Once you have your ideas, write out your detailed agenda. You want a document with a detailed play-by-play including timing, materials, and key outcomes for each segment of the agenda. Building one forces you to clarify each step and how you’ll lead the group through it. It makes you a cleaner, clearer leader.

For example, instead of improvising and rephrasing a question three different ways, you’ve already refined the wording. Instead of guessing at time management as you go, you’ve already set realistic allotments. If you’re crunched for time, even a simple guide with bullet points and time estimates helps you run a meeting with more confidence and focus. It’s a small investment that pays off in effectiveness.

From a Topic List to Real Outcomes

Although the meeting Stephanie was invited to looked organized at the outset, it wasn’t designed with intention. There were topics to discuss, but unclear desired outcomes. That’s the trap most leaders fall into, and an opportunity for you to stand out.

Plan with purpose.

For your next meeting, try to design your agenda “backwards.” Start with outcomes you want to achieve, and work your way backwards in the process until you get to where the group is now.

Our Meeting Manifesto: Reclaiming the Power of Gathering at Work

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 09:44:37 GMT

Stephanie left each meeting frustrated, disappointed not in her colleagues, but in the waste. The team cared deeply. What they lacked was structure and design.

And that is the problem. Not just with this meeting, but with meetings everywhere.

Why Meetings Matter More Than We Admit

Meetings are the most expensive way organizations spend time together. Executives now spend 23 hours a week in meetings, up from 10 hours in the 1960s. Multiply that across teams and the investment is staggering. But the ugly truth is people don’t actually think meetings are all that valuable. In the U.S. alone, unproductive meetings cost an estimated $37 billion annually.

Yet when a meeting fails, few blame leadership or facilitation. Instead, people shrug and say things like, “We have so much to cover, we’re just going to need another meeting” or “That one guy talked too much. I wish he could rein it in.”

Facilitation is invisible when it works and ignored when it doesn’t. Which means leaders rarely improve at it, and teams keep bleeding time, energy, and morale.

But a well-run meeting is one of the highest-leverage spends a leader can make. Research shows that organizations investing in meeting design and facilitation see 17% higher team productivity and 24% stronger performance ratings. One well-facilitated strategy session can save months of misalignment, recouping its cost in weeks, if not days.

The Meeting Manifesto

We believe meetings can and should be the most powerful lever a leader has to both motivate and engage their people and make sure the organization’s work gets done. Meetings can be the lifeblood of an organizational culture, and are key to innovation and cross-functional collaboration. Here are our declarations:

1. Meetings shape what your people know, feel, and do.

A meeting is not just about exchanging information. It is about creating clarity, sparking connection, and driving commitment. The true success of a meeting should be measured in what people do afterwards. After all… that pretty slide deck? the alignment you came to? None if it matters if the stories people tell after the meeting communicate something different. Meetings should be designed with the outcomes in mind from the beginning, and measured by how well those outcomes are achieved.

2. Great facilitation is an underappreciated skill of leadership.

Facilitation is more than managing airtime. It’s anticipating dynamics, shaping flow, and guiding a group toward alignment and action. The best facilitation begins before anyone walks in the room, and carries on long after the meeting ends. If done right, voices are heard, buy-in is built, alignment is engineered, and execution happens. The ability to run a meeting well is the ability to lead, full stop.

3. Meetings deserve intentional design, not defaults.

Status updates, decision-making, brainstorming, and team building all are valid reasons for a meeting. The problem is that most meetings are designed by habit, shaped by meeting type and not meeting purpose. Copy/paste invites and recycled agendas don’t get results. Intentional design does. Meetings should be designed to encourage the necessary conversations with the right people.

Missed Opportunities

Too many leaders miss the chance to transform even the most routine gatherings. Three stories that highlight common examples stand out:

One-on-Ones Transformed

Jennifer, a coaching client, told Stephanie her one-on-ones were rote, box-checking rituals: “How are you?” “Any blockers?” “How can I help?” Each question would typically get a short, non-answer. “It’s like pulling teeth!” Jennifer complained.

She and Stephanie took a minute to redesign the structure of her one-on-ones. They put together some intentional framing, deeper questions, and even a short pre-meeting worksheet for her team members to fill out. Overnight, Jennifer said the meetings transformed into a space of mutual value. Within just a few weeks, she understood her team members and their challenges much more deeply, and was able to advocate on their behalf more effectively. Just by tweaking the structure of a 30-min monthly meeting, Jennifer became a more effective team lead.

Weekly Status Update Reimagined

A new manager was assigned to Agatha’s team, and one of the first things to change was the format of the Monday Standup. Rather than going around the group and letting each person “give an update,” the manager narrowly defined what an update was: not more than 2 mins, featuring 1 win from last week and 1 ask to the group for this week. The manager literally used a stopwatch to hold people accountable. Yes, it was intense, and it took the team some getting used to, but meetings took half the time and were 10x more valuable than before. It wasn't perfect, but it was intentional.

Last-Minute “Report Out” Transforms into Thoughtful Team Building

A client came to Kara and Stephanie with a challenge: they hoped to leverage an already-scheduled, 4-hour, in-person gathering for everyone who had recently been assigned to a newly launching role. They knew there would be a lot of questions about the duties and responsibilities of the role, but they weren’t going to have a lot of answers yet. Rather than throwing together a last-minute slide deck presentation, we brainstormed a different approach: They would spend a short amount of time getting an update on the change and timing, and then have a candid, Q&A conversation with a panel of leaders. Finally, the group would spend time on a team-building activity to help them get to know each other and decide who they wanted to be as a team. There’s always an opportunity to design your meeting time productively.

Monthly (Now-Virtual) Networking Event Finds New Life

Jefferson came to Stephanie because his monthly gathering of leaders from environmental non-profits across the Great Lakes Region was losing oomph. COVID had forced everyone to go virtual, and no one saw the point of coming anymore. How could they possibly network now that there wasn’t time for small talk? Together, Stephanie and Jefferson redesigned the meeting. Rather than having one person present for 45 minutes “about their work,” Jefferson invited 3 different people to each present for only 5 min on a specific problem they needed help solving. Then the group was asked to join one of three breakout rooms where they would be invited to share resources and advice with the presenter they felt most called to help. After only 2 sessions in this new format, attendance skyrocketed and Jefferson kept hearing how useful these gatherings had become to members.

The lesson: even ordinary meetings can become high-impact when designed with purpose.

What’s at Stake

Poorly designed meetings don’t just waste time. They silence voices, stall innovation, and erode culture. Research estimates that mismanaged meetings may cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually, not only in direct lost hours but in disengagement and missed opportunities.

But the reverse is also true. Well-designed meetings build momentum, sharpen strategy, and accelerate alignment. They protect your team’s energy and amplify your leadership.

The way you fix your meeting problem is by fixing your leaders. Leaders who treat meetings as their highest-leverage tool (and cultivate their facilitation skills) create rooms where strategy lives, buy-in builds, and action begins.

Stop seeing meetings as calendar burdens. Start seeing them as your most under-leveraged leadership opportunity.

Stephanie walked into the conference room with a mix of hope and skepticism. The calendar invite had been clear: a working session to draft a new mission statement for the division. Fifteen people sat around the table, laptops open, coffees in hand, waiting.

The facilitator began well enough, naming the goal out loud. But within minutes the room descended into word-smithing. One person lobbed phrases across the table, another circled back to a half-formed idea, two colleagues (politely?) interrupted each other. The rest sat silently, waiting for inspiration to strike. The conversation stalled, then sputtered, then repeated. Stephanie doodled in her notebook.

By the end of the hour, guess what? There was no mission statement. Just a placeholder on the calendar for a follow-up meeting where the same circus would unfold. Two more sessions later, the group finally had a result, but at the cost of more than an entire workweek of manhours.

Summary of Takeaways

Meetings are the most expensive way organizations spend time together, yet they are often the most under-leveraged leadership tool. To reclaim the power of gathering and stop "bleeding" productivity, leaders must adopt three core declarations:

Design Around "Know, Feel, Do": A meeting’s success isn't measured by the agenda covered, but by the outcomes achieved. Every session should be intentionally designed to shape what participants KNOW (clarity), FEEL (connection/motivation), and DO (commitment/action) immediately afterward.
Elevate Facilitation as a Core Leadership Skill: Facilitation is more than just managing time; it’s about engineering alignment and ensuring every voice is heard. Great facilitation begins long before the meeting starts and is the invisible engine that drives organizational execution.
Replace Defaults with Intentional Design: Status updates, brainstorms, and team building all require different structures. Stop relying on recycled agendas and copy-pasted invites. When you customize the format to the specific purpose—such as transforming rote 1-on-1s with deeper inquiry—you turn routine check-ins into high-value strategic opportunities.
The Cost of Inaction: Poorly designed meetings don't just waste money; they erode organizational culture and stall innovation. Leaders who master meeting design create environments where strategy lives and momentum begins.

Navigating Change: A Guide for Leading from the Middle

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 14:00:00 GMT

How to Help People Through Change

When change is happening quickly, and people are experiencing a high level of uncertainty, they don’t need perfect answers or polished messaging. They need:

A safe place to vent
Clarity
Agency in how to respond
A reminder that they’re not alone

Earlier in Kara’s career, her company went through a major leadership shakeup. The top-level communication was vague, and the change felt disorienting. What made it bearable and kept her grounded was the support of colleagues and a manager who listened. Even when there were no answers, there was connection. That made all the difference.

It’s not a set of fancy slide decks and perfect policies that gets you and your team through a time like this. It’s everyday interactions that shape how people move through change: conversations in one-on-ones, team check-ins, or even while you’re waiting for other folks to join your meeting.

Putting It Into Action

Breaking down those 4 things people need, we’ll highlight a few key questions from the Navigating Change Card Deck as well as some scripts you can share that will help you help your people through change.

1. Become A Safe Place

Before you can move forward, people need space to process the full range of the emotions they’re feeling: anger, grief, frustration, relief, excitement, shame, confusion… the list goes on and on. Ask open-ended questions that let people name what’s hard:

“What’s the hardest part of this for you?”
“What is the impact of the change on us? On others?”

This shows you’re not afraid of their emotions, and you’re willing to have the hard conversations. You don’t have to solve all the issues that are named. All you need to do is listen and make sure they feel heard.

2. Clarify What’s Known, and What Isn’t

In the midst of change, people are going to have a lot of questions. They’re wondering how they will be impacted, when things will happen, and other very big questions that matter to the day to day at work. As their leader, they’re going to look to you for clarity.

Don’t shy away from this. Clarity doesn’t require certainty. Communicate often. Share what you know, what you don’t and when and how you will learn more. Don’t let your desire for more information get in the way of communicating something along the way. Try things like:

“Here’s what I understand today, and here’s what’s still evolving.”
“Here are the questions I’m hoping to answer soon.”
“Here’s my plan for what to do while we’re still waiting for things to unfold.”

Your silence will lead to anxiety and your transparency will lead to trust… even if all you communicate is what you still don’t know, and your plan to figure it out.

3. Invite Ownership

One of the impacts of navigating change is a feeling of having lost control and direction. In that environment people can be fearful and anxious. Make sure you’re finding ways, big and small, to invite people into the process and give them whatever control, and direction, you can. Questions you ask might include:

“What is under our control? What isn’t?”
“What can we influence or shape right now?”
“What’s one action we can take together this week?”

These conversations will help reframe things for your people. They’ll focus your team on where they can have an impact and find momentum.

4. Model Authenticity and Commitment

This is a moment when your people are observing you closely. Your ability to model what it looks like to navigate the change in a positive way will help your people understand how they should show up. Try some of these ideas:

Tell a story about how it’s been challenging for you.
Share an insight you’ve had as you navigate the process.
Brainstorm ways you will take care of yourself and each other together.

Again, this doesn’t have to be perfectly scripted. Your vulnerability will help your people see you as more than a defensive messenger. At the same time, be sure to give equal space to sharing what’s hard and sharing opportunities and productive ways you have found to move forward.

Each of these moments becomes easier and more impactful when leaders have the right language and support. The Navigating Change Card Deck is a practical tool that offers question prompts and conversation tips for each of these key moments, taking the guesswork out of what to say and when to say it.

A safe place to vent
Clarity
Agency in how to respond
A reminder that they’re not alone

When it comes to navigating change, mid-level managers have it rough. They’re stuck between a rock (experiencing intense change) and a hard place (supporting their people through it). They have to carry the emotional burden of leading their teams through change without any control over the bigger decisions. And to pile on, McKinsey research shows most transformation efforts fail—not because of poor strategy, but because the people responsible for day-to-day leadership aren’t equipped to guide others through uncertainty.

Just this week, on a coaching call with Kara, a client shared that her number one goal was to keep her employees motivated in the midst of huge change within her organization.

Fortunately, there are several things managers can do to help their people (and themselves) navigate change.

Summary of Takeaways

Mid-level managers often bear the heaviest emotional burden during organizational change, stuck between implementing executive decisions and supporting their teams. To lead effectively through uncertainty, focus on these four human-centered strategies:

Create a Safe Space for Process: Before teams can move forward, they need space to vent and name their emotions (anger, grief, confusion). You don't need to solve every problem; simply listening and asking open-ended questions like, "What’s the hardest part of this for you?" makes the orientation bearable.
Prioritize Transparency Over Certainty: Don't wait for "perfect" answers to communicate. Share what you know, what you don't, and your plan for finding out. Silence breeds anxiety, while transparency—even about evolving details—builds trust.
Invite Agency and Ownership: Change often makes people feel they've lost control. Reframe the narrative by identifying what is within the team's control. Ask, "What can we influence right now?" or "What is one action we can take together this week?" to help them find momentum.
Model Authenticity: Your team is watching how you show up. Share your own challenges and insights authentically rather than acting as a "defensive messenger." By being vulnerable and brainstorming self-care together, you provide a productive roadmap for others to follow.

The Surprising Challenge of a Short Talk: Why less time means more pressure—and how to rise to the occasion.

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 14:21:00 GMT

The world’s attention is getting shorter—especially when it comes to talks. From TED and DisruptHR to board meetings and team stand-ups, speaking formats are shrinking. Five to ten minutes is quickly becoming the new standard. And while that may sound like a relief to anyone who dreads long presentations, short talks are surprisingly difficult to get right.

In fact, we’d argue they’re harder. A lot harder.

Why short talks are uniquely challenging

The instinct most people have when faced with a shorter time slot is to simply… talk faster. But that’s exactly the wrong move. The real challenge isn’t how fast you can cram in your usual 30-minute presentation—it’s how focused you can get your thinking.

Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician and philosopher, once wrote in a letter to a friend, “Sorry my letter is so long. If I had more time, it would have been shorter.” (This quote is often misattributed to Mark Twain). Pascal was commenting on a rather important quality of communication: conciseness and clarity require more careful thought and effort than simply expounding at length.

The shorter the talk, the greater the pressure to be clear and concise. You don’t have time for meandering stories or layered nuance. You have one shot to land your message—and if that message isn’t sharply defined (and compelling!), the whole thing falls flat.

Three common pitfalls show up in short talks:

Content overload. Speakers try to cover too much and rush through it, leaving the audience overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time.
Lack of clarity. The message gets muddled because the speaker knows too much about their topic and struggles to prioritize.
No call to action. Short talks often end with a fizzle rather than a bang because the speaker hasn’t defined what they want the audience to do next.

We’ve seen this play out again and again—and yes, we’ve been guilty of it ourselves.

What actually works

If you want your short talk to land well, preparation matters more than ever. And not just any preparation— intentional preparation focused on clarity of message and effective delivery.

Here’s where we start:

1. Use the KNOW–FEEL–DO framework.
Before building your outline or deck, answer each of these three questions with a single, crisp sentence:

What do I want the audience to KNOW after my talk?
What do I want them to FEEL?
What do I want them to DO?

If you can’t answer those clearly, you’re not ready to write the talk. That framework forces clarity—and serves as a north star throughout the entire preparation process.

2. Record yourself.
With a 5-minute talk, every second counts. Repetition, filler, or weak delivery has nowhere to hide. Recording yourself (video is best, but audio only can still make a difference) is a fast and powerful way to identify what’s working and what needs trimming. You’ll spot pacing issues, awkward transitions, and moments where you lose energy—all of which are fixable with practice.

Don’t forget to build in time for your audience to respond

Stephanie recently gave a talk for DisruptHR—a format that’s as tight as it gets: 5 minutes, 20 slides, and each slide auto-advances every 15 seconds. You have zero control over your deck once you start.

Stephanie was proud of that talk. It was fun, it hit the points she wanted to hit, and it gave her a chance to practice what she preaches. But she also learned an important lesson the hard way: build in time for audience reactions. She hadn’t anticipated laughter or applause, and both ate up time. She ended up going a little long—not because she wasn’t prepared, but because she didn’t leave space for the audience to be with her.

Lesson learned.

Shorter is here to stay

Short talks aren’t going away. In fact, they’re expanding into spaces where long-form presentations used to dominate. And honestly? That’s a good thing. A 30-minute monologue isn’t always the best way to communicate—or influence.

But with this shift comes responsibility. It’s not enough to cut your slides in half and hope for the best. You need to get clear on your message. You need to know what you want the audience to walk away with. And you need to practice delivering that message with precision, presence, and polish.

Because short talks may be small in minutes—but they can still be huge in impact.

Check out Stephanie’s May 2025 delivery of The Slide Trap for DisruptHR Colorado Springs. The format is very specific:

5 min talk
20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds

Attack Your Meeting Problem With a Set of Questions

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 14:05:00 GMT

Instead, we did what most people do in that situation: we spiraled into an hour-long loop of half-formed ideas, hesitant suggestions, polite interruptions, and a general sense of “why am I here?” When the meeting ended, we had no theme, no direction, and no clarity.

We repeated that same meeting two more times before finally making a decision.

Three hours. Fifteen people. That’s practically an entire workweek spent chasing inspiration we could have found with a bit more structure and intentionality.

And that’s the problem. Not just with this meeting—but with meetings everywhere.

The Meeting Problem

Most organizations don’t have a meeting problem so much as they have a thinking-about-meetings problem.

Too many meetings are:

Scheduled by default (“We always meet on Tuesdays.”)
Held without a clear purpose or plan
Dominated by a few voices while others check email
Drifting aimlessly without resolution or follow-up

And that’s if people show up in the first place.

In our work with leaders across industries, we’ve seen this over and over: intelligent, well-intentioned people wasting hours in meetings that feel more like performance art than productivity. It's not that they don’t care. It’s that no one ever taught them how to design and facilitate a great meeting.

What If You Treated a Meeting Like the Event it actually is?

Think about it. When you plan an offsite, a conference, or even a dinner party, you ask yourself questions like:

Who should be there and why?
What do we want people to walk away with?
How can we keep the energy up and make space for meaningful engagement?

But when it comes to meetings? We wing it.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

At Wolf & Heron, we believe meetings should be purposeful, engaging, and—dare we say it—worth it. That’s why we created the Master Your Meetings card deck.

A Better Way to Meet

This isn’t just another stack of conversation starters or icebreakers. The Master Your Meetings card deck is a tool for anyone who wants to design and lead more intentional, effective, and efficient meetings—whether you’re an HR professional coaching managers, or a team lead pulling people together for a cross-functional workstream.

Inside the deck, you’ll find:

50+ powerful planning questions to help you think through purpose, people, process, and potential pitfalls—before you send the invite.
Facilitation tips to handle the inevitable curveballs (because no agenda survives first contact with a calendar full of overworked humans).
Meeting design strategies grounded in the science of influence—so you can spark participation, drive alignment, and get stuff done.

In short: this deck is like a meeting whisperer in your pocket. It helps you stop running on autopilot and start showing up with purpose.

Because Time Is Too Valuable to Waste

The truth is, meetings aren’t going anywhere. And that’s okay. Meetings—when done right—can be places of insight, momentum, and connection.

But they don’t get that way by accident.

So the next time you're tempted to just “get everyone in a room and talk it out,” pause and ask yourself a better question.

Actually—ask yourself 50 better questions.

Because with a little more thoughtfulness, your meetings can be the best use of everyone’s time—not just a black hole in the calendar.

Set yourself up with a Master Your Meetings card deck !

What is the point of this Meeting?

It started like any other meeting: a calendar invite, 15 people, and a vague glimmer of hope that this one would be different.

We were planning a sales kickoff event, and the goal of this particular meeting was to land on a theme—something catchy and inspiring that would shape the story arc of the entire conference. When the meeting began, the organizer stated the purpose clearly (promising start!), and then… silence. She looked at us expectantly, as if a fully formed, on-brand theme would just tumble out of someone’s mouth.

Summary of Takeaways

Most organizations don't have a meeting problem—they have a "thinking-about-meetings" problem. To stop wasting time in aimless sessions, you must treat every meeting with the same intentionality as a major event. Here are the core insights:

Avoid the "Scheduled by Default" Trap: Too many meetings happen simply because they are on the calendar. Before sending an invite, move past autopilot and define a clear, specific purpose. Silence at the start of a meeting is often a sign that the goal wasn't properly structured.
Design for Engagement, Not Just Attendance: Ask yourself the high-stakes questions typically reserved for conferences or offsites: Who actually needs to be there? What should they walk away with? How will we maintain energy and momentum?
Use Frameworks to Drive Results: Leveraging a structured set of questions—like those found in the Master Your Meetings deck—helps you plan for potential pitfalls and process before the meeting starts. When you shift from "talking it out" to strategic design, meetings become a source of connection and insight rather than a "black hole" in the calendar.

From Boring to Brilliant: Designing Breakouts That Actually Work

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 19:54:00 GMT

It was just another presentation.
They promised interaction. Instead, we got another slide deck. Breakouts should be a change of pace—not a smaller, quieter main stage. Think of the folks in the room as participants, not audience members. They should be asked to do something!
The content didn’t apply to me.
Too often, sessions are designed for the “average” rep. But the truth is, there’s no such thing. What works for an enterprise AE doesn’t help an onboarding CSM, and if you’ve also got Product and Enablement in the room, now the messaging is even less relevant. Breakouts are your opportunity to split into smaller groups and tailor your messaging appropriately.
The facilitator didn’t engage us.
Even with the right intent, many breakouts stall because the person leading the session isn’t a skilled facilitator. Breakouts are the perfect moment to ask the folks with facilitation skills to take on a role, even if they aren’t the “leader.” Someone who has experience facilitating will make sure to warm up the room so silences are inviting, not awkward, and people feel safe enough to be candid.
We didn’t have enough time.
Sessions start late. Activities are crammed. No one gets to reflect or share meaningfully. It's a rush job, and it shows. This is all too obvious when agendas are dictated by a committee that doesn’t have shared goals in mind. There’s a sense that everything needs to fit into the agenda without consideration for how to give each piece the time and space it deserves. Learn how to say “No” to some things so that you can “Yes” to the content and activities that serve your SKO goals. This will enable you to craft meaningful breakouts that connect the dots to the big picture.
Nothing came after.
Even the best discussions die on the vine if there's no follow-up. No notes, no next steps, no link to execution means there will be no impact.

But there’s another way! Great breakouts do exist! Here’s what they do differently:

Design with empathy.
Start by asking: Who is this for, and what will be most useful for them right now? One-size-fits-all doesn’t work. That means stop thinking about what a leader needs to say, and instead focus on what folks need to hear. Don’t be afraid to split folks into functional or cross-functional groups depending on your goals..
Make them actually interactive.
Breakouts shouldn’t be a 45-minute speech (or panel discussion) with 15 minutes for questions. It’s about conversation, collaboration, and peer learning. A good rule of thumb is that if anyone is talking—facilitator especially—for more than 5 minutes, your agenda needs another look. The best breakouts will literally throw out the slide deck and projector and instead focus people into discussions with each other. Take advantage of collaborative tools like flip charts and cards and get people active and moving around.
Showcase your skilled facilitators.
Good breakouts feel guided, not forced. That takes thoughtful planning and facilitators who know how to read a room and adjust on the fly. Probably one of the most undervalued skillsets in Corporate America is that of the facilitator. Place your trust in those who have proven their capacity to guide a discussion, make people feel safe, challenge ideas, and invite disagreement. Don’t go with the leaders who are proven to be great presenters (you don’t need your participants listening to yet another talk), or worse, the leaders who simply “have the right title.” If your people are still growing into the skill, invite them to co-lead a session together.
Pace them intentionally.
Leave room for discussion, reflection, and connection. The magic of a breakout is in the moments that aren’t scripted, but these moments need room to breathe. Breakouts can be heavy on mechanics (setting up an activity, bringing people back together after their discussions) that are often neglected from a planning and timing perspective. If someone could “present” the information in 30 minutes, plan for 90 minutes in a breakout to explore the same amount of content, and have a meaningful conversation about it. All of this will make sure you’re not undercutting the interactivity and discussion-based experiential aspects that make breakouts work.
Sustain the learning post-conference.
Planning post-SKO follow-up is yet another layer to great SKO execution. Send the notes. Set up next steps. Link the session to post-SKO learning or team huddles. Make it stick. That means that even before SKO happens, you need to have a plan for how you’ll take the learnings and outcomes from SKO—and especially from the breakouts—and push it further into the fabric of the organization. Team huddles require agendas. New technical learning needs learning modules. A new go-to-market message needs opportunities for reps to practice the messaging in-house… and all these touch points need to be orchestrated seamlessly immediately after the event.

If your SKO breakouts are forgettable, your SKO will be too. But if you get them right? That’s when the energy lasts, the strategy gets traction, and your reps will actually use what they heard on the big stage.

To get you started with planning your breakout sessions, check out these Breakout Design Rules of Thumb.

Every year, companies invest thousands—sometimes millions—into their Sales Kick-Off (SKO) events. Big stages, bold strategy announcements, and plenty of hype. But ask most reps what they remember a week later, and the answer is usually something about how their flight was delayed, or the drama where HR had to get involved.

The strategy? Let’s just say that’s hardly ever mentioned. The reason? A poorly designed agenda with boring breakout sessions .

Breakouts during an SKO are supposed to be where the rubber meets the road—where strategy becomes personal, where people actually talk, and where the event gets real. It’s during the breakouts that the organization has the opportunity to make the strategy actionable for each and every role represented at SKO. If done right, this leads to learning, reflection, and further conversation… a true testament to the power of a well-executed SKO. But in too many SKOs (and other types of internal conferences and retreats), breakouts fall flat. Here’s why:

Summary of Takeaways

Breakouts are where high-level strategy becomes actionable. If they fall flat, the entire event loses its impact. To transform your breakout sessions from "smaller presentations" into engines of momentum, follow these core principles:

Prioritize Interaction Over Information: A breakout should not be a slide deck on a smaller stage. Adhere to the "5-minute rule"—if any one person (including the facilitator) is talking for more than five minutes straight, the session is too passive. Use collaborative tools like flip charts and movement-based activities to focus on peer learning.
Design with Audience Empathy: Move away from a one-size-fits-all approach. Tailor your sessions to specific roles—what an Enterprise AE needs is vastly different from a CSM. Focus on what participants need to hear and do, rather than what leaders want to say.
Choose Facilitators Over Leaders: The best breakouts are led by those skilled at reading a room and inviting candid discussion, not necessarily those with the highest title. If your presenters are great at "telling," use them on the main stage; use your facilitators in the breakouts to guide discovery and handle the unscripted magic.
Give Ideas Room to Breathe: Interactivity takes time. If content can be presented in 30 minutes, schedule 90 minutes for the breakout to allow for meaningful reflection and debate. Pacing intentionally ensures that the mechanics of the activity don't undercut the learning.
Orchestrate the "After": Sustaining momentum requires immediate follow-up. Before the event even begins, have a plan to integrate breakout outcomes into team huddles, learning modules, and daily workflows. Without a bridge to execution, the best discussions die on the vine.

Why Your Sales Kick-Off is a Big-Budget Snoozefest (And How to Fix It)

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 14:00:00 GMT

Ah, the annual Sales Kick-Off (SKO)-a high-energy, high-stakes event where the entire sales team gathers to be motivated, inspired, and equipped for the year ahead. Or, at least, that's the intention. Too often, SKOs devolve into an endless parade of slide decks, a blur of talking heads, and a slow descent into what we at Wolf & Heron like to call Death By Presentation.

Why Does This Keep Happening?

If SKOs are meant to energize, why do so many feel like a mental endurance test? There are a few reasons companies keep making this mistake:

Presentations are easy to develop at the last minute.
Too often, we see presenters assembling their slide decks on the plane to the event. This is an unfortunately common habit of leaders. The last minute nature of this routine results in a string of disjointed, underwhelming presentations that don’t connect to one another—or to the audience.
The “leaders must present” trap.
Many organizations craft their agenda by first deciding which leaders “deserve visibility” rather than asking, What does our sales team actually need from this SKO? The result? A rigid, speaker-heavy schedule that prioritizes hierarchy over impact.
The myth that the only way to communicate is by telling.
Similar to the thought that “leaders must present,” organizations have a habit of seeing these large-scale events as a mechanism to communicate crucial information out and down through the organization. “Everyone’s been flown in at big expense. We need to use this opportunity to tell them everything without really asking them to respond!” This is in contrast to a different—typically more productive—objective of having everyone engage with each other, react to information in thoughtful ways, and communicate back up to leadership.
A one-way information flow.
SKOs often operate under the assumption that information should travel down the chain of command, with little opportunity for insights, feedback, or reactions to flow back up. But great sales leaders know that a great SKO isn’t about rolling out a plan, it’s about ensuring that plan actually works in the field. For that to happen, people need the opportunity to question, wrestle with, and internalize what they’re learning.

The Fallout

A poorly designed SKO isn’t just a missed opportunity—it actively harms engagement, morale, and alignment. Here’s what happens at a SKO that’s operating with a Death By Presentation model:

Relationship-building is relegated to outside the core programming, and it’s expensive to boot!
SKO planners recognize the need for building connections across the team, so they tack onto the agenda costly team-building activities—golf outings, open bars, scavenger hunts, boat rides, etc. But these don’t actually help teams engage with the work itself, and they often alienate introverts, folks with other interests, or those who just want to feel productive while they’re away from their families.
Critical information is lost in the noise.
When every session is a passive presentation, the audience tunes out. Teams walk away disengaged, confused, and ill-prepared to execute the strategy they just spent hours listening to like it was a high-endurance sport. If a major change initiative is part of the SKO, this lack of retention can be disastrous.

A Better Way: Interactive SKOs That Actually Work

So, how do you fix this? Here’s how Wolf & Heron has helped organizations design SKOs that actually deliver impact:

Turn information-sharing into interactive experiences.
Instead of cramming key updates into slide decks, present them as something tangible—posters, decks of cards, or visual metaphors. Then, give small groups structured questions that guide them through discussion and exploration of the information. Let them process and respond, then collect their conclusions for leaders.
Make relationship-building part of the content.
Instead of separating the “fun” activities from the real work, structure the event so that people are constantly shifting between small groups, pairs, triads, and larger breakout groups—all while engaging with the content. Conversation about the shared work, and attacking a common goal in the moment, will build better relationships than happy-hour small talk ever could.

We worked with TierPoint to revamp their SKO in both 2024 and 2025. Here’s what Karen Loiterstein, VP of Sales Enablement, had to say:

"I am forever changed by the work W&H did. The level of interactivity Wolf & Heron brought to our breakout sessions was unmatched and directly connected to the work. Every table had something to do, and the resulting buy-in to our strategy is extremely high."

"Their expertise in creating engaging and impactful discussions helped ensure clarity, alignment, and enthusiasm for our initiatives. Seeing the collaboration come to life at SKO in Phoenix was truly rewarding."

When SKOs shift their agenda design away from passive presentations towards interactive experiences instead, sales teams don’t just leave with information—they leave with a connection to each other, the business, and a clear sense of how they fit into the company’s strategy. And that’s how you actually move the needle.

Stop Slowly Killing Your Team with Presentation Overload

Your SKO shouldn’t be a lecture series—it should be a chance to ignite momentum, alignment, and action. If your agenda is packed with speaker after speaker, it’s time to rethink the format. If your sales team spends more time fighting off presentation fatigue than absorbing your strategy, the real takeaway will be this: You wasted their time.

Interested in learning more about our work with Tierpoint? Download the case study !

Does Your SKO Actually Achieve the Strategic Outcomes that Justify the Investment?

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 12:09:00 GMT

A SKO investment should be justified by how well it achieves strategic organizational goals . Unfortunately, SKO goals are often so vague that it’s impossible to integrate them into the feedback mechanism. If that’s the case for an event you’re planning, you certainly won’t know if you’ve achieved those goals… which begs the question, why have a SKO at all?

If you want your event to achieve its objectives, it’s critical that you identify, clearly, what those outcomes should be, and then weave them through your event like a red thread. That is how you’ll produce a Sales Kick Off where the investment earns you a return.

Craft Your Goals

Gather with your event leadership to identify what success looks like, and the measurable indicators that will suggest to you that you achieved it. Our favorite starting point is to ask the leaders to complete these sentences:

At the end of this event, attendees should KNOW…

At the end of this event, attendees should FEEL…

At the end of this event, attendees should DO…

Begin with a rough draft to get some words on paper. Then do your best to make these statements as specific as possible. Instead of something like, At the end of this meeting, attendees should know our new strategy, be specific and describe what their main takeaway(s) about the strategy will be. This helps clarify the depth of understanding you are trying to achieve at the event.

Consider what you want your attendees to feel. The emotional quality and outcome of an experience is often overlooked, but it’s critical, because clarity and alignment here can surface the energetic arc of the conference.

Lastly, make sure that what happens at SKO carries forward into the field. Instead of, At the end of this meeting, attendees should be more effective sellers, take it further to something like, At the end of this meeting, attendees will confidently integrate our new messaging into their regular sales calls.

Weave Your Goals Through Your Event Like a Red Thread

Before making any decisions about your event, you should clearly identify and align upon your KNOW, FEEL and DO statements. These statements will them become a north star to direct your decision making and keep all the different stakeholders in the process working in the same direction. Here are some ways that your defined outcomes can ground you:

Agenda design
Your agenda should center your goals. Instead of approaching the event as an opportunity to push out leader or project updates, design your agenda with your outcomes as your anchors. Any content or activities that don’t directly support your KNOW, FEEL, and/or DO statements should be eliminated. Also, pay attention to the balance of time spent in plenary sessions vs. breakouts, and how much of your agenda is interactive vs. passive. (Even highly engaging and effective keynote speakers are functionally delivering passive experiences). Read more about our POV on agenda design here .
Event runtime
We work with so many clients who simply rinse and repeat the format from last year without thinking specifically about what this SKO—this year, with these objectives—needs to be successful. Don’t just go with what you’ve done before. Ask yourself how much time you actually need to accomplish your goals.
Attendees
Again, don’t just go with last year’s attendee list. Think about what you're hoping to accomplish and who you need in the room to make it happen. We often see clients coming up with SKO goals after they’ve decided who will be there, but this is backwards logic. The goals should define the attendees. That said, if you have a diverse group of people attending SKO with a variety of needs, define goals for each sub-group, and arrange breakouts or other activities that will allow for a more tailored experience.
Conference theme and branding
Your theme and branding set the tone for the event. Your attendees see it before they show up, and if you do your job right, it should cohesively connect everything about the event together. Your FEEL statement will play a large part in driving your theme and the next several decisions.
Venue and location
The space you choose dramatically influences the kinds of interactions people will have and the energetic vibe. Some venues have a sense of formality, some are cozy and intimate.
Extra-curricular activities
The components of the event that are not related to content can be instrumental in helping you achieve your FEEL statement. Choices like food and drinks, music, social events, and even how people move between locations will impact how people feel and the conversations they have. Be sure to thoughtfully brainstorm the types of activities that will serve your goals.
And more!

When you start your SKO planning by defining clear goals, you give yourself a compass that can guide all decision-making as you work toward the event. This not only sets you up for a much higher-quality event, it will get you a lot closer to measuring in concrete ways the success of your event—and ultimately justifying the investment with a measurable return.

Are you interested in how you can apply these concepts to your next event? Join us on August 14th, 2025 for a webinar, Is Your Sales Kick Off (or other internal conference) Worth It? In it we will discuss how to clarify your event’s desired outcomes and plan an event reliably that achieves them.

There’s almost no limit on how much effort, how many people, and how many hours you can invest in an internal conference like a Sales Kick Off. When you add in the cost of the hotel, vendor partners, and travel, it’s a huge expense.

But the investment is worth it, right? …right? Do you even know?

If you are responsible for all or a portion of an event like this, you are under an overwhelming amount of pressure to plan and produce an amazing event. And yet, it’s surprising how often the metrics which indicate success are either not clear, or they don’t really connect to key organizational KPIs. For example, one client we worked with crafted the post-event survey to include questions like, How likely are you to recommend this event to your colleagues? and How engaging was the keynote speaker? These are important questions to ask, but even if the responses to these questions are over the moon, they’re not asking about things that are strategic enough on their own to justify the investment of a typical SKO.

Summary of Takeaways

A Sales Kick Off (SKO) is a massive investment of time and resources. To ensure it delivers a measurable return on investment (ROI) rather than just being an expensive "performance," leaders must move beyond vague engagement metrics and ground the event in strategic outcomes:

Define Success with "KNOW, FEEL, DO": Start by being hyper-specific about what attendees should KNOW (key strategies), FEEL (emotional energy/alignment), and DO (concrete actions in the field) by the end of the conference. If a goal isn't measurable or strategic, it shouldn't be your focus.
Weave Goals Through the "Red Thread": Your KNOW, FEEL, and DO statements should act as a north star for every decision. Use them to anchor your agenda, determine the attendee list, and select the right venue. If an activity or session doesn’t directly support these outcomes, cut it.
Design for Impact, Not Tradition: Don't just "rinse and repeat" last year’s format. Tailor the runtime, the balance of breakout vs. plenary sessions, and the branding to fit this year's objectives. When every element—from the keynote to the extracurricular activities—is aligned, you create an event that earns its keep by driving real-world sales performance.

Stop Explaining, Start Storytelling: How to Make Your Point Stick

Mon, 19 May 2025 14:00:00 GMT

But here’s the thing: People don’t make decisions based on logic alone. They need to connect emotionally with your message —and use logic to justify it later. That’s where storytelling comes in. A good story doesn’t just inform; it makes people feel. And when they feel, they remember. More importantly, they act.

Why Stories Work (And Data Alone Falls Flat)

Studies show that when we hear raw information, only the language-processing parts of our brains light up. But when we hear a story (a good one), the sensory and emotional centers activate, as if we’re experiencing it ourselves. This makes stories more memorable and persuasive than plain facts. Jerome Bruner concluded that we’re actually 22 times more likely to remember some information if it’s wrapped in a story because of its experiential nature.

Yet, too many professionals default to the same bullet-point approach that Suilin had, perhaps because that’s the way “marketing” phrased it in their corporate lingo or even just because it is the critical information. But when you rely solely on facts or data, there’s nothing that makes you more compelling than anyone else’s facts or data. To stand out and make sure your message lands, you need to use story to engage your audience.

Stories have a simple formula!

Most people think "telling a story" means giving more detail. So instead of saying, "We increased revenue by 25%," they say, "We launched a new initiative to fill a gap in the market and six months later it’s increased our revenue by 25%."

Better? Maybe. But still not a story. A story has a few key components to its structure:

Character - Who is this about? Suilin
Context – Who’s involved? What’s the situation? Sometimes, what are the stakes? Suilin’s job was to bring new customers to the Google Meet platform.
Inciting Incident - What is the specific moment that kicks off the conflict? What happens? Suilin was offered the chance to pitch a customer in a last-minute meeting… on Zoom.
Conflict - What challenge did they face? Getting ready for a Zoom call was stressful. She had to run around to make sure her dog was out of the way so he wouldn’t bark, that the lighting was happy so her face would be bright, that her files were all ready to share and organized in just the right way that she’d be able to flip between files quickly and seamlessly… her heart rate was up before she even logged in.
Climax - What is the specific moment when the energy shifts and the character moves towards a resolution? The next day, Suilin was invited to a similar last-minute meeting, but this time on GoogleMeet. Leading up to the call, she didn’t have to worry about her dog because of the sound filtering tech, she didn’t have to worry about the lighting because of the camera auto-adjust features, and she didn’t have to worry about setting up her files because of how easy it is to share them through the platform.
Resolution – How did it turn out? Suilin concluded that Google Meet is so much simpler, which allows her to focus on the customer rather than the tech.

Leveraging a structure like this, and making sure you’re answering these questions forces you to go beyond just what happened, and make sure you’re painting a picture your audience can follow, highlighting a relatable character to bring the story to life, and including the right details which drive your point home.

Tell a Story That Lands Your Point

There’s one final detail that’s important about your story if you want to use it to land a point: your story has to have a point… and that point better be crystal clear. Often presentations have several points that ladder up to a key takeaway. An easy way to build in stories is to highlight each of your points with a story that brings it to life. In Suilin’s case, she ultimately crafted her story to be the answer to a question she expected in her Q&A. Wherever you want your point heard, that’s where you should build a story.

When in Doubt, Story It Out

Whether you’re selling a product, pitching an idea, or persuading leadership, don’t just describe—story it out. Facts inform, but stories persuade. The next time you need to persuade someone, ditch the data dump and use stories instead.

If you’re looking for more information, check out the following resources:

Article: Where You Should Tell A Story In Your Presentation
Article + Tool: How To Add Stories To Your Presentation
Webinar (Jun 05, 2025): Land Your Point With Stories

Suilin was organized. She had the data and the slides. At the time, her main objective was to onboard new users to GoogleMeet, and the dominant question she got from prospects was, “How is GoogleMeet different from Zoom?” Her go-to slide to answer this question had a list of key features that GoogleMeet offered that differentiated it from Zoom, and her talk track covered how each of these key features delivered amazing value (“The sound-filtering technology makes it so you never have to worry about your barking dog in the background.”)

But at the end of her conversations with these prospects, she always got the same response. The client nodded politely and said, "Thanks, we’ll think about it." She knew this was the most important moment in her presentation and what she was doing wasn’t working.

Summary of Takeaways

The most common mistake in high-stakes communication is over-explaining. When leaders rely on abstract explanations and logic alone, they engage the analytical brain, which is naturally skeptical and prone to forgetting. To make your point truly "stick," you must bypass these defenses by shifting from explaining to storytelling:

The "Explaining" Trap: Explaining is often dry, conceptual, and detached. It forces the audience to do the heavy lifting of translating your ideas into meaning. Storytelling, however, provides the context and emotional "glue" that allows an audience to visualize and internalize your message instantly.
Parachute Into the Action: Don’t start with a "preamble" or a long setup (e.g., "I want to tell you about a time..."). Instead, drop your audience directly into the middle of the scene. Starting with action captures immediate attention and creates a sense of urgency that explanations lack.
The "Goldilocks" Rule of Detail: Too much detail bores people; too little leaves them confused. Aim for "just the right amount" of concrete, sensory details. Specificity (e.g., "a cracked coffee mug") creates a mental image that anchors your point in the listener's memory much longer than a vague concept.
Resist the "Moral of the Story" Impulse: One of the strongest urges after telling a story is to immediately explain what it meant. This actually weakens the impact. If a story is well-told, the insight should feel earned and obvious. Let the story land in silence for a moment to give the audience space to process the meaning for themselves.
Identify the "Pivot": Every influential story needs a moment where things change—a shift from fear to courage or pride to humility. This emotional "turn" is what makes a point resonate. Without a pivot, you aren't telling a story; you’re just providing a chronological list of events.

How to Have an Effective Change Conversation

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 14:00:00 GMT

Navigating change is at the heart of many conversations that we have—be it with a friend who’s struggling, a client we’re coaching, or a team we’re supporting. There are tons of thought leaders already offering tips and advice on how to navigate or lead change; where we like to focus is on designing meaningful conversations that drive clarity and create forward momentum for teams and individuals moving through change.

Here is a conversation structure you can use the next time you’re looking at yet another change you have to navigate.

1. Acknowledge and vent about the change

In any conversation about change, you need to acknowledge what’s going on, examine the current reality and give space to some venting. There is plenty of emotional and mental energy wrapped up in our experience with change, and it’s helpful to have a way to let it out.

Questions you can ask each other:

We’re currently experiencing a great deal of change and uncertainty. What change(s) give you the most angst? Why?
What is the impact of the change on you? On us? On [other]?
Where do we see the impact of the change(s)?
What are the losses and/or costs associated with this change for you?
What are the wins and/or benefits associated with this change for you?
How does it make you feel?

2. Identify the controllable

It’s helpful to understand what’s in and out of your control. This gives you and everyone around you permission to release some angst related to the things that aren’t controllable. It's counterproductive to spend time worrying about something you can’t personally address anyway, and this frees up mental and emotional energy to focus on what is addressable.

Questions you can ask:

What is under your control? What isn’t?
What is under our control? What isn’t?

3. Shift into productive discussion and move forward

Eventually we need to find a goal to drive toward. Even as everything around us changes, there will remain something that we value. It could be doing your job well, learning to support the people around you, or something else, but you need to identify something

that is more important to you than staying mired in frustration around change.

Questions you can ask:

What do you need to reframe?
What will you focus on going forward?
What should we focus on going forward?
What is most important for us?

4. Brainstorm what to do if things go wrong or people need resources/support

A huge piece of navigating change is anticipating when things might go wrong, and what to do about it. Instead of sitting in frustration, what helps you stay moving forward.

Questions you can ask:

What can you do when you feel overwhelmed, stressed, confused, or angry about the change?
What can we do to help each other during this period of change?
What else do we need to address?
What can I do to help you during periods of change?
What else do we need to address?

Consider this conversation structure and these questions the next time you’re navigating change. Feel free to tailor them to your own context and situation. If you’re looking for a ready made kit that leverages many of these questions and more, check out our Leading Through Change

Conversation Kit.

Change is hard for all of us. One of our favorite books is the Power of Habit , which spends a lot of time talking about how hard it is to change the simplest of habits you may have. This works in your favor if you have great habits in place… it works against you if you’re hoping to change your habits.

At the organizational level, change is no easier. There’s that oft cited statistic, over 70% of change initiatives fail. We can argue about why, but we can’t deny the fact that implementing change has its challenges. Beyond that, the people at the organization—both employees and leaders—are also at the whim of a changing world with political and economic shifts that can sweep the rug out from under them.

Summary of Takeaways

Change is inherently difficult, but leaders can navigate it more effectively by designing conversations that drive clarity and momentum. Use this four-step structure to lead your team through periods of transition:

Acknowledge and Validate: Start by giving space to "vent." Acknowledge the current uncertainty and ask open-ended questions about the impact and emotional weight of the change. Validating these feelings is a crucial first step in moving forward.
Identify the Controllable: Distinguish between what is in your control and what isn't. Giving your team permission to release angst over uncontrollable factors frees up mental and emotional energy to focus on what is addressable.
Shift to Productive Momentum: Once the emotions are acknowledged, pivot to the future. Help the team identify a goal or a value that is more important than the frustration of the change. Focus on what needs to be reframed to move forward effectively.
Anticipate Roadblocks and Support: A strong change plan accounts for when things go wrong. Discuss how the team will support each other during moments of overwhelm and what specific resources are needed to stay on track.

The Bottom Line: Leading through change isn't about having all the answers or making the discomfort disappear. It’s about facilitating a structured conversation that moves the team from frustration to action.

The Pros and Cons of Writing a Talk with AI

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 13:00:00 GMT

As speakers and speaker coaches, we spend a lot of time crafting talks—both for ourselves and with our clients. It’s an obvious exploration, therefore, for us to look into how we can leverage AI to craft these talks more quickly (and ideally, effectively). Recently, Stephanie started giving a talk entitled Stories That Sell. In the past several weeks, Stephanie has delivered this talk three times and here are the things she learned while leaning into AI as a tool to help her.

AI is great for structure.

Stephanie started by asking AI to generate a talk about stories that sell. This is a super generic prompt that leaves things wide open for interpretation. What came back to Stephanie were a few ideas for how to structure the talk, how to open and close powerfully, and what key points to make in between. This was helpful in giving Stephanie a place to start, but it was just that: a start..

Your point of view should focus and guide the AI.

In our Impactful Presentations and Influential Storytelling programs, we spend a LOT of time discussing message clarity. This is because you can only be an effective and influential communicator if you are crystal clear about what you’re trying to communicate. Well… that remains true if you want to leverage AI to help you draft your talk from a blank sheet of paper.

After crafting an outline, Stephanie asked AI to generate a script that would fit the outline. AI came up with a lot of verbiage, but the point of view was vague. Functionally speaking, it just regurgitated back to Stephanie a bunch of stuff other people on the internet have already said about storytelling and sales. AI didn’t offer anything uniquely different that would make Stephanie’s talk special or interesting.

Once Stephanie put into AI a prompt that was more specifically targeted, with a strong point of view, and clear opinions about what to focus on, the software was able to generate language that was much more compelling.

You still need to add your own personality.

One of the key qualities of AI (at least at this point in its development) is that it needs a data bank to pull from. Since Stephanie doesn’t have 100 talks already out there in the world to analyze, AI is absolutely useless at figuring out how to make a talk in Stephanie’s voice. It doesn’t know the personal stories that Stephanie can weave into the talk. It doesn’t know Stephanie’s delivery style, so it can’t write a script that will feel natural for her to deliver.

One of the most crucial components of being a compelling communicator is that you have to figure out how to say what you want to say in such a way that it could only come from you. You need to embed stories that are yours and yours alone. You need to deliver the talk in a way that is authentic to you. It must be informed by your experiences and perspective, and showcase your personality. What is compelling to an audience, beyond the information you share, is what is unique and human about you.

If you’re one of those people that already has a ton of content (articles, videos, prior talks, interviews, etc) out there for AI to analyze, then you can prompt it to use the data already available to put together something that is unique to you and your style. That’s why you can ask AI to write a short story in the style of Dr. Seuss or create a song in the style of Taylor Swift. There’s data already available that AI can analyze to figure out the specific look and feel that is their vibe. For Stephanie, this isn’t the case, and that won’t be the case for most of you. That means that after AI spits out a script for you, you still have to go back and make it your own using your blood, sweat and tears.

AI can iterate really well.

We’re huge fans of iteration. We always say that a story or a presentation isn’t done… it just evolves closer and closer to perfection the more you work it, deliver it, collect feedback, and iterate.

After Stephanie delivered her talk for the first time, she asked the audience to complete a survey so she could collect some feedback. Then she input the transcription of the talk recording along with the audience feedback and asked AI to come up with ten concrete recommendations to improve the talk for next time based on the feedback and what it knows about great talks. The output was amazing! AI generated 10 very concrete ways to level up the talk, even offering specific scripts to replace certain parts of the talk. It looked at the relative weight of each component of the talk based on length of time spent discussing it, and suggested a few tweaks to emphasize specific points more thoroughly and de-emphasize less important points. It even went so far as to suggest metaphors to use in lieu of technical jargon, and how to finish even more powerfully.

The learning Stephanie pulled from this is that AI is an amazing co-pilot when it comes to crafting a talk or presentation. Stephanie still had to know what she wanted to say and have her own (hard won) point of view, and she still needed to be able to turn the talk into something that was uniquely hers. But in the end, AI is a fantastic partner in crime. It helped her generate an initial outline and was REALLY good at leveling up a draft into something much more polished. It’s also motivated her to be more intentional about starting to build a library of data on herself that she might one day be able to feed to AI, so that AI can model her style, suggest personal stories, and more effectively support her in the future.

What’s your take on using AI to generate a talk? What have you tried that really worked or really didn’t?

Can AI be an Effective Executive Coach?

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 14:41:00 GMT

We already know that AI is capable of back-and-forth conversation that looks and feels surprisingly human-to-human. We also know that great coaching sessions follow a structure and predictable flow (i.e. it’s a “learnable” for AI). Additionally, great questions follow a common structure and format (therefore it’s also “learnable”). Since the bedrock of good coaching is asking great questions and then letting the client wrestle with those questions, it doesn’t feel completely out of reach for AI to do a pretty good job.

We did some initial internet sleuthing and there are a few early AI coaches already out there. CoachHub doesn’t seem to leverage AI to coach, but is leveraging AI to make recommendations to clients re content, goals, matching them with a coach, etc. Bunch describes itself as an AI coach and community that seems to offer bite-sized coaching in 2 minute increments.

We also ran our own experiments. Kara went to ChatGPT and typed in, “Can you be an executive coach for me?” and got this response:

I'd be happy to help you as an executive coach! Whether you're looking to enhance your leadership skills, improve decision-making, refine communication, or navigate workplace challenges, I can offer guidance and support. We can discuss strategies, tools, and frameworks to boost your performance and growth.

To start, it would be helpful to know a bit more about your current goals and areas you're focusing on. What would you like to work on most?

Kara answered a few questions and then got a set of tips and content from ChatGPT similar to what she could have found with a regular Google search. In our minds, this qualifies as a start, but it didn’t feel quite like the value that a true executive coach can and should offer. Most of the questions that ChatGPT asked were aimed at helping ChatGPT understand information and narrow the scope to a place where ChatGPT could offer a solution. They weren’t open-ended and designed to help Kara reflect and find the solution within herself. It felt like ChatGPT was acting more like a consultant, offering insights and expertise, than as a true coach.

Then Kara asked ChatGPT, “Ask me powerful questions to move my thinking forward on growing my business.” The output was a huge set of questions that would probably yield some interesting thinking on the topic of growing the business, but it wasn’t conversational… yet. Kara noticed that she missed that silent moment that hangs between coach and client after her coach asks her a question. That space to think and speak feels different when you’re interfacing with a digital platform.

All that said, Kara’s experiments don’t make for a perfect test of what an AI executive coach would be like. There's likely a ton more that we can learn about how to prompt AI appropriately to maximize the power of what it can do, including instructing it on the style of coaching desired, to ask questions one at a time, to ask questions that are in response to the answer provided to the prior question, etc…all of which could very conceivably be built into an AI-oriented coaching tool. Even as we publish this article, we’re aware of the ways that conversational AI is rapidly developing, and perhaps in just a few weeks tools like ChatGPT will be even more sophisticated.

What is compelling about the potential here is that there is a structure to a coaching conversation that is easily learnable. There is a strategy for formulating and asking questions that can be taught. Already AI is offering “conversation modes” that allow you to simply talk to it rather than type.

If we go in this direction, what are the risks and/or what do we potentially lose? Can AI take it all the way given that coaching relies on intuition, heart, and courage—qualities that feel (at least at this point) uniquely human. Can you code instinct? Can you code heart and connection? Can you code the ability to hear not just what’s said, but what isn’t? Maybe… but that’s still yet to come. Or even if it is, do we want it to?

What do you think? Is there a world where professional coaching moves into the AI space? Where is it likely to show up first?

Executive coaching is a soft skill. Yes, there are some technical frameworks you can be trained on, but at the end of the day, a good executive coach is proficient in what are generally considered soft skills: conversations, intuition, active listening, appreciative inquiry, etc. Soft skills are those less tangible skills that are more dependent on our ability to be human and interact with other humans than hard skills like accounting or even project management.

As AI takes more and more center stage in our collective awareness, and our ability to leverage and access AI-powered tools becomes commonplace, we have begun to wonder, Could AI be an effective executive coach?

Summary of Takeaways

As AI moves into the professional development space, the question isn't just about what it can do, but where its limitations lie in the high-stakes world of executive coaching. Here are the core insights:

Soft Skills vs. Technical Frameworks: Executive coaching is fundamentally rooted in "soft skills"—intuition, active listening, and appreciative inquiry. While AI is excellent at applying technical frameworks and providing data-driven feedback, it struggles to replicate the nuanced, intangible human connection that defines effective coaching.
Presence and Authenticity: Leadership that moves people happens in the moment. It is built on presence, tone, and adaptability—areas where human coaches excel by offering "in-the-moment" feedback on real communication challenges. AI can draft a message, but it cannot yet replace the authentic connection required to influence how others respond to that message.
Strategic vs. Routine Support: AI is increasingly effective as a "sparring partner" for routine tasks like goal tracking, meeting preparation, and rehearsal. However, human coaches remain essential for senior executives navigating complex relationships, high-stakes decisions, and the deep behavior changes grounded in psychology.
The Hybrid Advantage: The most effective approach is likely a combination of both. Use AI to scale mentorship, provide precise framework-based analysis, and offer immediate "on-the-spot" reflection, while leaning on human coaches for the deep empathy and self-awareness that only a person-to-person partnership can provide.

Make a Difficult Conversation Less Difficult

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 20:52:00 GMT

Sara came to Stephanie looking for advice on how to handle the situation. “I know that Kate comes from a different background than I do, and I want to respect the fact that she was literally creating content while on the call with me—the exact thing I hired her to do—but I can’t help but feel like she doesn’t respect me and her level of professionalism is lacking. How do I address this without making Kate feel like I don’t appreciate what she does?”

This is an age-old question. How do you give feedback to someone?

Nine times out of ten, feedback conversations turn into difficult conversations because we build them up in our heads to be way bigger and more complicated than they really have to be. Here’s some of the advice that Stephanie gave Sara. What else would you offer?

Immediacy is best

A quick comment delivered in the moment is much easier, both to deliver and receive than a long-awaited conversation. As soon as Sara sat down for the one-on-one and noticed that Kate was in a sports bra, she could have said something simple and straightforward like, “Oh! I see you’re in your sports bra! I’ll wait while you put something on.” Then, the trick is to make nothing of it after that. It’s a quick moment that immediately passes, but the signal that coming to a one-on-one in a sports bra is inappropriate is communicated.

Make it bite-size

Sara mentioned that she simply couldn’t think fast enough in the moment to respond right away. She would have loved to deliver quick and immediate feedback, but she was so flustered, the moment got away from her. So now what? It was two weeks later, and she still hadn’t said anything to Kate.

Stephanie’s advice was to keep the feedback small. Waiting until a whole pile of issues came up, and addressing them together only makes the conversation harder to have. If Sara felt like the sports bra moment needed to be addressed directly, then she should address it without compounding it with 14 other things that had also happened.

Get curious

With our love of coaching, this is always our favorite advice to offer. Most of the time, there is more to the story than we see. Stephanie challenged Sara to approach a conversation with Kate not as a moment to “teach” Kate anything specific, but rather as a moment to learn more about Kate. They brainstormed a few powerful questions Sara could bring to Kate to better understand where she’s coming from and what her thought process and motivations were:

What do you see as the purpose of our one-on-ones?
How can we maximize the value of our one-on-ones?
What do you hope to bring me during our one-on-ones?
What do you hope I bring you during our one-on-ones?

Focus on the behavior, not the assumptions you draw from behavior

One of the key challenges Sara was having was that she had interpreted all of Kate’s behavior to mean that Kate didn’t respect her. This is a story Sara was making up based on how she chose to read into Kate’s behavior. But the truth of the matter is, conflict almost always comes about from misread or misinterpreted signals. Stephanie encouraged Sara to pin the assumptions, and check her story. One way to do that is with the script, “I noticed that you [insert objective, observable behavior]. The story I’m making up about that is [insert personal interpretation]. I’m sure that’s not what you intended. Will you set me straight?”

This approach opens the door to a productive conversation that isn’t accusatory, and stays focused on the behavior (something fixable)—not the personality (something more akin to identity)—of the person.

What advice would you give Sara?

Recently a mentee of Stephanie’s, Sara, came to Stephanie looking for advice on a problem she was having with a new team member. As a marketing lead for a new product, Sara is building out a team that is a little non-traditional. Because the brand she promotes is anything but corporate, she wants her team to lean into a more grassroots approach to building brand awareness and promoting the product. As such, she hired women in their mid-twenties to spend a year traveling the world and promoting the brand and its products by talking about their lives (and their use of the products) on their social media accounts.

Since the project began, Sara has learned that these women have a different approach to work than she does. Sara comes from a corporate background and expects a certain corporate professionalism from her team members. When she sat down for a monthly one-on-one with one of the women, Kate, she was surprised to see Kate show up for the video call 10 min late and in her sports bra. To top it off, Kate used the time during the one-on-one to record a #GRWM (Get Ready With Me) video for the Instagram account, so the whole time she was talking to Sara, she was also putting on makeup and trying on outfits.

Summary of Takeaways

Difficult conversations often feel overwhelming because we build them up in our minds. To make these moments less daunting and more productive, consider these four strategies:

Prioritize Immediacy: A quick, casual comment delivered in the moment is much easier to give and receive than a formal, long-awaited meeting. Addressing a minor issue immediately prevents it from festering into a larger conflict.
Keep it Bite-Size: Don't wait for a list of issues to accumulate. Addressing one small behavior at a time keeps the conversation manageable and prevents the other person from feeling attacked or overwhelmed by a "mountain" of feedback.
Lead with Curiosity: Approach the conversation as a learner, not a teacher. Use powerful questions like, "What do you see as the purpose of our one-on-ones?" to understand the other person's thought process and motivations.
Separate Behavior from Assumption: We often create stories in our heads about why someone did something (e.g., "They don't respect me"). Instead of acting on those assumptions, focus on objective, observable behavior.
Use the "Story I'm Making Up" Script: When addressing a concern, try this: "I noticed [behavior]. The story I’m making up about that is [interpretation]. Will you set me straight?" This non-accusatory approach opens a door for them to explain their intent and for you to realign expectations.

The Bottom Line: Conflict usually arises from misread signals. By focusing on fixable behaviors rather than identity, and by choosing curiosity over judgment, you can turn a "difficult" conversation into a transformative moment of clarity.

Solve Your Time Management Problems

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 18:44:00 GMT

Depending on your situation, there are several ways you can better manage your time. Time management is an ongoing and continuous process of assessing, organizing, and executing.

Assess

This phase of time management is about knowing yourself, how you work, when you’re most productive, and when you need breaks to be your best self.

You can learn these things by:

Paying attention to what you have done in the past.
Tracking your time for a week and seeing what you did and how long things took.
Asking your manager, friends and colleagues what they notice about how you spend your time.
Taking note of when you start the day, when you break (whether on purpose or not) and when you “shut down” both mentally and physically.

Then you can draw some conclusions around how you should design your calendar to bring out your best and use your time efficiently.

Organize

This phase of time management is about creating systems that enable you to stay on top of your calendar and task list.

These systems may include:

Your calendar and calendar blocks.
To do lists and prioritization.
Project management programs.
Email reminders.

The systems you choose should be unique to you and tailored to how you work. The tools and approaches need to fit within your life… not be separate from it. Part of the trick is treating your systems as “works in progress,” and taking the time to iterate and improve on them over time.

Execute

This phase of time management is simply about getting the work done, ideally quickly and well.

Execution strategies include:

Eat the Frog, a concept popularized by Brian Tracy in his book by the same name.
Set timers.
Turn off notifications.
Schedule time.
Break down tasks.

…and so many more. There are a million productivity hacks out there. You don’t need to try them all. Experiment with a few, discover what works for you, and adapt them to be exactly what you need them to be.

In general, when we’re coaching folks who are dealing with time management challenges one of the biggest things they need is just the 30- or 60-minute coaching session with us as an opportunity to stop reacting, take a breath, and come up with a plan. Even that little pause can be a powerful way to help you take control back of your calendar.

What time management hacks work for you?

Kara was recently coaching a leader who wanted to work through her time management problems. Kara asked her, “What brings this to mind today?” Her client said, “Because it makes me stressed.” Two days later, another client brought up the same topic and said it was important because, “I’m overwhelmed.” The same day, another client shared, “I have urgent requests that I deal with every day, and then I feel like I never get anything done.”

Maybe it’s cutesy to say that time management is an evergreen challenge… but it’s true. It ebbs and flows as our work lives and personal lives change. The busier we are, or the more important the task in front of us is, the harder it is to successfully and gracefully manage our time. And the crazy thing is, it’s in these moments of high stress and overwhelm where we most need to be able to trust and rely on our time management skills.

Summary of Takeaways

Time management is an evergreen challenge that ebbs and flows with the changes in our work and personal lives. Rather than a one-time "fix," managing time effectively is a continuous leadership discipline. Here are the core strategies to move from overwhelm to control:

Shift from "Busy" to "Productive": Overwhelm often stems from treating every task as equally urgent. True time management requires identifying "phantom workloads"—the busy work we create by avoiding essential, difficult, or anxiety-provoking tasks.
The "Assess, Organize, Execute" Process: * Assess: Uncover what is fueling your current overwhelm. Are you reacting to external noise or internal avoidance?
Organize: Use a simple framework to categorize your to-do list based on impact and strategic value.
Execute: Build a personalized plan to work smarter, prioritizing the "high-priority rocks" before the "sand and water" of routine tasks fill your day.
Practice "Metacognition" with Your Time: Like any leadership skill, time management requires reflection. Periodically track how you actually spend your hours versus how you planned to spend them. This visibility allows you to adjust your habits and align your calendar with your deepest values.
Set SMART, Time-Distributed Goals: Avoid the "end-of-quarter" crunch by setting SMART goals that are due at different points throughout a project. This creates a steady rhythm of progress and prevents the stress of last-minute rushing.
Manage the "Collective Hour": As a leader, your time management affects your team. Before calling a meeting, weigh the strategic outcome against the combined hourly cost of the participants. If the "status" can be shared asynchronously, reclaim that hour for high-leverage work.

How to Leverage Inquiry to Influence

Mon, 13 Jan 2025 15:00:00 GMT

But lucky for you, David inspired us and below are some suggestions for questions anyone can use at several key moments within a consultative conversation, from kicking off the conversation to forwarding the action.

Identify the Problem

How would you summarize the problem?
What are the major obstacles getting in the way right now?
What is the root cause of the issue?
What should we prioritize addressing first?

Explore the Problem

Where are we today?
What should we discuss to resolve this?
What should we consider?
What will help us figure this out?
What support do we need?
What’s keeping us from moving forward?

Identify a Goal

What does success look like?
What would be a great outcome for this issue? For this conversation?
What’s important about this?
What will be different if we do this well?

Learn from the Past

What have we already tried?
What did we learn?
Where have we seen success on this type of challenge before?
What prior mistakes should we avoid repeating?

Brainstorm Solutions

What ideas do you have already?
Where can we start making progress?
What is working that we can build on?
What else?

Prioritize

How will we decide what’s next?
What feels easiest to accomplish?
What feels most critical to accomplish?
What will give us momentum?
What do we need to start on immediately because of its complexity?

Plan and Take Action

Where do we go from here?
What will I do? What will you do?
What metrics should we track?
How will we be accountable?
When will we check-in again?

Reflect on the Discussion Itself

What are our insights so far?
What are our unanswered questions?
What should we table for later?

Questions don’t have to be either leading or random. You can ask questions thoughtfully, in a way that encourages open discussion, collaboration AND you can ask questions that move people to action. What questions have you found to inspire productive conversations?

At one of Kara’s coaching sessions recently, David was trying to figure out how he could be influential and move people, without being directive. He knew he wouldn’t be truly leading if he just told them what to do. He valued their trust and perspective, but did want a way to be consultative that didn’t get stuck in brainstorming and exploration. He said, “When I’m less directive and ask questions instead of giving advice, we just circle around things and we never move forward.”

David clearly had a sense that leveraging inquiry and prompting discussions with questions was valuable because it allowed space for his colleagues to participate and inform the discussion. He was comfortable with how to do this and which questions to use to create a reflective and even generative conversation. But once the reflection and brainstorming had happened, he didn’t know how to move things along without falling back on simply giving instructions to everyone. He was a bit lost with this and asked if we had a resource of powerful questions to use when trying to be consultative. Unfortunately, at that time, our answer was no.

Summary of Takeaways

The most effective leaders don't just give advice; they use strategic inquiry to move people toward a goal. To lead a consultative conversation that avoids "circling" and instead drives results, structure your questions around these key phases:

Identify and Explore the Problem: Use questions to get to the root cause. Ask, "What should we prioritize addressing first?" or "What is keeping us from moving forward?" to ground the team in current reality.
Define Success: Shift from the "what" to the "why." Ask, "What will be different if we do this well?" to help the team visualize the goal and its importance.
Learn and Brainstorm: Leverage past experiences before jumping to new ideas. Ask, "What prior mistakes should we avoid repeating?" and then move to generative questions like, "What ideas do you have already?"
Prioritize and Plan: Narrow the focus to create momentum. Ask, "What will give us the most immediate progress?" and transition into accountability with, "What will I do? What will you do?"
Reflect and Refine: Ensure the discussion itself was productive. Ask, "What are our unanswered questions?" to capture any loose ends for the next session.

The Bottom Line: Inquiry isn't just about gathering information; it’s about guiding a group’s thinking process. By asking the right questions at the right time, you empower others to find the solution while maintaining clear forward momentum.

Maximize Your Draft Agenda

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 15:00:00 GMT

It’s very common for folks to start thinking about how they will gather by jumping straight into dividing the time up into chunks and assigning each chunk an activity. Our recommendation is to take a breath before you do that, and first get clear on why you’re gathering and what you hope to accomplish by the end of the time together. Our favorite framework is the KNOW FEEL DO framework. Write down what you want attendees to KNOW after they’ve participated in the meeting, what you want them to FEEL as a result of the meeting, and what you want them to DO when the meeting is finished. If you can get clear on these desired outcomes, you’ll already have a fantastic set of guard rails to give your agenda shape.

Give Your Agenda Structure

By structure, we mean literal structure on the page. It’s important to be able to scan an agenda from top to bottom and left to right. Even (and perhaps especially) as a draft, the agenda should have clean organization. Consider a simple table format to break apart timing, activity descriptions, owners, leads, outcomes, etc. This structure also helps to visually highlight the decisions that have yet to be made or the questions that are still outstanding.

Define Goals for Each Item

Even if you’ve taken the time to really think about your purpose for the gathering, it’s useful to ALSO take the time to identify the goals or outcomes of each section of the agenda. Try to be explicit about each activity. What do you want people to know, feel, and do after this piece of the agenda? What will the outputs be? Will those outputs then be inputs into the next activity? This helps you make sure that all the parts and pieces are tied up by the end, the time is used effectively, and lines up with your overarching goals. It also helps surface items that are on the agenda “just because,” or “that’s how we’ve done it in the past.” Those aren’t good enough reasons to spend the time and resources to gather.

Think about Start Times and Runtimes

It’s helpful to see the start and end times of each agenda item, but it's also nice to quickly see expected runtime for the time block. Don’t ask yourself or your collaborators to do the math to figure out runtimes. That means, if you plan on a 20 minute ice breaker activity at 9am, have a column in your agenda that lists 9am as the start time, and another column that lists the runtime as 20 minutes. As you’re planning your agenda, you’ll want both the start time and runtime of the activity to be easily viewable.

Track Accountability

There is nothing worse than planning an agenda and then losing track of follow through. One of the most crucial things you can do when putting together an agenda is make clear who’s responsible for designing and facilitating each portion of the event. Sometimes the designer and the facilitator are different people… if that’s the case, make sure to call that out. And then there are the pieces that feel straightforward enough they don’t need an owner. Don’t fall into that trap. Even an ice breaker requires some prethought and intentionality to work well. Choose someone to run with it. It’s very rare that a single person will be the architect of the whole event from start to finish, so be explicit about who owns what piece, and ensure that everyone’s on the same page about it.

Eventually, your goal is to have a highly detailed agenda that can be the single source of truth for the entire team working to design and execute the event. For many of our clients, the agenda eventually turns into a play-by-play facilitator guide to help the emcee and others keep the entire thing running smoothly. The detailed agenda is an incredibly helpful planning tool. Once it’s time for the event, create another simplified agenda to share with attendees.

We used this approach and applied these tips to a client’s agenda. Check out that markup here .

It’s conference season. It’s strategic planning season. It’s Sales Kick Off season…

Around this time of year, people are planning large-scale and high-stakes gatherings, and they want to make sure the time and money invested in these events are well spent. Nine times out of ten, that means folks are putting pen to paper and coming up with an agenda. If you’re in the early stages of doing just that, here are some tips to make sure your agenda (and the resulting gathering) are designed with outcomes, engagement and a thoughtful flow in mind.

Start with Purpose

Sumaary of Takeaways

A draft agenda is more than a list of topics—it’s a strategic tool for ensuring high-stakes gatherings deliver a real return on investment. To turn a basic outline into a high-impact plan, follow these five best practices:

Anchor in the "KNOW, FEEL, DO" Framework: Before scheduling activities, define exactly what you want participants to KNOW (information), FEEL (emotional energy), and DO (actions) by the end of the event. These outcomes should serve as the guardrails for every agenda decision.
Organize with Clean Structure: Use a clear table format to break down timing, descriptions, owners, and specific section outcomes. A well-organized document visually highlights where decisions are still pending and ensures the flow is easy to scan for all stakeholders.
Define Goals for Every Item: Every block of time must justify its existence. Be explicit about the specific goal of each activity and how its output serves as an input for what comes next. If a section is there "just because," eliminate it.
Track Start Times and Runtimes: Don't make collaborators "do the math." List both the exact start time and the expected duration for every block. This clarity helps you identify where the schedule is too cramped or where more "breathing room" is needed for reflection.
Assign Clear Accountability: Explicitly name who is responsible for designing and who is responsible for facilitating each portion. Even small items like icebreakers need a designated owner to ensure they are intentional and well-executed.

Why We Care About Defining “Coach”

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 14:00:00 GMT

When we kick off a coaching engagement with an organization, we always set expectations in a workshop about what coaching actually is and what to expect. It may seem self explanatory on the surface, but the term “coaching” is used in so many different ways and people have had personal experiences with many types of coaches. The result is that everyone comes to the table with different expectations

Athletic coaches direct their athletes’ training by providing very specific guidance and routines.

Managers or employees as coaches often listen to their coachee vent, and then offer ways to solve the issue.

Life coaches, career coaches and executive coaches self-identifying as coaches come with a variety of training and approaches.

Even at Wolf & Heron, when we offer presentation coaching, we mean something entirely different than executive coaching.

The definition of the term “coaching” matters because it’s the substance of the engagement. Inherent in the definition is an understanding of the desired outcome, and a notion of why an executive coach is the right partner to get you there.

At Wolf & Heron, we think of coaching the same way The International Coaching Federation (ICF) does. The ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.

There are a few things hidden in that definition that are critical to its value…

Thought-provoking - Coaching conversations should help the coachee move their thinking forward. These conversations are thinking time for the coachee. Coaching is not used to rehash the past or vent. Venting may feel good, but it doesn’t give the coachee any new insights. For the coachee to make progress, they have to process their experiences. To encourage this, a coach asks powerful open-ended questions.

Creativity - Coaches are trained to lean into intuition, curiosity, and open-mindedness. These skills are all designed to give coaching conversations a certain amount of creativity and play. So much of what a coachee needs to maximize their personal and professional potential is the ability to stretch their thinking into new spaces. Coaches help them with that.

Inspires [the client] - The person doing the heavy thinking in a coaching relationship is actually the coachee. The coach helps the coachee explore within themselves and come to their own conclusions. Coaches are trained to focus the conversation on the coachee in this way rather than provide advice or direction—an action that would center the coach in the conversation instead.

Maximize their potential - A coaching conversation does not begin and end with reflection and processing. Coaching is focused on driving action and moving forward. Every coaching conversation begins by identifying a topic and then turning that into a goal. As the goal is identified and then clarified by the coachee, they are driving their development forward.

Personal and professional - Often we get the question, “What can we talk about during a coaching call? Is this strictly professional?” In general, it depends on the goals of the coachee. That said, we have found that even “professional goals” steer into the personal via conversations about work-life balance, boundaries, career goals and more. Human beings are inherently whole. Compartmentalizing the human into different parts is often counterproductive.

To sum up, a Wolf & Heron coach is not going to give you the answers or a regime to train you. They’re not going to (just) cheer you on. They’re not going to be a space to rehash the past and vent about everything and just feel worse.

A coach is a partner who will help you think deeply, come up with new ideas, and take action toward your goals. If that’s what would be helpful for you, let’s talk.

Find the Structure of Your Story

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 19:44:00 GMT

Reference

Find the Structure of Your Story

A one-page reference basic story structure with some tips for how to work through mapping your story idea to the structure.

Where You Should Tell a Story in your Presentation

Mon, 30 Sep 2024 14:00:00 GMT

Andy is a consultant that works with clients to help them implement and manage major change initiatives. He recently came to Stephanie for some presentation coaching. He had received the feedback that his presentations lacked refinement. He was clearly knowledgeable about his topic, and had lots to say, but his messages weren’t coming across, and his audiences were glazing over. Stephanie and Andy spent the first session discussing the opportunities Andy had, and he left with the homework of inserting a few stories into the presentation at key moments. The next session, Andy came back with bupkis… instead he said, “I don’t know what stories to tell, let alone where to put them!”

Yup. This is the key challenge of presenters everywhere. They want to include stories in their presentation, but have no idea where they should go or what they should be about. Here are a few moments in your presentation where leveraging a story is particularly effective.

Opening

Think about how you can start your presentation before you jump into your slide deck. Once you start talking about your agenda, your audience gets ready to sit back with expectations of a “same as usual” presentation. Part of what can make you a compelling presenter is to figure out how to disarm your audience right from the jump; and show them that this presentation will be more engaging than they expected. You can do this through story because stories help you connect with your audience and introduce them to who you are as a person, especially if you’re the vulnerable main character of your story. A good story will encourage your audience to lean forward instead of back, watching and waiting to discover where the story will go.

Interestingly, opening stories don’t even have to have anything to do with your presentation (though they certainly can). It can be a story as to why you now have a mustard stain on your shirt, or how this past weekend you tore your ACL water skiing, or even how on the way up to the meeting just now you had a moment where you thought the elevator was going to get stuck. The purpose of an opening story is to introduce yourself, build rapport, and disarm your audience. If you do this effectively, they’ll already be more open to your message, and you haven’t even officially “begun.”

Establishing the WHY

Often presentations are designed in response to some kind of problem statement. Maybe the presentation is intended to offer up recommended solutions to the problem, possible root causes of the problem, or simply lay out a case for why a problem needs addressing. When this is the case, bringing the problem to life through a story can go a long way to establishing the burning platform and encouraging your audience to pay attention to what you have to say.

Problems often become problems after a certain amount of data analysis and number crunching; the data surfaces the issue. But if you want to get people to buy into the issue and care about finding a solution, taking that problem back to a specific, individual experience is what will make the difference. Instead of saying “On average, nurses spend over 1.5 hours of their 8-hour shift logging into their computer system,” tell a story about a nurse, Sarah, who’s frustrated with the number of times she has to log in and how this login time is affecting her ability to care for her patients. Instead of saying, “67% of managers feel ill-equipped to manage their team remotely,” tell a story about Jeff, a seasoned manager with a new team who has never met anyone on his team in person and how he’s having managerial crises for the first time in his long and successful career. Stories that bring to life the real-life challenges that Sarah or Jeff are navigating make the problem easier for your audience to understand, and give them people to visualize and care about.

Key Messages

A common presentation structure is to have a main idea followed by 3-5 key points. Presentation titles that follow this structure might be something like, “The Keys to Success,” or “Our Values,” or (for those of you thinking about Sales Kickoff Events for 2025) “Key Sales Priorities of 2025.” One can imagine how each of these presentations will have a few upfront context-setting slides, followed by a few “sections” of the presentation that dive into each one of what is essentially a list of ideas. When a presentation follows a structure like this, give each section its own story.

Stories make concepts memorable. As presentations like this are often information downloads, retention is one of the most important things to consider. Each takeaway that you want the audience to remember deserves a story to reinforce it. The Keys to Success, for example, would have several stories where each showcases how ONE of the keys made a difference. Our Values might have a story for each value, illustrating how that value comes to life in the workplace. Key Sales Priorities of 2025 could potentially have a story that establishes the WHY behind each of the priorities.

Narrative Through-line

Sometimes your presentation IS the story. This is an extremely effective presentation style. Many of the most popular TED and TEDx talks have a story as the main narrative through-line of a presentation. In particular, this works well for a researcher (or any problem solver, for that matter) presenting their own research (or journey to the problem’s solution); rather than simply presenting the findings, the researcher can share the story of how these findings were uncovered, the trials and tribulations that accompanied the research, and the emotional experience the researcher had along the way. This is a story! And it will absolutely be more interesting and compelling than simply sharing the findings.

These are all great moments for stories to be embedded into a presentation. Where else have you found storytelling to be particularly effective inside the context of a presentation?

PS: if you’re looking for a tool to help you craft stories to insert into your presentations, look no further than here !

How to Give Constructive Feedback

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 14:00:00 GMT

But it’s no wonder! This is tough for many managers to navigate, regardless of the particular issue. Once a manager has mustered up the willingness to prepare for and deliver feedback, it requires attention, time and curiosity to work through. For many managers, these difficult conversations cause additional mental load because they are accompanied by fear and anxiety.

Instead of avoiding those conversations, managers should take the time to think through the issue, clarify their thoughts about what’s going on, and then develop a plan for what to do next. The good thing is that there doesn’t have to be a clear solution to the problem, just a plan for how to find it.

We can do the work of getting you there on a coaching call. But if you don’t have access to a coach, here are a few things to consider.

Dos...

Be clear and specific
Assume positive intent
Be considerate of the employee’s emotional experience
Focus on behaviors, not personalities
Ask WHEN, WHERE, HOW, and WHAT questions
Come up with next steps together

...and Don’ts

Make assumptions
Focus on winning or being right
Get defensive
Bring in your emotional baggage
Ask WHY or closed yes/ no questions

With that in mind, if you are a manager with any type of problem employee, schedule yourself 30 minutes, download this reflection worksheet . By the time you’ve completed the worksheet, you will have processed your own feelings, identified what’s important, and come up with a plan to have a feedback conversation with your employee.

Recently, Stephanie and Kara gave some post-workshop coaching to a manager in crisis. He stayed on after our Powerful Questions OneHour Workshop because he was experiencing a particular issue with an employee and couldn’t see a way through it.

“Bob, comes to me for our check-ins with nothing but problems, and he asks me for the solutions. It’s so frustrating. I don’t get it. All my other employees come to me with ideas or solutions and we can collaborate from there. I don’t know how to get him out of his mindset that it’s my job to do all the creative problem-solving.” This wasn’t the first time we heard from a manager about an issue like this. From a managers pov, there are employees who complain all the time, employees who seem distracted, employees who are frustrated with the powers that be, employees that for whatever reason don’t seem to be performing up to expectations… and managers everywhere who don’t know how to address the attitude or behavioral issue with their employees.

Summary of Takeaways

Giving feedback is often accompanied by anxiety and mental load, leading many managers to avoid it altogether. However, avoiding these conversations only prolongs the issue. To deliver feedback effectively, shift your focus from "being right" to "collaborative growth":

Focus on Behaviors, Not Personalities: Effective feedback is clear and specific. Instead of critiquing who an employee is, address the specific actions or habits that need to change.
Assume Positive Intent: Approaching the conversation with curiosity and empathy reduces defensiveness. Consider the employee’s emotional experience and acknowledge that there might be factors you haven't considered.
Ask "How" and "What" Instead of "Why": Questions starting with "Why" can feel accusatory. Use open-ended questions like "What would help you feel more empowered to solve this?" to encourage reflection and ownership.
Avoid Assumptions and Baggage: Don't let your own past frustrations or emotional baggage cloud the feedback. Stay grounded in the current observation and be wary of making assumptions about the employee’s motivations.
Plan the "Next Steps" Together: You don’t need to have all the answers. The goal of the conversation is to develop a plan for finding a solution together, ensuring both parties are committed to the outcome.

The Bottom Line: Feedback shouldn't be a one-way street. By preparing with intentionality and shifting from a "director" to a "coach" role, you turn a difficult conversation into a strategic opportunity for development.

The W&H Way to Craft an Influential Story

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 14:00:00 GMT

Inevitably, at some point during our Influential Storytelling workshop, either Stephanie or Kara will say, “Storytelling is both an art and a science.” As we stand there in front of a room of professionals interested in developing their storytelling skills, we are always reminded of how important it is to hold both truths at once..

Storytelling is an art. It’s human. It’s not technical or linear. It’s how we think. It’s who we are. It is a form of expressing oneself authentically.

Storytelling is also a science. It can be studied. There are proven qualities of a story that have predictable results. In particular, there are frameworks and a process you can follow to craft an influential story.

Our goal is to help people dance between these two aspects of storytelling. The process and frameworks are there to ground you and help you begin from where you are. And then we also encourage you to notice your instincts, your natural inclinations, your context and environment and let that inform your storytelling as well.

When we’re in a room facilitating the workshop and some curious, some excited, some skeptical faces are looking at us, we have the ability to lead the dance. Here is our attempt to write it all down. It’s somewhat linear, somewhat flexible, and will get you started if you want to be an influential storyteller.

The Wolf & Heron Influential Storytelling Process

Crafting an influential story is tough. Where do you start? What do you do along the way? How do you know if and when you’re ready to share your story? We thought it would be fun to try to lay out our process from beginning to end. During our Influential Storytelling program, we take participants through the entire process of crafting an influential story, but it’s something else to see it laid out on a page. Let’s see if we can do it!

1. Think of a story idea.

Once you have the time, place and need for a story, you have to choose a story idea. Story ideas can come from anywhere. As a practice, we recommend developing a habit of periodic reflection to take note of the stories that you’ve lived as you live them. Threshold moments—when there’s a major transition in your life or work—are great opportunities for reflection. When a project closes out, a birth, a death, a new job, a new boss… all these moments can serve as opportunities for you to think about where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re going. Take note of any times when you have strong emotional reactions to things, or evolve your thinking on something. All these moments can eventually turn into stories that you can leverage when the opportune moment presents itself.

2. Block out your story.

Once you have the story idea, the next step is to block it out and shape it into story form. By putting pen to paper (or text to google doc), you will make sure that your story is a story and not just a high-level description of what happened. Keep in mind that all stories have at least one character, and follow this basic story structure:

For a deeper explanation of this structure, check out this article .

For each building block, fill in what happened. Focus on a few things:

What happened: The events (the plot).
Why it matters: The stakes, why you cared, why others cared, the potential risks and impacts.
Time and place: When it took place and where.
Sensory details: What did you see, hear, smell, feel?

Additionally, to really lean into the power of story, you’ll also want:

Specificity : The more “in the scene” you can be with respect to characters, setting, actions, thoughts, sensory details, etc. the more visceral and cinematic your story becomes. This is what makes your story experiential, and therefore memorable.
Transformation : Something needs to be different at the end than it was at the beginning. Usually this is your main character.

3. Share your story

Once you have a few notes blocked out on your story arc, it’s time to start telling your story. At first, find low-risk audience members and simply try to get your story out. Have an audience member reflect back to you what they heard, what worked, and what needs working on. This step will move you leaps and bounds towards a more refined story than any sitting at your desk alone in a dark room ever will.

4. Apply the Super Powers.

Once you have your story blocked out, you have a story but it still needs work to refine and make it compelling. Not all stories are created equal, and if you want to ensure your story is truly influential, you will need to focus on each of the four “super powers” and pull them through your story. Looking for a summary of all of the Super Powers? See here .

Keep it Real - Be authentic

Engage Emotion - Make your story a physiological and emotional experience

Invite Curiosity - Use mystery and suspense to make your story an intellectual experience

Pick One Theme - Focus on a single message

5. Write it down in full sentences.

At some point in this process, take the time to write down your story. And not just in bullet points, but in full sentences. The reason is that in writing a few things happen - you’ll realize and capture more details than you thought you had, and it will force you to clarify your thinking and be more specific. This also gives you the opportunity to have something to edit going forward. Once you have the draft, you can go back and refine via the other steps.

6. Plan your delivery approach.

It’s important to consider not just what you say, but how you say it. Your delivery, your voice, your gestures and body movement, all play a role in amplifying the meaning of your story, and in particular, adding emotion and interest. You can view the 5 Ps of Delivery here .

Additionally, consider your blocking. This is theater-speak for knowing when and where you will take a step or two, how you will move your arms, where you will look, etc. Your body is as much a part of your communication (in fact, it’s even more important) as what you say verbally.

7. Practice your story. Again.

The more that you share your story with others, the more insight you will gain into the effectiveness and impact of your story. Use your written story as a guide and actually read it aloud. Sharing your story with feedback partners allows you several small wins. It helps you:

Build your emotional and mental confidence in sharing your story.
Vet your story for confusing sequencing or unnecessary details.
Collect feedback on your use of the 4 super powers and 5 Ps.

When asking for feedback, you can always use the feedback guides included as part of the Influential Storytelling experience, or you can keep it simple and consider these questions:

What is the main takeaway you have from the story?
What might make the story more powerful?
What could I leave out without impacting the power of the story?

After receiving feedback, be sure to revise your draft. Capture the ideas and suggestions others give you, check them against what feels authentic to you, and integrate them into your story in a way that feels real.

The story crafting process is messy. Sometimes it can feel like you have to take three steps backward just to find a way forward again. That’s the art side of the journey. But if you stick at it, and keep iterating, you will find your way to a story that’ll be not only entertaining, but influential.

Storytelling is an art. It’s human. It’s not technical or linear. It’s how we think. It’s who we are. It is a form of expressing oneself authentically.

The Wolf & Heron Influential Storytelling Process

Crafting an influential story is tough. Where do you start? What do you do along the way? How do you know if and when you’re ready to share your story? We thought it would be fun to try to lay out our process from beginning to end. During our Influential Storytelling program, we take participants through the entire process of crafting an influential story, but it’s something else to see it laid out on a page. Let’s see if we can do it!

1. Think of a story idea.

2. Block out your story.

Once you have the story idea, the next step is to block it out and shape it into story form. By putting pen to paper (or text to google doc), you will make sure that your story is a story and not just a high-level description of what happened. Keep in mind that all stories have at least one character, and follow this basic story structure:

For a deeper explanation of this structure, check out this article .

For each building block, fill in what happened. Focus on a few things:

What happened: The events (the plot).
Why it matters: The stakes, why you cared, why others cared, the potential risks and impacts.
Time and place: When it took place and where.
Sensory details: What did you see, hear, smell, feel?

Additionally, to really lean into the power of story, you’ll also want:

Specificity : The more “in the scene” you can be with respect to characters, setting, actions, thoughts, sensory details, etc. the more visceral and cinematic your story becomes. This is what makes your story experiential, and therefore memorable.
Transformation : Something needs to be different at the end than it was at the beginning. Usually this is your main character.

3. Share your story

4. Apply the Super Powers.

Keep it Real - Be authentic

Engage Emotion - Make your story a physiological and emotional experience

Invite Curiosity - Use mystery and suspense to make your story an intellectual experience

Pick One Theme - Focus on a single message

5. Write it down in full sentences.

6. Plan your delivery approach.

It’s important to consider not just what you say, but how you say it. Your delivery, your voice, your gestures and body movement, all play a role in amplifying the meaning of your story, and in particular, adding emotion and interest. You can view the 5 Ps of Delivery here .

7. Practice your story. Again.

Build your emotional and mental confidence in sharing your story.
Vet your story for confusing sequencing or unnecessary details.
Collect feedback on your use of the 4 super powers and 5 Ps.

When asking for feedback, you can always use the feedback guides included as part of the Influential Storytelling experience, or you can keep it simple and consider these questions:

What is the main takeaway you have from the story?
What might make the story more powerful?
What could I leave out without impacting the power of the story?

5 Tips for Planning an Interactive Session

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 14:00:00 GMT

She decided to focus her efforts on the breakouts. At a few moments in the flow, the 150-person group would break into smaller sessions. Given the more intimate nature of these sessions, she thought these would be where she could do some experimentation in terms of the delivery strategy. And so she reached out to us.

It is through our work with people like Melissa that we have identified some common mis-steps when it comes to planning interactive sessions, so we thought we’d bring them to you. If you’re looking to leave the presentation behind and design a more engaging session for your audience, here are 5 tips to consider.

Less is more

If you’re planning to turn a breakout into an interactive session, the first mistake people make is that they expect to cover the same amount of content they would have covered if it was a presentation. In the course of a presentation, a speaker can cover a decent amount of ground, but when it comes to an interactive session, the same amount of content is simply too much. For your audience to truly process, contextualize, and integrate the content, you have to go a bit slower so you have more space for exploration and interactivity.

But there’s good news! There’s a disconnect between how much content is covered during a presentation and how much the audience actually remembers. The most generous studies out there suggest that audiences remember only 10% of the content from a 10-minute presentation just one week after the event. The numbers drop even lower as the length of the presentation increases. Interactive sessions, by their very nature, are more effective at driving retention, in addition to other intangibles like buy-in, motivation, and commitment. Even though you cover less, you’ll have stronger and longer-lasting outcomes.

So how much can you cover? The general rule of thumb is to multiply your presentation time by 3-4. That means a 15-20 minute presentation can be effectively covered in a 1-hour interactive session.

Follow the Setup-Activity-Debrief cycle

A best practice of interactive sessions is to follow a cycle where the facilitator sets up an activity, breaks the room up into smaller groups to do the activity, and then debriefs the activity as a room again. Staying true to this cycle maximizes the interactive nature of the experience (and therefore retention and buy-in) and minimizes the burden on the facilitator to be a content expert themselves. This is a tried and true go-to approach to structuring your interactive sessions.

Transitions take time

Interactive sessions require transitions. The group will move from a facilitator-led room discussion to an individual or pair activity, to a table discussion, and so on. These transitions are not nothing. In fact, it’s often these transitions that derail an otherwise well-planned session.

As a general rule of thumb, plan for 2-5 minutes to transition to and set up an activity. This gives the facilitator time to orient the group to the materials, help them understand the task they need to complete, answer any questions they may have, and give them time to settle into the work. Once an activity is complete, plan 3-5 minutes for each debrief question you plan to have the facilitator ask, and give it even more time if the group is large. All together, that means a 10-minute table discussion will eat up 15-20 minutes of your agenda time. Plan these transitions in, or you’ll be behind schedule almost immediately, and have no way of recovering the time.

Have a Plan B and C, and consider your edge cases

If you plan to break the room into pairs for an activity, make sure you know what to do with the odd man out… will that person work alone? Or join a pair and make a triad? If the triad is given the same amount of time to work through the activity, will it be enough? These questions are important to consider, and can have a huge impact on the participants’ experience.

But outside of edge cases, Plans B and C are important to have on hand. If your tech fails, what will you do? If the printed materials end up printing wrong, how will you manage? What if you ask a question and no one has an answer? Will you jump in with the answer or hang onto silence until someone speaks up? If you need a volunteer, what will you do if no one raises their hand? What will you do if everyone does?

Good facilitators have a plan for the most likely situations BEFORE they get into the room. This helps the experience run smoothly, and gives the participants the impression that all is running according to plan (whether or not it is). This matters because if the audience is worried about the logistics or distracted by questions on mechanics, they’re not focused on the content or conversation.

Debrief questions shouldn’t require much thinking

After a breakout activity, it’s typical for the facilitator to bring the room back together to discuss the activity and land the learning. It’s key to remember that a debrief should NOT require your audience to do any new or additional processing work. The questions you ask in your debrief should have answers the audience has already generated, either through their small-group discussions or via an individual activity. Net new questions require additional processing time, which deflates the energy of the group and slows down the pace of your workshop. Additionally, when the facilitator throws new questions at the audience when they’re in their most vulnerable state—in front of the entire room—the psychological safety of the room is destroyed, and audience members retreat into themselves and the anonymity of the group.

Those are some of the tried-and-true strategies we use when designing workshops, breakout sessions, and any kind of interactive experience. What other rules of thumb do you keep in mind?

Big meetings and events are due for a refresh. As an example, Melissa was planning an all-company retreat for her 150-person organization. This is a once-a-year event where the entire organization gathers for a few days. Typically the time is spent reviewing the year that just happened, and launching the strategic initiatives of the year to come. We see similar formats with sales kickoffs, leadership retreats, and even some conferences.

Now, Melissa had read our article that we recently published recommending that presentations aren’t always the best way to go… especially when what you want is engagement. She decided to challenge herself and the planning team to rethink their approach and reduce the number of presentations that were typically delivered during this retreat, and instead deliver the content of the retreat in a more interactive, and engaging way.

Planning an interactive session isn't just about adding a Q&A at the end—it’s about intentionally designing a space where participants can process and integrate information. Here are five essential tips to ensure your next session is a success:

Multiply Your Time: Interactive content takes 3-4 times longer than a standard presentation. If you have 15 minutes of content, plan for a full hour to allow for genuine exploration and interaction.
Follow the Setup-Activity-Debrief Cycle: Don't just throw people into an exercise. Spend time orienting them (Setup), give them space to work (Activity), and most importantly, facilitate a structured discussion afterward to lock in the learning (Debrief).
Prepare for the "Odd Man Out": Logistics matter. Have a plan for uneven group sizes (triads vs. pairs) and technical glitches. Anticipating these "edge cases" ensures the flow remains seamless for your participants.
Prioritize Psychological Safety: Avoid putting people on the spot with "cold calls" or complex questions in front of the whole room. Build safety by letting them discuss ideas in small groups first before sharing with the larger audience.
Less is More: Resist the urge to pack your agenda. Interactive sessions drive higher retention and buy-in, but only if you give your audience the breathing room to actually engage with the material.

The Bottom Line: To move your audience from passive listeners to active participants, you must shift your focus from covering content to facilitating an experience.

Summary of Takeaways

A Provocative Recommendation: Stop Presenting!

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 14:32:00 GMT

In our first conversation, we challenged Karen with a question that often leaves many of our clients a bit dumbfounded. What would you do if you took away the option to have anyone present anything?

Now, don’t get us wrong. We don’t have anything against the tried-and-true strategy of information dissemination by presentation. In fact, great presenters can be extremely effective at engaging and even inspiring an audience. But death-by-presentation is a real thing; especially at big events like conferences, kickoffs, retreats, etc. For some reason, we’ve all settled into believing the myth that the best way to communicate to groups of people is to present. It isn’t. At least not necessarily. And when you’ve got a line-up of presenters who are anything but out-of-this-world fantastic, it’s a good guess that death-by-presentation is likely where your audience will end up.

And so, when we take on a new client who’s looking for a new way to engage their people, one of the first things we try to do is take the presentation off the table. This forces a more creative and dynamic approach to teaching, learning, and information dissemination that necessarily supports a more engaged audience.

Why presentations aren’t always the best idea

Unless a presenter is phenomenally dynamic and engaging in her own right, audience members are going to have to consciously choose to pay attention and process the information. This takes effort, and it’s almost guaranteed that more interesting distractions will find their way into the space. Oh! I just got an email, let me check it and make sure it’s not important. Hmm… that coffee bar over there is looking really yummy, maybe I should get another cup. That carpet was an interesting design choice… and so on. If the presenter is presenting information that is remotely complex, dry, or worse, poorly organized, the audience is surely checked out.

Additionally, presentations rarely offer space or time for audience members to truly process and/or contextualize the information they’re hearing. This takes additional mental functioning on the part of the audience member, and rarely occurs without explicit prompting.

What you can do instead of present

So ok… presentations alone are hard for an audience to truly engage with. But what else is there? Often clients come to us with a goal to make the experience interactive, but the interactivity typically happens after someone presents information first. The format of the “interactive” experience often follows a cycle that looks something like this:

Our challenge is to cut out the “Present Information” step altogether. The format of the experience then becomes something like this:

Karen was confused. How would her participants know the information they needed to know in order to apply it in the interactive activity?

And this, dear reader, is the crux of the issue.

Most of the time, when working with clients, the belief is that “net new” information needs to be presented first, and the only opportunity for interactivity is in the application of that knowledge. This is simply not true. Here are a few examples:

To announce a new compensation structure, groups of 3-4 are given the structure laid out clearly in a one-pager. The group explores this one-pager together, and is then challenged to rank how well 5 different hypothetical salespeople are compensated based on what they sell in a quarter. Not only will the team truly understand the new compensation structure by the end of the activity, they will also have had the opportunity to apply the incentive schemas to a few examples.
To roll out a new set of organizational values, groups of 5-6 are given a set of cards, each with one of the values represented. The group is challenged to rank the values based on how well the organization already lives them. Not only will the group have a comprehensive understanding of what the values are, they’ll also understand practical ways to live into them while at work.
To launch a new go-to-market process, a visual map of the process is displayed to a group of 8 on a poster in the center of their table. They’re then challenged with a series of questions and prompts to explore the new process, discuss challenges that may arise, and how they can each contribute to its success in the roles they each occupy. Not only will the group have a full understanding of the new process by the end of their conversation, they’ll also see themselves within that process and how they can bring it to life.

The next time you’re putting together a presentation, or an interactive session that includes a presentation for a portion of the time, ask yourself if you really need it to be a presentation. Almost certainly you can do something more interesting that will better engage your audience and result in higher levels of retention, buy-in, and commitment.

Karen was planning the annual Sales Kickoff event for her team, but she didn’t want to use the old formula. After 20 years of putting together Sales Kickoffs, she just didn’t want to put her team through yet another series of presentations and panels. Yes… they’d have cocktail hours, the boat ride, the golf challenge, and the escape room experience, but she was tired of all the “fun stuff” being outside the work. She wanted her team to lean in during the “content” portion of the Kickoff, because that was actually the part of the Kickoff that would lead to real sales results later.

When she came to us, she didn’t really know what she was looking for… only that she wanted something to be different. Her organization was launching two new products and a whole new approach to compensation for the sales team. The Kickoff was going to be when the team learned about these products, how to position them, who the target profiles were for these products, and how they’d be paid. All of this was extremely relevant to the sales team, but Karen didn’t know how to make it engaging to learn.

We’ve all settled into the myth that "presenting" is the best way to communicate information to a group. It isn't. In fact, "death-by-presentation" often leads to disengaged audiences who are more focused on their emails than your message. Here is a better way to approach your next high-stakes meeting or event:

Stop Disseminating, Start Engaging: Even the best presenters struggle to compete with a participant's distractions. Instead of hoping people pay attention, design a session where they have to participate to understand.
Flip the Script: The traditional model is Presentation → Activity → Debrief. Try cutting out the presentation entirely. By moving straight to the Setup → Activity → Debrief model, participants learn by doing.
Learn Through Application: People don’t actually need to be "told" new information before they can use it. Give them a one-pager, a set of data, or a visual map, and challenge them to solve a problem together. They will discover the "net new" information themselves through the process.
Create Context and Connection: When people explore a new process or compensation structure in small groups, they aren't just memorizing facts—they are discussing challenges and figuring out how the information applies to them.
Retention Over Recitation: Active exploration results in much higher levels of retention, buy-in, and commitment than passive listening ever could.

The Bottom Line: The next time you're tempted to build a slide deck, ask yourself: What would I do if I took away the option to present? By removing the podium, you force a more creative, dynamic, and effective way to lead.

Summary of Takeaways

Scripts that Unlock Potential

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 13:34:00 GMT

In training to be a coach, one of the key strategies we discuss are those of the Request and Challenge. Making a Request is defined simply as asking your coachee to do something specific. When Stephanie was going through coaching training, she was surprised to discover how unnatural it was for her to make a simple and direct request. Maybe it was her childhood coding that made requesting things of others feel like she was imposing on them. Perhaps it was simply a desire to avoid conflict. Whatever the reason, leaning on the script, “Will you…” helped her get started. What she learned was two fold: First, even if they say they want to, people are more likely to actually do something if someone else has asked them to do it. Second, people appreciate the challenge. Thirdly, people actually find the direct nature of the language to be refreshing. “Will you do something?” is very clear and easy to follow.

Which brings us to the Challenge., A Challenge is a request that even the coach considers to be a stretch. The idea here is to expand the realm of possibility and help the coachee see themselves as capable of more than they originally thought. For example, a coachee might say something like, “Yeah, I’ll reach out to her this week.” A coach might respond with the request, “Will you reach out to her three times?” as a way to up the ante. But to really push the envelope, the coach could Challengewith, “Will you reach out to her twice a day for the next ten days?”

The goal with the Challenge isn’t necessarily to have the coachee rise to it…. It’s to have the coachee rise to something higher than they otherwise would have. If a coach can frame an outrageous request, the coachee will then come back with a counteroffer that often is bigger and more expansive than the coach would have requested.

As a manager or leader, consider both the Request and the Challenge as tools to unlock the potential of your team members. The simple script, “Will you…” can get you started.

If you knew the answer, what would it be?

Often coachees come to a coaching conversation with a topic or challenge around which they are stuck. They’re looking for a way forward, but asking a question like, “Where should you go next?” is often met with the answer, “I don’t know.” What’s fascinating about the script, “If you knew the answer, what would it be?” is that it encourages people to offer up something without being as concerned about whether or not it’s actually right. Another version of this is, “If you could wave a magic wand, what would happen?” When previously the person is paralyzed with burnout or frustrated by what feels like a universe outside of their control, all of a sudden they’re being invited to make something up and imagine. It doesn’t always surface a solution, but it can unlock their thinking on a particular issue.

As a leader, when you’re looking to help employees or team members step into their own confidence and self-assuredness, this script can become a go-to for you. More often than not, your employees DO have an answer… they’re just frustrated or overwhelmed and can’t access their own knowledge. By offering them a hypothetical scenario where they can pretend they know, you can unlock access to that knowledge in a low-stakes way, thereby creating pathways to it for the future.

What’s a tiny step you can take?

Finding momentum—especially on big projects—can feel difficult sometimes. We work with leaders who find themselves unable to start, or overwhelmed by the size of the project ahead of them. Narrowing the focus and breaking down the goal can go a long way to giving people the energy to just do something. Asking the question, “What’s a tiny step you can take?” gives people permission to focus on whatever is right in front of them. It’s action that creates motivation, not the other way around… so making it easy to take action is extremely important when trying to unlock potential.

I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I’m confident you can reach them.

Ece Yildirim wrote in cnbc.com that Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist and professor at Wharton Business School, suggests if you have some criticism to deliver, don’t try to hide or mask it. Instead, preface it with this script, “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I’m confident you can reach them.”

Grant goes on to say, “The most important communication of information in your feedback happens before you give the content of the feedback.” You don’t have to use those exact words, he added, as long as you can show the other person that your intent is to help them improve, not to attack them.

It’s well established that students rise to the level of their teacher’s expectations.** If teachers communicate to their students that they expect them to be lazy, disruptive, or low achievers, that’s what they end up being. But if teachers expect their students to work hard and excel, that’s what the students do. Potential is defined not by the individual, but by the expectations of those around the individual.

As a leader, if you set your expectations high, and constantly reinforce how high those expectations are AND your confidence that those expectations are achievable, you will unlock potential in your people that only you can imagine.

What are some of the scripts you use to unlock potential in your people?

** Good, T. L. (1987). Two decades of research on teacher expectations: Findings and future directions. Journal of Teacher Education, 38(4), 32–47. https://doi.org/10.1177/002248718703800406

As executive coaches, we’re trained in conversation strategies that can unlock our client’s potential. What’s interesting in our coaching conversations is that we’re often talking to leaders about how THEY can unlock the potential of their employees or team members.

Here are a few scripts that can get you started if you’re also trying to achieve the same thing.

Will you…?

Summary of Takeaways

Many managers default to "scripts" that are polite but passive—questions like "How's it going?" or "Do you have any blockers?" while well-intentioned, often lead to surface-level status updates. To truly unlock an employee's potential, leaders must replace these tired patterns with intentional scripts designed to provoke deeper thinking and ownership.

Move Beyond the Tactical: Status-oriented scripts keep employees focused on the "what." Growth-oriented scripts shift the focus to the "how" and the "why." By changing the language of your check-ins, you signal that you are invested in their development, not just their output.
The "Wait, Tell Me More" Script: One of the simplest ways to unlock potential is to resist the urge to jump in with a solution. Using a script like, "I have some thoughts, but first, tell me more about how you’re thinking about this," creates space for the employee to flex their own problem-solving muscles.
The "Strategic Context" Script: Employees often feel like "task-takers." Unlock their potential by consistently connecting their work to the bigger picture. Use scripts such as, "The reason this project is so critical for our team’s success this year is..." to instill purpose and high-level ownership.
The "Reflection" Script: Potential is often unlocked through the integration of experience. Instead of moving immediately to the next task, use a script at the end of a project: "What is one thing you learned about your own leadership style during this process?" This forces the transition from "doing" to "learning."
Clarity Over Propriety: Don't let a desire for politeness get in the way of high-leverage coaching. Use scripts that ask for the "bottom line" or surface "what is left unsaid" to ensure that the most important (and sometimes uncomfortable) topics are addressed directly.

Guiding Principles of a Storytelling Learning Journey

Tue, 28 May 2024 15:00:00 GMT

Every learning journey—irrespective of the skill you’re teaching—should be grounded in a deep understanding of the context in which your learners will be leveraging that skill. In the case of storytelling, understanding context means you need to know the who, when, how, and why of storytelling; who the audiences are that the storyteller will be sharing stories with, when the moments will present themselves, how these stories will be shared, and why they should even be telling stories in the first place.

These details are important because they will help shape the design of your program. For example, when we work with product managers, a common use case for stories that they identify is in a presentation to their executive leadership. In this context, they have time to prepare their story ahead of time, and potentially even vet the story with representative audiences before the big day. Alternatively, when we work with sales teams, we often discuss the relevance of telling extemporaneous stories in the midst of a conversation with a customer. These different contexts require different discussion points and focus areas for the learning journey.

Understanding the storyteller’s context is also important because it may be relevant content to teach! Learners who are stretching into the storytelling skill often aren’t even aware of the storytelling moments that may already be present in their lives, let alone the reasons why they can and should be telling stories, or for whom.

Help your learners identify stories to craft

Our learners often struggle the most before they even begin. They judge and self-censor story ideas and hesitate to settle on a concept they can craft into a story. Not only is this challenge deeply personal, each learner progresses through it differently.

For this reason, our learning journey is designed with this particular challenge in mind. Before our learners gather for the live experience, we provide brainstorming prompts and meet individually with each person who needs it to help them find a story idea. Sometimes we simply have to build their confidence. Other times we help learners understand the relevant merits and drawbacks of a few stories they’re considering. Sometimes we help them brainstorm stories based on the use cases they’ve identified.

But beyond the story-crafting process that’s built into the learning journey, learners also need to learn how to identify stories they could tell in future situations. We help our learners identify the moments where they can build in a pause-and-reflect routine. In these moments—often at the end of a project, or another natural transition moment— they can capture just a few notes about the experiences they had and what they learned. These notes then become a story idea library to which they can return for story ideas when the moments present themselves.

Give your learners a language through which they can discuss the strengths and opportunities of a story

It’s important you give your learners story models and frameworks that are easy to grasp. The more you can create structure for folks, the more easily they will be able to understand and integrate the content. In Influential Storytelling , we explore the Super Powers of an Influential Storyteller and the 5 Ps of Influential Delivery. In your own learning journey, it might be a different framework, but what matters is you’re giving your learners a way of talking about the different parts and pieces of a story, and a way to evaluate the quality or power of each story.

One of the greatest benefits of providing your learners with a language is that it lasts beyond any workshop or training. It becomes a shared articulation by which they can give each other feedback. For example, the Super Powers of an Influential Storyteller gives learners four key ways to ensure their stories are influential, along with shorthand to reference each. One of them is to Invite Curiosity. After the program, as people are sharing stories and using stories at work, they can check in with each other and say, “How might I better Invite Curiosity?” and everyone has a shared understanding of what that means.

We delivered our program for the sales team at o9 Solutions, and later we heard feedback from the Head of Sales that he appreciated the frameworks that we gave his team because they empowered his team to talk to each other about their stories. After our program, he made it a regular practice for the team to share stories and give each other feedback. This was only possible because they had a shared language that allowed for efficient and effective communication.

Make it easy to experiment (and fail)

Storytelling can feel intimidating. For some, anything in the universe of public speaking is terrifying. For others, storytelling is vulnerable because it requires at least some element of sharing something personal. Whatever the reason, keep in mind that you will have to make a pointed effort to set your learners at ease and make them feel comfortable to experiment.

Some ways that we accomplish this in our program include:

Helping people feel confident about the stories they choose to craft.
Giving learners a chance to think on their own before sharing with a partner.
Laddering up the commitment by first sharing with just one person, then two, then more.
Emphasizing the value of iteration and experimentation along the way.
Showcasing a story of our own that is itself a work in progress.
Pointing out the big difference between the story they came in with, and the story they leave with.
Celebrating risk taking, not outcomes.
Framing feedback as “experiments to try” rather than “things that will definitely make the story better.”
Discussing audience variability, and the inherent nature of a story to land with one audience and not land with another.

Leverage what’s powerful about story and storytelling

Beyond the storytelling skill-building that you hope to provide, storytelling also supports connecting people to each other. A storytelling learning journey can have the added benefit of building relationships and trust across your organization. If you’re investing in developing the skill for your leaders, you might as well also capitalize on the side-benefits of building a more connected and trusting team.

To accomplish this, your program has to be designed with plenty of opportunities for your learners to share and hear stories with each other. You can’t have too much content or presentation and you must have opportunities for sharing in small groups. The more your learners can share and hear stories, the more connected they will feel, and the more memorable the experience itself will be.

At the beginning of the “come back” after COVID, when teams hadn’t seen each other in person— in some cases, for years—many of our clients were looking for a way to accomplish both professional development, and team building. Amplify, an EdTech company that saw a TON of growth during the first few years of COVID had a marketing team that went from 5 to 45 during that time. The team had never met in person, and when they finally had their first all-hands gathering, the Head of Marketing wanted to make sure that the team had a chance to really get to know each other. Although they had socialization time built into the 3-day event, the after-action feedback from participants highlighted the storytelling learning experience as not only the best part of the team retreat, but also the period of time when they felt like they got to know each other the best. Storytelling, by its nature, will naturally lend itself to building connections. Your programs should at least lean into and leverage that power as an opportunity.

Interested in developing a storytelling program at your organization? Send us an email.

We are firm believers in the value of empowering leaders (and people) to be compelling communicators who can inspire and persuade others with stories. Now that we’re almost a decade into delivering our flagship program, Influential Storytelling , we’ve partnered with clients ranging from Google to the University of Michigan, Uber to McGraw Hill. In that time, we have developed a strong point of view about what it takes to create an effective storytelling learning journey.

If you’re designing a storytelling learning journey for your employees, here are a few guiding principles we recommend you keep in mind:

Understand the storyteller’s context

Summary of Takeaways

Effective storytelling isn't just a skill—it's a journey. To design a learning experience that empowers leaders to be truly compelling communicators, keep these five guiding principles at the forefront:

Anchor in Context: Understand the specific "who, when, how, and why" of your learners' storytelling moments. Whether it's a high-stakes executive presentation or an extemporaneous sales conversation, tailoring the training to their unique reality ensures the skills are immediately applicable.
Overcome the "Blank Page" Hurdle: Many learners struggle even to start. Provide brainstorming prompts and individual coaching to help them identify and craft meaningful story ideas. Encourage a "pause-and-reflect" routine to build a personal library of stories from daily experiences.
Establish a Shared Language: Provide clear models and frameworks (like the "Super Powers of an Influential Storyteller"). A shared vocabulary allows teams to evaluate stories objectively and provide actionable feedback long after the formal training ends.
Create a Safe Space for Experimentation: Storytelling can be vulnerable and intimidating. Build confidence by "laddering up" commitments—sharing first with one person, then small groups—and frame feedback as "experiments to try" rather than definitive corrections. Celebrate the risk-taking process, not just the final outcome.
Leverage the Power of Connection: Storytelling is inherently relational. Design the learning journey with ample opportunities for participants to share and hear each other's stories. This not only builds technical skill but also fosters deep trust and connection across the organization.

Manager Hacks for Building a Sense of Belonging within a Virtual Team

Mon, 06 May 2024 15:00:00 GMT

Here are some ideas you can leverage to create a sense of belonging for your virtual team members:

Tell the story of your team and business :

Jim Haudan, CEO of Root Inc. wrote the Art of Engagement . His #1 recommendation for engaging employees is to connect people to the business strategy with images and stories. In his words, “It’s impossible to think without pictures.” Make sure your team understands how they fit into the big picture of the organization. A huge component of whether a team member feels a sense of belonging is if they believe their contribution is relevant to a larger design.

Collaborate inside and outside the team

Much of what you’re battling with a remote workforce is a sense of isolation from one’s colleagues. Create opportunities for team members to collaborate with each other and (where possible) with people on other teams. It will take intentionality to structure virtual collaboration across various time zones and with new tools, but it’s worth the lift. Productive and collaborative working sessions increase creativity and idea sharing, and have the added effect of building relationships among employees.

Share the air

People want to know their work has an impact—that their contribution matters. Part of that is making sure they all contribute. This can be sticky in virtual environments where it’s even easier for the introverts and quieter folks to be talked past and over. In virtual meetings, find ways to democratize input:

Limit the amount of time any one person can speak.
Ensure all voices are heard by literally calling on each person.
Collect feedback via a shared document or spreadsheet so input and feedback from all parties is visible to everyone else.
Create mechanisms to vote on ideas (either anonymously or with credit) which prevent the “loudest” voice from being perceived as the most “right.”

Celebrate publicly

Whenever possible, offer credit and praise in public. Make it clear that a person’s contributions are valuable, and make sure everyone else on the team also knows that. Encourage employees to celebrate each other as well. Set the expectation that you don’t just win for yourself or the company, you win for each other.

Schedule Office Hours

Even though you’re not in an office, there’s still a metaphorical door between you and your employees. Despite your “open door policy” your employees still may not feel comfortable booking your time to talk through something. Make it easy for your team members to know when and how to reach you. Consider putting open Office Hours on your calendar and welcoming all your team members to get in touch with you. Office Hours tell people you’re available and if they contact you they won’t be disturbing you or inadvertently overstepping an unspoken boundary.

Help colleagues make friends

Having friends—not just casual friends, but great friends—at work has been shown to be extremely positive. According to Gallup, having a best friend at work contributes not only to employee engagement but other outcomes such as profitability, productivity, creativity and fun. These friendships are even more critical for a remote workforce. You can encourage friendships in a variety of formal and informal ways including:

Model positive work friendships by creating your own with peers at work
Encourage your employees to make time for spontaneous or casual “coffee” connections
Design small moments within meetings to facilitate socialization and rapport-building between team members

The best ways to create belonging at work across a remote workforce will continue to evolve. We will become more comfortable building relationships through our screens, and collaboration tools continue to change. We have to be just a bit more intentional, but we have the opportunity to experiment and find the ways that work best for our people.

What helps you feel connected to your virtual team?

Interested in learning more about how leaders can be just as effective when they lead virtually? Join us for a webinar: 5 Habits of an Engaging Leader: Creating belonging in a virtual workplace on May 30, 2024. See a schedule of all W&H events here.

Feeling a sense of belonging as part of a team at work has become a bit of a hot topic in the past few years. This is no surprise given the rapid globalization and distributed nature of teams. When people only connect virtually, many of the organic human connection opportunities that exist in in-person environments disappear; you’re no longer gathering in the cafeteria to celebrate someone’s birthday, joking together about a smelly fridge, or catching an excuse to talk about last night’s game.

Many of these connections around the office can feel surface-level at best, but collectively they can create the groundwork for employee’s to feel part of something bigger; to feel like they are known at work and belong there. Managers used to be able to rely on the office and the daily proximity of team members as a relationship-building accelerator. Now that many teams are almost exclusively virtual, the approach has to be different. It’s still possible to create a sense of belonging in a virtual and distributed workplace, but it requires more intentionality; with fewer ad hoc moments of connection, relationship-building has to become a workstream rather than something that just happens by itself. The benefit is that the focused effort can lead to even stronger and purposeful connections.

Summary of Takeaways

In a virtual world, organic moments of connection—like gathering for a birthday in the breakroom—disappear. For remote teams, belonging doesn't just happen; it has to be designed as a deliberate workstream. Here are six "hacks" to build a stronger, more connected virtual team:

Connect Through Strategy and Story: People feel like they belong when they understand how their work fits into the "big picture." Use images and stories to explain the business strategy, helping every team member see their contribution as part of a larger design.
Foster Collaborative Workstreams: Isolation is the enemy of belonging. Create intentional opportunities for team members to collaborate both within the team and across other departments. This drives creativity while naturally building relationships.
"Share the Air" in Meetings: Virtual environments can make it easy for quieter voices to be overlooked. Democratize input by calling on everyone, using shared documents for visible feedback, and implementing voting mechanisms to ensure the "loudest" voice isn't always the only one heard.
Celebrate Publicly: Praise and credit should be offered in front of the group. Setting the expectation that "we win for each other" reinforces that every individual’s effort is valued by the whole team.
Schedule Virtual "Office Hours": An open-door policy can feel vague online. By putting dedicated Office Hours on your calendar, you remove the barrier for employees who might be hesitant to "disturb" you, signaling that you are available and accessible.
Encourage Work Friendships: Gallup research shows that having a best friend at work drives engagement and productivity. Model this by sharing your own work friendships and creating "coffee connection" moments during meetings to facilitate rapport-building.

The Bottom Line: Building belonging in a virtual team requires more intentionality than in an office setting, but the focused effort leads to more purposeful connections. By shifting from ad hoc interactions to designed connection, you turn a distributed group into a high-performing community.

Rethinking the Status Update Meeting

Mon, 15 Apr 2024 13:00:00 GMT

But what can you do? As a manager or project lead, you need to get updates from the team to make sure all the work streams are on track. How can you rethink—and hopefully reinvigorate—the status update meeting?

Let’s start with the purpose of the meeting. Although the meeting is often literally called a “Status Update” meeting, the title of the meeting isn’t necessarily the purpose of it. Most managers we talk to want to get workstream updates from their team members, but the reason they have the meeting as a team huddle is deeper: they want to encourage collaboration across the team, they want to build team rapport, they want to streamline the team communications, and they want to make themselves accessible to the team should they need any support, among other things.

It is because of these additional objectives that the status update meeting is a team meeting (as opposed to an email)… but that’s usually where the thoughtfulness ends. Whether your meeting is in-person, hybrid or virtual, if you are able to apply some intentionality to the design of these frequent meetings, you will make them more efficient, productive, and collaborative.

Here are some ways to redesign for a better status update meeting.

Encourage pre-meeting preparation

The best thing a manager can do to keep the meeting focused on the information or conversation that requires the entire team’s presence is to encourage pre-meeting preparation.

One way managers can do this is to set up shared documents with some questions, and ask everyone to complete it before the meeting. Questions might include:

What can you celebrate?
What is a hurdle you’re navigating right now?
What is an ask you have for the team?

The first question helps the team focus on the positive and note their own or celebrate their peers’ success. The second question offers insight into where leaders might need to provide support, and the third encourages team collaboration. Notice that the question, “What did you get done since last time?” isn’t on the list. There’s very little value that any team member gets from preparing this answer for themselves, or listening to the answer from others. If you need the answer to that question, but it doesn’t require collaboration or conversation, ask for the information via email.

Another advantage of creating a shared document is that it acts as a meeting artifact AND as a single source of truth for the team—both important assets when trying to drive collaboration and cohesion.

Limit update time for each team member

More often than not, we hear about team members who give an update that’s long-winded, disorganized, and way too in the weeds. If the updates or report outs are becoming too long-winded, consider using a timer and allotting each team member a brief period to share.

One manager we worked with literally took out a stop watch and gave everyone exactly 3 minutes to deliver their update. Similar to the above tip, this tactic helps each team member focus on just the most important information AND requires they come prepared. Although it took a few tries before everyone could deliver their update in 3 minutes, the outcomes were dramatic: team members took the updates much more seriously, a sense of a shared challenge encouraged bonding, and the team had more time in the meeting to focus on value-add activities where their shared presence was an advantage. Additionally, the time spent preparing their update in this manner helped them develop a better understanding of their work streams' challenges and opportunities. As a potential side effect, you may find it possible to reduce a 1 hr meeting to 30 minutes or less and give that time to another purpose.

Put the meeting into the hands of your team members

In order for the status update meeting to be more collaborative within the team and less reliant on the direction of the manager, consider giving your team members ownership of the meeting itself.

We worked with another manager who decided to leverage question 3 in the pre-meeting preparation (What is an ask you have for the team?) as an opportunity for each team member to own a portion of the meeting. In this case, the team was 5 people, and they met for an hour. The first 10 minutes were spent reviewing updates, and then the remainder of the meeting (another 50 minutes!) were split between each of the team members to use how they liked. The idea was to encourage each team member to leverage the collective knowledge and resources of the team in a thoughtful way. Team members would use the time for a 10-min brainstorming session, as an opportunity to get feedback on an upcoming presentation, as a moment to practice telling a story, as an opportunity to collect specific input… the list went on. The manager was surprised at how thoughtful the team members were in using the time effectively, plus it made the meeting more fun, engaging, and relevant for each of them.

Consistently ask for and apply feedback

As with any meeting or project, what used to work may not work anymore. If you’ve tried a few of these ideas already and find that the energy hasn’t improved or you notice people walk away and immediately schedule follow-up meetings, make sure you have a habit and mechanism to collect feedback from your employees.

You should be regularly asking for feedback from your team members on a variety of topics, but specifically as pertains to your recurring meetings.

Consider adding a quick pulse check to the last 5 minutes of the meeting. You can keep it as simple as:

What’s one thing that works about our status meetings?
What’s one thing you would change?
What else?

Challenge the idea that you should have them at all

Somewhat provocatively, we’d suggest you consider simply eliminating the Status Update meeting from your routine. If the meeting really is just an information share-out, apply these tips and give your team their time back:

Use a shared document to solicit brief and structured key updates, challenges and asks from the various team members.
Review the document, check-in with team members and schedule the follow-up conversations based on that input.

Status Update meetings don’t need to be set up as a “go around the group and everyone gives their updates to the manager.” They’re boring, team members don’t find value from them, and the real value of having the entire team together gets lost. Try these ideas and see what happens.

What else have you tried and how did it make a difference in your Status Updates?

Register for a webinar on this topic on Thursday, May 2, 2024 . Ask questions, share ideas, and learn from us and each other!

We know there’s a meeting problem. You know there’s a meeting problem. We are on coaching call after coaching call with leaders who are navigating a schedule that is back-to-back meetings. It’s a two-sided problem because badly run meetings beget more meetings, and too many meetings prevent people from focusing on their independent tasks. Invariably, in our coaching calls, our clients will mention the Status Update meeting as particularly bothersome, so we’ll focus there for the purposes of this article.

All too often, weekly (or monthly) status updates end up being a verbal report-out by team members to the team lead. The team members feel like the time is wasted and the information could have been better communicated in an email. The team leader struggles to get anyone to participate outside of their own report. Now that many of these calls are happening in the virtual space, it’s no wonder that everyone on these calls is multitasking and disengaged.

Summary of Takeaways

The traditional "round-robin" status meeting—where each person speaks while everyone else waits their turn—is often one of the most expensive and least productive ways a team spends time. To reclaim this time and drive actual value, leaders should rethink the format using these principles:

Identify the "Asynchronous" Opportunity: Most status information doesn't need to be shared in real-time. If the goal is simply to disseminate facts, move the updates to a shared document, a Slack channel, or a project management tool. This allows team members to absorb information on their own time and protects the "collective hour" for deeper work.
Shift Focus to "Blockers and Variances": When you do meet, don't spend time on what is going well (which can be read in a report). Instead, focus exclusively on exceptions : what is off-track, where are the dependencies, and who is currently blocked? This transforms the meeting from a "report out" into a "problem-solving" session.
Value the "Collective Hour": Remember that a 15-minute meeting with 8 people isn't a 15-minute expense—it’s a two-hour expense of company time. Ask yourself: "Is the information being shared worth the combined hourly rate of everyone in this room?" If the answer is no, cancel the meeting.
Separate "Status" from "Connection": Often, leaders keep status meetings because they want the team to feel connected. However, rote updates rarely build culture. If connection is the goal, design a specific "connection" meeting (like a celebratory "wins" session or a social huddle) that isn't weighed down by tactical project tracking.
The "Silent Read" Technique: For teams that struggle to read updates beforehand, start the meeting with 5–10 minutes of silence where everyone reads a shared status doc and adds comments or questions. This ensures everyone is actually informed before the discussion begins, making the remaining time much more efficient.

Powerful Questions to Transform Your Manager/Employee Check-Ins

Mon, 04 Mar 2024 16:33:00 GMT

What would be a great outcome to achieve during this conversation?

Starting a conversation with an explicit question focused on clearly defining success is one of the best strategies out there for actually achieving that success. During a check-in, a manager who asks this question gives ownership and power to the employee, inviting them to decide how the time will be best spent.

What makes you feel valued at work?

Managers often raise the concern that their employees feel disconnected or undervalued. Invariably, the manager will say something like, “I always tell them when they do a good job, and point out how important they are to the team.” The thing is, saying those things is lovely, but it’ll only work on a handful of employees. We all feel valued in different ways. The best way to ensure you’re recognizing and honoring the contributions of an employee in a way that will resonate with them is to literally—and directly—ask them what makes them feel valued.

What can/should/will we celebrate?

This question should be both reflective and planful—and it should be asked often. On the way to achieving big wins, we must, without a doubt, have small wins… and these wins deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated. We recommend this question as almost a mainstay of every check-in conversation. It can be used to encourage employees to see the progress they’ve made—especially when progress is feeling particularly slow—and it can be used to generate future milestones to look forward to.

What workstreams do you wish you could stop doing? Why?

One strategy we all use—perhaps a bit too often—is to simply ignore the workstreams we don’t want to work on. Often the workstream feels hard because it’s misaligned with our strengths or isn’t scoped well as a growth opportunity. But even though we all do it, simply ignoring or procrastinating on a workstream isn’t effective. As a manager, asking this question empowers your employee to think about the work they’d rather not do and bring it to explicit attention. As partners, you can uncover the specific challenge this workstream presents, and either problem-solve together, or redistribute the workstream to someone better suited to it. Employees love the opening that this question offers; it makes them feel empowered, and gives them even more ownership of the workstreams they hold onto.

What would you like feedback on?

This is one of the most effective ways to put professional development into the hands of your employees. Asking them to define where they’d like feedback sets them up to be more open to that feedback, and ensures they’re getting feedback in the areas they’re genuinely interested in improving. We encourage asking this question both before and after work is accomplished. By asking the question beforehand, the employee will bring additional intention and focus to the skill they’re trying to develop, and the manager knows what to pay attention to and look for. By asking the question afterwards, the employee has a chance to reflect on what happened and focus feedback where they’re most open and curious to learn.

Where would you like me to let you experiment and learn?

As a counterpoint to the previous question, this question offers the employee the option to play, iterate, and learn by doing. It’s particularly effective at empowering employees to focus on their own development because it allows the employee to lay claim to a space that’ll remain “feedback free” for a while. When the employee is ready, she will ask for feedback. But in the meantime, it’ll be a zone for risk-taking, failure, and a lot of exploration. The question also implicitly expects that there IS such a space, thereby encouraging the employee to step into it.

What’s left unsaid?

Too often, we rely on unwritten rules and assumptions in our communication. By asking this question, we make explicit the otherwise implied; we make clear what we thought is clear but, in fact, wasn’t. This is one of our favorite ways to close out a conversation because it centers clarity over propriety.

How often do you feel like your manager/employee check-ins are status updates that could have been just as effective as an email? What if, instead, you walked away thinking that was the most valuable hour of your week? Your Manager/Employee Check-ins don’t have to be a waste of time.

Part of the challenge during check-ins is that it’s easy to simply focus on project updates. The manager asks, “How’s it going? Any hiccups?” and the employee says, “It’s all good! I did x, y, and z, and now I’m going to do a, b, and c.” The manager doesn’t ask any questions that encourage the employee to think, and the employee doesn’t do the deep thinking on their own to really take advantage of the check-ins.

Here are a few questions to consider for your next Manager/Employee check-in. If you’re a manager, try a few out on your employees. If you’re an employee, try to answer them ahead of your check-in and see if they inspire a different kind of touchpoint.

Sumaary of Takeaways

Most manager/employee check-ins drift into routine status updates that could easily be handled via email. To transform these meetings into high-value professional development opportunities, leaders should use targeted, reflective questions that shift ownership to the employee:

Define Outcomes Early: Ask, "What would be a great outcome to achieve during this conversation?" This shifts the power to the employee and ensures the time is spent on their highest priorities.
Understand Individual Value: Don't guess how to motivate your team. Directly ask, "What makes you feel valued at work?" This allows you to tailor your recognition to what truly resonates with each individual.
Celebrate Small Wins: Regularly ask, "What can we celebrate?" Acknowledging progress, especially when it feels slow, builds momentum and helps identify future milestones.
Audit Workflows for Alignment: Use the question, "What workstreams do you wish you could stop doing?" to uncover tasks that are misaligned with an employee's strengths. This opens the door for problem-solving or redistribution, increasing overall engagement.
Empower Through Feedback and Experimentation: Put professional development in the employee's hands by asking, "What would you like feedback on?" and "Where would you like to experiment and learn?" This creates a safe "feedback-free zone" for risk-taking and exploration.
Surface the Implicit: Close the conversation by asking, "What’s left unsaid?" This flushes out hidden assumptions and ensures total clarity before the meeting ends.

Adding Pitch and Pace to Your Delivery Skillset

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 20:02:00 GMT

Where we often recommend starting is with what we call the 5 Ps of Influential Delivery . The two we’ll focus on in this article are pitch and pace. Pitch is the relative highness or lowness of the voice… think of it as the notes or melody of the music. Pace is the rate of delivery… think of this as the tempo. Pitch and pace are “sister Ps” because they work hand in hand. When pitch goes higher, pace increases in tandem. When pitch drops, so too will the rate of speech.

What’s particularly powerful about pitch and pace, is that they’re wildly effective at communicating the emotional context of the words. In fact, even if we don’t intentionally consider our pitch and pace when speaking, they’re there nonetheless, and our audience will interpret something about the emotional subtext whether we want them to or not.

At least for most non-tonal languages, higher frequency pitch and faster pace communicate the high-frequency emotions (be they pleasant or unpleasant) like anxiety, excitement, anticipation, or anger. Low frequency pitch and a slower pace convey the lower-frequency emotions like sadness, contentment, resignation, or forgiveness.

When we deliver our Influential Storytelling workshop, we often orchestrate a demonstration of pitch and pace by bringing up two random volunteers from the room. We give both of them the following script to read aloud, but the first volunteer is asked to read it as if she’s feeling anxious, and the second volunteer is asked to read it as if he’s bored and annoyed:

I had to write the script, put together the deck, vet it with my manager, rehearse, rehearse some more, record myself...and have it all done before the end of the week.

The first volunteer usually speaks rapidly and at a high pitch, running words together and sometimes even stumbling over them. The second volunteer speaks a lot lower and slower, and may even throw in a few outright pauses. The rest of the participants don’t know the emotional subtexts the volunteers are asked to convey, but invariably—even with “amateur” volunteers from the group—the audience is able to pinpoint them right away.

Learning to master the instrument of your voice is a crucial part of what it takes to be an effective communicator. The wider your range of pitch and pace, the greater breadth of emotion you can effectively convey, and the more impactful your messages can be.

Download

Stephanie was recently exploring the content of Vinh Giang, a peer in the communications space. One of the points that he made that really struck a chord with Stephanie was the concept of a voice being an instrument rather than a tool. Giang says, “We use tools, but we play instruments,” and he goes on to explain how voices have qualities that can be honed and practiced to maximize communication effectiveness.

Voices have rhythm, beats, texture, and timbre… all qualities of music. By thinking about our vocal cords as if they’re instruments to practice playing, we can open up an entire world of vocal delivery techniques that are both learnable and measurable in their impact.

Your voice is more than a tool—it’s an instrument. By mastering the musical qualities of your speech, you can dramatically increase the emotional impact of your message. Here are the core insights:

The Duo of Pitch and Pace: These two "sister Ps" of delivery work in tandem. Pitch (the highness or lowness of your notes) and Pace (the speed of your tempo) together signal the emotional subtext of your words, often speaking louder than the words themselves.
Match the Frequency to the Emotion: * High Pitch + Fast Pace: Communicates high-energy states like excitement, urgency, or anxiety.
Low Pitch + Slow Pace: Conveys grounded emotions like authority, calm, contentment, or even sadness.
Intentionality Over Instinct: Your audience will interpret your emotional subtext whether you intend them to or not. By practicing a wider range of pitch and pace, you gain the ability to choose the specific emotional "vibe" that best supports your objective, making your storytelling and presentations far more persuasive.

Summary of Takeaways

How Good Are Your Manager/Employee Check-ins?

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 16:00:00 GMT

One-on-one touch points are the meetings that managers and employees have with each other on a regular or semi-regular basis. In our experience, at most organizations, just having the meeting at all is considered success, but our point of view is that these one-on-one touch points are one of the most powerful mechanisms through which managers can engage and inspire their employees. That means, we care about optimizing these touch points.

In our mind, optimized manager/employee check-ins are meaningful conversations through which managers and their employees develop authentic connection and trust. We know from our coaching conversations that this isn’t always the case. Managers are often overextended, underprepared, or unable to focus their full attention during the touch points.

For many of the leaders we coach, they’re doing the best they can as their company deals with massive organizational instability and change. There are some layoffs, and then all of a sudden they’re managing (what feels like) 100 people when they used to manage 5. It’s hard for employees to get focused and dedicated attention from their managers, and even harder for those same employees to give their managers feedback, especially if the check-ins are sporadic and sub-optimized.

Since check-ins are so important, we wanted to make sure managers are empowered with a diagnostic tool to evaluate the quality of the one-on-one conversations they’re having with the employees. Managers can complete the diagnostic to evaluate how well they’re doing in leading these critical meetings.

What do you notice about your answers? There are likely some things you’re already doing well as well as areas of improvement. Do an experiment and change one thing up differently for your next check-in.

Easy Ways to Increase Learner Engagement

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:01:00 GMT

To teach in an engaging and inspiring manner, transform content into an experience that maximizes impact.

What it is

Engagement tools such as cards, posters, discussion guides, workbooks, and stories can enhance the learner experience. Although creating interactive materials will extend the program-development timeline, the trade-offs are well worth the payoff.

How it works

Breaking the classroom into smaller groups and leveraging those tools fundamentally makes learning more engaging and memorable.

Remember that people are more likely to engage in small groups (up to six people) than large ones. When individuals work in small groups, their participation becomes more meaningful and individually relevant to the activity or conversation.

In a virtual environment, the inclination to engage is even more obvious as the group size decreases. Large virtual groups tend to cause participants to feel isolated and anonymous. Conversely, the willingness to turn on cameras or stay unmuted dramatically increases in partner and triad situations. Those behaviors drop the veil of anonymity and improve social connection.

Small-group activities offer additional benefits beyond social pressure and psychological safety. In an in-person setting, the mere act of joining a group requires physical movement. That affects a participant’s heart rate and increases focus.

A group of people who work through an activity together for just 10 minutes will bond dramatically more than a group of 50 people who sit in a room listening to a lecture for an hour. Relationships make the learning process stickier and more fulfilling.

Guidelines

With a macrolevel understanding that learners are naturally more engaged in smaller groups, the next challenge is determining what methods will achieve a workshop’s desired outcomes. We regularly lean on the following tools to structure and activate learning, particularly in small groups.

Read the article for more information about the tools we use. Subscription or purchase required.

READ THE ARTICLE

Managing up: Leveraging one-on-one check-ins for your professional development

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 17:59:00 GMT

Stephanie Judd and Kara Davidson were asked to offer some practical and empowering advice for product managers left feeling like they are lost and alone in career development.

“I hate to say this, but I get no support from my manager.”

“My boss is clearly just checking the box regarding our touch points.”

“We just talk about project updates. We never talk about me, my goals, or my development.”

We’ve heard statements like this again and again from coaching clients. Most managers are well-intentioned, but for one reason or another, people are left feeling like they are lost and alone in career development. If you’re one of these people, the empowered way to navigate a situation like that is to focus on what you can control. One way to own your development is to take the reins with your manager check-ins.

Before you launch into a completely new approach with your manager, consider their perspective. As a trend, managers are being asked to do more with less. They’re often overbooked with meetings, navigating a never-ending series of crises, handling more direct reports than a year ago, and unsure of how to lead effectively. The impact of all this is that the one-on-one check-ins with you may become rare, deprioritized, and focused primarily on urgent project updates rather than longer-term goals. When your manager is dealing with all that’s thrown at them, they will likely appreciate you taking more ownership of your check-ins and ensuring they are productive, effective, and meaningful.

There’s a lot that you can do to take ownership of the meeting and your professional growth. Flip the script by using these strategies to make your check-ins work for you…

READ THE ARTICLE

Unlocking The Power of Process Conversations

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 14:48:00 GMT

Recently Stephanie’s coaching client, Haley, came to a session with the challenge of wanting to find ways to reclaim her time. She spends 7-8 hours a day in meetings, and therefore finds it difficult to actually accomplish anything. She says that because she’s so overbooked, she finds herself multitasking during her meetings, which ends up compromising both her ability to be fully present and her ability to do good work in and outside of those meetings.

She brought this issue to Stephanie hoping to learn more about how to protect her time. It quickly became apparent that part of her frustration was that she believed many of her meetings to be ineffective and inefficient.

One meeting was a particular sticking point for her. It was a 2.5 hour standing meeting scheduled for every other week that seemed to have three distinct parts: A roundtable of status updates, some informal socialization and chit-chat, and some time spent solving a problem as a group.

Haley felt that each portion of this meeting accomplished a different objective:

The roundtable updates helped the group identify synergies, collaboration opportunities, and share resources .
The socialization time was important for team building .
The time spent working together as a group was good for tackling problems that required their joint expertise .

Haley believed all three of these objectives were important, but also thought they could be accomplished more efficiently and in a way that played better to the diverse strengths of the team. Being proactive, Haley had already figured out a better way to run the meeting based on the objectives she identified. Now she just needed to figure out how to “change the meeting” without overstepping. She wasn’t technically in charge of the meeting, after all.

Haley sensed that charging into her boss’s office with a new plan for how he should run that meeting wasn’t the right approach. She knew the arguments she would make, but imagined her boss becoming defensive. She wasn’t sure how to present the idea to him in a way that would be welcome. This is when Stephanie mentioned what she calls a Process Conversation.

What is a Process Conversation?

Process Conversations focus on alignment around HOW work gets accomplished. This is different from the typical conversations at work about WHAT needs doing. Often, HOW work will get done is rarely discussed. And if it is considered with any kind of intention, it’s usually considered by a leader in isolation, who believes that how the work is done should be a decision they make unilaterally.

Process Conversations are great opportunities for leaders to inspire others, generate buy-in, and drive engagement. AND they’re an access point through which to engage and inspire UP the chain of command as well.

Once Haley decided to have a process conversation with her supervisor, they discussed what that would look like.

Align on the Problem and Goals

Aligning on the problem or opportunity statement is the first step to any change. In Haley’s case, she had identified this biweekly team meeting had potential to be more efficient. Her first task was to verify that other people agreed with her problem statement and get their perspective on the purpose of the meeting.

At the next meeting, she asked for time on the agenda and shared both the problem statement she had identified and purposes of the meeting as she saw it. The team was on board with the idea that a change would be beneficial, and spent some time aligning on what the goals of the meeting currently were. With this as a starting point, she had the engagement (even from her boss!) that she needed to step further into a discussion about how the meeting itself should run.

Ask Process-Oriented Questions

Part of what makes a discussion most productive is framing up powerful, open-ended questions. Haley went to work preparing a series of questions that would help the group align on how the meeting would be most efficient. Here are some that she shared:

How would you rank the relative importance of each of the meeting objectives?
What should we focus on if we can only accomplish one thing?
How important is it that all three objectives are met in THIS meeting?
How should we set things up for you to bring your best ideas to a brainstorming session?
How might we structure our roundtable updates to run more quickly?
What do we discuss during the meeting that might make more sense as an email?

Notice how these questions are aimed at identifying opportunities for efficiency as well as pulling apart what brings out the best in each team member. Of course there will be different perspectives, and each team member will have different answers. What’s important is that the conversation opens the team up to identifying ways of working together that could be more efficient, effective, and productive than the status quo… and that’s always a win.

Align on a Process

In Haley’s case, she had one-on-one conversations with each individual on the team in order to maximize the psychological safety and ideally collect the most candid feedback possible. These conversations don’t necessarily have to be one-on-one, though. Depending on the group dynamics, it may be useful to ask the questions collectively.

Haley found her one-on-one process conversations to be extremely eye-opening. After discussing many of these questions with each team member individually, she could identify where the team already had plenty of alignment and where the team had different points of view. She brought to the next team meeting a shortlist of the topics that the team needed to align on and a summary of the points on which they already agreed.

In the end, the team agreed that the 2.5 hours every other week wasn’t necessary; they all appreciated time back on their calendars. Instead they broke the meeting into three separate events, ultimately shortening the meeting and taking some things offline

Keep it Iterative

A key component of all process development is to remember that it should be iterative. After they agreed on how they would run the meeting, Haley asked a few final and crucial questions:

How will we evaluate whether or not this is working?
When should we revisit this conversation to tweak the process again?

When HOW you work is open to discussion, you’re able to find opportunities for efficiency, increased effectiveness, and more engagement in WHAT you do. And by keeping it iterative, you have the space to experiment. If you’re not sure how to make a process better, try one idea for a while, and then try another.

The big win for Haley in her case, wasn’t just the new meeting format they came up with, it was that she was able to address a time-wasting problem, with support and without objections. Change creates disruption and she could have easily created interpersonal issues if she had proceeded with her initial idea of just presenting her plan to her supervisor. When you use a process conversation, you get buy-in and often a better informed outcome.

Take a look at the way you work. What processes are frustrating you? What might a process conversation look like for you?

Canvas Rebel: Meet Stephanie Judd

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 16:27:00 GMT

Stephanie was recently interviewed by Canvas Rebel to discuss Wolf & Heron’s beginnings, the life of an entrepreneur, and having kiddos in the midst of the COVID pandemic.

View on Canvas Rebel

4 Things that Go Wrong with One-on-One Check-ins (and How to Avoid Them)

Mon, 16 Oct 2023 17:47:00 GMT

Lack of Trust

Many managers assume that they have their employees' trust, but they don’t realize how easy it is to lose it. A lack of trust often can be the result of several things, many unintentional - from multitasking during these very check-ins, to poor communication.

As a manager, one of the most important things you need to do, particularly in order to create a safe space for an honest conversation, is to actively build trust with your employees.

To be seen as trustworthy, here’s what you can do:

Be accessible and approachable. Welcome their questions and feedback and avoid being defensive.
Ask open-ended questions.
Demonstrate active listening by rephrasing what you hear and asking follow-up questions.
Practice open and judgment-free body language.
Communicate transparently, directly, and frequently.
See the whole person; listen with empathy and show respect whether discussing a work or personal issue.

Zero Planning

One-on-one conversations with your employees may feel basic and straightforward. The very simplicity of the meeting creates a situation where many managers (and employees, for that matter) get lazy about them and fail to prepare for them with intentionality. Managers often start their one-on-ones with their employees with a question like, “Tell me about what’s going on this week?” or, “What’s on your to-do list?” These questions may be important to ask somewhere in the conversation, but opening like this sets up the entire touchpoint to be about the employee’s progress on their workstreams. What isn’t as easily or readily surfaced are opportunities to discuss roadblocks, ways to accelerate progress, feedback, or even the big picture.

The solution is self-explanatory. Before each check-in, managers (ideally with employee input) should plan. This can look like a lot of things and is dependent on the employee’s context. But have a sense of what is most important to cover—not in every one-on-one, but in THIS one. Consider things like:

The timing of this meeting relative to the annual review cycle
The importance and urgency of specific workstreams the employee is focused on
Typical cadence of growth opportunities presenting themselves within the organization and how and when to prepare for them

Before you start the meeting, prepare an agenda in partnership with the employee. Know what your goals are for the meeting, and why THOSE goals make sense for THIS meeting. Approach these meetings with a strategic mindset.

Overemphasis on Project Updates

Managers often over-leverage one-on-one meetings as a way to get a read on project progress. This turns the one-on-one into a report out that would have likely been better suited as an email. It also ends up with the unintentional consequence of making the one-on-one more useful to the manager than the employee.

One-on-ones should serve your employee in a variety of ways. Use the time to answer questions they may have, understand their development goals and help them see themselves at the organization in the future. Check in on the human behind the work as well. Learn about their personal life and mental well-being. Managers that show their employees they see and hear them , strengthen their team and improve retention.

Ad Hoc Scheduling

It’s easy for managers to feel overwhelmed by the number of meetings on their calendars. More meetings and less time for independent work are powerful and energy-sucking workplace trends. That said, one-on-ones should not be the meetings that are sacrificed to the calendar gods. Part of the reason they do fall victim to rescheduling or postponing is because often they don’t feel like intentional or strategic conversations. If that’s the case, refer back to our suggestions on how to approach the meetings strategically. But if that’s not the case, and the meetings feel important, they may still get pushed because of other reasons. Maybe you want to have the meeting in person, or expect your employee to be the one scheduling the calls.

Instead, hold onto and honor the meetings. Find a cadence that works for all parties and make the calendar invitation a recurring meeting. Remove the mental burden of remembering to schedule, and instead make it part of your routine. Make sure that you’re in a situation where you’re supporting your employees regularly, and especially when you’re both busy or overloaded. In fact, it’s often in the moments of overwhelm where your support and presence is most important; you can help your employees take a step back and act with intention instead of simply reacting to the fires that need dousing.

Don’t fall into these one-on-one missteps. Instead, build and foster your employees’ trust, approach your employee check-ins strategically, see the whole person and keep the momentum going.

Looking for more and easy way to maximize your one-on-one check-ins? Check out our Inspired Check-Ins card deck , a tool designed to help you have more meaningful and effective conversations with your employees.

Manager check-ins, one-on-ones, touchpoints… Whatever you may call them, they are the foundation of a strong manager-employee relationship and the lynchpin for supporting your employees in many ways. This 30-minute-or-so recurring meeting between manager and employee seems so simple that it’s often taken for granted and therefore underutilized. They are used as opportunities to get project updates or chat about anything, when they could be so much more supportive of the employee’s professional growth and development. More often than not, we hear about employees or managers who simply put them off, postpone them indefinitely, or end up using the time as status report opportunities rather than truly leveraging their power.

It’s time to go back to the basics. Here are 4 things that go wrong with your manager check-ins and how to avoid them.

Summary of Takeaways

One-on-one check-ins are often the most undervalued tool in a leader’s arsenal. When done right, they build trust and clarity; when they go wrong, they become just another "to-do" on a crowded calendar. Here are the four common pitfalls to avoid:

The "Status Update" Trap: Don’t waste this face-to-face time on tactical updates that could have been an email. Use it for high-value topics like problem-solving and pulse checks.
Lack of Intentionality: Walking in without a clear goal or a thoughtful agenda signals that the employee's growth isn't a priority. Always define what a "successful outcome" looks like for the conversation.
The "Manager-Led" Monologue: This is the employee's time. If you find yourself doing most of the talking, pivot to asking open-ended questions (starting with "How" or "What") to give them ownership of the space.
Avoiding the "Hard" Stuff: Ignoring roadblocks or emotional friction leads to disengagement. Create a safe space by asking powerful questions that uncover hidden challenges before they become crises.

The Bottom Line: To transform your check-ins, move from being a "director" to a "coach." By shifting your focus from tasks to people, you turn a routine meeting into a powerful engine for engagement and growth.

Capitalizing on Your Conference: What to do next

Mon, 02 Oct 2023 13:00:00 GMT

Conferences are a wonderful opportunity to meet and reconnect with colleagues who don’t work at your organization. These people represent all kinds of possibilities; they could be mentors, future bosses, avenues to new opportunities or speaking gigs, thought partners, and friends. They are the people you can reach out to when you’re ready for that next step in your career, no matter what that looks like. Building these relationships is important, so make sure you have a way to keep track of them and cultivate them with intention.

Start with your social media communities. We recommend Linkedin for all things work. Go through all the business cards you collected, the speakers and panelists you connected with, the folks you chatted with over a meal, and find each person digitally. Connect with everyone on and use a note like, “It was great meeting you at the X conference. Let’s stay in touch.” This will be easier to do when it’s fresh, so don’t procrastinate!

But also, don’t leave it there. Build your relationships beyond a mere “connection.” Identify 1—5 people with whom you would like to develop a relationship. It can be as a mentor/mentee, peer, or friend. For these folks, connect and then send them a personal email with a call to action, “Let’s meet up for lunch when I’m in DC next month. Would Tuesday work?” “You mentioned you received the X certification. I’d love to learn more about your journey. Are you free next Wednesday for a call?” “I’d love to stay connected. I know it can be hard to network nationally. Feel free to reach out when you are up for that promotion.” The more specific your ask is, the easier it will be for the other person to say yes.

Update Your Personal Development Plan or Goals

Another wonderful benefit of a conference is that you may leave inspired. The energy from a conference can be infectious, and if the conference was well-executed, you’re likely returning home with a ton of ideas for what you want to do going forward. Perhaps you want to build deeper connections with people, or explore a new topic, or read that book that was recommended 13 times, or get involved in that regional working group. Wherever your energy and momentum is taking you, follow it! Let it flow through you and drive you to action. Before you lose your inspiration and return to the hum-drum of the day-to-day, do these things:

Write a list of all the things the conference inspired you to do or learn.
Prioritize the list on an investment/value matrix. Identify the items that are easy to pursue, and the ones that are worth it even though they’re hard.
Give yourself deadlines and map out a plan to get everything done.
Find an accountability partner and tell them about your plan.

Contribute to the Conversation

Attending a conference as a participant is a great way to get a feel for it and listen to inspiring leaders in your field. But don’t let that be where you stop! Consider being a panelist or speaker at the conference next year. You likely have more to contribute than you think, and presenting yourself as a thought leader can set you up to extract even more value from the same conference next year.

Start by reflecting on the conference:

What were your favorite sessions? What made them the best?
Where could you see yourself adding to the conversation first?
What topics would you like to see discussed at next year’s conference?

Then, build out a plan. To begin, note when the conference organizers generally take applications to speak. It’s not uncommon for organizers to request speaker applications a whole year in advance, so right when you return home is the perfect time to research. Mark the date on your calendar, and work backwards from there. Often speaker applications only require a short blurb or description, so you can relax on actually building out the specifics of what you will say later.

If you get accepted, then find a few opportunities between now and next year’s conference to practice and vet your presentation.

What are your go-to strategies for getting the most out of the conferences you attend?

Fall is conference season. For many professionals, at some point in the fall, they’ll pack their bags, head to a hotel and mix with industry peers. There’s a lot to gain at conferences—knowledge, skills, relationships—but it can be hard to capitalize on all that conferences have to offer in the moment. Here’s a step by step approach to maximize the conference value when you’re back at your desk the following Monday and have a chance to take a breath.

Build Your Network

Summary of Takeaways

The real value of a conference often happens after the event is over. To ensure your time and investment pay off, follow this step-by-step approach to maximize your momentum once you're back at your desk:

Build Your Network Beyond the Connection: Don't just collect business cards; turn them into relationships. Reach out to new contacts digitally while the interaction is fresh. Identify 1–5 key people for deeper follow-up—whether as mentors, peers, or partners—and suggest a specific call to action, like a virtual coffee or a follow-up question.
Operationalize Your Inspiration: Conference energy fades quickly once the daily grind resumes. Before that happens, list everything that inspired you and plot those ideas on an investment/value matrix. Prioritize what is easy to pursue versus what is high-impact, then set deadlines and find an accountability partner to ensure you actually execute.
Shift from Participant to Contributor: Use your experience as an attendee to scout opportunities for next year. Reflect on which sessions were the most compelling and where you could add your own voice as a panelist or speaker. Becoming a thought leader at the event is the most effective way to extract maximum value from the same conference in the future.

Wolf & Heron Founder Selected as Featured Speaker for DisruptHR Capital Region Event

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 17:17:00 GMT

Kara Davidson, a recognized expert in storytelling and leadership development, will present powerful strategies for navigating toxic work environments

ATLANTA, GEORGIA, UNITED STATES, September 13, 2023/ EINPresswire.com / -- Wolf & Heron , a leadership development firm that leverages expertise in social psychology, influence, and facilitation, today announced that founder and managing partner Kara Davidson has been chosen as a speaker for DisruptHR Capital Region 3.0 . The event will be held on Thursday, Sept. 28, at Armory Studios NY in Schenectady, New York.

DisruptHR Capital Region 3.0 will feature speakers who are leaders, entrepreneurs, consultants, recruiters, and more. Davidson is one of eight industry ‘disruptors’ offering insights into questioning established norms and fostering workplace talent. The idea exchange forum is designed to energize and empower executives, leaders, and people in the HR field. Hosted by community organizers, these events are held in various cities across 34 countries.

"Stepping onto the stage at DisruptHR Capital Region 3.0 will be an exciting opportunity for me to share innovative ideas with other changemakers,” says Davidson. “I look forward to showcasing the power of storytelling and how we can use it as an antidote for toxic workplaces."

As a leadership development firm, Wolf & Heron seeks to cultivate leaders who engage and inspire others through storytelling. Davidson’s presentation will illustrate how storytelling can lead to stronger connections, better engagement, and shared understanding among team members. Davidson seeks to encourage attendees to use storytelling as a tool to foster healthy and nurturing work environments for their talent.

This is the third DisruptHR event to be hosted in the Capital Region. Attendees will be provided with food, refreshments, and an opportunity to network with other guests. For tickets and more information about the event, visit www.disrupthr.co .

ABOUT WOLF & HERON
Wolf & Heron is a leadership development firm that empowers high-potential people and executives to engage and inspire others with storytelling. The consultancy has worked with clients across many industries and profiles, including Fortune 100 companies, non-profits, educational institutions, and lobbyist groups. Founded by Kara Davidson and Stephanie Judd, Wolf & Heron delivers experiences and solutions to develop inspirational leaders. The company offers customized, people-focused programs, such as corporate training, public workshops, and executive coaching. To learn more, visit https://www.wolfandheron.com/ .

View on Newswire

Three Common Mistakes When Developing a Learning Experience

Mon, 11 Sep 2023 18:05:00 GMT

Recently we were hired by a firm that produces an executive education certificate program for Product Leaders. What’s amazing about this program is that it’s for Product Leaders, by Product Leaders; it’s taught by guest faculty members who are themselves high-level executives in the same field. Everything the participants learn is specific and relevant to their context, and they get the benefit of interacting with many proven leaders who have “gone before them,” so to speak. The challenge the firm had was that in the participant feedback these executives—though clearly smart, and experts in their area—weren’t all receiving high marks for their approach to teaching.

Just as not every individual contributor will be a fantastic manager, not every leader will be a fantastic teacher. Fortunately, these are skills that can be developed and there are rules of thumb that can be applied to ensure that content experts can jump into the role of inspiring and engaging a new generation of folks in their area of expertise.

Here are a few of the common mistakes we see leaders fall into when creating learning experiences.

Too much time presenting

The first inclination many of us have, when developing a learning experience, is to start by building a presentation or lecture. The problem with a presentation is that it is a passive experience for learners. The onus is on each individual learner to wrangle and direct their focus to the presenter… and if the presenter is less than stellar, that can be a tall order. Additionally, presentations are notoriously bad at allowing space for learners to truly process and internalize the information they receive.

Often, the first step away from a pure presentation is to ask the audience a direct question and wait for an answer. This approach suggests a glimmer of interactivity, but all too often, the speaker hears crickets. The group hasn’t been primed to truly engage, and they’re deciding if it’s worth the energy to come up with an answer, let alone offer it aloud. If we’re lucky, we get a few learners willing enough to play that they’ll lob an answer back to the front of the room, but the design of the experience isn’t really set up for true engagement, and it’s easy for learners to multitask or simply zone out.

As much as you can, when designing a learning experience, limit your presentation time. As a rule of thumb, we recommend that if you HAVE to present, do so in bite-sized chunks that are no more than 10 minutes long before switching gears to some form of intentional participant engagement.

Too much information, not enough time to learn it

We’ve all experienced slides that are overloaded with too much text, or so many slides the presenter ends up clicking past several of them. Too much information and not enough time to get through it all is an all-too-common mistake for presenters. But it can also show up in interactive moments of your learning experience. If you set up a 15-minute small group activity that begins with a case study that takes 10 minutes to simply read, you’ll be limiting how well the participants can process that information and do something useful with it before the time is up.

The amount of information an expert wants to share in their area of expertise is infinitely more than what can truly be learned in a concrete and finite amount of time. The key to great workshop design is being crystal clear on what information is important, and what is simply nice to have. The important information is what you build into your materials: your activities, takeaways, etc. The nice-to-have information is what you insert on the fly as facilitator comments if time permits and participants indicate their readiness and curiosity.

Overdependence on a slide deck

Another challenge for content experts who are trying to convey information in a learning environment is the tendency to lean on a slide deck as the primary way of sharing content. This is a legacy of the traditional, lecture-style learning, and it has its advantages. Slide decks are easy to edit right up until the last minute, they’re extremely low cost, and they scale infinitely with the number of people in the room. The problem with them is they’re a passive learning tool that requires the audience to all sit facing the front of the room (or screen) rather than leaning in and engaging with the content (and each other).

There are a couple rules of thumb when thinking about a slide deck. The first is, just don’t. Don’t use a deck whenever you can get away with it. When you must use a deck, use it to support your high-level flow, most important moments and convey activity mechanics (what to do, for how long, etc.).

Then, think about how you can convert what’s in deck into an interactive format that allows participants to truly engage:

If your slide has a list it’ll likely translate to a card activity relatively easily. Put each bullet on its own card, and title the card deck the title of your slide. In this format your participants are presented with the same information, but now you can have them discuss the content via a few discussion questions, rank or debate the items on the list, etc.
If your slide (or series of slides) showcases a diagram or structure of some kind, this information will likely translate to a visual or poster. Split participants up into breakouts and have them mark up the visual using markers or a digital whiteboard tool.

Slide decks are easier to avoid in many in-person learning environments because you can easily leverage a variety of handouts and materials to allow participants to discover and interact with information. Virtually, slide decks become more valuable because participants need more support to be set up for success. In those cases, be sure your deck is designed to support your activities and conversation rather than be the main attraction.

Shoutout Atlanta: Meet Stephanie Judd

Thu, 24 Aug 2023 16:43:00 GMT

In this Shoutout Atlanta interview, Stephanie shares some thoughts around her relationship to risk, moving herself and her business to the Atlanta area, and her undying appreciation for the University of Michigan.

READ THE ARTICLE

Tips for Developing Your Conference Talk

Mon, 14 Aug 2023 15:00:00 GMT

Giving a talk is a professional rite of passage for many of us. In a few months, Kara will be delivering a talk for the local DisruptHR chapter, and while it’s not her first, it still brings up some of those nerves and a strong desire to excel. Stephanie has also given many talks and continues to practice the skill. She hopes that one day she may even have the privilege to stand on the TED stage.

Presenting can be intimidating, even if you’ve done it many times before. Based on what we know about how to be a compelling presenter, here are a few suggestions for how to prepare to take the stage (or screen) for the first time.

Some general pointers to get started

Use the pomodoro technique (or something similar)

One of the challenges of a project such as writing a presentation from scratch is that the process is big, and it can be hard to get started. In the beginning, build some momentum by setting a timer for 25 or even 10 minutes and just see what you can do to move forward on your talk. This will look different depending on where you are in the process but is immensely helpful.

Embrace the nerves

You may be wrestling with imposter syndrome, other feelings of inadequacy or anxiety. Don’t wait for those feelings to dissipate before you begin. Nerves are natural in this situation. Keep that in mind and put your hat in the ring anyway; the nerves will make you take the process seriously and put your best foot forward. If you’re one of the lucky folks who doesn’t experience nerves when preparing for a talk, make sure that doesn’t make you sloppy in your preparation. Great talks require good planning.

Build your confidence along the way

Not unrelated to the two earlier suggestions, find ways to build your confidence along the way. Find what feels “easy” for the first talk; perhaps a safe audience or casual venue. If you can identify what specifically intimidates you about the project, you can then find small ways to test yourself and build your confidence along the way.

Give your process some structure

Identify your key message

What should your talk be about? Here are a few ways to come up with an idea:

What is the thing people look for your advice on?
What is a red thread throughout your career?
What is a lesson or insight gained from a pivotal moment in your career?
What are your stories about?
What would be the easiest thing for you to create a talk on?

Don’t overthink it either. This doesn’t have to be your only talk. Pick something that feels right and keep going. You’ll tweak it later when you have a new or different audience to address.

Define success

Once you have a sense for the topic, make it more specific. What do you want people to Know, Feel and Do at the end of your talk? Write that out in full sentences and wordsmith it until it feels specific, authentic and clear enough that you have a sense for what your talk will include.

Craft a blurb

Next, turn that Know, Feel, Do into a blurb. Many conferences require you to submit a brief blurb either to propose a talk or so they can include the description on the program and website. Your blurb should be a few sentences, no longer than 100 words. You’ll want to be descriptive and also appeal to the audience. Consider the WIIFM - what’s in it for them? What will make them most curious to listen?

Write a high-level outline

Transform your blurb into a high-level outline. What are the main areas of discussion? Put them in a flow and structure that feels cohesive. Whether it’s Why-What-How, Intro-Problem-Solution, Summary-Ideas-Summary, find a structured format that works for your content and start to jot down some ideas under each heading. You can also write this by envisioning what your slide deck titles may be. That being said, don’t jump into building out your deck too early. That comes later.

Pick some stories

Now that you have a sense for the main themes, think of some stories you can integrate into the talk. Storytelling is a powerful component of any talk as it helps your audience relate to you and understand your message. Drop ideas for stories into your outline. You don’t have to draft them at this point, just note what you need to remember.

Write a more detailed outline

Begin plotting out a more detailed outline (keep your high-level one somewhere as a skimmable reminder). Your more detailed outline will start to include your talking points as well as ideas for slide content and visuals. You may be tempted to skip this step and go straight to a deck, but building a detailed outline in a text document can help you more easily see where you have the most energy and ideas than if you jumped into deck building. For example, you may find that you planned to talk about three mistakes people make, but all your talking points and ideas are relevant to just one of them. Seeing that in your outline will help you reassess and potentially modify your high-level flow.

Build your deck - Headings, then text/visuals and voiceover

If you plan to use a deck (they’re often expected, but don’t feel like it’s a requirement), now it’s time to build it out. If this comes easily to you, follow your inclination. If you don’t know where to begin, start by writing your headings or slide titles, then add your talking points to the speaking notes BEFORE you build out the text and visuals for your slides. Being clear on what you want to say with each mouse click will help you calibrate how much time you plan to spend on each slide and adjust accordingly.

Check your flow

Once you have a slide deck that is roughly 70% complete, review it from beginning to end, with a view on the high-level flow. Does it still feel right? This is a great time to recognize where things feel out of order (or unnecessary) and make adjustments.

Get feedback/Ask for help

We recommend getting feedback early and often throughout the process. We’re not always communicating what we think we’re communicating and a feedback partner can let you know when they’re confused, what they loved, and what would enhance your talk. This will help you improve more quickly and more effectively than you would by iterating on your own.

Rehearse easy, then harder

Practice is an important element of building your confidence for the talk. Any practice is helpful. If you’re feeling nervous, start small: perhaps alone in front of a mirror. Then move on to “higher stakes” situations like over Zoom with just one colleague; then standing in front of two people, etc. Practice “walking onto the stage” wearing the outfit you plan to wear for the talk, try to get into the space where you’ll actually be giving the talk and map out your paces. Keep working again and again, stepping up the “level of difficulty” every time. The key here is to try to remove as many elements as possible that’ll feel “new” on the big day. Nerves are natural, but the more you practice so that things feel normal, the calmer you will be.

Mostly (but not completely) memorize

Many folks are tempted to memorize their talk word for word. It can feel safer and more prepared. But true memorization runs the risk of making you sound over-rehearsed, rote, and unnatural. We recommend mastering and memorizing your first and last sentences: know EXACTLY what you will say to open and close your talk powerfully. Then, mostly memorize the rest; know the sequence of your talking points, and a few turns of phrase that you especially want to include. But allow yourself freedom to be loose with the language you use in a few places in your talk so that your natural delivery style and personality comes through and you show up as present.

You’re never really done

Once you’ve prepared, practiced, and finally delivered your talk, don’t let yourself stop there! There’s always the next opportunity. There’s always another moment to get ready for. Before you close the book on the talk, get some feedback. Some presenters we work with will even build collecting feedback from the audience directly into their talk as part of the close out. If that doesn’t feel right, prepare an audience member or two to give you feedback afterwards. If you want to step it up even further, ask for someone in the audience to video record you so that you can watch your own talk back later and give yourself some feedback. Capture their input, learn what you can and apply it to your next talk.

Some general pointers to get started

Use the pomodoro technique (or something similar)

Embrace the nerves

Build your confidence along the way

Give your process some structure

Identify your key message

What should your talk be about? Here are a few ways to come up with an idea:

What is the thing people look for your advice on?
What is a red thread throughout your career?
What is a lesson or insight gained from a pivotal moment in your career?
What are your stories about?
What would be the easiest thing for you to create a talk on?

Don’t overthink it either. This doesn’t have to be your only talk. Pick something that feels right and keep going. You’ll tweak it later when you have a new or different audience to address.

Define success

Craft a blurb

Write a high-level outline

Pick some stories

Write a more detailed outline

Build your deck - Headings, then text/visuals and voiceover

Check your flow

Get feedback/Ask for help

Rehearse easy, then harder

Mostly (but not completely) memorize

You’re never really done

BOLD Business with Jess Dewell: How to make informed decisions with imperfect information

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 13:21:00 GMT

Stephanie sat down with Jess Dewell of BOLD Business podcast to discuss how to make informed decisions with imperfect information

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

How to Add Stories to Your Next Presentation

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 16:00:00 GMT

What is a story?

When we work with our clients to help them craft stories to incorporate into their presentations, we often start by discussing exactly what a story is. A story has at least one character that goes on a literal or metaphorical journey. This journey can be described with the six basic building blocks of story structure outlined below. The most important elements of the story—the Inciting Incident and the Turning Point—are very specific moments in time where the character experiences, learns, or notices something. When crafting a story, ensuring clarity and specificity with respect to these two moments helps the story become experiential rather than simply being an overview, description, or summary.

Here is a high-level diagram of a story. Notice that the Inciting Incident and Turning Point are moments that give shape to the story. The other building blocks of the story structure are helpful in giving the story depth and substance.

A key point relevant to stories and presentations is that stories must follow story structure while a presentation doesn’t have to. In fact, presentations often have a very different narrative structure. That being said, because human beings respond so well to stories, it can be helpful to embed short stories that follow this structure into a broader presentation narrative.

To help our clients embed stories into their presentations, we typically encourage them to take an intentional look at their story ideas through the lens of the building blocks of the story. If you’d like to do the same, use this too l to get started.

Once you have your initial ideas sketched out, consider the following:

ENHANCE

Stories are easier to follow and more memorable when the listener can “see” them with their mind’s eye. What details can you add to make the story easier for the listener to visualize?
Stories are more likely to build a connection between you and the listener when you’re authentic and vulnerable. How are you, as the storyteller, showing up in the story? Go beyond describing what’s happening “outside of you” and include elements of your internal dialogue, your connection to the situation or character, or why it matters to you.
Stories are more likely to be engaging for the listener if they include elements of suspense. How are you building suspense or mystery? Spend more time describing the conflict or challenge than on the resolution that is ultimately discovered.
Stories are more likely to be memorable when they create emotional experiences for the listener. How are you creating opportunities for your audience to feel something during the story? Describe physiological experiences in lieu of simply naming emotions, or use metaphor or internal dialogue to add substance.

EDIT:

Stories are more impactful when they focus on a single message or idea. What is the main takeaway you want your listener to understand? Once you clarify that, use it to determine the details you can remove from the story without losing what’s important.
Story characters go on a journey or undergo some kind of change, whether big or small. How is the main character different, or what is new for the main character at the end of the story?

What do you see as the best stories to include in presentations or talks?

Stories are more impactful when they focus on a single message or idea. What is the main takeaway you want your listener to understand? Once you clarify that, use it to determine the details you can remove from the story without losing what’s important.
Story characters go on a journey or undergo some kind of change, whether big or small. How is the main character different, or what is new for the main character at the end of the story?

What do you see as the best stories to include in presentations or talks?

Storytelling is one of the most compelling ways to elevate your presentation and engage your audience, regardless of who they are. Stories can help you…

simplify complex information, making it easier for your audience to understand.
create a connection between storyteller and audience.
engage your audience emotionally to buy-into you and your ideas.

… and so much more!

While there are many reasons to add stories to your presentation, it’s important to avoid letting them get rambly, long, dry, or convoluted.

Summary of Takeaways

Storytelling is the bridge that connects complex information to your audience’s hearts and minds. To ensure your stories are impactful rather than "rambly," follow these core principles:

Understand the Architecture: A true story isn't just a summary; it's a journey. Every story needs a character , an Inciting Incident (the moment everything changes), and a Turning Point (the moment of insight or resolution).
Focus on Specificity: The most engaging stories are experiential. Instead of generalities, focus on specific moments in time. This helps your audience "see" the story through their mind’s eye.
Enhance with Authenticity: Build a connection by being vulnerable. Share your internal dialogue and how you felt, rather than just describing external events.
Create Emotional Stakes: Use suspense and metaphor to make the audience feel the conflict. Spend more time on the challenge than the solution to keep them engaged.
Edit for Impact: A great story has one clear message. If a detail doesn't serve your main takeaway, cut it. Your goal is to show how the character—and by extension, the lesson—changed from beginning to end.

The Bottom Line: You don’t need to change your whole presentation into a story, but embedding structured "micro-stories" will make your ideas stickier, your data more human, and your message more influential.

Exploring Life & Business with Kara Davidson of Wolf & Heron

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 14:23:00 GMT

In this VoyageMichigan interview, Kara Davidson shares some of the challenges she’s experienced building Wolf & Heron, navigating the COVID-19 Pandemic, and what matters most to her.

READ THE ARTICLE

Transforming Your Presentation into an Interactive Workshop Part 2: Making Your Workshop Effective

Mon, 10 Jul 2023 15:08:00 GMT

To catch up on Part 1, read Know When a Workshop is the Right Call .

The best workshops put the learning into the hands of the participants at every stage of the learning process, but sometimes the timeline—both for development of the workshop or the runtime of the experience itself—can result in more of a hybrid experience that contains both presentation-style and interactive moments. When we work with clients transforming their presentations into workshops, this is how we typically break it down.

Understand the Learning Journey

First, it’s important to understand the learning journey. People need to go through all 5 stages of the learning journey before a new skill or set of information is truly internalized or “learned.” The stages of the learning journey are:

Workshops typically aim to guide the learner through the first four stages of the learning journey, acknowledging that the final step, Apply , has to happen on the job in real life, and not within the context of a workshop experience. When we consider presentations, they are typically designed around providing the audience with information, which is what the Introduce stage of the learning process is all about. Even when presentations are well done and engaging, they rarely lead to true knowledge acquisition or skill development.

Begin Your Workshop Design With “Practice”

When transforming a presentation into a workshop, the most obvious place to start is with the Practice stage. Most presentations don’t provide space for participants to practice… they’re presentations, after all. But this stage is where most of the learning really occurs. By practicing the use of the new skill or knowledge, learners become acutely aware of what they understand well, and what they still haven’t figured out. This leads to good discussion and follow up questions that the facilitator can answer.

In practical terms, developing a workshop experience designed to guide learners through the Practice stage of learning typically involves crafting scenarios or “controlled situations” where the information or skill can be applied. This takes some forethought and a deep understanding of the contexts in which the learners operate to make sure the exercise is relevant.

Then Consider “Process” and “Integrate”

Great presentations do a decent job of introducing information AND getting the audience to process and integrate that information. Often we work with presenters who are fantastic at what we call a “knowledge push” but don’t necessarily have empathy or understanding for what it takes for the audience to take that information in and truly comprehend it.

In a workshop, there’s more space to encourage participants to Process and Integrate the information. The facilitator can enable these stages by asking attendees questions about the content to drive conversation. Presenters may want to lead a conversation from the front of the room, but small-group or partner discussions are also useful. These conversations can and should happen at strategic moments to ensure participants understand the relevant content before moving on.

Evaluate the Engagement Design

One of the many benefits of a workshop that is designed to walk attendees through the first four stages of the learning journey is that it will necessarily be more interactive than a straight presentation. That said, it’s still worthwhile to take a step back and evaluate how engaging your workshop design is. One simple rule of thumb to keep in mind is that participants should not have to “sit and listen” for more than 10 minutes. If you plan to present information, present for less than 10 minutes before moving participants to a group discussion. If you can have participants discover the information by reading it themselves or exploring a card activity instead, that’s even better! In general. for an hour-long experience, aim for at least 3 - 5 opportunities for attendees to participate actively either by answering a question, talking to a peer, exploring materials, individual reflection, etc.

What are some elements of your favorite presentations or workshops?

Transforming Your Presentation into an Interactive Workshop Part 1: Know When a Workshop is the Right Call

Mon, 12 Jun 2023 14:00:00 GMT

We help leaders engage and inspire others. A lot of the time, that ends up meaning that we help leaders be better storytellers and presenters, but once in a while, we have a client that’s truly interested in taking engagement to the next level, and they’re looking for help transforming what was going to be be a presentation into an interactive, engaging, and compelling workshop.

Now, we’re big fans of workshops. By virtue of their design, they’re more engaging and hands-on, and do a better job helping people learn something (and not just hear something). But workshops aren’t entirely PROS with no CONS. Here are some things to consider when determining whether you should slot a presentation or a workshop into your agenda.

Presentations Give You More Control, but Less Audience Feedback

Workshops, because they’re interactive, will shift based on the energy and interest of the participants. Sometimes participants will have questions and the willingness to ask them in spades. Other times a facilitator will be navigating the post-lunch stupor. This means a facilitator should be adept at navigating on-the-fly changes to the plan in order to meet the group where they are. Timing, energy, focus, and depth of conversation all need to be adjusted in real time.

A presentation, on the other hand, is prepared ahead of time and practiced to perfection. There are no expected interruptions to the flow, and whether the audience is high or low energy has no bearing on what the presenter decides to say. In this way, the presenter has a lot more control over the experience. The consequence, of course, is that without the interaction between presenter and audience, the presenter has little insight into what the audience is thinking or feeling, and thereby does not (or cannot) adapt in the moment.

Workshops Take Longer, but Have Better Learning Outcomes

One of the hardest things for new facilitators to get used to is how little content can fit into a workshop that’s scheduled for the same length of time as a presentation. This is because workshops are designed to help attendees through more of the learning journey than a presentation does. For example, a presenter will introduce information and might help the audience process and contextualize the information, but that’s usually where they stop. Presenters talk AT the attendees the whole time. A workshop facilitator will introduce that same information, help the audience process and contextualize it, and then go a step further to provide an opportunity for participants to integrate or practice using the information (or new skill) in a series of activities. The simple fact that a workshop facilitator takes participants farther along the learning journey ensures that the learning is stickier; but it also means that the facilitator needs more time to get through less content. In our work, we generally recommend a 2-hour workshop to replace a 30-min presentation.

The Skillsets of a Presenter and a Facilitator are Very Different

Presenters are used to being the experts in their fields. They’re comfortable answering questions and being a source of knowledge. Although content expertise is also important for a workshop facilitator, it’s secondary to managing the dynamics of the group and the mechanics of the activities.

Great workshops are designed so that the content is experienced directly by the attendees via the materials (flip charts, cards, workbooks, posters, etc.). This provides participants the opportunity to discover the information on their terms and curiosity. This is ideal for learning because it helps people to internalize the information through their own lens rather than simply taking an expert at their word. The facilitator doesn’t have as much of a role as the content expert, delivering expertise. The facilitator DOES have an enormous responsibility of managing the learning process and ensuring the main takeaways are captured by the participants; and they have to do that by asking the right questions, creating the right conversation, and guiding the process.

The toughest part of the job? Facilitators are rarely noticed for being great—only their mistakes are visible.

Workshops Allow People to Learn in Community. Presentations are for Learning In Isolation.

Sometimes our clients tell us they’re interested in our programs not only because they hope their employees will learn something, but also because they want their employees to experience something together. Workshops often involve small group discussion, partner activities, group debriefs and more, thus simultaneously and organically allow attendees to build relationships with each other.

The presentation format typically expects audience members to sit, often in an auditorium-like environment, facing the presenter, not each other. They’re not expected to meet each other and converse as part of the experience. In fact, that’s often discouraged, and considered rude and distracting to other audience members. Although the audience collectively experiences the presenter together, there’s little opportunity to create collective meaning and connection, and so the experience doesn’t end up feeling shared.

Go with a presentation if:

You want to have the most control over the experience
You want to be seen as a content expert
You have very limited time to present
You’re a compelling storyteller, and less skilled as a facilitator

Go with a workshop if:

Audience participation, input or feedback is important
Meeting specific learning objectives is important
You have enough time
You have (or hope to develop) facilitation skills
You want to create a collaborative environment

Deciding to go with a presentation or a workshop should depend on your goals and the skills you have or want to practice.

What are some of the reasons you choose to format your information as a presentation or a workshop?

Presentations that Pop: How to “Invite Curiosity” with Your Presentation

Thu, 25 May 2023 16:29:00 GMT

Play With Sequencing

A key strategy for inviting curiosity is to disrupt the chronological order of events. This non-linear storytelling technique allows the storyteller to begin at the highest point of drama as a way to bring the audience into the story world, and then by telling the story out of order, the audience is interested in solving the riddle of chronology as well as identifying the message being communicated.

With presentations, playing with sequencing can feel messy. Audiences often want a straightforward message communicated in as few words and minutes as possible. Especially when presenting to investors or executives, presenters are often coached to begin with a quick summary or “tl;dr.” But the interesting thing to notice here is that starting with the “tl;dr” is really another way of saying, “start at the end, not the beginning.”

Starting with the end doesn’t mean you give away the opportunity to invite curiosity. Instead, you have a chance to say something provocative, insightful, or inquisitive that will instantly hook your audience and get them interested in how you got to that end. Now you have their attention, and you can take them back in time to illustrate the journey.

Linger on Decision Points

Another piece of advice we give storytellers is to linger in the options and possibilities before revealing the ultimate decision that a character makes. By exploring the risks, rewards, and stakes of each possible choice, the audience is invited into making that same decision for themselves. A great way to apply this same concept to a presentation is to frame your presentation around a decision that needs to be made. Open with the question and spend the presentation discussing the merits and risks of each option. If your audience is the type to appreciate a recommendation as to which option to choose, do that too. Then make the decision together.

As a member of a Board, Stephanie especially likes it when the Executive Director presents challenges in this way. In many cases, the decision that needs to be made as well as the possible options are even presented in written format ahead of the meeting! This allows the Board to use the time together to ask questions (read: follow their curiosity) and discuss before voting on a decision. This is often a more productive use of the collective time together than simply sitting and listening to a presentation anyway!

Use Microstories in Your Q&A

Another effective way to invite the curiosity of your audience inside a presentation is to think of the Q&A portion as a storytelling opportunity. When an audience member poses a question, take it as a personal challenge to answer that question with a story instead of a set of high-level generalizations. Your audience will remember the examples that you offer and walk away retaining your key messages more effectively. If your audience has mentally wandered off somewhere along the way, this will give an opportunity to re-invite their curiosity through storytelling.

When crafting your presentation, take some time to think about how you’re inviting your audience’s curiosity. What are some strategies that you use?

When we teach influential storytelling, we share four ways to level up the influence power of your story. One of these is what we call Invite Curiosity . The concept behind this strategy is that by activating an intellectual or cerebral experience for the audience—getting them to think for themselves—helps them to be engaged in your story AND causes them to have a mental stake in its outcome. Human beings are fundamentally problem solvers and solution finders… we like to figure things out for ourselves. We are most intellectually involved when we have enough information to be informed and enough mystery to be curious for more. When crafting stories, we encourage storytellers to think deeply about how they organize and pace the information they reveal so as to effectively navigate that line between creating mystery and providing answers.

When it comes to crafting a presentation, we encourage our coachees to think about the four super powers on a macro level, and the concept of Invite Curiosity is just as important here as it is in story crafting. Here are some ways to think about using Invite Curiosity in your presentation design to capture attention and gain buy-in from your audience.

Summary of Takeaways

Data and information are only half the battle; to truly influence an audience, you must first earn their attention. Inviting curiosity is the "Super Power" that transforms a passive audience into active participants. Here is how to make your presentations pop:

Avoid the "Information Dump": The quickest way to lose an audience is by telling them everything at once. Instead of leading with the answer, lead with a question or a mystery. Frame your content as a journey of discovery where the audience feels the need to see the next slide to solve the puzzle.
Leverage the "Knowledge Gap": Curiosity is a physiological response to a gap in our knowledge. By highlighting a problem or a surprising statistic before offering the solution, you create a "itch" that only your presentation can scratch.
Show, Don't Just Tell: Use evocative visuals and minimal text. When a slide is too busy, the audience stops listening to you to read. When a slide is simple and intriguing, they look to you to provide the context—placing you back in the role of the influential leader.
Invite Participation: Don't wait until the end for Q&A. Design moments throughout your presentation that ask the audience to guess an outcome, share a brief insight, or predict a trend. This keeps the "curiosity loop" open and ensures high levels of engagement from start to finish.

The Making of a Conference Theme

Thu, 25 May 2023 16:29:00 GMT

As Story and Presentation Coaches, we partner with organizations planning conferences. Conferences have always been a way for people to gather outside of their day-to-day routine, share insights, learn, and grow. In a time when fewer of us are gathering in person, it’s even more important than ever to ensure those conferences are thoughtful and productive experiences for attendees.

There are many storytelling insights that can be applied to conference planning and perhaps the most obvious is the value of crafting a powerful conference theme.

As story coaches, we coach our storytellers to Pick One Theme. By this we challenge them to identify the single most important message they hope to communicate with their story. This theme then helps to shape the story. It helps the storyteller identify what to include, what to exclude, where to focus, and where to move on. It’s an incredibly valuable tool in helping the storyteller refine their story, but ALSO effective in that it ensures the story is cohesive and communicates a clear message. Meanwhile…

A conference theme provides focus for the entire event and sets the tone for presentations, stories, activations, etc.

For conference organizers, a theme serves a similar purpose; it gives your conference focus. It helps you and your audience connect the dots before, during and after the conference. A powerful theme helps people understand why they are showing up, and what will be talked about while they’re there, as well as having emotional resonance. Instead of getting together for an annual team meeting, you are getting together for Vision 2020! For Game On: Unleash the Future! Or for Building Tomorrow Together! When you engage people emotionally, they are more likely to feel connected to the event and it will be more memorable to them.

But how do you identify the right theme for your conference?

There are several ways to develop and then support a compelling conference theme:

Know Your Desired Outcomes

Your desired outcomes are the “why” of your conference—the reason you are bringing everyone together. You can define these outcomes by answering these three questions:

What do you want people to KNOW at the end of the conference?
What do you want people to FEEL at the conference?
What do you want people to do at the end of the conference?

The answers to these questions should inform every element of your conference planning. They should be developed collaboratively and socialized with leaders, speakers and partners so everyone is aligned and primed to keep them in mind as they prepare their contributions to the conference experience.

Create a Pithy Tagline

A tagline is a short phrase that evokes your desired outcomes. The tagline is the public face of the theme. It’s memorable, inspiring and serves as a visual reminder in conference branding and collateral. We often see conference organizers come up with a tagline and stop there. It's good to have a tagline, but it’s not enough on its own.

Identify the Key Messages

Once you have determined what people need to know after attending the conference, you can identify key messages within that. For example, if at the end of the conference you want attendees to know what the future of the organization looks like, your key messages will specifically lay out the organizational vision, and likely the strategy to achieve that vision. These key messages should be woven throughout the conference and guide the development of the agenda itself.

Craft Compelling Stories

Bring your key messages to life with the power of storytelling. When speakers know the desired outcomes and key messages, they can identify stories that will bring those messages to life and weave them into their presentations. These stories can become a part of the folklore of the conference, so they are worth including in the full conference theme write-up that you share with leaders and other conference contributors.

Choose Your Venue Thoughtfully

Where you host your conference should match up with your conference theme. For example, Kara recently supported a conference with the tagline Ignite: Stories Brought to Life and so the organizers identified a hotel by the beach that would allow for campfires and story-sharing moments throughout. Details like this can create meaningful moments for your attendees and reinforce the purpose of the gathering.

Shape Your Branding Intentionally

This one is obvious, but every piece of collateral that appears at the conference should be crafted to support the theme visually and experientially. Obviously, including the tagline is a good place to start, but developing a conference logo and color palette that emotionally connects with the theme and desired outcomes carries the concept even further.

What is your process to come up with a conference theme? What would you add?

Stephanie Judd on Business Radio X Podcast

Thu, 04 May 2023 14:49:00 GMT

Stephanie sat down with Business Radio X to talk about critical skills that leaders should develop in a hybrid work environment, how managers support and motivate employees during layoffs, sustainable leadership practices, and how important it is for organizations to invest time, money, and resources into professional development.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Public Speaking Tips for Non Native English Speakers

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 14:00:00 GMT

Kara didn’t feel like she could comprehensively provide suggestions to her coachee in this situation, because of her limited perspective. That said, here are the things we have observed along the way. All of the tips below are relevant to non-native and native English speakers alike, and will set you up for success..

Lean Into Intentionality

Non-native English speakers presenting in English contexts tend to already be thoughtful about their word choice and language because of the effort of translating and speaking in a second/third language. This is less a word of advice and more a note of encouragement and observation; the consideration you already have for word choice is a strength! Native English speakers could benefit from less “processing aloud” and more “pre thinking and editing” and learn from you in that respect.

Slow Down

Speakers with a confident and competent presence tend to have a slower, steadier pace overall. Use that to your advantage! Don’t feel the need to rush through your words. Take your time. Pause. Breathe. This will help you process the language, improve your presence and better ensure your audience is following along.

Don’t Be Afraid to Script

We rarely recommend scripting every word in any given story or presentation, because it can lead to being perceived as inauthentic. That said, there are some moments within any presentation or talk where a script can be incredibly beneficial. Specifically, consider scripting your opening and closing statements. A scripted opening will allow you to confidently invite your audience in. If you know exactly what you’re going to say in advance, you’re less likely to “um”, “ah” or stumble over your words and more likely to support your speech with your breath and appropriate projection and pace. Plus, it will get you out of the not-so-compelling habit of opening a presentation with a self-introduction. Save that for AFTER you’ve captured the attention of your audience. Similarly, a scripted close will allow you to concentrate on making eye contact and engaging with your audience. You won't be distracted by what you’re going to say next, or how to end your run-on sentence.

Practice

It’s easy to get so caught up in crafting the words and flow of your presentation or story that you neglect to hold time to practice actually delivering it. This is a big mistake. When your delivery is unpracticed, you’re faced with a whole slew of factors you haven’t navigated before.

Your script/sentences are awkwardly phrased or hard to say
You didn’t account for what you would do in the transitions
You have to concentrate on making eye contact with the camera or audience, or you simply don’t
Your voice echoes in a way that surprises you
You’re not sure what to do with your hands, feet, face, or body

There’s no reason for the moment when it’s most important to be the first time you’re navigating those issues. Find opportunities to practice. Practice in your head, practice aloud, practice sitting or standing as if the audience is in front of you, practice with the likely props you’ll have (clicker, mouse, mic) to mimic reality as much as possible. The trick here is to reduce the level of unfamiliarity and the subsequent anxiety that may create so that you can focus on delivering your presentation with polish and poise.

If you are experienced in this area, or have resources to suggest, we’d love to hear from you! If you have to present in a language you’re not native or fluent in, what tips or tools would you offer?

After we deliver our Influential Storytelling workshops, we meet individually with attendees to provide one-on-one storytelling and presentations coaching. At a recent coaching session, Kara was asked, “Do you have any tips for non-native English speakers at an English speaking company? I’m worried about how I come across.”

There are so many considerations when it comes to working, presenting and speaking in front of audiences that are linguistically or culturally different from you. We navigate these ourselves when we deliver workshops for folks in Asia Pacific or EMEA. Before those sessions, we are mindful of the perspective we’re coming with (we’re white, American, of the Millennial generation, and women, to name a few) and how that may differ from our audience. We acknowledge that this perspective is limited and so we bring curiosity, inviting attendees at those sessions to share and explore the geographic or culturally relevant context to storytelling and presentation skills.

Summary of Takeaways

For non-native English speakers, public speaking anxiety often stems from a fear of accents or grammatical errors. However, effective leadership communication is about connection, not perfection. Use these five strategies to speak with confidence, clarity, and authority:

Mindset Shift: Connection over Perfection: Your audience cares about your message, not your "flawless" grammar. Most listeners adjust to a new accent within a few minutes. Focus on what you can give to your audience rather than how you sound to them.
Slow Down and Enunciate: Nervousness often leads to rushing, which makes accents harder to follow. Speaking at a slow, steady pace gives your audience time to process your sounds and cadences. Use pauses between key points to sound more polished and authoritative.
Simplify Your Vocabulary: You don't need "sophisticated" jargon to sound intelligent. Clear, everyday language is more relatable and easier to understand. If you habitually struggle with specific English sounds (like a long "e" or hard "th"), swap those words out for easier-to-pronounce synonyms.
Think in "Paragraphs," Not Sentences: To move to the next level of fluency, structure your speech with a clear beginning, supporting arguments, and an end. Use repetition and stories to reinforce your points; if an audience misses a specific word, the story will help them infer the meaning.
Ditch the Script for an Outline: Reading a full script leads to a flat, lifeless delivery and increases the risk of getting lost. Instead, map out your story on a single page. Practicing from an outline allows you to remain conversational and emotionally connected to your listeners.

Inspiring Conversations with Stephanie Judd of Wolf & Heron

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 17:00:00 GMT

In this article, Stephanie Judd is featured in a VoyageATL interview and shared her journey from college to building Wolf & Heron, as well as the challenges she faced day-to-day.

Hi Stephanie, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?

”My path has been circuitous but also not all that unexpected in hindsight. I graduated with a Computer Science degree. At school, I was good at it, but it didn’t take long for me to figure out that being an engineer and a developer wasn’t a great fit for me in the job market. Then began a long journey of soul searching that took me to several countries on three continents across four different industries (I worked in public health, energy, micro-finance, and in the nonprofit world). I finally went to grad school in Michigan in part because I needed a “comma” in my career to reflect and regroup. While there, I finally articulated that my favorite part of every project or experience I’d taken on until that point had been getting others inspired to care about it too.”

READ THE ARTICLE

Your Biggest Leadership Hurdle: 4 Tips for Navigating Impostor Syndrome

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:30:00 GMT

At Wolf & Heron, we do a lot of one-on-one work with leaders through our coaching practice. Most of the time, these leaders, although well established in their careers, still believe they have more to accomplish professionally; they haven’t reached their end-goal, and their ambition remains strong.

And yet, despite their previous achievements and successful careers, we find ourselves having conversation after conversation helping leaders see and feel their own potential for that next step.

We’ve noticed that one of the key hurdles of leaders stepping into their own leadership is their personal belief that they’re not yet ready.

In this article, Kara Davidson and Stephanie Judd cover the definition of imposter syndrome and how to prevent this invisible roadblock from stalling your leadership journey.

READ THE ARTICLE

Best Practices for Leading in a Hybrid Work Environment

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:29:00 GMT

We recently hosted a roundtable discussion on Building Authentic Sales Relationships in a Hybrid Virtual/In-Person Tech Industry. Additionally, we continue to do a great deal of executive coaching for leaders in public health, tech and other fields. There are several unique challenges leaders are facing in supporting their people right now due to the hybrid nature of work and offer these best practices for consideration.

In this article, Kara Davidson and Stephanie Judd cover how to foster mindfulness in yourself and employees, being flexible about how you connect with your team, experimenting with new ways for team building, and how to debrief and coach your team members.

READ THE ARTICLE

Make People Feel Seen, Heard, and Understood - Part 2: Coaching Tips for Leaders

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 14:00:00 GMT

Let your statements be limited to restating what you hear or noticing the mental and emotional experience of the other person. This is the single most fundamental way to make a person feel seen and heard.

Ask Powerful Questions

If you want to help them move forward and find a solution, focus on asking powerful questions; questions that begin with the words when, where, how, and sometimes what.

What would make you feel successful?
Where might you start?
How will you evaluate your options?
When will you know you’ve found what you’re looking for?

Stay Future-Focused

The best questions are future-oriented. They're not designed to get the other person to simply rehash the past and talk about things they already know. Those questions, though technically phrased right, are mostly information-seeking on your part rather than productive. Here are some common questions that aren’t future-oriented, and their more powerful counterparts:

What have you tried so far? → What could you try?
How did Sally receive that? → How do you imagine Sally will receive that?
What has been successful in the past? → What outcome are you hoping for?

Trust Your Conversation Partner’s Answers Are Right

If you’re truly asking powerful, future-oriented questions, the next step is trusting that what the other person offers in answer to your questions is “right” for them. Powerful, open-ended questions don’t have an objectively right answer… they’re exploratory in nature. Even if it’s not the answer you would have given had the tables been turned, it’s the right answer for them.

Be Mindful

The simple act of making the conscious commitment to be curious will set you up to be so. Take a breath, focus on what you want to bring to the conversation, and let that be a mindframe that you stay in throughout.

As a leader, one of the most radical things you can do is prioritize making your people feel seen, heard, and understood. Take the time to cultivate some of the keystone skills of coaches—listening and asking questions— to transform your relationships, inspire your people, and engage them more effectively.

What do you do as a leader to make your people feel seen, heard and understood?

Last time, we discussed how important it is that leaders make their people feel seen, heard, and understood ( see Part 1 ). As executive coaches, we work with a lot of leaders and, in our experience, find that this skill is particularly important, yet underdeveloped, in today’s leaders. The key to making people feel seen, heard, and understood is to listen and ask more questions, but as we explored in our last article, there are many mistakes leaders make even when they THINK they’re doing just that. Today, we’re here to offer some conversation tools we use as coaches that we think are particularly powerful at making people feel seen, heard, and understood.

Restate What You Hear

Summary of Takeaways

Building on the common mistakes discussed in Part 1, here are the keystone coaching skills you can cultivate to transform your relationships and make your people feel truly seen, heard, and understood:

Restate and Validate: The most fundamental way to make someone feel heard is to restate what you’ve heard them say. Noticing their mental and emotional experience ("It sounds like you’re feeling frustrated by...") acknowledges their reality before you move toward action.
Ask Powerful, Exploratory Questions: Shift away from fact-finding. Focus on "When," "Where," "How," and "What" questions that encourage the other person to think deeply. Examples include: "What would make you feel successful here?" or "Where might you start?"
Stay Future-Oriented: Don't let the conversation get stuck in a rehash of the past. Instead of asking "What have you tried so far?", try "What could you try?" This pivots the energy toward possibilities rather than just information-seeking.
Trust Their Answers: In an exploratory conversation, there is no objectively "right" answer. Trust that what your conversation partner offers is the right answer for them, even if it differs from what you would do.
Commit to Curiosity: Before starting a conversation, take a breath and intentionally set a mindset of curiosity. This mindfulness helps you stay present and prevents you from slipping back into "problem-solver" mode.

The Bottom Line: Making people feel seen, heard, and understood is a radical act of leadership. By prioritizing listening and powerful questioning over directives, you inspire your people to reach their own insights and drive their own success.

Make People Feel Seen, Heard and Understood - Part 1: Common Mistakes

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 15:00:00 GMT

Focusing on your experience

This is what happens inside your head while you’re having a conversation with someone. They mention something, and your mind jumps to something you want to say. Perhaps you had a similar experience you want to share, or you thought of an idea worth offering. The point is now you’re focused on what’s in your head rather than on the person in front of you. You’ve stopped seeing or hearing the other person.

Asking information-seeking questions, not exploratory ones

Questions are often designed to be information-seeking rather than designed for exploration. We spend our lives in school training ourselves to ask the questions that will lead us to a concrete answer. But making people feel seen, heard, and understood isn’t about knowing when the task is due, or determining whether they’re where you think they should be in the process. It’s about recognizing they are naturally resourceful and probably have the answers inside themselves, and bearing witness to their process.

Asking yes/no or leading questions

Often leaders will phrase a question, but its answer is simply a yes/no response. How many times have you been in a meeting where the leader asks, “Are there any questions?” This question warrants nothing more than a yes/no answer. People take it as the invitation it's intended to be, however, because of the way the question is worded it requires several additional mental leaps. This can slow down the conversation enough that people haven't quite formulated their question before the leader moves on. Other times, yes/no questions are really just suggestions veiled as a question. “Did you try reaching out to Jim?” “Are you going to give it another week?” “Were you annoyed?” These kinds of questions can be at best, leading, and at worst, toxic. They take your conversation partner down a train of thought that isn’t their own—it’s yours. They didn’t reach out to Jim… now they have to tell you about their failure to do so. Eek! They hadn’t been annoyed, but now that you planted the idea in their head, they subconsciously take it on.

Solution-finding

The most insidious mistake of all is one that feels so helpful and useful—how could it possibly be a mistake? This is the habit of solution-finding. Believe it or not, most of the time when people come to us with a problem, they’re not actually looking for a spoon-fed solution. Instead, they want to be recognized in their struggle and challenged to think in new ways. They want to know that you have a fundamental trust in their capacity to figure things out of themselves… they just need help with where to look.

Now, as a leader, sometimes each one of these actions are relevant and necessary to do your job. The key is acknowledging that these behaviors are NOT the ones that contribute to your people feeling seen, heard, and understood. To be an effective, engaging, and inspiring leader, you just have to be intentional about creating the time and space with your people to truly listen and ask powerful, exploratory questions. This is additive to the other hats that you will wear in your role, but crucial to making your people feel seen, heard, and understood.

Stay tuned for Part 2 for classic tips from the world of coaching that you can leverage in your role as a leader to do just that.

What do you see as common mistakes that can get in the way of your leadership?

Making people feel seen, heard, and understood is one of the most fundamental and important skills of a coach. In our work over the past decade, we’ve come to believe that it’s also one of the most important, yet underdeveloped, skills of a leader. This skill, though simple, is surprisingly lacking in our day-to-day human interactions. To develop it is radical. And, when leveraged in a leadership context, the skill can transform you into a source of inspiration for your people.

But what does it mean to make people feel seen, heard, and understood? Why are leaders getting in their own way? Leaders could stand to listen and ask more questions, but first they have to recognize the mistakes they make when they THINK they’re doing exactly that.

Summary of Takeaways

Making people feel seen, heard, and understood is a fundamental leadership skill that is often surprisingly lacking. To become an inspiring leader, you must first recognize the common mistakes that get in the way of true connection:

Focusing on Your Own Experience: When someone else is talking, your mind often jumps to your own similar stories or ideas. This shift in focus means you've stopped truly "seeing" the other person and are now just waiting for your turn to speak.
Asking "Information-Seeking" Instead of "Exploratory" Questions: Leaders often ask questions to gather facts (dates, status updates) rather than to foster exploration. True connection comes from bearing witness to the other person's process and trusting that they have the answers within themselves.
Using Leading or Yes/No Questions: Questions like "Did you try reaching out to Jim?" are actually suggestions veiled as questions. They force the other person down your train of thought rather than their own, which can feel toxic or accusatory.
The "Solution-Finding" Habit: This is the most insidious mistake. While it feels helpful, most people aren't looking for a spoon-fed solution. They want to be recognized in their struggle and challenged to think in new ways.
Recognizing the Difference: While giving instructions is sometimes necessary for a manager, it is not the behavior that makes an employee feel seen or heard. You must be intentional about creating separate space for deep, exploratory listening.

The Bottom Line: To move from a "manager" to an "inspiring leader," you must pivot from providing answers to asking powerful questions. By letting go of the need to be the solver, you empower your people to be the source of their own solutions.

14 Ways Leaders Can Build A Companywide Peer Coaching Culture

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 16:30:00 GMT

A peer-to-peer coaching program allows a business to establish connections with, between and among employees across various departments while offering opportunities for staff members to improve their personal communication and professional skills. However, for peer coaching to be effective, you need employee buy-in and a well-thought-out implementation strategy. The members of Forbes Coaches Council have plenty of experience working with executives and managers to create coaching cultures within businesses.

In this article, Stephanie Judd is featured as one of 14 coaches who share ways for leaders to implement a successful peer coaching system across an organization.

READ THE ARTICLE

Cross-Cultural Storytelling: How To Be Authentic, Engaging And Resonant With Your Audience

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 16:30:00 GMT

At the end of a talk or presentation, I usually get questions about the line between authenticity and dramatization. Stories, in particular, lend themselves to being dramatized—in some ways, dramatization makes the story more interesting and engaging—but that very same dramatization has the potential to feel affected or “put on” by the storyteller.

Recently, I gave a talk about influential storytelling in Switzerland to an audience of product managers from all over Europe. As usual, the question came up, but this time it was framed as a cross-cultural question. An audience member mentioned that my storytelling felt distinctly “American,” and she could never imagine herself telling a story in that way, let alone to an audience of “French and German executives.” Her question was “How do I be me, be engaging and resonate with my audience all in the context of working cross-culturally?”

In this article, Stephanie Judd is featured as a Forbes Council Member who shares how to be authentic, engaging and resonant with your audience.

READ THE ARTICLE

14 Time-Management Practices For Completing Your To-Do List

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 16:29:00 GMT

Managing time better always seems to be at the top of most professionals’ to-do lists. It’s a never-ending process that fluctuates and changes along with our schedules and lives. Thankfully, there are ways to get better at managing your time over the long term.

As busy and successful coaching professionals, the members of Forbes Coaches Council use time-management strategies to ensure they can give their clients sufficient time and energy while still thriving in their own professional and personal lives.

In this article, Stephanie Judd is featured as one of 14 coaches who share time-management practices they use to manage their own work responsibilities and why they recommend these tactics to others.

READ THE ARTICLE

Engage and Inspire - Wolf & Heron

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 16:29:00 GMT

Wolf & Heron empowers high-potential people and executives to engage and inspire with storytelling. Our customers range from Google’s Product Management Learning & Development organization to the University of Michigan’s Sanger Leadership Center and include a diverse group of teams and organizations interested in empowering their people to be more compelling communicators.

Wolf & Heron was featured in an article in Go Solo Magazine.

READ THE ARTICLE

Using Lessons from Storytelling to Design Your Presentation

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 14:00:00 GMT

If your last presentation had information overload, disorganization, a lack of vision or just didn’t land with your audience, one of the most powerful things you can do is use lessons from storytelling to improve it.

Recently we were hired by an organization to prepare their leaders for an internal conference. The leaders came to us and said, “Hey, so here’s what’s in my deck. I have to talk about A, then B, then C.” Oh, and by the way, A, then B, then C is about 50 dense slides that lack a compelling story arc.

A presentation is not a story, they are not interchangeable, but you can certainly use lessons from storytelling to make sure that your presentation has an organized narrative and leaves them with the takeaway(s) you want them to hold onto.

Here’s the advice we shared with those leaders:

Have a Key Theme and Message

Storytelling Lesson - Pick One Theme: Pick One Theme is one of our storytelling super powers. Influential Stories should have one main point in order to be focused and memorable.

Even if you feel like you know exactly what should go into your presentation, take a moment to step back and look at it from the 50,000 foot level. What do you want your audience to know, feel and do as a result of your presentation? Just as we recommend when crafting a story, getting crystal clear on the message or piece of information your audience absolutely must remember is crucial. A single-sentence takeaway can be an incredible filter for the stack of content you included in your presentation while on auto-pilot. It’s possible you’re spending 80% of the time on something that’s only 10% of the point, or that your main message is buried underneath 10 other pieces of less-important information.

Structure with Intention

Storytelling Lesson - Block out your story using building blocks: In our Influential Storytelling workshops, we provide participants with a set of building blocks (basic story structure) they can use to flesh out the content of their story. This helps storytellers resist the urge to give too much context, and ensures the inclusion of critical elements like an inciting incident and turning point.

Just like in a story, structure in your presentation is important because it will help you organize the flow of information, making it more digestible for your audience. Common structures are Introduction → Agenda → Details → Conclusion, Why → What → How or Problem Statement → Options → Recommended Solution. You can also leverage a story structure to design your presentation… Context → Challenge/Decision-making → Resolution..

There’s not one right structure for your presentation - the key is making sure it’s not just stacked content.

Your presentation structure or outline should serve as a set of landmarks for your audience, so they can follow along and aren’t overwhelmed.

Structure also helps ensure you take your audience on a journey because you’re going from place A to place B along an intentionally crafted path.

Open Powerfully

Storytelling Lesson - Start with a hook: Your opening statement is your first impression and should capture your listeners immediately.

We rarely advocate for memorization of any script, whether it be a story or presentation voiceover. That said, we strongly recommend a (mostly) scripted opening to ensure that you’re hooking your audience right away and showing up with presence. Having a planned opening will enable you to begin confidently, be sure of your words, and welcome people into the presentation while hitting all of your intended notes. A powerful opening may include a story, a question, or a tee-up of the “why” for the presentation. A powerful opening is NOT an introduction of yourself… have someone else do that for you before you begin, or save it for after your opening, if you must include it. Whatever you choose, have a plan, write it down and practice it.

These are just three key lessons from storytelling that we apply to delivering powerful presentations. How do you make sure your presentations aren’t just information overload?

Moving From Command & Control to Coaching & Collaboration

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 13:54:00 GMT

The number one leadership initiative in any organization today is improved coaching. Coaching empowers employees, empowerment drives engagement, and engagement drives performance. At its core, coaching is about transformation. Leading distributed teams requires transforming how we coach and changing our play calls and playbooks to get things done. As a part of our interview series called “Moving From Command & Control to Coaching & Collaboration; How Leaders and Managers Can Become Better Coaches,” we had the pleasure to interview Stephanie Judd and Kara Davidson.

Wolf & Heron was featured in an article in Authority Magazine.

READ THE ARTICLE

Wolf & Heron Relocates Headquarters to Metro Atlanta and Delivers First Presentation of 2023 at the CDC

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 21:59:00 GMT

The leadership development firm partners with top Atlanta-based non-profit to provide leadership training for public health department staff across the country

ATLANTA, GEORGIA, UNITED STATES, January 25, 2023 / EINPresswire.com / -- Wolf & Heron , a leadership development firm that leverages expertise in social psychology, influence, and facilitation, has announced the relocation of its headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia. Founder Stephanie Judd was also tapped to speak at a Leadership Lab sponsored by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE). The in-person event was designed for the public health staff members throughout the United States and hosted on January 4 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

CSTE selected Wolf & Heron to help health department staff explore tools of coaching that can be used as effective leadership skills as well. The presentation focused on the key skill of making people feel seen, heard, and understood. Judd discussed the impact this skill can have on conversations (and relationships), common mistakes people make, and what to do instead. Participants attended the training to prepare for a practicum that brings together students at the Harvard School of Public Health with staff from health departments around the country.

This collaboration between Wolf & Heron and CSTE aligns with the firm’s strategic move to relocate to one of the fastest growing regions in the U.S. The consultancy has worked with a diverse portfolio of clients from Fortune 100 companies to non-profits and large educational institutions. Originally headquartered in Buena Vista, Colorado, Wolf & Heron will continue to serve clients across the globe while fostering new partnerships with businesses from Atlanta’s key industries.

“When we think about how we want to shape our brand and expand our services over the next five years, Atlanta is just a natural fit,” says Stephanie Judd, founder at Wolf & Heron. “We work with some very impactful businesses across North America and Europe, and I’m really looking forward to being a part of Atlanta’s diverse, international business community.”

Founders Stephanie Judd and Kara Davidson launched the firm in 2017 and rapidly scaled while attracting high-value clients in product management, sales, and marketing roles. The partners have over 40 years of combined experience developing and delivering corporate training programs and executive coaching. Wolf & Heron also offers public events that empower professionals to leverage the power of story to perfect their presence, build trust, and inspire others.

“We’re excited about this move and hope it will forge new relationships and opportunities to share our unique approach to leadership development,” says Kara Davidson, founder at Wolf & Heron. “One of the coolest factors about us is that we have an incredible ability to adapt and customize programs to meet our clients’ needs.”

ABOUT WOLF & HERON

Wolf & Heron is a leadership development firm that empowers high-potential people and executives to engage and inspire others with storytelling. The consultancy has worked with clients across many industries and profiles, including Fortune 100 companies, non-profits, educational institutions, and lobbyist groups. Founded by Kara Davidson and Stephanie Judd, Wolf & Heron delivers experiences and solutions to develop inspirational leaders. The company offers customized, people-focused programs, such as corporate training, public workshops, and executive coaching. To learn more, visit https://www.wolfandheron.com/ .

View on Newswire

What to do When Your One-on-One Check-ins Feel Like a Waste of Time

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 14:00:00 GMT

A lot of the issues managers bring to our coaching conversations are a result of a lack of communication and trust. Some of that comes from the absence of a safe space in which to have direct, productive and vulnerable conversations.

As a manager, you can create a predictable and safe environment for those conversations at your regular manager/employee check-ins. Many of us have had these meetings on our calendar but there’s a big difference between a well organized, predictable, thoughtful check-in and the rushed, distracted, “default” check-in. Scheduling the check-in and inviting your employee to meet with you is not enough.

In some respects, because the one-on-one manager/employee check-in is designed to be a regular meeting, it can be taken for granted and underutilized. It is a recurring meeting, often without a true or thoughtful agenda attached to it; after all, it’s meant to be “open conversation.” You probably expect your employee to bring you a problem if they have one. If they need some coaching, you expect them to come to you with that request. Why, then, do most check-ins largely end up being a conversation something along the lines of…”How’s it going?” “It’s good. I’m busy, but I’ll manage.” “Okay, great, walk me through your project updates.”

A project update meeting is not a total waste of time, but it’s not development oriented and probably leaving you (and your employee) with the feeling that the one-on-one could be better utilized. In all likelihood, your employee is probably stressed about something or frustrated with their career progression or not sure if they can even share an issue they’re having in their personal life.

Here’s some ideas to help you refresh your approach to one-on-one check-ins with your employees:

Listen.

Listening is one of the most underrated skills of managers, especially first-time managers. There’s this general tendency to feel like you should have all the answers, which means you then do most of the talking and solving. Often your employee doesn’t want a solution, they just want to be heard. At other times you won’t be able to help them solve their challenge until you hear more from them. No matter what, you need to show a willingness to listen, ask follow up questions, and acknowledge what you hear. Create a space where your employee knows you won’t judge, jump to conclusions, or tell them what they “should do.” This will make them comfortable coming to you, asking directly when they want your advice, and growing with you.

Be aware of what you’re modeling.

Employees take cues from their leaders. If you multitask or run late, they will notice and follow your lead. If you rely on the project updates as the topic for the agenda and neglect to ask follow-up questions, they’ll know that this is not a space for reflective or more macro-level, forward-looking conversations.

Ask powerful open-ended questions.

Even if you want the employee to focus these check-ins on what’s most valuable to them, you will still play a role as the guide, coach and mentor. To do that, you have to ask powerful questions that illustrate curiosity and encourage productive conversation. Use open-ended questions (they typically begin with where, when, how, and what) that help your employees move forward. The idea is to avoid having your employee tell you stories and regurgitate what they already know. For example, instead of asking, “What’s the update on project X,” try, “How will you build momentum with project X?” or “What worked particularly well on Project Y that you think you can try again on Project Z?”

Have an agenda and plan.

This is a bit of a goldilocks situation. You should have enough of an agenda that you know what success looks like but not so much structure that it gets in the way of what’s needed in the moment. Experiment with different ideas and get feedback from your employees; every employee has different needs. Consider which topics make sense on a weekly basis and which set you up for longer term conversations.

We put together a document with some suggestions for questions and topics for conversation. Download the document here . Use the document to design the ideal agenda for you and your team. Depending on the frequency of your check-ins, you will likely find that even if you want to, you won’t be able to cover every single topic at each meeting. There is also likely something missing that should be added due to the context of your

employee/team/work. Just remember, the more you can step outside of what has likely become a default for both you and your employee, the better served your team members will be.

What are the most valuable employee check-ins you have experienced? What made them valuable?

29 Entrepreneurs Reveal How They Came Up With Their Business Name

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 16:21:00 GMT

The idea of exactly what your business is going to do usually comes first. Secondly, most often, is giving a title to your idea. What exactly is going to be the name of your business? Some people turn to their childhood for inspiration or a beloved family pet. It could be a made-up word you dream of one night and feel has the right ring to it. Even still some people study foreign words for the perfect meaning behind their chosen business. Whatever the inspiration or relation may be, naming your business is one of the most important parts of becoming a CEO. Having a brand behind a strong title can make all the difference in the world.

Wolf & Heron was featured in an article by CEO Blog Nation where Kara shares a bit about how we came up with the name for our business.

READ THE ARTICLE

How to Gather Input from a Working Group

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 15:00:00 GMT

She felt like she was the most “junior” member of the working group, so she didn’t feel empowered to “ask” for anything from the participants; she felt uncomfortable making her participants “work.”
She knew that if she gave participants “prework” ahead of the meeting, no one would do it.
She was afraid that the same three voices would end up dominating the conversation.

To address these concerns and gather input productively, they focused on three things:

People like to be useful

People like to be able to offer value. To that end, making participants “work” in a meeting is part of what gives that meeting meaning! Once Stephanie reassured Rachel that the literal act of asking participants to “work” during the meeting would be what made them feel like the meeting was a good use of their time, they moved on to focus on Rachel’s other two concerns.

Build time to do the prework into the meeting

Assigning prework can be a strategic part of meeting design because it can help get participants into the right mindspace, or more importantly, get them to gather information that will be relevant to a decision that will need to be made during the meeting. If the culture of the working group is such that participants simply won’t do any prework, then part of your meeting design plan needs to be to literally use the time to gather that information. Participants have blocked that time on their calendar to work on the stated goals of the working group, so they’ll be more willing to use it to be productive. Once the relevant information has been collected, the working group can move on to making a decision or innovating.

Explicit structure to the conversation will democratize the voices

When it comes to navigating the loud voices in the room, one of the best strategies you have is to be really explicit about how you structure the conversation. The more open-ended and loose the conversation is, the more likely the loud voices will dominate. One trick is to pre-think exactly what questions you want answered, and put them into a worksheet of some kind. It can be fun, when in person, to blow up the worksheet to a poster-sized document, and have groups of 3-5 work on completing it together before reporting out to the rest of the room. When in a virtual environment, consider creating shared documents that can be edited in real time by groups of 3-5. In either case, your structure helps ensure that all voices are heard. Plus, as a bonus, you’ll end up with a set of artifacts that you can then use in your follow up and planning for next time.

What are your favorite ways to gather input?

This article is Part 3 of a 3-part series on planning and leading your working group meetings.

Here is the full set of articles from the series:

When organizing a working group meeting, often the reason for gathering is to collect input and expertise from your members. This is important because working groups and cross-functional teams are most powerful when the expertise of the group is effectively leveraged. The trick is figuring out how to capture that input in a way that is productive.

Recently Stephanie was working with a client, Rachel, who wanted to collect input from her working group participants, but she had a couple of concerns:

Summary of Takeaways

The power of a working group lies in the collective expertise of its members, but capturing that expertise requires intentional design. Here’s how to gather input productively:

Embrace the "Work" in Working Group: Don't be afraid to ask participants to roll up their sleeves. People actually find meetings more meaningful when they feel they are contributing value and being useful.
In-Meeting "Prework": If you know your team won't do preparation ahead of time, build that time directly into the meeting agenda. Since they’ve already blocked the time to focus on the group's goals, use the first few minutes to gather necessary info or context so you can move quickly to decision-making.
Structure to Democratize Voices: Open-ended discussions often allow the loudest voices to dominate. To prevent this, use explicit structures like worksheets or shared documents.
Small Group Collaboration: Break the group into squads of 3–5. Whether using a poster-sized worksheet in person or a shared digital doc virtually, small groups ensure every voice is heard and result in clear artifacts you can use for follow-up.
Focus on Artifacts: By structuring the input-gathering process, you don't just get a conversation—you get tangible results (the "artifacts") that move the project forward.

The Bottom Line: Leading a working group isn't about having all the answers; it’s about creating a structure where others can provide them. When you move from "talking at" to "working with," you turn a meeting into a productive engine for results.

Elevate Your Executive Presence With Intentional Storytelling

Thu, 03 Nov 2022 15:22:00 GMT

This article was first published on Forbes on 03 November 2022.

When I recently googled the term “executive presence,” I was offered more than 351 billion results in English alone. To put it mildly, the world is obsessed with executive presence. Although hard to define in concrete terms, most of us can spot it in someone who has it; they’re perceived as “leadership material.” Most of us have also had a moment where a boss has encouraged us to work on our presence. We may recognize it intuitively, but it’s not always easy to know how to develop it.

According to a study by the Center for Talent Innovation, executive presence accounts for 26% of the struggle to advance within an organization. The good news is that despite its enigmatic nature, executive presence is a learnable skill.

In her book Executive Presence, Sylvia Ann Hewlett describes executive presence as resting on three pillars: gravitas, communication and appearance. As a storytelling and presentation skills coach, I work with clients on all three of these pillars. Here’s my tip: If you’re aiming to develop your executive presence, consider developing your storytelling skills as one way to do so. Here are a few reasons why becoming an intentional storyteller can help build your executive presence.

Storytelling, in and of itself, makes you appear to be 'leadership material.'

Steve Jobs once said, “The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.” Stories invite us in, activate our curiosity, make us feel things and cause us to think differently. It’s no surprise that we respond to storytellers as if they hold the world in their hands; storytellers inspire and captivate us.

If executive presence is what you’re aiming for, telling well-crafted stories often will go a long way to making you appear to be “leadership material.”

Stories help you show up authentically.

One of the core qualities of an influential story is that it reveals an authentic truth about the storyteller. Even when the storyteller tells a story in which they are not a key character, I encourage the storyteller to reveal what about the story resonates with them. The main purpose for ensuring some amount of vulnerability on the part of the storyteller is that it helps to build trust and connection between the storyteller and the audience.

According to Hewlett, “Everyone [she and her colleagues] surveyed or spoke to affirmed the importance of authenticity, pointing out that no leader can win or retain followers without it.”

Develop a library of intentionally crafted stories to give you an arsenal of ways to share details of yourself in an authentic and compelling way.

Telling stories makes it easier to get rid of the props.

Hewlett writes that “referring to lists, reading your notes, using eighty-seven PowerPoint slides, shuffling papers or flip charts, and putting on your glasses... are all actions that detract from your gravitas because they focus attention on your lack of confidence. If you cannot command your subject, you certainly won’t be able to command the room. Know your material cold so that you needn’t rely on notes.”

Because our brains are wired for stories, many of us are fundamentally better at remembering stories than any other kind of information. This can be used to your advantage as you aim to command your subject and know your material cold. If you have stories that you can tell that connect the dots or illustrate a point metaphorically, you’ll have things to say that you can remember easily, and you won’t need your props to help you.

Stories offer focused opportunities to bring a layer of intentionality to your delivery.

I find my clients are most concerned with figuring out what they want to say and sequencing the information appropriately. They often let perfecting their message take most of their preparation time and effort. Yes, it is an important piece of compelling and impactful communication, but research shows that what you say is much less important than how you say it .

That being said, I find my clients are much more willing to examine exactly how they say things and bring a level of intentionality to their preparation for the bits of their presentation that are specifically intended to be stories. Perhaps it’s the dramatic quality of a story or the fact that there are examples of great performers using thoughtful delivery strategies that gives us permission to be more expressive in these moments. Perhaps it’s the fact that we know stories will be remembered, so we want to spend time refining them to perfection. Whatever the reason, I see storytelling as a gateway to exploring intentional delivery on a more holistic level. If you can master several two-minute stories, delivering them with powerful pauses, meaningful gestures and a grounded stance, then maybe one day you can do the same when you’re not exactly in “storytelling mode,” per se. Consider your stories your proving ground for more effective delivery across all your communication, and see what strategies you can internalize to the point that they’re subconscious.

Storytelling is just one way to build your executive presence, but it’s a powerful way. By honing your craft as a storyteller, you will also be shaping external perceptions of yourself as “leadership material.”

READ THE ARTICLE

Clarifying Success for Your Working Group Meeting (with Downloadable Tool)

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 13:00:00 GMT

When organizing a working group meeting, one of the most important things you can do to get started is to define success. There are a few ways to do this, but the crux of it is to make sure you know the “why” behind the meeting.

Because working groups are often established to work through aspirational and shifting goals, and because participants are usually loosely organized, it’s critical that participants understand why they’re meeting, what they are expected to contribute, and what they can expect in return. Although you may already have a cursory idea of agenda topics for meetings, getting clear on your “why” will take your meeting from the typical boring event to a powerful gathering with better outcomes.

Before your next working group meeting, consider taking these steps to prepare.

DRAFT THE KNOW, FEEL, DO

At the top of a blank sheet of paper, write:

At the end of this meeting, attendees should...

KNOW…
FEEL…
DO…

Then complete the statements.

Begin with a rough draft to get some words on paper. Then do your best to make these statements as specific as possible. Instead of something like, at the end of this meeting, attendees should take action, be specific about exactly what action they should take. For example, if the objective of the meeting is to review a project plan, consider something like, at the end of this meeting, attendees should KNOW which part of the project plan they own, FEEL like their contribution will be valued and BUILD their outreach plan. The more specific you can make your stated goals, the more refined and focused your meeting will be, and the easier it will be to design.

GATHER INPUT

It’s easy to get caught up in what you (or your boss, or the planning committee) think the meetings should be about. Check your perspective against others by conducting interviews with the expected other members of the working group. Pick a few folks from the group and ask them a series of questions aimed at finding out the critical issues that need to be discussed, prioritized, decided upon, etc.

Potential Questions:

What do you think is the most important thing we should accomplish next as a group?
What would make it easy for you to contribute to that end? What would make it hard?
What else should I know?

Gathering input ahead of time is critical to avoid side-conversations or unexpected twists in the discussion that could seriously derail your agenda and impact productivity. By gathering input, you will know ahead of time which topic areas need air time and where the priorities are. Additionally, by checking in with everyone in advance, you “warm up the room,” and engage your champions.

SYNTHESIZE YOUR FINDINGS AND REFINE THE KNOW, FEEL, AND DO

Once you’ve gathered input, go back to your planning document and write down your main takeaways from the interviews. Note themes that surfaced or areas where everyone seemed to have a different opinion. Consider questions like these:

What are the issues that everybody called out?
What are the areas of misalignment?
What are the individual and group expectations?
Where are people excited to contribute or collaborate?

Then, review your KNOW, FEEL, and DO statements. Ask yourself if anything should change now that you’ve gathered input. Take a moment and revise those statements based on the increased clarity you have around the “why” of the meeting and what success will look like.

In our work helping clients prepare for meetings and presentations of all kinds, we've created a tool to make the process easy. Download this template for a step by step guide to crafting your KNOW, FEEL, DO and then using it to inform your agenda. The tool has two tabs, one for working sessions or shorter meetings and a second if you are planning an all-day retreat or multi-session or even days-long conference.

Download

This article is Part 2 of a 3-part series on planning and leading your working group meetings.

Here is the full set of articles from the series:

Summary of Takeaways

Defining the "why" behind a working group meeting is the difference between a waste of time and a high-impact gathering. To ensure your meeting achieves real outcomes, follow this three-step preparation process:

Draft the "Know, Feel, Do": Move beyond vague agenda items by defining exactly what attendees should Know (specific information), Feel (emotional resonance/motivation), and Do (concrete actions) by the end of the session. The more specific these statements, the easier it is to design a focused meeting.
Gather External Input Early: Don't plan in a vacuum. Interview a few key members before the meeting to identify critical issues, potential roadblocks, and areas of misalignment. This "warms up the room," engages champions, and prevents unexpected derailments during the live discussion.
Synthesize and Refine: Use the feedback from your interviews to update your "Know, Feel, Do" statements. Identifying recurring themes or points of tension allows you to pivot your strategy and ensure the final agenda reflects the group’s actual priorities and expectations.

Wolf & Heron Founder Tapped to Speak at the Annual Product Management Festival Europe

Tue, 25 Oct 2022 13:10:00 GMT

Stephanie Judd, storyteller and leadership development expert, is a featured speaker at the 2-day conference for product managers across various industries

BUENA VISTA, COLORADO, UNITED STATES , October 25, 2022 / EINPresswire.com / -- Wolf & Heron , a consultancy that empowers high-potential people to engage and inspire others with storytelling, has announced that founder and managing partner Stephanie Judd is an invited speaker at the 2022 Product Management Festival (PMF). The event will be held in Zürich, Switzerland from November 9 to November 10, 2022.

PMF allows experts and practitioners from across the product management community to share best practices, experiences, and success stories every year. The organization aims to amplify the global impact of product management and helps product managers make a real difference while offering the best products on the market. This year’s lineup of speakers includes business leaders and executives from Google, Meta, Hellofresh, YouTube and more.

“This is my second time speaking at PMF, and it’s a unique opportunity to engage and exchange ideas with really smart, impact-oriented professionals,” says Stephanie Judd, founder at Wolf & Heron. “My goal is to help product managers discover the power of influential storytelling and dispel some myths that stop PMs from developing this skill set.”

Wolf & Heron is committed to cultivating leaders who can engage and inspire others with storytelling. Judd’s talk will highlight common storytelling misconceptions product managers have about storytelling and offer ways to effectively tell stories that galvanize an audience and motivate them to take action. Attendees will leave with a checklist of characteristics against which to measure their own stories and maximize their ability to influence others.

The festival will host 289 companies from over 18 countries, and tickets are available for sale via the website. Judd will be among 40+ innovators and practitioners in the product management trade that share insight to being successful and having a thriving business.

ABOUT WOLF & HERON
Wolf & Heron is a leadership development firm that empowers high-potential people and executives to engage and inspire others with storytelling. The consultancy has worked with clients across many industries and profiles, including Fortune 100 companies, non-profits, educational institutions, and lobbyist groups. Founded by Kara Davidson and Stephanie Judd, Wolf & Heron delivers experiences and solutions to develop inspirational leaders. The company offers customized, people-focused programs, such as corporate training, public workshops, and executive coaching. To learn more, visit https://www.wolfandheron.com/ .

View on Newswire

Designing a Meeting for a Working Group

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 13:00:00 GMT

Working Groups are Additional to Everyone’s Day-to-Day

Nine times out of ten, a working group is an extra initiative. It’s a volunteer position for the members of the working group, or the shared goal of the working group isn’t obviously relevant to the personal career goals of the members. Often, the direct supervisors of the members are themselves uninvolved in the working group processes, and have little interest or understanding of the work that goes on there. What this fundamentally means is that the working groups need to be extra engaging and inspiring for members to participate in them, otherwise it’s not seen as a good use of their time.

As a leader or facilitator of a working group session, this increases the burden to organize thoughtfully designed meetings that maximize engagement, build social glue, and lead to concrete outcomes. Members need to feel like their time is well spent AND like they’re an important contributor to the group.

TIP: When designing for a working group session, be extremely clear on what your goals are. Write them out in complete sentences, and be sure you’ve addressed what you want members to KNOW after participating in the meeting, FEEL as a result of the meeting, and DO as a follow up. Having defined goals will help you design each communication and meeting in a way that’s focused and aligned with the group’s purpose, ensuring you’re making the working group valuable and not a waste of time.

The Facilitator Feels like a Fraud

Often working group members have achieved a relatively high level of expertise and authority within their domains. The purpose of a working group is to bring together these high-level people, and leverage the collective expertise and authority of the group to solve a problem. In these cases, the facilitator or organizer may feel like he or she is less experienced or “ junior” to the working group members.

Unfortunately, this can lead to a sense of impostor syndrome on the part of the organizer. They may not feel empowered to take control of the meeting itself, assign tasks and responsibilities for follow up, or even require attendance in the first place. This invariably leads to a working group that feels stalled. The group takes too long to make decisions, people don’t feel like their contribution is necessary, and ultimately, the group members become less and less motivated to participate at all.

TIP: As Priya Parker mentions in her book, The Art of Gathering , “No one likes a chill host.” The whole reason a more junior person has been tasked with spearheading the effort is that none of the senior members have the time or mental space to do it justice. Taking control of the effort, assigning tasks, asking for input at the right time in the right ways… these are all ways of helping the experts accomplish their goals. Even if you are more “junior” than the working group members, if you’re leading the work stream, the working group needs you to show up as a leader in this venue. By being a strong facilitator, you are doing the working group a favor.

There’s No Clear Power Structure

Because working groups are made up of representatives from different groups, there’s often no clear line of accountability from anyone to anyone. This makes it easy to “forget” to do something between meetings, or simply skip a meeting once in a while.

In this case, social glue is extremely important. Without formal mechanisms of the carrot and stick that exist within structured hierarchies, working groups have to depend on the informal social niceties that guide human behavior. The stronger the social ties between members, the more likely natural accountability will establish itself.

TIP: As an organizer, this doesn’t mean you should figure out ways to shame people who don’t show up or don’t do their tasks. Rather, focus on ways to build social connections across the group as a side-effect of your meeting design. Do everything in your power to design small-group activities that require collaboration and conversation. Avoid “teach-outs” and presentations that put one person in the spotlight and the rest in the role of passive listener. Then, outside of the meetings themselves, find ways to create shared goals that require collaboration between two or three members at a time. Yes, you can also plan a bowling night or a happy hour, but the best social connections are built over a common challenge… Your working group exists to address some kind of challenge. Use that challenge as your starting point!

These are some common challenges that organizers of working groups often face. What are some of the challenges you see with organizing working groups?

This article is Part 1 of a 3-part series on planning and leading your working group meetings.

Here is the full set of articles from the series:

Working groups are groups of people who share a common goal (although sometimes even that can be vague), but lack a clear, formal power structure. A common example of a working group might be a cross-functional group of people tasked with implementing an initiative that has implications across all functions (like DEI initiatives, sustainability efforts, or large-scale tech transformations). Product working groups often include the product manager and everyone who will contribute to the product’s success. Another example would be a group of representatives from a large array of organizations that share related goals. This is common in the non-profit sector, as they often can find synergies and piggyback on each other’s efforts if the working group is effectively managed.

In our Meeting Design and Facilitation practice, we coach clients who are planning for and/or running a working group meeting. Here are a few of the challenges that are raised often, and some tips on how to address them.

Working groups often operate without a clear power structure, making them uniquely challenging to lead. To ensure your sessions drive real progress rather than becoming "calendar clutter," focus on these three strategies:

Design for the "Know, Feel, Do" Framework: Since working group participation is often an "extra" initiative for members, you must be extremely clear on your objectives. Define exactly what you want participants to know (the facts), feel (the motivation), and do (the actions) by the end of the meeting.

Embrace "Generous Authority": Don't let imposter syndrome stall the group. Even if you are more junior than the experts in the room, they need you to take control of the logistics and facilitation. Leading with authority allows the experts to focus on the work rather than the process.

Prioritize Social Glue: In a group with no formal accountability, relationships are your strongest lever. Build social connection as a byproduct of the work by designing small-group activities and collaborative tasks that require members to interact and depend on one another.

Summary of Takeaways

How to Develop a Storytelling Culture at Your Organization

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 17:37:00 GMT

Model Storytelling from the Top

Identify leaders, to model effective storytelling. True culture change is best supported by leaders who demonstrate the behaviors they want to see in their people. This includes executives and team leaders. Some leaders will already be natural storytellers, others may need to be coached to utilize storytelling more. Leaders who tell stories are more effective at communicating vision, getting buy-in and building connections and a sense of belonging with members of their organization. Leaders who are great storytellers are also more likely to build trust by showing up authentically, as full humans and not just as leaders on a pedestal.

Develop a Shared Language for Storytelling

One of the outcomes of our Influential Storytelling program, is that the participants walk away with a shared language and set of frameworks they can use to craft and develop their stories individually and collaboratively. They can apply those concepts to their own stories after the program and they can listen to a colleague’s story and offer feedback in a language they both understand. These tools allow people to continually reference storytelling and how it relates to their daily work. Each reference and nod back to the concepts and frameworks will help to build a stronger foundation for a storytelling culture within your organization.

Create Safe Practice Opportunities

Storytellers benefit incredibly from the opportunity to practice in front of audiences, even if that audience is only one peer. Practice opportunities help the storyteller develop familiarity and confidence around storytelling and public speaking AND the audience can provide feedback to help the storyteller make their story even more powerful. An organization can encourage this type of practice by setting up practice groups or pods, or reminding leaders that team meetings can offer a venue for low-stakes practice. For example, monthly sales huddles can begin with a salesperson sharing a customer success story followed by a brief discussion of how to best use that story in future sales conversations. These opportunities shouldn’t only be available to the people who are already strong in the skill. By creating a safe learning environment for people to practice storytelling, you’ll be able to build the storytelling skills of even the least experienced among the group.

Collect and Share Stories

Sometimes people don’t recognize moments or experiences as “story-worthy” or they come to us and say, “I don’t have any stories.” In cases like this, it can be very helpful for a team or organization to build a story library . Imagine a new employee joining a marketing team that values using impact stories in its content, but not knowing what is already out there that they can leverage. If you have a list of story ideas or a pile of videos to look through, that new employee is much more likely to feel like they can use those stories with confidence quickly.

Showcase Storytellers

One of the best ways to demonstrate that storytelling is valued at an organization is to hold a showcase where a curated group of storytellers refine stories and perform them on stage (or video) for a large audience. The showcase itself will become a marketing mechanism for developing a practice of storytelling for everyone in the audience.

What is the first step you would take to build a storytelling culture?

We love delivering our Influential Storytelling workshop. Not only is it a chance for us to work with groups of all sizes, all different audiences (sales, marketing, entire orgs), but we get to see somebody go from not having anything more than a kernel of an idea for a story to sharing something in front of a room (or virtual room) of people that is rich with feeling and has a message. It’s incredibly energizing.

But like many event-based learning, there’s always a risk that the skills, knowledge, energy and momentum developed in our workshops may get lost in the mess of daily worklife. We have pre- and post-event activities built into the Influential Storytelling program to help people integrate storytelling directly into their workflow, but there’s always more you can do to make storytelling part of your organizational culture.

Summary of Takeaways

Storytelling is most powerful when it isn't just a skill for individuals, but a shared practice across an entire organization. To move beyond one-off training and build a lasting storytelling culture, focus on these five pillars:

Model from the Top: Culture change starts with leaders. When executives and team leads use stories to communicate vision and build trust, they give everyone else permission to show up authentically and do the same.
Develop a Shared Language: Establish common frameworks and vocabulary for crafting stories. This allows team members to collaborate on ideas and provide constructive, consistent feedback using a "language" everyone understands.
Create Safe Spaces to Practice: Don't wait for high-stakes presentations. Use low-stakes environments like team huddles or small peer pods to practice stories. This builds confidence and normalizes the behavior across all experience levels.
Build a Story Library: Help your team overcome the "I don't have a story" hurdle by collecting and sharing successful examples. A central repository of customer success stories or internal "moments of change" makes it easy for new and existing employees to find inspiration.
Showcase Your Storytellers: Celebrate the practice by holding storytelling showcases. Highlighting refined stories on a larger stage (or video) serves as a powerful marketing tool for the value of storytelling within the company.

The Bottom Line: A storytelling culture isn't built overnight. By providing the tools, the safety, and the examples, you transform storytelling from a "soft skill" into a strategic asset that drives engagement and alignment.

Navigating Impostor Syndrome: Your Biggest Leadership Hurdle

Mon, 19 Sep 2022 13:00:00 GMT

And yet, despite their previous achievements and successful careers, we find ourselves having conversation after conversation helping leaders see and feel their own potential for that next step. We’ve noticed that one of the key hurdles of leaders stepping into their own leadership is their personal belief that they’re not yet ready.

One coachee, we’ll call her Lisa, was offered a new role as in division leadership. She came to a session with Stephanie with the goal of thinking through whether or not she should take the job. Her main reason not to? She might fail, especially in the beginning when she would be figuring things out. Another coachee, we’ll call him Paul, came to Kara with the desire to think through an opportunity to lead a working group of leaders from a plethora of non-profit organizations. His main reason not to? The leaders were intimidating, and he didn’t feel comfortable facilitating them through a working session when he didn’t feel at the same level of authority as he perceived the members of the working group to be.

Lisa and Paul’s challenges, and similar conundrums of many of our coachees, are known as Impostor Syndrome. Imposter syndrome is not merely an affliction of the truly inexperienced or those starting a new career. Imposter syndrome is something that leaders at all levels navigate.

According to wikipedia , impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, fraud syndrome, or the impostor experience) is a concept describing individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud." According to Sakulku and Alexander , (International Journal of Behavioral Science), 70% of people experience some form of imposter syndrome in their lives. Fear is a normal human emotion and its existence makes sense when you think about it... Large predator? Run! Food stores getting low? I could starve. I must work hard to prepare for winter! While fear is evolutionarily designed to keep us alive, it’s important to not let it prevent us from fully stepping into the leadership we can (and should) embody.

The fear of being found out as inadequate will prevent you from trying, taking on new things, or speaking of yourself in a way that conveys confidence and inspires opportunity. And yet… to build credibility and expertise, you’re gonna have to do those things. It’s a vicious circle, but we all have to deal with it. Here are a few tips for how to prevent this invisible roadblock from stalling your leadership journey.

Check in with Yourself When you’re presented with an opportunity that feels out of your reach, stay aware of your feelings. If you notice self-doubt creep in, simply label it. Just by doing that, the fear will already be more manageable. Then, once it’s named, your thinking around how to address it will be more open-minded and creative than outright avoiding the opportunity that scares you.

Reframe Your Thinking: Treat the Challenge as a Step, and Not the Endgame Reframing opportunities as a step on the road to something even bigger helps in two ways. First, it makes the step right in front of you suddenly a lot smaller by comparison. Second, it helps you see the step in front of you as a learning opportunity that is part of a journey rather than the culmination of your entire career and lifetime.

“Anna” came to Stephanie nervous about an internal job interview for a promotion her boss recommended she try for. She had doubts about whether she’d get the job, and was afraid that she was going to bomb the interview. They worked together to reframe this interview as a step on a long journey to becoming a skilled interviewee. This was just one opportunity to practice, reflect, and learn. By the time she left the session, she was excited to practice interviewing because one day she planned to be the public relations face of her organization, and this was just one way for her to hone her skills. Whether or not she landed the job became a lot less central to her experience.

Seek Outside Perspectives This is probably where we help the most as coaches to our clients. Clients share their doubts, and we give them a pep talk, act as a sounding board, and help them see the opportunity rather than the risk. Find friends, mentors, and colleagues who can do this for you, and you’ll have a great set of weapons around you to combat impostor syndrome.

Take A Step Sometimes impostor syndrome shows up as procrastination. You want to do it, you plan to do it, but every time you sit down to do it, you think to yourself that maybe tomorrow would be a better day to start. Instead, eat the frog.

“Lindsay” came to a session with the big question of whether or not to apply for a fellowship opportunity. She wasn’t sure she wanted to apply; it was far away, and would be a year-long commitment, and after all, there was a decent chance she wouldn’t get it anyway. But listening to her speak about what the fellowship could mean indicated to Stephanie how excited she was about the possibility. Upon some probing, Lindsay realized that applying didn’t mean officially accepting the offer… it was just one step, after all. Even if it didn’t work out, she knew she’d learn something in the process that would set her up better for next time.

Taking a step—even a small one—towards something that excites and scares you can be enough to get the ball rolling and build momentum. Keep taking the next step that is in front of you, and try not to think about how scary the bigger picture or goal is.

All of these tips require that the leader in question have the time, space and mental energy required to reflect and not just react. If you’re struggling to do this on your own, consider partnering with a colleague for some peer coaching, or bring in an external coach to create a system of accountability to help you move forward.

What other strategies do you use to combat impostor syndrome?

16 Tips For Ambitious Managers Who Want To Advance To The Next Level

Tue, 06 Sep 2022 22:19:00 GMT

Climbing the corporate ladder isn’t always a simple process of moving up to the next rung. Once you’ve made it into a managerial position, you may realize that you need to cultivate some skills that you’re lacking or or strengthen your talents in certain areas before you can advance into a more senior role.

Without building the right technical and soft skills to attain a leadership role, you may find your career stalled out at the current level. In this article, Stephanie Judd is featured as one of 16 coaches who share their top tips for ambitious managers who want to get to become senior executives.

READ THE ARTICLE

It’s Time to Update Your Meeting Agenda

Tue, 06 Sep 2022 15:20:00 GMT

It can be overwhelming to tackle all the possible issues at once. If you’re in a position where it feels like everything is bad about one of your critical business meetings, start by tackling the agenda.

Why start with the agenda?

The agenda is the backbone of your meeting. It’s your roadmap. It’s your north star. Why are we waxing poetic about this? Because when crafted thoughtfully, the agenda has the power to take your meeting from zero to hero.

How do you refresh a meeting agenda?

First, clarify the desired outcomes for your meeting. Our favorite way to do this is by figuring out the Know, Feel, Do of the meeting. For a deep-dive into what that is and how to craft it, check out this downloadable guide here . If you prefer, you can also come up with a simple mission statement by completing this sentence: “The purpose of this meeting is to…” Make sure you write a complete sentence and get as specific as possible; avoid bullet points as they allow you to be vague.

Once you have a crystal clear meeting purpose, identify conversations you need to have to achieve your desired outcomes Each of these conversations should become its own agenda item.

Then, assign each topic a relative weight with respect to how much of the meeting you think it should take up. Consider the following:

Which are the most critical items,
Which order makes the most sense to gain buy-in over the course of the meeting,
Which items can be scheduled last, and potentially dropped if time runs out. And then question whether you need those topics at all.

Use your relative weights to determine how much time you need to allocate to the meeting and each item. It’s important to be realistic here. It’s better to overestimate the amount of time you think you need, because the potential consequence is you’ll let everyone go early (something everyone loves). If you underestimate the time needed, the consequence is you won’t get through it all, and you’ll have to schedule a followup meeting (something people find frustrating)..

If you want to see what we’re talking about in more specifics, we’ve marked up two client agendas with the kind of feedback we typically give. Download them and compare them with your own agenda.

What is the worst meeting on your calendar? How would you change the agenda to give it a long-needed reset?

Every month we host an Ask Me Anything forum where people bring their burning questions about meeting design or facilitation. More often than not, the questions we get can be summed up as, “Why is the meeting so boring? I feel like I’m pulling teeth trying to get people to engage. It just feels like a waste of time.” There are a lot of reasons meetings can feel like that. Here are some of the most common:

The agenda is too ambitious for the amount of time.
There is no collaboration and interactivity; it’s really just a report-out.
The presenters are focused on delivering information, not on engaging the group.
There is no clear owner or facilitator(s).
It’s information overload.

Summary of Takeaways

If your meetings feel like a waste of time, the problem usually starts with the agenda. A thoughtful agenda acts as your roadmap and north star, ensuring engagement and clarity. Here is how to refresh yours:

Clarify the "Know, Feel, Do": Before listing topics, define your desired outcomes. What do you want participants to know, how do you want them to feel, and what should they do after the meeting? Alternatively, write a single, specific mission statement starting with: "The purpose of this meeting is to..."
Turn Topics into Conversations: Don’t just list "Project X." Identify the specific conversations needed to achieve your outcomes. Each of these conversations should become its own distinct agenda item.
Assign Relative Weights: Not all agenda items are created equal. Decide which are most critical and order them logically to build buy-in. Identify items that can be dropped if time runs out, and be ruthless about whether a topic even needs to be there at all.
Be Realistic with Time: Overestimate how much time each conversation will take. It is far better to end early and give people time back than to rush through critical items or be forced to schedule a follow-up meeting.
Focus on Facilitation, Not Just Presentation: Avoid the "report-out" trap. A good agenda shifts the focus from delivering information to guiding a group through collaborative decision-making.

The Bottom Line: A great meeting doesn't happen by accident—it’s designed. By moving away from vague bullet points and toward a goal-oriented roadmap, you turn "another meeting" into a high-value tool for your team.

Storytelling Tip: Use Scenes to Make Your Story Cinematic

Mon, 22 Aug 2022 13:00:00 GMT

When I started my career, I never felt valued. It was like my boss just didn’t care. I’d work so hard and never get anything back.

Ingrid wrote these sentences to open her story. There’s nothing wrong with her choice here. The words offer the listener some context and provide a basic understanding of how the protagonist felt at the time. But the opening for her story could and should do so much more, especially if she’s crafting it to make a point and influence others.

One of the most powerful things you can do throughout your story—but especially at the beginning—is to use language that allows your listener to visualize what’s happening. When your listener is able to visualize the story, it becomes more experiential to them, it’s easier to follow, it feels more tangible and authentic in its specificity and it’s easier to remember.

When we’re coaching someone to do this, we encourage them to find the scenes, to avoid generalizations, to go beyond the plot and uncover the cinematic potential within their story. Think SHOW, not TELL. So when Ingrid came to us with her story, this is exactly what we coached her to do.

Here’s a step by step process for how to do this.

1. Identify Scenes

In general, we recommend you start with at LEAST 3 scenes in a story. This may look like a scene that showcases your main character before the challenge/drama/discovery of your story, a scene that illustrates the challenge or conflict being overcome, and finally, a scene that demonstrates the change the character has experienced as an outcome of having overcome the challenge. This final scene should land the point of the story for the audience. . The “Rule of 3” is breakable (some stories can unfold entirely in a single scene!), but it’s a good starting point when you’re developing your story. In Ingrid’s case, we prompted her to recall a specific moment that would illustrate why she felt undervalued, rather than describing it in general terms. The key here is to identify actual scenes or moments that are specific rather than a general summary of a series of moments. “Starting a career” is not a scene, while “walking off the elevator on your first day of work” is a scene.

2. Flesh Each Scene Out with Specifics

Grab a set of index cards. If you only have three scenes, you’ll need three cards. On the top of each card, write the headline for one of your scenes. Then write down the time and place—when and where is the character? Be as specific as possible even if it feels like too much information. “2022, New York” is not as good as “Early November, in an office in Times Square.” On the rest of the card write down as many sensory details as you can—what does your main character see, smell, hear, taste, and feel? Ingrid wrote on one of her index cards her claustrophobia as she sat between the 4 windowless walls in her NYC apartment at 4am, the dim glow of her laptop while her husband slept in the bed beside her, and her eyes drooping with exhaustion. After noting all the sensory details, flip the card over and write down the actual events that happen during that scene, including what the character thinks and feels along the way.

3. Sequence The Scenes to Create a Story Flow

Once you have a good set of scenes in place, part of the fun of story-crafting is sequencing them. Believe it or not, chronological order is just ONE option available to you. You can also choose to start your story at the end, and flash back to the other scenes. Or you can choose to start in the middle of your story. To help you decide the best order for your scenes, consider the 4 super powers, and which sequence helps them come alive the most.

4. Write, Share and Experiment with Your Story

Once you have sequenced your scenes into a story, run your story by a trusted friend or colleague.

The first time you do this, use your index cards as references, but try not to read them exactly. Share your story using the index cards to remind you of key elements of each scene. When you’ve made it through the entire story, ask your listener for what worked about the story and what would make it more powerful.

Note the feedback you receive directly onto your index cards, and then try to put together a fully written draft. Once you know your story has scenes and will be visual and specific, it is a great idea to write the next version out with full sentences.

With a written draft, run your story by another trusted partner. Ask for feedback, and then do it again and again and again. The feedback will help you learn what you’re actually communicating (not just what you think you’re communicating) and is a great way to gain confidence and learn how to flex your story as you go.

After several iterations, this was Ingrid’s opening:

It was already 4am, but I decided to do one more pass on the slide deck before sending it off to Dean. He needed it for a presentation tomorrow, and I needed him to be impressed. Spell check, done. Check the alignment of that icon… ok, looks good. Oooh, is that blue the wrong blue? Double check that. Ok. I think it’s ready.

I looked at my husband sleeping soundly in the bed next to my desk. The blue light from my laptop cast an eerie sort of glow across his cheeks. My head was pounding from exhaustion, but 2 more minutes, and I’d allow myself to fall asleep. I pushed the send button and leaned back into my chair, feeling the aches I had been ignoring for the last 6 hours.

I rested my eyes for ten seconds, too tired to get up yet.

Ding!

A message from Dean… Already?

“You missed a period on slide 5.” That’s all it said.

My heart sank. I was never gonna be good enough…

Notice how Ingrid transformed a few context sentences into a scene that illustrates her point. It’s visual (you can instantly picture it) and specific ( you understand and can relate to what she means about not feeling valued). Now, it’s truly a story that has the potential to influence.

Three Product Manager Storytelling Myths

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 14:57:00 GMT

This article was first published on Forbes on 17 August 2022.

I work with product managers who are trying to level up their communication styles to be more influential. The typical product manager who comes to me is already recognized as a powerhouse within their organization. They’re smart, they have a good understanding of their product and the user they serve and they are fantastic at making sound, data-driven decisions. But the product management field can be a cutthroat one, and they know that becoming a more compelling communicator is a great way to differentiate themselves from the pack.

Many of these product managers have misconceptions about storytelling. Read this article for three common storytelling myths held by PMs and why you shouldn’t believe them.

READ THE ARTICLE

A Simple Meeting Hack... the Parking Lot

Mon, 08 Aug 2022 17:27:00 GMT

Why should you use a Parking Lot?

Meetings—especially dynamic ones— have a tendency to drift. Sometimes it’s because one or two attendees can’t help but take the conversations on tangents. Sometimes your discussion has led to a lot of wonderful ideating, but some of it can’t be resolved with the current group or within the allotted time for the meeting.

When you’re the person leading the meeting, you should anticipate this, and be prepared to keep the group driving toward your desired meeting outcomes. The trouble is, these tangents, ideas, follow-ups, etc. are often worthy of further discussion. The participants in the meeting will consider these topics important to discuss. A Parking Lot allows the group to acknowledge the importance of the topic AND hold the boundaries of what should be discussed during the meeting.

How do you use a Parking Lot?

Start by establishing a designated space (in-person or virtual) to capture the ideas as they come up. Label the space as the “Parking Lot.” You can also add the sub-headings, “What,” and ‘“Who.” Then, after you open the meeting, point out the space and that it will be used to capture ideas worthy of further discussion, but outside of the meeting’s purpose. When someone mentions an idea or issue that is off-agenda but still important, ask them to add the idea to the Parking Lot.

For most in-person meetings, a flip chart or designated area of the white board will suffice. For most virtual meetings, a section or table within your shared meeting notes works well.

For some meetings, you might find it worthwhile to get a little fancy and have multiple Parking Lots, or variations of the tool. For example, an innovation or brainstorming meeting might benefit from an “Additional Ideas” Parking Lot for ideas that surface related to other projects. A decision-making meeting might benefit from both a “Needs Further Research” and “Decisions To Make” Parking Lot. The Parking Lot concept can be useful both at bringing the conversation back on track and capturing meeting progress.

How do you ensure success?

In the long run, leveraging a Parking Lot will only work if you follow through on your promise to revisit the topics captured with it. Before your meeting ends, take the time to review every item and assign next steps and responsibilities as appropriate.

The next time you lead a meeting, give the Parking Lot a try and notice how it affects the dynamics of the discussion.

What is your go-to simple meeting hack?

Yes, you should use a meeting Parking Lot (or bike lot or whatever term works for you). A Parking Lot can sometimes feel cheesy , but it’s one of the most effectives tools for facilitating meetings effectively.

What is a Parking Lot?

A Parking Lot is a productivity and facilitation meeting tool that captures off-agenda conversation topics and ideas so as to prevent a meeting from veering off course. Items can be added to the Parking Lot and assigned to folks or noted for discussion at a later date.

The "Parking Lot" is one of the most effective tools for keeping a meeting on track without dismissing valuable ideas. Here’s how to use it to boost your team's productivity:

Validate Ideas While Protecting the Agenda: When a conversation veers into a tangent, a Parking Lot allows you to acknowledge the importance of the topic without letting it hijack the meeting. It creates a "safe space" for off-agenda items to be captured and addressed later.
Make it Visible: Whether you’re using a physical flip chart or a digital table in your meeting notes, the Parking Lot should be a designated, visible area. Labeling columns with "What" and "Who" ensures that captured items are clear and actionable.
The Follow-Through is Non-Negotiable: A Parking Lot only works if the group trusts that their ideas won't disappear. Always leave time at the end of the meeting to review every item, assign responsibilities, and determine next steps. Without follow-through, the tool loses its credibility.

Summary of Takeaways

Wolf & Heron Hosts Virtual Roundtable on the Shifting Roles in L&D as The Great Resignation Continues

Thu, 04 Aug 2022 16:13:00 GMT

Leadership development firm taps L&D experts from Google, Carhartt, and Knights Consulting to discuss new strategies for attracting and retaining future leaders.

BUENA VISTA , COLORADO, UNITED STATES, August 3, 2022 /

EINPresswire.com / -- Wolf & Heron , a consultancy that empowers high-potential people to engage and inspire others with storytelling , will host a panel discussion on how learning and development (L&D) is changing due to the current labor market. The virtual roundtable will be held via Zoom, on August 17, 2022, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. EST. The event is free, and registration is open to the public.

The leadership development firm will moderate a panel of L&D experts and thought leaders from various industries. Panelists joining the online event include Nick Foote from apparel company Carhartt, Lauren Kelley from tech giant Google, and executive coach Laura Knights from Knights Consulting. Attendees can expect to hear diverse perspectives on challenges that resulted from mass employee resignation also known as The Great Resignation. The roundtable guest speakers will also share insights into new strategies that organizations should consider when recruiting, retaining, and developing their future leaders in the current economic market.

“I don’t think any employer was fully prepared for the mass resignation that started during the pandemic and although the labor shortage presents many challenges, it also forces organizations to think differently about L&D and create new strategies for developing a robust leadership bench” says Stephanie Judd, co-founder and partner at Wolf & Heron.

Wolf & Heron offers informative online and in-person events for L&D professionals, salespeople, marketers, and product managers. This upcoming roundtable is a part of their effort to deliver experiences that help organizations shape high-performing leaders. The firm also produces ongoing signature events such as Story Hour, an open masterclass where storytellers develop their skills, and Ask Me Anything, an open forum for tips and ideas about engaging others through effective meeting design and facilitation. Online registration is required for all events and is accessible via the company’s website.

“There is no one-size-fits-all approach when training employees or developing leaders, so it’s critical that organizations deliver customized programs that align with personal and organizational goals,” says Kara Davidson, co-founder and partner at Wolf & Heron.

Additional details about the roundtable discussion and bios for each panelist are available on the event registration page http://www.wolfandheron.com/public-events .

ABOUT WOLF & HERON

View on Newswire

Dress for the Power Inside You

Mon, 25 Jul 2022 13:00:00 GMT

The first time Stephanie was mugged was in New York City at knife point. She was 22. She gave the guy her $14 and ran away. The second time was in Nicaragua. The four muggers all had machetes and very quickly took off with her wallet. When she got mugged for the third time—this time in Rwanda—Stephanie felt like it was time she learned how to stand up for herself.

First of all, in Rwanda, the guy stalked her for a while. She knew it in her gut that he was watching her, so she eyed him up and down herself. He was easily 30 pounds lighter than she was, he didn’t have a weapon of any kind, and he was clearly scared himself. When he grabbed her phone out of her hand, it dropped in several pieces to the ground (this is back in the day of flip phones and batter packs). He visibly freaked out because already things weren’t going according to his plan.

Despite the warning from her intuition, and the fact that he actually wasn’t that visibly intimidating, Stephanie just stared at him blankly, and watched as he tripped over himself trying to pick up the pieces of her phone. Then she stated, “You jerk!” and stomped off like an indignant two-year-old pouting her way to the other side of preschool because someone stole her toy. The irony was that it was STEPHANIE walking away from the situation, not HIM. He was clearly nervous and flustered. What was her deal?!

A week later, Stephanie found herself surrounded by several female friends, trading mugging stories. They wondered aloud how to handle a similar situation the next time. Stephanie’s friend Emily chimed in, “Whenever I have to go somewhere alone, I make sure I’m wearing my ‘Don’t Mess With Me’ shoes.”

Emily explained, “Last year, I was coming home from a fundraiser late at night with those shoes on, and this guy had the nerve to grab my bag as he ran by. Without even thinking about it, I ran after him screaming and shouting expletives and asking him what his mom would think of him. I was surprised that he simply dropped the bag and kept on running, but way MORE surprised by my own behavior! I had no idea where my inner lion came from.”

In Emily’s case, her “Don’t Mess With Me” shoes were a pair of red patent leather stiletto heels. As far as practicality goes, they’re not on the top of the list, and probably wouldn’t have helped her actually catch her mugger. But what they did for her was change the way she showed up in the world. In them, her walk was a strut, her humor was quick, her mind was sharp, and she had the confidence to chase down the man who stole her bag.

Years later, while doing her MBA, the career services department emphasized to Stephanie the importance of figuring out what to wear for an interview or internship. First impressions, after all, make up 97% of what people think about you long term. What was the right suit? Should she wear the funky edgy accessories, or go more conservative? The unsaid purpose—and not everyone understood this—wasn’t about fitting in at the company. It was about determining what would put her in her power element… what would make her naturally and authentically show up the way she wanted to show up for that experience.

We’ve all heard the expressions “dress for the job you want, not the job you have” or “look good, feel good” but Stephanie didn’t really believe them. She was conflicted about wanting to look good and feeling guilty about wasting time focusing on “vain” things like clothes and makeup. But, it turns out that research indicates that what we wear affects our brain. It impacts our behavior, mood, personality, confidence, and how we interact with others. Getting dressed is less about what it signals to other people, and more about how it affects yourself.

In his book, You Are Now Less Dumb , David Raney describes the concept of “enclothed cognition.” Check out this video for a quick overview of the idea. Clothes affect our behavior and mood because of what they symbolically mean to us and how they psychologically affect us.

Next time you get dressed, consider how your outfit literally makes you who you are, and consider choices that elevate your confidence and focus.

What’s your power outfit? How does it help you show up?

Turning a Fail into a Win: Navigating Conflict with a Client

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 14:11:00 GMT

One of our recent Story Hours focused on the topic of Navigating Conflict: Working through an interpersonal challenge . The imminence of the event inspired Kara to brainstorm story ideas that could fit that subject. Navigating conflict is a guaranteed component of leadership. It comes up all the time in our coaching conversations as our clients navigate conflict with their managers, colleagues and/or direct reports. There’s almost no limit to where it can show up at work and, when it does, it creates a spiraling ball of distraction that saps mental energy, inhibits communication and causes negative feelings all around.

Here’s one of the examples of conflict that Kara identified:

—

Several years ago, I was in conversation with a potential client that was interested in piloting our Influential Storytelling workshop for their HR team.

Everything seemed on track at first. He was excited, we were thrilled and we got to planning.

I emailed my contact our paperwork and we discussed potential dates. And I told him that we would confirm dates and book travel once we had the paperwork signed and finalized. This is a standard practice for us and he said, “Okay, the paperwork is moving through the system. I’ll keep you updated.”

We talked every few days to discuss logistics and every time we spoke, I would ask, “How’s the contract processing? When can I expect a signature?” My contact would say he’d check in with him and that everything’s moving as expected but it was a big company and so sometimes it takes forever.

On the other hand, we’re a small business. We want things to work out and try to stay flexible, so eventually we agree on a date and I book travel… without a signature and finalized paperwork. I made the decision that I was comfortable with the risk because I was confident the paperwork would show up before I got on the plane.

This pattern continued for a few weeks, until it was the Friday before Monday’s event and I still didn’t have a signature. I was nervous about the engagement. It didn’t feel right anymore. I couldn’t stop thinking about worst case scenarios and wondering what to do.

That Saturday, Stephanie and I talked about it and decided that with no contract in sight the day before travel, I would cancel my flight and inform my contact.

Early the next week my contact and I were on the phone. He apologized. He felt bad that things were so slow to progress, but before we could start making fresh plans, he shared that his boss wanted to speak with me one-on-one.

My face immediately got red hot. Okayyyy….I know it’s not going to be a “good” conversation. He’s obviously not happy his event was canceled at the last minute. We set up the call and later that week I got on the phone, ready to talk to someone I expected would be angry with me.

I took a few breaths before I made the call. I wanted to reduce my anxiety and remind myself of the purpose of the conversation. I didn’t need to win. I wanted to maintain the relationship. I wanted to get the contract signed and another date scheduled (preferably in that order).

The boss picked up and shared that when he heard that I had canceled, “...he was fuming.”

He told me he couldn’t believe I went ahead and canceled it. Didn’t I know they were good for it and the paperwork would be figured out eventually?

I kept taking big breaths to keep my heart rate down. I really don’t like it when I think people are mad at me. I shared that I wasn’t trying to be hard to work with and I know they weren’t either. I was just trying to do right by my company.

That first minute was the hardest part of the entire phone call and I could tell it was going to set the course for where we went from there. We were both heated. But then something magical happened. Neither of us needed to win. Both of us decided to hear the other person.

At the end of the call, we made a plan to schedule a new date and the paperwork was processed quickly.

A few weeks later, I showed up at their offices and my contact and his boss both greeted me with smiles. We were well on our way to a positive, long-term partnership.

I think what allowed us to move past our conflict was a shared desire to move forward as a team. That phone call with the boss was literally our first conversation. We were mad at each other and we had no relational foundation on which to build. But we willingly held space for the other person’s difficult feelings, focused on a solution, and figured it out together.

It’s easy to get caught up in the emotions of a less-than-positive interaction, and lose sight of the endgame. Whenever you find yourself navigating conflict, try to figure out how to change your mindset from “us vs. them” to “we.”

What are your tips for conflict resolution at work?

—

The Storytelling Mistake to Rule them All: Generalizing

Mon, 27 Jun 2022 13:00:00 GMT

In our work as storytelling coaches, one of the most common challenges our clients face is bringing their stories down to specifics. Recently, Stephanie had a client, let’s call her Jane, come to her for support in preparing for an interview. Jane knew that she was going to be asked about her origin story. In her case, the question was going to be something along the lines of, “What inspired you to get into the field of Mathematics?” Here’s a rough approximation of the story she started with:

When I was a kid, my dad would always bring a math problem to the dinner table. My sister and I would work through the problem while we ate—often with the gusto of competition that only siblings know. The challenges were varied, but the solutions were always elegant and simple, and would showcase a kind of grace in mathematics. I remember being inspired by these problems every night, and of course it was especially fun when I would solve the problem before my sisters. I looked forward to these evening dinnertime challenges, and through them, developed a love of Mathematics.

This is a very common starting point for storytellers. They have a generalized memory—a habit, routine, or repeated behavior that they recall— and they consider that enough to be a story. The trouble with this generalized approach is that it remains high-level. It doesn’t give space for the audience to see and feel the mental, physical, or emotional drama.

After some coaching, here’s a refined version of the story Jane developed:

It’s Tuesday evening at 6pm. At 8 years old, I sat at the dinner table holding my fork. My heart beat raced in eager anticipation of tonight’s math problem.

“Daddy! What’s today’s problem?” My older sister eyes me as she chews a meatball. She isn’t going to let me beat her to the solution again.

My father began. “A poor man was very sad. He smoked his last cigarette and didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t afford more, but his body was suffering from withdrawal. He went to a magician and asked for help. The magician told him that if the poor man brought him 7 cigarette butts, he would use his magic to transform them into a new cigarette. The poor man scoured the park and brought back 49 cigarette butts. How many cigarettes did he smoke?

“Seven!”I know my division tables. Ha! I win! I look at my sister.

“Wrong. Think again.” My dad’s eyes twinkle.

“Huh?” My sister and I look at each other again. “How?”

For the rest of that dinner, between bites of spaghetti, my sister and I pow-wow. We allied against our father. We had to figure it out. How was it not 7? It had to be 7! What were we missing? We scratch our heads.

An hour later my father says, “Ok, I’ll give you the answer. It’s 8. But you have to tell me why.”

My 8-year-old brain struggles some more. Then, suddenly, a lightbulb! “I know! I know!”

Almost every night, my parents brought math problems to the dinner table. Every answer always felt so clever and graceful, elegant and clean. It was magical. When it came time for me to choose a career path, Math was the obvious choice.

In this case, the choice to focus on a specific math problem on a specific night allows this general memory to become a full-fledged and information-packed story.

The second story is more visual. The dinner table, the characters, their movements and thoughts can all be imagined as if they’re in a movie scene. This makes the story more interesting, easier to follow and more experiential for the listener.
The second story does a better job of engaging the listener’s curiosity. The audience can try to solve the math problem themselves because they hear it and Jane doesn’t rush to the answer in the telling of it.
The second story feels more real because we understand the specific emotional connection Jane has to math via experience and the emotions it creates for her.

It is specificity that allows all of the above to be possible.

A common objection that we hear is that the second story is longer than the first. And that’s true… It contains almost three times the number of words. When brevity is the most important thing, stories may not be the best tool of choice. But when coming across as a compelling and memorable communicator, consider stories—especially ones that lean on specificity—to carry your message.

What other strengths do you notice in the second story?

How to Help Your Sales Team Personalize The Pitch Deck With Stories

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 18:02:00 GMT

This article was first published on Forbes on 16 June 2022.

A common challenge for salespeople is toeing the line between making sure they come across as personable, authentic and human, while also delivering the company-approved message. It’s not uncommon for a marketing team to put together an official “demo deck,” hoping that the slides will arm the sales team with everything they need to tell the story of the company and its products or services in a comprehensive and consistent way. And yet, that deck ends up being a bane for many salespeople because it doesn’t feel like their own.

One of the most common challenges of sales leaders is enabling their teams to take the demo deck and make it their own—uniquely, authentically and personally theirs. Read this article for some ways you can empower your salespeople to adapt the deck for a more relatable and engaging presentation.

READ THE ARTICLE

Three Common Mistakes when Designing for Engagement

Mon, 13 Jun 2022 13:00:00 GMT

Truly engaged employees feel free to discover, challenge themselves, learn, and ultimately make decisions about who they want to be and how they want to act. Knowing this, it’s no wonder that “employee engagement” has been a hot-button issue for more than a decade, and remains central to organizational strategy. But engagement is even more important now as companies experiment with hybrid work, or a permanent virtual workforce, and the Great Resignation exists as an ever-present backdrop. And yet, “engagement” remains a big-picture, intangible, and somewhat esoteric idea that has lots of impact on the people within an organization without anyone really understanding what to do about it.

The truth of the matter is that truly engaging your team happens long before the actual moment of reckoning. It’s about thinking through details, and finding ways to activate interest and ownership with your employees in every interaction. Here are three common myths about employee engagement and what you can do instead.

Any Activity is Good Activity

Stephanie went to a virtual webinar about charisma where the opening Ask to the attendees was to drop into the chat where they are from. This is a great way to encourage people to find and figure out how to use the chat, but the “why” stopped there. As an audience member, Stephanie didn’t see the point of telling everyone else on a webinar about charisma where she happened to be sitting in the world that day. That detail was meaningless to the point of the gathering. It felt like the webinar designers had built that activity into the flow because they had heard that “engagement is good” and “making the audience do something” was important, even if the Ask itself had nothing to do with the purpose of the event.

A better way to engage with the audience would have been to have them describe what motivated them to come, what they were hoping to learn, or an upcoming moment in their life where they would want to maximize their charisma. This does much more than warm up the room and encourage participants to discover the chat functionality. It also creates engagement by beginning a conversation related to the topic, and helps the facilitators better understand the audience and their context.

A Q&A at the End is Good Enough

A common format for panel discussions, webinars, and even presentations is to allow the speaker(s) to get through their whole spiel before opening the floor for questions. The thought process behind this format is to prioritize the speaker; it gives her complete control over the flow of her narrative and prevents questions from derailing it. But there are a few problems with this format:

Audience members who think of a question midway through the presentation can become distracted for the remainder of the talk. They’re now focused on remembering the question they have, and not paying attention to the speaker.
Audience members forget the questions they had by the time the presentation is over. They leave the experience with the question unanswered, and only remember it days later. This causes frustration and minimizes the power of the experience itself.
Audience members use the Q&A portion of the experience to grandstand or plug themselves.
Audience members don’t feel safe to ask a question. If the expectation is that audience members should stand up publicly and speak their question into a microphone, there will simply be those who opt out altogether. In a virtual format, this is even more true as audience members often can’t even see each other and have no concept of the size of the group. Without psychological safety, many audience members will choose to not speak up.
Some of the most interesting questions aren’t answered due to time constraints or the lack of a curation system.

When planning a Q&A at the end of a session, consider the following:

Source questions before the event via a feedback form or “question box” with index cards.
Have audience members anonymously submit written questions during the session in real time. Leverage someone to curate the most common and/or interesting questions.
Identify a few ways that you can “ladder up the Ask” to increase the psychological safety of the audience members so they’re comfortable publicly asking questions to the room. Download our free resource on how to Ramp Up the Ask.

Open Conversation is Best

Many meetings are intended to be problem-solving opportunities for a team. A common format is for someone to present the problem statement and perhaps a bit of background information, and then open up the room for open-ended and unstructured discussion. The choice to work through a problem this way can be extremely counterproductive. Here’s why:

Unless the problem statement is well-crafted, the team will end up in a discussion where everyone is trying to solve a slightly different issue.
The formal and informal power dynamics of the group will invariably affect how ideas are suggested, perceived, and reinforced.
The same people that always speak up are the most likely to speak up and everyone else will keep their ideas to themselves.
Without structure such as whiteboarding or prompts for ideation, the conversation could end up going in circles, frustrating everyone and feeling like a waste of time.

As a meeting designer looking to maximize the power and value of input from the group, your job is to think deeply about HOW you will go about the problem solving process. Open-ended discussion isn’t the answer. Structure the conversation around a series of flip charts, brainstorm ideas on post-it notes, send people to breakout rooms and task each room with a different sub-task… the possibilities are endless! Think carefully and identify the right process. Make sure to eliminate power dynamics as much as possible, democratize the idea generation, and build in psychological safety mechanisms. To save time, find ways to encourage participants to write/type rather than speak. Then structure your materials and technology to support your process.

Being thoughtful about how you engage an audience or your team is crucial to how valuable your experiences are perceived to be. These three common myths about how to engage people should be left in the past. Think again about how you might use the ideas suggested here to maximize engagement and create an environment in which people are empowered and motivated to contribute.

What myths about engagement do you think need debunking?

15 Ways To Ensure A Successful Outcome From Any Negotiation

Tue, 07 Jun 2022 19:00:00 GMT

Negotiating comes naturally to some professionals, but it can be a big challenge for others. Whether it’s an innate skill they possess or not, it’s especially important for leaders to master the art of negotiation to ensure successful outcomes.

When entering into a discussion where both parties have something to gain and something to lose, there are effective ways to make sure everyone comes away feeling it was a win. In this article, Stephanie Judd is featured as one of 15 coaches who discuss things junior-level professionals, senior leaders and C-suite executives can do to achieve the best possible results in any negotiation .

READ THE ARTICLE

13 Ways An ‘Uncharismatic’ Leader Can Exert A Positive Influence

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 19:08:00 GMT

Winning others over—a.k.a. WOO—is a strength that often depends on a person’s innate charisma and charm. Not everyone is naturally comfortable exerting these qualities. Executives, in particular, can find themselves facing an uphill challenge if they fall short when it comes to WOO; in their roles, they often need to win others over to new ideas or inspire their teams to go the extra mile.

Fortunately, there are other strengths and talents that can be leveraged to inspire the positive change you’re seeking. In this article, Stephanie Judd is featured as one of 13 coaches who discuss how they would coach an executive leader who’s struggling to exert a “winning” influence.

READ THE ARTICLE

Leveraging Coaching Skills as a Leader: Making a Request

Tue, 31 May 2022 13:00:00 GMT

Stephanie’s sister had been living in The Netherlands for several years at that point, and had managed to merge her New York City assertiveness with the strong pro-cyclist attitude encouraged in Amsterdam. The result? A rather aggressive, confident biker who knew just how long the light would stay yellow and just how quickly pedestrians would get out of the way when she rang her little bell.

This happened enough times that finally a family member complained. “Can you ride slower?! Don’t you realize that we are a whole block behind you and can’t catch that yellow light if it’s already yellow for you?!”

The peanut gallery had a lot of comments…”You’re always so aggressive.” “Can’t you be more considerate?” “She’s just like that. Always has been, always will be.”

They were stewing in it. And Stephanie’s sister who was so excited to be the local host felt attacked.

And then Stephanie had an idea. She was in the process of pursuing her coaching credentials, and in her coursework had read about the skill of Making a Request. The concept is that a request can challenge a person to take their game up a level while not shaming or bullying them into doing something they are not ready to do. She decided to try it out. The conversation went something like this:

Stephanie: Hey sister, what was important to you about taking us all on a tour of the city?

Sister: I wanted you all to see the sites that I love, and experience the joy of riding around in a city designed for bicycles.

Stephanie: Ok great! How do you think we’re doing?

Sister: We’ve seen a few of my favorite places. Why?

Stephanie: I agree we’re getting through the sites. How about your other goal… experiencing the joy of riding around in a city designed for bicycles?

Sister: I dunno. You guys are all super slow and annoying.

Stephanie: In this instance, are you more focused on experiencing joy yourself, or having us experience joy?

Sister: I guess I want to focus on the experience for you guys.

Stephanie: Fair enough. Can I make a request?

Sister: Fine. What?

Stephanie: Right now my experience is more characterized by stress and less joy than I think you’d like. What would help me is if I felt like I wasn’t going to lose you as my tour guide at any moment. For the afternoon, I have a request for you: When at an intersection, will you look behind you and consider how long our trail is before you decide to cross? You can accept, reject, or negotiate my request.

Sister: Ok. I can do that.

That request instantly changed the dynamic.

Stephanie’s father even clapped his hands and let out a whoop celebrating a new kind of sisterly interaction he’d never before observed. The crew went back onto the streets, Stephanie’s sister still out front, but now as a more attentive custodian to the goal of the day.

When they returned to their hotel, the whole family commented on how pleasant the afternoon riding was.

We share that story because there’s a lesson there for manager-employee interactions. Some of our clients are new to managerial roles, or they’re stuck with a difficult employee who doesn’t seem to “get it.” Our clients tell their employees what they expect. They show them what to do and how to do it. They repeat themselves over and over, and then throw their hands up in exasperation.

A request is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as ‘the act or an instance of asking for something’. From a coaching perspective, this definition falls short. A request, in our opinion, is made when we see untapped potential or an opportunity not being fully leveraged within a person. At its core, a request is a gift of possibility available to the person who chooses to receive, unwrap and appreciate the request you have made.

As a leader, this approach to making a request can be transformative. Rather than directing (“I need you to complete the report by this Friday”) or reframing that directive as a question, (“Can you have that report done by Friday?”), a great request comes from a place of seeing true potential and opportunity (“I have a request for you. Will you get that report to me by Friday? You can accept, decline, or negotiate.”)

What’s crucial to notice about a well-formulated request, is that it first challenges the person to do something big, but then is followed up by explicit permission to counter-offer or flat-out reject the proposal. This is important because in manager/employee relationships, there is always a power dynamic at play. By offering your employee permission to say something other than “yes” you empower them to step up and articulate what they WILL do while simultaneously holding them up to what you know they’re capable of.

The next time you ask an employee to do something, try shaping it as a powerful request. What do you notice happens as a result?

Amsterdam is famous for its bicycles. In many ways, the city was designed for cyclists; the laws almost always favor cyclists! And so it is no surprise that when Stephanie and the rest of her family went to visit her sister who was living in Amsterdam, they found themselves following behind her sister and riding a pack of bicycles.

Stephanie’s sister played tour guide for the entire family during the visit… but she wasn’t everyone’s favorite guide. When the group went on an outing, the bicycles would span the length of a city block or two! They’d bike along in a long clump, the light would turn yellow, and then rather than slowing down and waiting for the family, her sister would speed up to make the light, only to leave the rest of the family stuck behind a red light without any idea where they were heading next.

Summary of Takeaways

As a leader, there is a profound difference between directing an employee and making a request. While a directive tells someone what to do, a powerful request invites them to step up to their full potential. Here is how to master the coaching skill of Making a Request:

See the Potential: A request is more than just asking for something; it’s a gift of possibility. Frame your request based on the untapped potential or opportunity you see in the other person.
Challenge Them to Do Something "Big": Don't settle for the status quo. A great request should challenge the individual to take their game up a level, without shaming or bullying them.
Offer Explicit Freedom to Choose: The key to a powerful request is the follow-up: "You can accept, decline, or negotiate." By giving the person permission to say something other than "yes," you shift the power dynamic and empower them to take full ownership of their commitment.
Empower the Counter-Offer: When an employee declines or negotiates, they are articulating what they will do. This transparency leads to better alignment and a stronger sense of accountability than a forced "yes" ever could.
Focus on the Goal: Like a tour guide checking to see if their group is still following, use requests to realign your team with the shared goal of the day, ensuring everyone is moving forward together.

The Bottom Line: To move from being a manager who "tells" to a leader who "coaches," stop giving directives and start making requests. By honoring the other person's agency, you create a dynamic of trust and high performance.

16 Ways C-Level Executives Can Enhance Their Decision-Making Skills

Thu, 19 May 2022 22:04:00 GMT

One of the most challenging aspects of being in a C-level position is having to constantly make choices that impact your company’s success. Needing to make quick decisions all the time can start to feel overwhelming, and people in such positions may find themselves doubting whether they have made the right calls.

There are many effective ways for C-level executives to enhance their decision-making skills. In this article, Stephanie Judd is featured as one of 16 coaches who discuss some of the best methods for doing so and explain how and why they work.

READ THE ARTICLE

Top Watch-Outs When Building a Hybrid Conference

Mon, 16 May 2022 18:00:00 GMT

If the COVID-19 pandemic taught us anything, it was that we can engage with each other even if we’re all in different places. As the world re-opens and in-person conferences are restarting, there is an expectation that they will remain accessible to folks who are unable to participate on site. And yet, early attempts to build meaningful hybrid conference experiences have shown us that we’re playing in a whole new league now. Hybrid experiences aren’t in-person or virtual experiences. They’re something altogether different. We still have a lot to learn, and it’s easy to execute hybrid conferences poorly.

A challenge of executing hybrid experiences well is that there are simultaneously three spaces to manage: the in-person environment, the virtual environment, and the cross-over environment between the other two. We’ve talked about the hybrid workforce in previous articles (linked at the bottom of this article), but there are some unique challenges and considerations for the hybrid conference to keep in mind.

Create Opportunities for Connection in all Three Spaces

Lots of networking happens at conferences. During meals, walking between events, or even taking a yoga class at the hotel, both structured and unstructured connections are fostered and remain one of the top reasons to attend in the first place. If you’re planning a hybrid conference, make sure you’re considering how you can create both structured and unstructured networking opportunities for the virtual attendees to connect with each other AND with those that are on site. It’s not enough to broadcast the presentations, make sure they’re finding ways to engage with other attendees.

Avoid Creating Two Simultaneous Conferences

A common mistake of hybrid conference designers is they neglect the third space: the space between the virtual and in-person attendees. It’s easy to broadcast the in-person activities to a virtual audience, and even take it a step further by having a technical facilitator create virtual breakout rooms for the in-person breakout activities. But this limits virtual attendees to interacting with only other virtual attendees, and likewise for the in-person participants. The two groups are not co-mingling. Be sure to create opportunities for the two groups to interact with each other. This may mean more tech support, but it’s worth it.

Optimize the Tech Experience for All Attendees

Tech for a conference is likely expertly handled by your production team in partnership with the venue. They should be a trusted element of bringing the hybrid tech to life, and at the same time, the tech requirements of doing this well are new enough and unique to each event, that you can’t take it for granted. Plan thoughtfully, discuss backup plans, bring in a digital partner with hybrid experience and above all, take time to test in advance.

Build Both Digital and Physical Materials

When you have people joining in-person and virtually, many elements of their experience are going to be different, including the materials they engage with throughout the conference. A workshop facilitator may be accustomed to passing out worksheets or business cards, or leveraging a slide deck, but passing out worksheets to virtual attendees requires some additional thought, and sharing a slide deck can dramatically impact the perceived presence of the presenter who is now a half-inch tall on a laptop screen. To make a hybrid conference successful, both the in-person and virtual participants should be able to engage with materials that meet them where they are, and maximize the experience for them. Each session will need to address this issue independently to bring the materials to life for all attendees in a way that’s functional, accessible and engaging.

How have you seen hybrid conferences do a good job designing the experience for all three spaces: the virtual, in-person, and crossover space?

Other insights on the hybrid workforce:

Adapting Your Influential Story For Different Audiences And Cultures

Fri, 06 May 2022 16:40:00 GMT

This article was first published on Forbes on 06 May 2022.

Storytelling transcends culture because stories are fantastic tools for sharing information, building trust and connection, projecting charisma and more. Because storytelling is universal, the foundational principles of what makes a story influential remain constant even as the use case or audience changes. What shifts from context to context is how those principles are implemented or applied.

More specifically, there are four key qualities, or characteristics, of an influential story. Those four qualities remain constant but can be applied differently depending on the audience and culture.

READ THE ARTICLE

14 Critical Business Areas Executives Often Overlook

Fri, 06 May 2022 16:36:00 GMT

Every business operates with many moving parts. Because so many business areas require attention, some critical ones can easily be overlooked by company leaders. So it’s essential for executives to take a step back occasionally and examine areas of their business that need to be more carefully organized.

Stephanie Judd is featured on Forbes as one of 14 other coaches who share their insights around some key aspects of a business that may “slip through the cracks” and offer their advice on what leaders can do to ensure these areas are tended to and stay well-organized.

READ THE ARTICLE

The Sales Demo Slide Deck: How to Make it Your Own

Mon, 02 May 2022 18:32:00 GMT

Salespeople spend a lot of time giving presentations and demo-ing their solutions to prospects. These conversations are crucial components of the sales process and have a dramatic impact on the prospect’s final decision-making. For these reasons, sales teams should consider how to maximize the impact and effectiveness of their presentations and demos.

It’s not all that uncommon for salespeople to be armed with a presentation or demo slide deck that was put together by the marketing department. The purpose of a “single source of truth” like the corporate-approved slide deck is to ensure that all salespeople have the same talking points and are communicating a consistent narrative in the marketplace. This is a noble goal, but one of the unintended consequences of a company-wide narrative in the form of a slide deck is that it can become stale and devoid of any kind of personal, authentic touch.

Presentations are most effective when the speaker is able to build a human connection with their audience. This means that beyond a clear message, the speaker should reveal personal details about herself, create an emotional journey for the audience, and engage their intellectual curiosity along the way. When we work with leaders to develop presentations, one of our strongest recommendations is that the slide deck should be the last step of the development process. This ensures that we’ve mastered the message and crafted the journey long before we worry about the visual aids. When a marketing team hands the sales team a baked slide deck, each salesperson now has to work backwards to put together a presentation that has power, punch, and a touch of authenticity… and that’s hard!

That said, if you’re a salesperson in this position, there are several ways you can make the corporate slide deck your own. Here are a few tips to consider:

Understand the narrative of the deck. Make sure you can connect the dots from one slide to the next, and get the flow memorized into your bones. If you understand the information flow you will take the audience through, you’ll be able to ad lib on top of that to create the emotional experience and human connection that will make your presentation compelling.
Prepare a script that gives you flexibility to improvise. Above all, make sure it’s in your voice. If you have to, write it out in long-form prose to get clear on what you want to say, and how you want to say it.
Know your audience. Consider how to engage them in a way that’s unique or specific to them. Pausing your presentation to ask a question and check for understanding can be a great strategy, but avoid asking the same questions on the same slide to every prospect. Or worse, waiting until the end to open the floor with “Do you have any questions?”
Open your presentation with a personal story. This helps you show up as authentic right off the bat, and opens up your audience to listen to what you have to say.
Intersperse stories throughout the main narrative of the deck. Consider the most common questions you hear from prospects, or some of the tougher points to communicate. Those are ripe storytelling opportunities that are best addressed with a 90-second personal story that illustrates your point. Source your stories from past experiences, case studies, and other sales people on your team.
Activate the intellectual curiosity of your audience. Some ways to do that is to drop hints about what’s to come, ask rhetorical (or non-rhetorical) questions, or present several options before indicating the ultimate choice that was made.
Don’t be afraid to turn it off. Whenever you can, minimize the slide deck so your audience engages directly with you. This is even more important in the virtual setting where screen sharing can cause video feeds to shrink to impossible-to-see sizes or disappear altogether. As a salesperson, you are your best weapon… not your deck. Let yourself shine as much as you can.

The next time the marketing team hands you a slide deck, say “thank you” and then get to work. Don’t accept the standard talk track they’ve provided to you, and find a way to showcase who you are in the course of your presentation or demo in addition to the product or service that you’re selling.

How do you make your sales deck your own?

14 Language Mistakes And Communication Faux-Pas The Best Leaders Avoid

Mon, 25 Apr 2022 22:27:00 GMT

Communication is an art that every great leader learns to master eventually. While some leaders have innate communication skills, others need to mind their use of language when they’re communicating with their teams to ensure clarity and avoid confusing or alienating team members and other internal stakeholders.

From poor word choice to the wrong tone of voice, many aspects of leader communication can be problematic without putting forethought into what they intend to say. Stephanie Judd is featured on Forbes as one of 14 leadership coaches sharing examples of problematic language and communication faux pas that all leaders need to be more mindful of.

READ THE ARTICLE

Canvas Rebel Profile | Meet Stephanie Judd

Thu, 21 Apr 2022 20:52:00 GMT

Stephanie sat down with CanvasRebel to talk about Wolf & Heron, her entrepreneurial journey, and the challenges along the way.

Read the interview and discover her answers to the following questions:

What problems do Wolf & Heron solve, and what makes the organization special?
What does Wolf & Heron believe that others in the industry do not?
When has Wolf & Heron had to pivot strategically?
How did Stephanie and Kara meet and decide to become partners?

READ THE ARTICLE

3 Ways to Handle the Dominant Voice in Your Meeting

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 13:00:00 GMT

2. Set ground rules

Often ground rules can feel elementary and unnecessary, but they are a useful tool when there’s a disruptor in your midst. It’s much easier to reference ground rules that have been established BEFORE disruptive behavior presents itself than try to set them after the fact; ahead of time, it reads as community-oriented and positive. After the fact, it reads as a personal attack, and punitive. Here are a few ground rules particularly useful in managing the “loud voices” in the room.

Contribute and stick to the meeting agenda
Challenge the problem, not the person
Think before speaking
Listen to others and don’t interrupt (unless we’re off track)
“Bottom line” your idea: You have 2-3 sentences to state your opinion clearly and then let someone else speak.

Ground rules are flexible, so come up with your own, or modify the ones above. If the term “ground rule” is too icky, give them a different name, like “positive behaviors” or “guidelines” or “group promises.” As you use your ground rules over time, they may even get an internal shorthand or nickname that becomes part of the culture of your team.

3. Paper, sharpies, and other materials are your friends

A good meeting includes activities designed to organically involve everyone equitably, and some of the greatest democratizers of ideas are simple tools like pens, paper, stickers, and checkmarks. Here are a few examples of how you might put them into practice:

Brainstorming : Instead of having people share ideas verbally to a single scribe responsible for capturing them, have people work alone or in pairs for 2-3 minutes to generate ideas onto sticky notes (one idea per note). Then throw all the sticky notes up on a wall and review the entire set as a group. Now everyone has contributed thoughts, the ideas are not connected to the person who came up with them, and some ideas may even show up multiple times highlighting how relevant they are.
Multiple Ideas to Evaluate: Instead of working through each idea in sequence, place each idea on flip charts around the room. Break the group into pairs or triads, and assign each group a different idea to focus on. Give the groups a few minutes, and then have them rotate to a new station to build upon the thoughts of the previous group. Now everyone has contributed to a few (or all) of the ideas, and no single voice dominated the conversation.
Prioritizing ideas : Rather than debating the pros and cons and trying to come to a verbal consensus, have your participants “vote” on the ideas they think are best by writing check marks or placing dot stickers on the ideas they like. You’ll be surprised how much conversation you can simply cut out of the meeting because you’ll know immediately where alignment is already in place, and which specific areas will benefit from focused discussion.

Leading a meeting can be overwhelming, especially when it’s your project on the line. Don’t let the dominant voice derail you and lead with confidence.

What are some additional ways you manage the dominant voice?

A common question we hear from folks preparing for a “big” meeting is, “How do I handle the person who always dominates the conversation?” There are several strategies you can use to make sure the dominant voice is productive, and doesn’t prevent other voices from being heard, derail your meeting flow, or interfere with your goals. Here are three…

1. Master Your Opening

The first 3-5 minutes of your meeting are the most important. You should:

Frame the conversation
Establish the objectives of your meeting
Bound the time you will spend on each agenda item
Outline what is NOT on the table for discussion

A good opening establishes a framework for your conversation that signals to the group what is in and out of scope for the meeting.

A single dominant voice can derail a meeting’s productivity and silence valuable perspectives. To maintain balance and ensure every voice is heard, implement these three facilitation strategies:

Master the First 5 Minutes: Set the stage early by framing the conversation, establishing clear objectives, and explicitly stating what is out of scope. A strong opening provides the boundaries needed to keep over-talkers on track.

Establish "Group Promises" Upfront: Setting ground rules (like "Bottom-lining" ideas or "challenging the problem, not the person") works best when done before a disruption occurs. This makes the guidelines feel like a team commitment rather than a personal attack.

Use Tools to Democratize Ideas: Shift from verbal brainstorming to tactile methods. Using sticky notes, silent voting, or station-based rotations allows ideas to be evaluated on their own merit, preventing the loudest person in the room from owning the narrative.

Summary of Takeaways

How to Improve Your Storytelling For Tech Sales Success

Fri, 08 Apr 2022 20:44:00 GMT

This article was first published on Forbes on 08 Apr 2022.

Most tech salespeople understand that stories are important to developing relationships and building trust. They throw around the term “storytelling” and try to build stories into their sales pitches and demos. But despite their efforts, they may not see their sales numbers improve. Sometimes it’s because their stories aren’t really stories at all. Other times it’s because tech salespeople lean on storytelling that is too literal and data-heavy that their product or service isn’t understandable.

What’s missing is that the salespeople are not looking at what can truly influence a prospect and integrating that into their storytelling. Not all stories are created equal, and by focusing on what makes a story influential, tech salespeople can dramatically shift their conversations. Here’s a look at the common mistakes and what to do differently.

READ THE ARTICLE

Learning Design Best Practices for a Global Workforce

Mon, 04 Apr 2022 10:00:00 GMT

The name of the game here is inclusion. Whenever possible, offer your learning experiences at times that cater to folks in a variety of time zones. Sometimes that means scaling the experience for smaller groups and offering multiple time options. It’s quite common for folks who live or work outside of the headquarters region to feel like they’re always getting a sub-par experience. Every time you’re able to offer learning at a time that is locally convenient for an employee, you reinforce that the organization values that employee and their development.

Gather, Review and Integrate Diverse Feedback

The most common things that drive the development of learning experiences and training programs are noteworthy gaps in competencies, strategic priorities, and leadership edicts. That makes complete sense in large, global organizations, but can lead to the development of training programs designed for the lowest common denominator, or the largest employee group or culture. During the prototype and testing phases of development, be sure to capture feedback from a variety of audiences and integrate that feedback into the program. The aim should be to easily customize the experience for different audiences, geographies or cultures.

Showcase Local/Representative Voices

Representation is incredibly important for helping people feel like they are seen, heard, and belong. As much as possible, choose to include in your program leaders, facilitators, and guests that represent and will resonate with the employees. Not only does this help engage your employees, it also helps elevate and bring visibility to a diverse group of leaders, facilitators, and guests.

Leverage Additional Resources When Hybrid

Hybrid experiences of all kinds are necessary and relevant to the future of work. Unfortunately, hybrid experiences are also harder to design, facilitate and support than those that are fully in-person or fully virtual. Yet, given that hybrid is here to stay, it’s time to start figuring out how to deliver them well. To begin, know that hybrid experiences require additional resources to be truly engaging and inclusive to all participants—no matter the modality with which they choose to engage. Train and allocate additional facilitators to make sure you’re creating a great experience for everyone.

Curate Offerings

A side effect of developing the workforce of a large global organization is a large suite of learning offerings. You will likely have a variety of learning opportunities that are delivered in a variety of ways—some self-guided, some directed, some internal, some external. This wealth of learning is a luxury, but it can also be a bit overwhelming to an employee. Questions like Where should I start? What’s most important right now? and What learning will make the biggest difference for me? will cause employees to hesitate, or perhaps even dismiss learning altogether. Just like Trader Joe’s offers only a few choices to their customers to minimize decision fatigue, consider how L&D leaders, HRBPs, and/or Managers can help to tailor, prioritize, sequence, and curate the learning opportunities for each individual employee for where they are in their learning journey.

What additional learning and development best practices have you identified for global organizations?

With an increasingly distributed and global workforce, organizations need to become more sophisticated about how to support their employees' growth and development. There are many variables to consider from time zone, to language barriers, cultural differences, remote vs in-person vs hybrid, folks who are co-located but virtual, etc. Meanwhile, L&D teams are still being asked to deliver high-quality training and great experiences that engage employees and inspire them to do the hard work required to develop new skills. Here are a few tips and tricks we’ve picked up along the way as we develop and deliver impactful learning experiences to a variety of global teams and organizations.

Deliver in a Variety of Time Zones

Summary of Takeaways

Action and Ambition: Stephanie Judd Helps Professionals Tell Influential Stories and Run Effective Meetings To Be More Impactful at Work

Tue, 29 Mar 2022 17:17:00 GMT

Stephanie sat down with Philip Lanos of Entrepreneur’s Action & Ambition podcast to discuss the genesis of Wolf & Heron, the entrepreneur journey, and the power of intentional storytelling and meeting design.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

15 Ways To Reignite Enthusiasm For A Long-Held Job

Wed, 23 Mar 2022 14:42:00 GMT

No matter how much you love your job, when you’ve been in the same role for a long time, it can be challenging to maintain enthusiasm about it. So it’s crucial to find consistent sources of inspiration that will help sustain your interest and excitement in order to flourish in your role and in your career.

Professional coaches have many methods of helping clients who feel stuck in a rut at work find their inspiration again.

Stephanie Judd is featured on Forbes as one of 15 coaches discussing various ways to reignite your energy and passion if you feel you are losing momentum in a job you’ve had for a long time.

READ THE ARTICLE

Best Practices for Leading in a Hybrid Work Environment

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 13:00:00 GMT

Be flexible about how you connect with your team

Not every call has to be a video call. Phone calls can feel like a refreshing change and can be a better medium for certain types of calls. Pay attention to how your employees are feeling and ask them for their preferences. While video calls are helpful when you want to get to know someone, put a face to a name and get the benefit of non-verbal communication, phone calls also have their advantages. For example, on a phone call, participants won’t be distracted by their own image on the screen and can better focus on the content of the conversation. Additionally, phone calls offer a bit of movement freedom, allowing folks an opportunity to turn the meeting into a walking meeting. This is good for body, heart and mind!

Experiment with new ways for team building

Team building used to show up in a few common forms - the welcome lunch for new employees, the occasional happy hours or Friday Pizzas, and the annual all-company retreat. All these activities typically asked employees to leave their desks to participate, and therefore cost the company a significant amount of worktime. Today, many offices remain completely or at least partially virtual. Time feels like it’s even more precious than it was before, and virtual or hybrid events can feel like longer and sub-par experiences.

Stop waiting for things to return to the way they were and stop preferencing in-person folks. Experiment with alternatives to the old ways of team building. There’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all solution, so aim for variety. Perhaps your Welcome Lunches become virtual coffees. Perhaps you offer employees an opportunity to participate in an activity local to them and then share stories with the team later. Brainstorm with your team for ideas, too! They’ll certainly have ideas for how to engage them!

Find ways to debrief and coach your team members

In the days of dominantly in-person work, leaders could observe their team members in action, picking up on non-verbal cues, noticing the impact of their actions in the moment, and more. Then, they had the opportunities between meetings and in ad hoc “hey, do you have a minute?” moments to offer coaching, encouragement, and advice. For folks who travel for work, these moments are often immediately after the big client meeting on the way to the airport or while waiting for a flight.

In the virtual and hybrid worlds, these moments are much fewer and farther between. You may feel like you are accessible to your team because you told them you have an “open door policy,” but it’s easy for people to feel isolated or like they’re a burden if they have to ask for unscheduled time. How do you fight against this trend? Consider establishing “Office Hours” during which time you encourage your employees to interrupt you with anything. Plan a mid-day walk, grab your phone, and do ad hoc check-ins. Come up with a routine that serves you and your team and stick to it.

As the pandemic becomes endemic, we have to consider new ways of working. Employees and leaders want to hold onto some of the flexibility and autonomy that comes with working virtually, but they also want to feel connected to and valued by their organizations.

What best practices can you share for leading today?

We recently hosted a roundtable discussion on Building Authentic Sales Relationships in a Hybrid Virtual/In-Person Tech Industry . Additionally, we continue to do a great deal of executive coaching for leaders in public health, tech and other fields. There are several unique challenges leaders are facing in supporting their people right now due to the hybrid nature of work and offer these best practices for consideration.

Foster mindfulness in yourself and employees

This has been a best practice at work for a while but is increasingly important when folks are approaching burnout, distracted from all sides and stuck in a cycle with too many meetings. Mindfulness is an incredibly important practice for leaders. It isn’t merely starting to meditate. It’s about supporting a proactive and strategic mindset instead of a reactive one, being truly present at meetings, and meeting people where they are. Perhaps above all, mindful leadership is acknowledging and supporting your boundaries and the boundaries of your employees.

Summary of Takeaways

The hybrid work model offers flexibility but also introduces new risks of isolation and burnout. To lead effectively in this environment, consider these four best practices

Foster Active Mindfulness: Move from a reactive to a strategic mindset. Mindfulness in leadership isn't just about personal practice; it’s about respecting boundaries—both yours and your team's—and ensuring you are truly present and meeting people where they are.
Embrace Audio-Only Connections: Not every meeting requires video. Switching to phone calls can reduce "Zoom fatigue," allow for better focus on the conversation, and even provide opportunities for "walking meetings" that boost physical and mental well-being.
Reimagine Team Building: Stop waiting for a return to traditional office happy hours. Experiment with diverse, hybrid-friendly activities—like virtual coffees or local shared experiences—that don't favor in-person staff over remote ones.
Create "Digital Open Doors": Ad-hoc coaching moments that used to happen in the hallway are disappearing. Be proactive by establishing "Office Hours" or planning informal check-in calls. This ensures your team feels supported and connected without the pressure of scheduling formal meetings for every small question.

16 Reasons Why Clients In Different Industries Opt To Engage With A Coach

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 22:27:00 GMT

Professional coaches exist to help guide people in various aspects of their lives. Some people need advice and guidance to navigate business challenges; others are looking to improve aspects of their personalities to become stronger leaders.

While every client has their own specific reasons for engaging with a coach, there are some basic ones that are common in some industries and among certain types of professionals. Stephanie Judd is featured on Forbes as one of 16 coaches discussing the industries most of their clients are in and some of the most common reasons they have opted to engage with a coach.

READ THE ARTICLE

The Best Kept Secret Podcast with Jay Kingley: How to Influence Using Storytelling

Tue, 08 Mar 2022 22:32:00 GMT

In this episode of The Best Kept Secret with Jay Kingly, Stephanie discusses why storytelling is so fundamentally human, and how to leverage storytelling in the sales process.

The goal of telling a story as part of your sales process is to create human connection, which can be effectively accomplished by bringing emotion into your story. True influential storytelling is inherently a vulnerable process but it leads to authenticity and high levels of effectiveness.

Stephanie discusses the common mistakes salespeople make in communicating with prospects, and the 4 components of an influential story that will fix those mistakes

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

5 Common Questions About Telling Influential Stories

Mon, 07 Mar 2022 11:00:00 GMT

One of our favorite stories that came out of the program was about a woman’s experience adopting a cat and how the cat taught her something about love and commitment. If you’re looking to develop a personal story, consider the moments that are meaningful to you, stories you already tell to others, or any moment of change in your life. If you’re looking for a professional story, consider the moments where you made a mistake, learned a lesson, or were surprised. There are stories everywhere in your life. All you have to do is start looking around.

What comes first, my story idea or the theme/point I’m trying to communicate?

Either can come first. What matters is finding the approach that works for you. Over time, you can build a story library that you can come back to when you need to find a story to tell. But as you’re first getting started, follow whatever path offers the least resistance, and make some progress! In some cases, when we work with participants in the Influential Storytelling program, they have an immediate and obvious idea for a story that pops into their mind, but they’re not really sure what the theme of it is. That’s okay! They start with the story idea, share it during the workshop and refine the theme with their practice partners. Others come to our program with a specific work situation or context for which they want to develop a story. For example, salespeople may think about objections they often have to handle in a sales conversation. In that case, they know the point they want to make, but don’t have a story idea in mind yet. That’s ok too! You can always back into a story idea that makes the point you want to make.

My story is complex. Can it have multiple themes?

Yes. And no. It is likely that your stories will all have several potential themes. Ultimately, stories are about human behavior and experience which is infinitely complicated. One of Kara’s go-to stories is about leaving her laptop behind on an important business trip and the related fallout. She’s told versions of this story to a variety of audiences, tweaking it slightly to adjust it to a plethora of themes including:

Stories have the power to influence people.
Leadership is not determined by your title; it is demonstrated in your willingness to do anything for the team.
True leadership is having the courage to ask for help.

The crux, here, however, is that even though the story can adapt to several different themes, Kara is always intentional about which ONE of those themes she’s going to drive in a specific telling of her story. She’ll include and exclude details in the story that help to bring out the point she wants to make. But every time she tells her story, it has just one theme for her audience to absorb. This is wonderful because it makes her story flexible for multiple audiences and situations.

How many stories should be in my 30 minute presentation?

The annoying answer is that it depends. If there is a main “so what?” for your presentation, then you should have at a minimum a story that communicates that point. Often presentations have several distinct sub-points that are important for the audience to retain as well. If that’s true, an effective and sticky way to land each of your points is to wrap them each in a story. That might mean you need to find time for 4-5 mini-stories throughout your presentation. Additionally, stories are great as an opening and/or ending to your presentation.

Consider how you can include stories of varying length and depth. Stories don’t need to be 4-5 minutes long. In 30 seconds you can tell a compelling influential story that will weave nicely into the arc of your presentation among the other information you’re trying to convey.

My company/team is data-oriented. How do I build in storytelling when all that matters is the data?

Yes! Companies and organizations care about data. We hope to make rational decisions based on data. We need data to defend and support our points of view. But data does not exist agnostic of a story. In fact, any data analyst will tell you that data is just the starting point. You have to look at the data and make sense of it… and that sense making is fundamentally about finding the story within the data. Brene Brown once stated she was originally hesitant about being called a storyteller; she was, after all, a serious research scientist. But upon further reflection, she pointed out that “stories are data with a soul.” That sentence tells you everything you need to know about Brown’s stunning and rapid rise to fame. Brown doesn’t inspire because she delivers data; she inspires because she tells stories about the data and explains how the data can help us lead better lives.

What questions do you have about telling influential stories?

In the 5+ years that we’ve been operating as Wolf & Heron, we’ve had the privilege of delivering our Influential Storytelling program to 1000s of folks and provided one-on-one story coaching to hundreds of professionals. In our experience, there are several questions that have been posed to us with regularity about storytelling and influence, so we thought we’d take some time to share our perspective publicly.

How do I know what story to choose? I don’t feel like I have a story to tell that is interesting.

Yes, you do. You’d be surprised what others feel is valuable or interesting about a story that you may not see in your own experience.

Effective storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to influence others, but many professionals hesitate because of a few common myths. Here is a quick breakdown of the five most frequent questions we hear:

"Do I have a story worth telling?" Yes! You don’t need a cinematic life event to be interesting. Some of the most influential stories are about simple, relatable moments—like learning a lesson from a pet or a minor workplace mistake.
"What comes first: the story or the point?" It doesn’t matter. Some start with a great anecdote and find the theme later; others start with a goal and "back into" a story that illustrates it. Choose the path of least resistance.
"Can one story have multiple themes?" A great story is flexible. While a single story can highlight leadership, courage, or vulnerability, the key is to choose only one theme for each specific time you tell it.
"How many stories belong in a 30-minute talk?" At a minimum, one for your main "so what." However, using 4-5 "mini-stories" (even 30 seconds long) to anchor your sub-points is a great way to make technical info stick.
"What if my team only cares about data?" Data doesn’t exist in a vacuum. To make data land, you must find its "soul." Storytelling provides the context that transforms raw numbers into a compelling call to action.

The Bottom Line: You don’t need to be a professional performer to be an influential storyteller. By looking for the "moments of change" in your own life and connecting them to your professional goals, you can turn any presentation into an experience that sticks.

Summary of Takeaways

Common Coaching Questions that Leaders Should Use More Often

Mon, 07 Feb 2022 14:00:00 GMT

What about that is important to you?

This question is profound in that it helps to uncover hidden motivations, intrinsic values, and a LOT more clarity on where the truth really lies. In business, we see this question transform sales conversations, reshape job descriptions, and empower employees to carve a unique path to promotion. When facilitating meetings with an executive team, this question helps the various functional leaders see below the surface of a proposed strategic direction and align on the best go-forward plan.

It’s important to note the phrasing of this question as opposed to Why is that important? Although it may seem these two questions should yield the same answers, they don’t. Why is that important? asks a person to defend their position, which is intrinsically combative. What about that is important to you? encourages a person to share a core value, which is intrinsically vulnerable and collaborative.

What did you/I learn?

Experience isn’t growth until it is processed and integrated into a story. One of the key skills of a coach is to help clients process their experiences and transform them into stories, and this is a foundational question to do just that. As a leader, this question is crucial for developing high-performing teams. It’s also one of the most important questions a leader can ask herself over and over again. This question grounds a leader in humility, and allows her to build a library of stories about failures and successes as she grows in her career.

What else?

This question is a great question to use in the context of brainstorming. We generally know that the best ideas aren’t the first ideas, so asking What else? just a few more times after the initial glut of ideas are on the table ensures the full scope of possibilities has really been considered.

But this question is useful beyond the brainstorming context. One of Kara’s clients came to her one day with an issue with a challenging team member who complained all the time. Kara challenged her client to give the employee space to vent and simply ask, What else? until they ran out of steam. The following session, the client came back simply giddy! He had tried the strategy and been dumbfounded by two things. First, he’d learned a TON about the dynamics of his team he’d never been privy to before, and the team member had finished the conversation by saying, “Wow. Thanks for the chat. I feel so much better now,” and hadn’t complained since. The client gushed for a while, extolling the virtues of that single question. And of course, what did Kara ask him? What else?

What will you commit to? By when?

It is unbelievably common to discover that expectations around roles and responsibilities aren’t aligned. And even when they are aligned, the breadth and depth of those expectations can still vary. This question makes explicit what can all too often be left unsaid. It also has the side benefit of requiring people to make their commitments public, which has been shown to dramatically increase accountability.

Notice that this question is not a delegation. Leaders who assign tasks to individual team members should not expect that the simple act of delegation is enough to achieve buy-in. Assigning the task and then following up with this question or the variation, Will you do that? is more powerful and effective.

Who do you/I need to be?

Coaches learn about this question in juxtaposition to the question, What do you need to do? The purpose is to disassociate what a person DOES from who a person IS. Two salespeople can present a pitch to a client, but one can be earnest and another can be flippant. Even if they do the same thing, they are being different. Leaders can get caught up in all that needs to be done, but great leaders take the time to set intentions around who they want to be in the process, and help their team members do the same.

There are countless other coaching questions that are relevant to leaders in the workplace. What questions do you like to use, and why?

When we coach leaders as part of an enterprise leadership development program , we often also provide mini training sessions to these same leaders on the basic skills of coaching. What always surprises us is how difficult it is for leaders to see the parallels between coaching and leading, and even understand why learning coaching skills is relevant to their growth as leaders.

In Stephanie’s personal experience, the process of getting certified as a coach was one of the most transformative things she did in her leadership journey. She discovered through her coaching practice a set of questions that are so simple and powerful that we use them in all sorts of contexts beyond coaching conversations. Here are a few.

Summary of Takeaways

The transition from manager to leader often requires adopting the mindset of a coach. By integrating these simple but powerful questions into your daily interactions, you can uncover deeper motivations, drive accountability, and foster a more reflective culture:

"What about that is important to you?" Unlike asking "Why?" (which can feel combative and defensive), this phrasing invites vulnerability and collaboration. It helps surface core values and hidden motivations that drive strategic alignment and personal growth.
"What did you/I learn?" Experience alone isn't growth—it must be processed. This question transforms successes and failures into meaningful stories, grounding leadership in humility and helping teams integrate lessons for future success.
"What else?" This is the ultimate tool for both brainstorming and empathy. It ensures the best ideas (which are rarely the first ones) come to the surface and allows team members to fully "empty their cup" during challenging conversations, leading to unexpected insights.
"What will you commit to? By when?" Ambiguity is the enemy of execution. This question makes expectations explicit and leverages the power of public commitment to increase accountability and buy-in far more effectively than simple delegation.
"Who do you/I need to be?" Great leadership is about intention rather than just action. By focusing on who someone needs to "be" (e.g., earnest, patient, bold) in a given situation, you help them navigate complex human dynamics beyond just completing a task.

Storytelling Strategies for Sales Success

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 21:22:00 GMT

Case Studies
Your company probably already has these stacked up somewhere in a set of PDFs or listed on your website. Pick one that you are passionate about and turn it into a story you can use during the course of a pitch or conversation.

Past Deals
Similar to case studies, look at the last month or year of sales, and try to find a customer whose challenge you remember. Think about the problem your customer had, and how you were able to help. Turn that into a story you can share with similar clients in the future.

End User
Salespeople often sell to someone who isn’t the end user of the product or service. This is especially true in the B2B world. Challenge yourself to put together a story that highlights a moment in your end user’s life. Focus on creating understanding and empathy for the end user’s journey or challenge.

Your Personal Career
Some of the sotries you share can (and should!) be stories about yourself and your personal lived experience. These stories are crucial to helping you build rapport and trust with your prospects. Consider answers to questions like, Why did you choose this industry you work in? What attracted you to your company? and What do you love about the work you do? Stories that answer these questions will help your customers get to know you and like you more.

Don’t Forget to Craft the Stories

If salespeople can successfully identify stories to tell, the next challenge is to actually craft them for influence. Being intentional in story crafting can be especially hard because salespeople either don’t know where to start or think their stories will be good enough when delivered off-the-cuff. Here are some tips for how to get started and why crafting your story ahead of time can be valuable:

Your story is just an answer to a question
Good sales people make the sales process a conversation. When crafting your stories, imagine the question your prospect might ask that could prompt the story. This will help make sure your stories still feel organic, relevant, and extemporaneous even if you thought about what you want to say ahead of time.

Keep it short and sweet
Sales stories can be as short as one minute. We often find salespeople get caught up in the 45-minute presentation or demo they have to give, and forget about the micro-moments along the way where a quick story can fit in. Think about sprinkling stories throughout your conversations.

Humility is key
While it makes sense to “big up” your company/product/service, coming off as arrogant can ruin everything. People don’t like it, and they won’t like you. If your story is about how you or your product saved the day, make sure you spend enough time describing the challenge or conflict first. If you just skip to the end, you don’t build the stakes enough for your audience to be bought into your solution.

Invite curiosity
Engage your prospect by embedding mystery and problem solving into your story. This ensures they come along the journey with you and may even start ideating a solution before it’s even offered as part of the storyline. This psychologically builds buy-in to your idea, increasing the likelihood you’ll close the deal.

Ask your customers for their stories
Again, sales takes place in conversation and over time. Don’t forget to ask your prospects and customers for their stories. This will help you get to know them, tailor your own stories appropriately, AND will offer you more fodder for future stories you might tell.

What are your strategies for developing sales stories?

If your job is to sell your company’s products or services, you need to know how to communicate their value in a compelling way. When we work with salespeople, they already understand that storytelling can be a powerful tool for them, but they struggle with how to leverage stories appropriately. Sometimes they can come up with a story, but it’s too literal and leads them down a rabbit hole of demo-ing their product rather than actually telling a story. Other times they drone on and on, losing their audience along the way. Sometimes they just can’t come up with a story idea, even if they know they should be telling stories! Here are some tips and tricks to get you started if you’re having the same challenges.

Where to Source Ideas for stories

Summary of Takeaways

In sales, logic may open the door, but emotion closes the deal. While many sales professionals rely on data and feature lists, the most successful ones use "Influential Storytelling" to build trust and help customers visualize a better future. Here are the core strategies:

Move from Features to "Foundational Stories": Don't just list what your product does; tell the story of why it exists. Customers are more likely to buy from someone they believe in. Share stories about how you discovered the problem you solve or why your team is uniquely qualified to tackle it.
The Power of the "Customer Hero": In a sales story, the hero shouldn't be your company or your product—it should be a person just like your customer. Describe a past client who faced the same "villain" (the problem) and show how they triumphed using your solution. This allows the prospect to see themselves in the success story.
Bridge the "Value Gap": Sales often fail because there is a gap between the current state and the desired future state. Stories act as the bridge. By painting a vivid picture of the "after" (the relief, the efficiency, the growth), you make the cost of staying in the "before" feel much higher.
Use Stories to Handle Objections: Instead of arguing against an objection with logic (which creates friction), use an empathetic story. "I had another client who felt the exact same way about the price. What they found after six months was..." This lowers defenses and shifts the conversation to real-world outcomes.
Keep it Real and Relatable: Authenticity is the ultimate sales tool. Avoid overly polished or "corporate" stories. Use the "Super Power" of Keeping it Real by sharing personal anecdotes or "in-the-trenches" experiences that prove you understand the customer's world.

Career Coaches and Michigan Ross Alumni Offer Advice for Job Seekers in 2022

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 21:37:00 GMT

If you’re looking to make a job change in 2022, you may have some questions. What’s the job search climate like right now? What special challenges has the pandemic created? Which pitfalls should I try to avoid?

A number of Ross School of Business alumni work as professional career/executive coaches, and they have answers to these questions and more. Dividend asked several of these Ross alums for their perspective on the job market in 2022.

Read the article for the perspectives Kara and Stephanie offered up alongside several other coaches.

READ THE ARTICLE

Navigating Last-Minute Changes in Planning Your Meeting

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 14:52:00 GMT

Have a Virtual Back-Up Plan

When you schedule that oh-so-desired in-person gathering, develop a plan to run it virtually as well. It’s not worth getting caught off guard. Take the time. Have a plan for how you will distribute materials, use technology, assign roles, invite engagement and collaboration, and achieve your meeting goals even if you’re not physically together.

We suggest having two detailed Runs of Show for whomever is leading the meeting. These are step-by-step walkthroughs of the meeting in minute detail. They’ll include things like the questions for discussion, decisions that need to be made, when you’ll collect information and run activities, how others will be involved, when you’ll take breaks, etc. Even if the topics and discussions for the in-person and virtual formats are the same, the details will look very different because the processes will differ.

Plan for a Hybrid Event

A hybrid event—one where some folks are in person, and others are participating virtually—accommodates more people and circumstances. It may be your planning starting point, or simply your back-up plan if needed.

That said, a high functioning hybrid event requires more preparation than either the in-person or virtual events alone. As Priya Parker, author of “The Art of Gathering” shares , “Hybrid gatherings aren’t one gathering—they’re three.” There’s the space for the co-located participants, the virtual space for those participating digitally, and then there’s the space and interaction between these two groups. As a facilitator or leader, it’s common to give attention or preference to the experience and function of one of those spaces (and usually it’s the one that has more people in it), not all three.

So how do you navigate this? In a recent interview , Priya Parker recommended having a facilitator or host specifically dedicated to each of the two main spaces, and have them coordinate so the cross-over space is also managed. Additionally, the facilitator with more implicit power (relational or positional) should manage the space with fewer people to balance the focus preference between these spaces.

This also means having the tools on hand for a great tech experience. Give each of the speakers a mic and extra mics for the attendees and then make sure you have good audio delivery mechanisms so the virtual attendees can hear the in-person conversation and engage. For more great tech suggestions, check out this HBR pos t by Bob Frisch and Cary Greene.

When to Make a Final Decision

As you’re planning your gathering, gather input on leader, speaker and attendee comfort levels. What is their preference? Does it change based on certain factors? What are the local and institutional guidelines for gathering where you are?

Make it clear to everyone involved that you’re paying attention to the realities and preferences, that you have a plan B and plan C and that you’ll communicate with them proactively. If you do your job well, you can stall on making your final decision until your venue and airline companies start complaining. If those aren’t factors, then stay nimble as long as you can and good luck!

What other ideas do you have? Share them in the comments…this space is evolving.

When it comes to gathering, there’s still a lot that’s being figured out in the context of the pandemic: hybrid work, vaccination status, masks, travel, covid-friendly food options, and more. One client shared with Kara that the organization was stalling on finalizing details of a Sales Kick-Off Conference with the goal of making a decision about whether the event will be in-person or virtual at the last possible moment. Another client came to us for help on some meeting design challenges and had to navigate the fact that the event—originally planned as an in-person gathering— became a virtual event literally the day before it was supposed to happen.

We’re making plans in an era of uncertainty. These things are going to keep happening. It’s not clear if we’ll ever again get to a point where we can guarantee that an in-person event will definitely be in person, or that the keynote speaker we were planning on doesn’t suddenly develop the sniffles and will now give her speech from a virtual podium instead of the stage. Because of our new reality, here are a few recommendations on how to be proactive in your leadership and team meeting planning.

Summary of Takeaways

In a world where in-person events can suddenly shift to virtual or hybrid formats, being a proactive leader means planning for uncertainty. To keep your high-stakes meetings on track despite last-minute changes, follow these strategic recommendations:

Develop a Virtual Back-Up Plan: Don’t wait for a disruption to scramble for a Zoom link. Create a "Plan B" that includes a detailed virtual Run of Show . This step-by-step walkthrough should account for how you will distribute materials, use technology, and achieve engagement goals in a digital environment.
Master the Hybrid Experience: If some participants are in-person and others are virtual, assign a dedicated host to each "space" to ensure coordination. To balance the experience, the leader with the most positional power should often manage the group with fewer people to prevent the virtual audience from feeling like second-class participants.
Stay Nimble with Final Decisions: Gather input on attendee and speaker comfort levels early, and be transparent that you have multiple contingency plans. This allows you to stay flexible and wait as long as possible before making a final "go/no-go" decision, as long as logistics like venues and flights allow.
Strategize for High-Stakes Moments: While you can "wing" a routine check-in, high-stakes discussions require deep strategic thought. Ensure everyone is set up to contribute meaningfully, regardless of the medium, by getting clear on desired outcomes before the meeting begins.

Tips for Presenting with a Mask

Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:48:00 GMT

As a business, we had zero in-person events scheduled between March 2020 and June 2021. As we became vaccinated against COVID-19, and many in the community became protected as well, we started hearing from clients that were hopeful and interested in gathering in-person, while still taking precautions to mitigate the virus's spread.

So, we're leading events again, and often, our hosts are asking attendees and facilitators to mask up. Since June, we’ve had the opportunity to lead our Influential Storytelling workshop in-person several times, and many of those times we facilitated while wearing a mask. Along the way, we’ve learned a thing or two about how to facilitate or present with a mask on; what to pay attention to, what to keep in mind, and best practices to take to heart.

Here are a few of our learnings:

Plan Your Hello

People are using different greeting strategies in lieu of a handshake. Decide in advance how you will greet folks. Consider a fist bump, elbow bump, wave or something else. What’s important is that you find a way to say hello and welcome people. Many people are edgy or uncomfortable about meeting in-person in the first place, and then masks can add to their discomfort and make them feel isolated. Do your best to make the space comfortable and inviting with a warm welcome as they enter.

Consider a Microphone

While wearing a mask, voices are muffled and muted. Yelling to counterbalance these effects is not the answer. Consider wearing a microphone—even with a small group—so that you don't risk losing your voice and can be heard comfortably without sounding like you’re angry. Additionally, if you have a microphone on, you can repeat the comments others in the room make to ensure those comments are heard by the entire group.

Slow Down and Enunciate

Enunciating is especially important due to the muffling effect of a mask. Speaking slowly, separating your words, and ensuring you really do pronounce your Ts and Ds with intention will help your audience hear and understand you. Avoid letting your words slide together and give your audience a chance to pick up what you’re saying.

Choose Your Mask Wisely

Not all masks are created equal. They all fit your face a bit differently, some will slide around, some pinch your ears, some fog up your glasses. When presenting, the last thing you want to do is fidget incessantly with your mask. Make sure you wear a mask that fits you comfortably for several hours and allows you to talk without it sliding around your face. Some folks may prefer that you wear a clear mask to allow people to see your mouth as you speak. This is a great idea if it helps folks who are hard of hearing or non-native speakers, but it may cause moisture build-up that you’ll want to be prepared to address.

Be Expressive

There are many ways you can reinforce the meaning of what you’re saying and you don’t need to rely on your entire face for this. Be intentional about the use of your body and hands to support your communication and indicate warmth and openness. Also, even though your mouth is covered, continue to smile when appropriate as your smile still shows up in your eyes and eyebrows.

Leverage Live Captioning

This is an accessibility practice that is used often for virtual events to accommodate those who are hard of hearing. At our last in-person event, our client offered to set it up for the in-person group. We connected a single computer to a projector, logged into a 1-participant Zoom meeting, and turned on closed-captioning. The computer’s mic did an impressive job of picking up what was said and translating that in real time to the written word. There are likely several closed-captioning technology solutions out there, so consider this as an option to address the muffling and muting effects of masks.

Check for Understanding

Find plenty of opportunities for folks to ask questions and get clarity if they did miss something. Questions like “What questions do you have?” and “What do you need me to clarify?” are important for you to ask often.

What else?

These are some of the preliminary thoughts and ideas we’ve put together for ourselves as we plan to facilitate more in-person experiences while wearing a mask. What have you noticed is helpful or worth considering?

Plan the Best Strategy Retreat of Your Career: Series Summary

Wed, 03 Nov 2021 22:29:00 GMT

Downloadable resource: How to Define Success for Your Strategy Retreat: Craft Know, Feel, Do Statements

PART 2: DEVELOP A STRAW MAN AGENDA

If you’ve done your homework and your planning committee has aligned on the KNOW, FEEL, and DO objectives for your strategy retreat, the next step is developing an agenda. Open the planning document with your refined KNOW, FEEL and DO statements. Below them, make a table with 5 columns and label them with these headings:

KNOW, FEEL, & DO | LEAD | CONTRIBUTORS | TIME | ACTIVITY

Think about the journey your participants need to go on over the course of the retreat, and build out a row in your table for each step of that journey. Determine what they need to KNOW, FEEL, and DO first, second, third, and so on. Each row will be its own experience or agenda item, and each should have its own distinct purpose. Then, fill in the rest of the columns. Read the article for red flags to pay attention to when developing your straw man agenda.

Downloadable resources: Two marked up draft agendas with our feedback

PART 3: DESIGN YOUR ACTIVITIES TO ENGAGE YOUR ATTENDEES

Now it’s time to get precise on each element of the agenda with an eye for how you will make it (actually) engaging. With our clients, we often see the default is to rely on leaders’ presentations and accompanying slide decks to carry the entire meeting. We see meeting coordinators and individual presenters focusing heavily on WHAT they plan to communicate, and less on HOW they plan to communicate it, explore it and make collective decisions based on it.

Engaging your attendees properly not only makes the meeting more stimulating for everyone, it creates a more productive discussion with more diverse viewpoints and greater overall buy-in. How you choose to engage attendees should be informed by the constraints of each individual agenda item. Check out the article for several rules of thumb to help you think about your activity design.

Downloadable resources: Materials for Meeting Success and Ramp Up The Asks

PART 4: NAVIGATE DAY-OF CHALLENGES

It’s showtime! You’ve done the work to intentionally set up your meeting for success, but there are some things you just can’t do in advance. The article includes some tips to help you navigate (and avoid!) day-of challenges that may arise.

Downloadable resource: Ground Rules for Success

What did you think of this series? We'd love your feedback on the articles and downloadable resources, plus ideas for future posts.

Over the past several weeks, we posted a series of articles that walk you step by step through planning and facilitating the best strategy retreat of your career. Each week, we focused on one critical piece of the process we follow with our clients to ensure they design their meetings effectively and facilitate them for success.

PART 1: DEFINE SUCCESS

The most important thing you need to do once you’ve broadly identified the need for a strategy retreat is to define success. There are a few ways to do this, but the crux of this step is to make sure you and your team are aligned on the “why” for the retreat. Why is it happening? Why should people show up? Why should they care? Why should they contribute? Don’t just focus on the routine… we’re meeting because that’s what we do every year. Instead, aim to uncover why this retreat specifically needs to happen this time, this year. Although you may already have a cursory idea of agenda topics, this step should take you beyond thinking about “what” you’re doing, and bring focus and sophistication to your meeting design. Read the article to understand how to establish a strong purpose for your meeting.

Summary of Takeaways

Planning a high-impact strategy retreat requires moving beyond routine "check-the-box" meetings. This four-part series provides a step-by-step roadmap for designing and facilitating a session that drives real organizational alignment:

Part 1: Define the "Why": Shift from a default annual meeting to a purposeful gathering by establishing KNOW, FEEL, and DO statements. Success is defined by the specific information, emotional connection, and concrete actions participants walk away with.
Part 2: Build the Participant Journey: Develop a "straw man" agenda that focuses on the flow of experiences rather than just a list of presentations. Use a detailed planning table to track objectives, leads, and time requirements for each segment.
Part 3: Design for Engagement: Break the reliance on passive slide decks. Use interactive activities, small group collaboration (3–6 people), and frequent movement to ensure participants are actively contributing rather than just listening.
Part 4: Navigate "Day-Of" Challenges: Facilitate with flexibility. Use tools like a "Parking Lot" for off-agenda topics, manage hybrid attendance by prioritizing virtual voices, and proactively read the room to reset low-energy moments with breaks or movement.

Plan the Best Strategy Retreat of Your Career - Part 4: Navigate Day-Of Challenges

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 21:52:00 GMT

If one person is dominating the conversation, find a way to include others and make the discussion more democratic, “Taylor brings up a good point. Let’s go around the room for a quick round robin and hear a headline on this issue from everyone.” Another way to change the momentum and take the microphone from a dominant voice is to pause them and ask them to “ bottom line ” their comment, “Taylor, how would you bottom line this for us? Summarize your point in a couple of sentences before we hear from someone else on this topic.”

Address Last Minute Attendance Changes Productively

It’s common for folks to have last minute scheduling issues, show up late, leave early, or suddenly be unable to join at all. Or perhaps an attendee’s kid is sick and now that attendee will join the meeting virtually rather than being in the room. Whatever the reason, there’s always a chance that this type of change can throw off the meeting.

If someone arrives late or leaves early, the key here is to try to not let that impact the rest of the group’s ability to be productive. This means don’t wait for them to get started and don’t invite everyone else to leave at the same time. Value the time of the collective.

If one person is remotely dialed into an otherwise in-person meeting, here are a couple things you can do to keep them involved.

Assign one of the in-person folks to own involving the virtual attendee. That person will take on the responsibility of reminding the group to check in with the virtual attendee, and share digital versions of the materials with them.
Have a routine of soliciting input from the virtual attendees first, before any additional in-person discussion. It’s tempting to ask them for their input last, but that pattern will leave them feeling like an afterthought and disengage them over the course of a meeting.
Conference room phone speakers often provide the best audio quality. Consider having the virtual attendee join by audio through the conference line and only retain the video feed through the computer.

Handle Low-Energy Moments

Energy ebbs and flows throughout the day. People have their mid-morning post-coffee crash, and then load up on carbs for lunch and are ready for a nap around 3pm. Even if you’ve done everything you can to design an engaging meeting, you will have to read the energy in the room and adjust accordingly.

During a virtual meeting, consider these tips if energy is low:

Call a quick break. Give people 3-5 minutes to stretch their legs, grab a snack, and come back. Keep it short because if you make it too long they’ll fall into their email trap or get distracted doing the laundry.
Reset the group after breaks. Reiterate expectations, acknowledge the goal, and do something to kick up energy. Consider telling a story or immediately putting folks into breakout rooms with partners for a quick conversation.
Make sure you’re offering positive and engaged body language, even if you’re only listening. People reflect what’s going on around them, and we all know how easy it is to appear disinterested or disengaged on video even if we’re the opposite.
Suggest folks stand up for the length of each breakout activity. If they can’t raise up their laptops, ask that they at least stretch.

During an in-person meeting, consider these tips if energy is low:

When you move onto the next activity or discussion topic, ask attendees to stand up.
When breaking people into small groups, ask that they find group members from the other side of the room. You can do this by counting off around the room or asking people to make eye contact with a partner at a different table. Ultimately, this forces everyone to move to find their group mates, and several groups will end up doing the activity standing up or sitting in a new position.
Find appropriate moments to applaud. When an attendee volunteers to do something vulnerable, offers a novel idea others appreciate, or completes a presentation, begin applauding. If you pick the right moment, others will join you and applause is a great energy and mood booster.
Shift solo reflection, significant reading or “information dump” presentations for later in the agenda or remove them completely. These activities will collapse the energy if it’s already low.

There are a plethora of facilitator tips and tricks, and we could go on forever. The three issues we’ve called out here are just a few of many possible day-of challenges you might encounter. That being said, the best medicine is always and forever will be prevention, and that is something you can do pretty effectively by establishing thoughtful ground rules at the outset of the meeting (and sometimes even beforehand, in your invitation!). Check out this one-page reference with some high-quality ground rules you may consider adapting and/or adopting for yourself.

This article is Part 4 of a 4-part series: Plan the Best Strategy Retreat of Your Career .

Here is the full set of articles from the series:

It’s showtime! You’ve defined success , prepared a straw model agenda , and then refined that agenda for engagement . You’ve done the work to intentionally set up your meeting for success, but there are some things you just can’t do in advance. Here are some tips to help you navigate (and avoid!) day-of challenges that may arise.

Keep the Meeting on Track

No matter how well you plan, topics and people will always threaten to derail the agenda. Side-conversations, venting, unrelated-but-still-important topics… the list of unplanned time-sinks goes on. Here are a few ways you can bring things back on track and keep your agenda central to the meeting.

If someone brings up an issue unrelated to the agenda, say something like, “I’m going to interrupt you for one second. This is an important topic but we didn’t plan to dig into this today. How about we add it to the parking lot to handle later?” Be prepared: To do this, you will need to have a parking lot. Before the meeting gets started, take a flip chart or white board and write Parking Lot on the top or in a virtual environment, use a section of the shared meeting notes.

Summary of Takeaways

Even the most perfectly planned strategy retreat will face unexpected hurdles. Success in the moment depends on your ability to read the room and stay flexible. Here are the core strategies for navigating "day-of" challenges:

Keep the Agenda Central: Topics like venting or side-conversations can easily derail your progress. Use a "Parking Lot" (a flip chart or digital space) to capture important but off-agenda items for later. If one voice is dominating, use a "Round Robin" to democratize the conversation or ask the speaker to "bottom-line" their point into two sentences.
Manage Attendance Changes Gracefully: If participants arrive late or leave early, continue with the group to value everyone’s time. For virtual attendees in a hybrid setting, assign an in-person "owner" to ensure they are included, and always solicit their input first to prevent them from feeling like an afterthought.
Read and Reset Energy: Anticipate natural energy slumps (like the 3 PM carb crash). For virtual sessions, use short 3–5 minute "leg-stretch" breaks and breakout rooms. In person, ask attendees to stand up for the next activity, change their seats to find new partners, or use applause as an energy booster.
Shift Passive Content When Energy Dips: Avoid solo reflection or "information dump" presentations when the room feels low-energy. These activities will collapse the momentum; instead, move them to earlier in the agenda or replace them with movement-based collaboration.
Prioritize Prevention: The best way to handle challenges is through established ground rules. Setting clear expectations for engagement at the start of the meeting provides a social contract that makes redirection much easier.

Plan the Best Strategy Retreat of Your Career - Part 3: Design Your Activities to Engage Your Attendees

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 22:12:00 GMT

Ill-designed activities risk a lot. Attendees check their phones, miss crucial information, get bored, or go to the restroom simply to stretch their legs. Because they see their role as passive, they show up late, leave early, and make comments like, “This could have been in an email,” and “I don’t even know why I’m here.” If the expectation is that people will offer input somewhere along the way, but they aren’t properly warmed up when the time comes, the best you can hope for is a few clarifying questions followed by some straggly thoughts and comments. At worst? Crickets. Or a very opinionated and dominant voice. Ultimately, the consequence of disengaged meeting attendees is a lack of buy-in to whatever you brought them together to discuss. That leads to a team that’s out of synch, low follow-through, and so on.

Engaging your attendees properly not only makes the meeting more stimulating for everyone, it creates a more productive discussion with more diverse viewpoints and greater overall buy-in.

How you engage attendees should be informed by the constraints of each individual agenda item. Here are a couple rules of thumb to help you think about your activity design:

Don’t skip setting ground rules, even if you think they’re implied. Build special time into your agenda to establish ground rules thoughtfully.
If you have prework, have a plan for those who didn’t do it.
Presentations where one person talks and everyone else listens should be limited to 10 minutes. If an “information push” is required, consider more interactive ways to transfer the information to attendees.
Turn off the slide deck and make your materials physical instead. Check out this one-page reference of Materials for Meeting Success .
Ramp up the “asks” for your audience over the course of the meeting. Don’t expect to start where you plan to finish. Check out this one-page reference on how to Ramp Up The Asks .
Give people time to think individually or in small groups before they contribute to the broader room. In fact, attendees should work in small groups of 3-6 as much as possible.
Assign roles like scribing, affinity-grouping ideas, handing out materials, or even leading portions of the discussion to attendees. Don’t have a single person act as lead, facilitator, and everything else.
Attendees should move in some way every 15-30 minutes. Movement should not be relegated to the breaks alone. This is even more important to consider for virtual meetings.
Plan some kind of break every 1.5-2 hours to give minds and bodies a chance to refresh.
Remember that everything will take longer than you expect it to. Plan in buffer time liberally. Plus, almost everything takes longer in the virtual space than the same thing done in person, so plan accordingly.

Up next, check out our article on facilitating your meeting. Explore how to navigate day-of adjustments and unexpected side conversations and still achieve success.

This article is Part 3 of a 4-part series: Plan the Best Strategy Retreat of Your Career .

Here is the full set of articles from the series:

So you defined success and developed a straw man agenda for your retreat. Now it’s time to get precise on each element of the agenda with an eye for how you will make it (actually) engaging. With our clients, we often see the default is to rely on leaders’ presentations and accompanying slide decks to carry the entire meeting. We see meeting coordinators and individual presenters focusing heavily on WHAT they plan to communicate, and less on HOW they plan to communicate it, explore it and make collective decisions based on it.

Truly engaging your audience takes a lot more effort and planning and, as a result, is often neglected. Even when planning committees make the choice to hold engagement and interactivity central to their design, the best they often come up with is a leader-led discussion followed by an “interactive Q&A” with everyone else. The trouble with this kind of design is that it is always rooted, fundamentally, in the idea that most of the people in the room are sitting back and listening for most of the time. The burden of mentally participating is placed squarely on the shoulders of the attendees rather than inspiring it by virtue of the meeting design.

Summary of Takeaways

A strategy retreat's success depends on moving from passive listening to active participation. Relying on "information pushes" through slide decks creates disengagement and erodes buy-in. To foster a productive, high-energy environment, apply these activity design rules of thumb:

The 10-Minute Presentation Limit: Avoid long lectures. If an information dump is necessary, limit it to 10 minutes or find interactive ways to transfer that knowledge. Replace slide decks with physical materials like flip charts and cards to make the experience more tactile.
"Ramp Up" the Asks: Don't expect attendees to dive into deep collaboration immediately. Design your meeting to gradually increase the level of participation and commitment required from the audience over the course of the day.
Prioritize Small Group Collaboration: Whenever possible, have attendees work in groups of 3–6. Provide time for individual reflection before asking for broad room contributions. This ensures more diverse viewpoints and prevents a single dominant voice from owning the conversation.
Incorporate Frequent Movement: Energy is a physical resource. Ensure attendees move in some way every 15–30 minutes and plan substantial breaks every 1.5–2 hours to refresh both mind and body.
Distribute Accountability: Don't let one person lead everything. Assign roles like scribing or material distribution to attendees to increase their sense of ownership.
Plan for Buffer Time: Everything takes longer than expected, especially in virtual settings. Build liberal buffers into your schedule to accommodate for rich, unscripted discussions without derailing the agenda.

Plan the Best Strategy Retreat of Your Career - Part 2: Develop a Straw Man Agenda

Wed, 13 Oct 2021 22:01:00 GMT

Then roll up your sleeves and prepare to get a little dirty. This is where it gets incredibly messy before you clean it up. Think about the journey your participants need to go on over the course of the retreat, and build out a row in your table for each step of that journey. Determine what they need to KNOW, FEEL, and DO first, second, third, and so on. Each row will be its own experience or agenda item, and each should have it’s own distinct purpose. Then, as best as you can, fill out the rest of your table to create your straw man agenda:

In the LEAD column, identify who is best suited to design, frame, and lead the agenda item. You may discover you’re relying too much on yourself or one other person to lead most of the agenda.
In the CONTRIBUTORS column, identify the people who will have relevant input to the discussion or activity. Pay attention to whether some of your attendees really only need to participate in a portion of the agenda.
In the TIME column, put down a best-guess estimate of how long you think it’ll take to achieve your KNOW, FEEL and DO objectives for that item. Don’t be conservative here, you want to see how time may be an issue, so let it run over in your first draft.
In the ACTIVITY column, add more detail around what you imagine the presenter and attendees will be doing. Here is where most of our clients put “presentation” or “report out” as a default and we’ll talk more about why that can be improved upon in the next article.

For many clients we work with, starting with the KNOW, FEEL, DO journey and putting the agenda items together afterwards can feel a bit backwards. They don’t have a KNOW, FEEL, DO in mind for every step of the retreat. Instead they have a list of presentations that they believe need to get through, and a series of questions they plan to pose to the group and have them discuss. Rather than thinking about the journey of the participants, they’re focused on the mechanics of getting through the checklist of TO DOs. The trouble with this approach is that it doesn’t keep the people at the meeting nor the outcomes as central to the planning and design. In fact, it may often make sense to have the information from the presentations be pre-reads instead, or the questions structured more as brainstorming or prioritization activities.

Once you have a first draft of your straw man agenda down, look it over once more keeping your overall KNOW, FEEL, DO in mind. Evaluate whether the agenda accomplishes what you need it to. Identify what might be missing. Pay attention to how agenda items are weighed relative to each other in terms of time spent, and determine if that weight is appropriate.

Next you want to take this high-level agenda flow, and get creative with it. Once you and your planning committee are aligned on every detail around each component of the agenda, you can start to divide and conquer the individual activities that will achieve your KNOW, FEEL, DO objectives. One way to delegate is to put whoever is supposed to LEAD it in charge of designing and developing it. That doesn’t always make sense, but it can be a good place to start.

In our work helping clients design their strategy retreats, we've come across plenty of draft agendas. Some are better than others. Download this file for two draft agendas that we've marked up with comments on their strengths and opportunities.

Up next, check out our article on designing activities for engagement and buy-in.

This article is Part 2 of a 4-part series: Plan the Best Strategy Retreat of Your Career .

Here is the full set of articles from the series:

If you’ve done your homework and your planning committee has aligned on the KNOW, FEEL, and DO objectives for your strategy retreat, the next step is developing an agenda. If you don’t yet have a macro-level KNOW, FEEL, and DO figured out, go back to that first. Read more about how to do that here .

Open the planning document with your refined KNOW, FELL and DO statements. Below them, make a table with 5 columns and label them with these headings:

Know, Feel, and Do | Lead | Contributors | Time | Activity

Summary of Takeaways

Once your high-level objectives are set, the next phase is building a participant-centered journey. Moving away from a simple "checklist of presentations," a straw man agenda focuses on the flow of experiences required to reach your goals. Here is how to structure it:

Focus on the Participant Journey: Instead of listing "report outs," define what participants need to KNOW, FEEL, and DO first, second, and third. Each agenda item should have its own distinct purpose that contributes to the overall success of the retreat.
Build a Detailed Planning Table: Create a draft table with five specific columns: Know/Feel/Do, Lead, Contributors, Time, and Activity . This structure forces you to identify who is best suited to facilitate, who needs to provide input, and how much time is truly required—without being conservative on your first time estimates.
Challenge the "Presentation" Default: If an item is listed as a presentation, ask if it could be a pre-read instead. Look for opportunities to turn passive listening into active brainstorming or prioritization. Keeping the people and the outcomes central ensures the agenda is a strategic tool rather than just a schedule.
Evaluate and Weigh the Flow: Once the draft is complete, review it against your macro-level objectives. Check for missing elements, ensure the time spent on each item is proportional to its importance, and then delegate the design of individual sections to the assigned leads.

Plan the Best Strategy Retreat of Your Career - Part 1: Define Success

Wed, 06 Oct 2021 21:55:00 GMT

At the end of this meeting, attendees should...

KNOW…
FEEL…
DO…

Then complete the statements.

Begin with a rough draft to get some words on paper. Then do your best to make these statements as specific as possible. Instead of something like, at the end of this meeting, attendees should take action, be specific about exactly what action they should take. For example, if the objective of the meeting is to encourage leaders to have better relationships with their direct reports, consider something like, at the end of this meeting, attendees should block time on their calendars to connect one-on-one with each member of their team before the end of the month. The more specific you can make your stated goals, the more refined and focused your meeting will be, and the easier it will be to design.

Gather Input

It’s easy to get caught up in what you (or your boss, or the planning committee) think the meeting should be about. Check your perspective against others by conducting interviews with the expected attendees. Without having an exact register of who will be invited or not, you probably already have a general sense of who will (or should) be there. Pick a few folks from the group and ask them a series of questions aimed at finding out the critical issues that need to be discussed, prioritized, decided upon, etc.

Potential Interview Questions:

What are our three most important strategic priorities today?
What is the biggest barrier to achieving our goals? Internal or External?
What is the organization/team’s greatest strength?
What is the organization/team’s greatest opportunity?
When you think about the work we do, what makes you most excited?
What is absolutely critical to include in the agenda?
What should people know, feel and do as a result of the retreat?
What else should I know?

Gathering input ahead of time is critical to avoiding side-conversations or unexpected twists in the discussion that could seriously derail your agenda during the retreat, and potentially impact productivity. By gathering input, you will know ahead of time which topic areas need air time and where the priorities are. Additionally, by checking in with everyone in advance, you “warm up the room” even before the retreat starts.

Synthesize Your Findings and Refine the KNOW, FEEL, and DO

Once you’ve gathered input, go back to your planning document and write down your main takeaways from the interviews. Note down themes that bubbled up, or areas where everyone seemed to have a different opinion. Consider questions like these:

What are the issues that everybody called out?
What are the areas of potential misalignment?
What are the individual and group expectations?
Where are the areas where people are excited to contribute or collaborate?
What is the story that’s starting to manifest?

In our work helping clients design their strategy retreats, we've come across lots of KNOW, FEEL, DO statements. Some are better than others. Download this one-pager if you’re interested in some examples of statements we've seen in the past, and how we've improved upon them so they can better guide the design of the retreat.

This article is Part 1 of a 4-part series: Plan the Best Strategy Retreat of Your Career .

Here is the full set of articles from the series:

The most important thing you need to do once you’ve broadly identified the need for a strategy retreat is to define success . There are a few ways to do this, but the crux of this step is to make sure you and your team are aligned on the “why” for the retreat. Why is it happening? Why should people show up? Why should they care? Why should they contribute? Don’t just focus on the routine… we’re meeting because that’s what we do every year. Instead, aim to uncover why this retreat specifically needs to happen this year. Although you may already have a cursory idea of agenda topics, this step should take you beyond thinking about “what” you’re doing, and bring focus and sophistication to your meeting design.

Draft the Know, Feel, Do

Open up a blank planning document or piece of paper that you’ll use to take notes. At the top, write:

Summary of Takeaways

The most critical step in planning a strategy retreat is moving beyond the "routine" and clearly defining its specific purpose. To transition from a standard annual meeting to a sophisticated, high-impact gathering, follow this three-step alignment process:

Draft Your "Know, Feel, Do": Start by completing these statements: "At the end of this meeting, attendees should KNOW ..., FEEL ..., and DO ..." Be hyper-specific. Instead of "taking action," define a concrete task, such as blocking time for 1-on-1s. These objectives provide the focus needed to design every subsequent activity.
Gather External Input: Don't plan in a vacuum. Interview key participants to uncover the "real" strategic priorities, barriers, and opportunities. Asking questions like "What is the organization's greatest strength?" or "What is critical to include?" helps you "warm up the room" and prevents agenda-derailing surprises during the event.
Synthesize and Refine: Use the themes and misalignments discovered in your interviews to update your "Know, Feel, Do" statements. This final refinement ensures that your retreat’s goals are grounded in the actual needs and expectations of the team, creating a clear "red thread" for the entire event.

Build a Library of Customer Success Stories

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 21:42:00 GMT

Recently we delivered our Influential Storytelling program to a sales team that was interested in the content for two reasons: They understood the value of storytelling in their sales process and wanted to bone up their skillset, but they also saw storytelling as a crucial part of developing internal institutional knowledge about the product, their customer success stories, and more. As the company grew, the sales team was experiencing a lot of turnover. The Director of Sales wanted to capture and codify the institutional stories that everyone on the team should be familiar with and leverage in the sales process

With this objective in mind, we recommended they establish two routines after exploring our Influential Storytelling content. The first was to create a recurring agenda item during the monthly all-sales review where team members could volunteer to tell a customer success story, and receive actionable feedback. The feedback would focus on two simple questions:

What was compelling and worked about the story?
What could the storyteller experiment with to make it more influential?

This ongoing routine helps to reinforce the Influential Storytelling concepts, creates recurring opportunities to practice storytelling, and has been crucial in shifting the mindset of the salespeople from feature-based and fee-based selling to story-based selling.

The second routine focused on increasing the team’s collective resources; team members who had stories that were considered relevant and shareable pieces of institutional knowledge were encouraged to record their stories for a video library. Over time, this “story library” has grown and continues to become more valuable as a resource for people across the company—not just the sales team!

As you think about your own organization, consider the value of capturing stories for institutional knowledge that can be leveraged by several employees. If a video library presents too many barriers, these alternatives may make more sense as a starting point:

A shared file with quick one-liners and a note about who to talk to for more information
A shared file of written anecdotes
A folder of audio files of recorded stories
Internal podcast of recorded interviews with those who lived the stories

Whatever you decide works for you, what’s important is you make the choice to build your library, and continue to revisit it over time. The value of the resource will increase with every story.

Sales teams understand the value of storytelling when navigating the sales process. It’s well-known within the sales community that customers make purchasing decisions because of something emotional that happens below the surface: maybe they were inspired, they like the salesperson, or someone else they know made that decision too. Obviously, a salesperson also knows that they need to arm the potential customer with all the data and information to justify their choice, but in a lot of cases, it’s the emotional connection that makes the sale.

And one of the best ways to create an emotional connection is through story.

Summary of Takeaways

While data justifies a purchase, emotional connection—often forged through storytelling—is what truly closes a sale. To turn individual wins into institutional knowledge, organizations should build a structured "story library" using these methods:

Establish a Storytelling Routine: Make storytelling a recurring agenda item in team meetings. Have members share a customer success story and provide feedback based on two questions: What was compelling? and What could be more influential? This shifts the team mindset from feature-based selling to story-based selling.
Codify Institutional Knowledge: As companies grow or experience turnover, critical product and customer insights are often lost. By recording these stories into a video or audio library, you create a permanent, scalable resource that benefits the entire company, not just the sales team.
Lower the Barrier to Entry: Building a library doesn't have to be high-tech. If video feels daunting, start with a shared file of written anecdotes, a folder of voice memos, or even an internal podcast featuring interviews with those who lived the success stories. The goal is to start capturing value now and iterate over time.

Getting to the Point: The Art of Bottom-Lining

Wed, 08 Sep 2021 16:52:00 GMT

And then it resurfaced once more in the context of facilitating a meeting. Bottom-lining is one of the most effective ways that a facilitator can keep the conversation on task, redirect tangents, stick to agenda and time, and engage participants. If you have a particularly chatty participant, asking them to bottom-line their contribution helps them cut out the unnecessary storytelling and asides. If you or others in the meeting have trouble understanding a participant’s point, asking them to bottom-line will help clarify what their message is. And as a facilitator, by reiterating what you hear a participant say as a single, succinct bottom line will help verify that you (and others in the room) are interpreting things correctly.

But how can you set up bottom-lining as a ground rule and skill in your meetings?

First, get permission from the room at the outset. Tell them that you will be asking people to bottom line their contributions, and why it’s important that this be a ground rule that you set.
Then, ask the participants to hold each other accountable. Give them permission to ask others to bottom line too.
Finally, agree on a hand signal that you can all use to communicate the desire for participants to bottom line their input. This way folks don’t have to verbally interrupt someone who is speaking, they can simply leverage the hand gesture to make the request.

Bottom-lining is a skill that takes time to develop , so give your participants some grace the first few times you ask them to do it. That being said, by establishing a culture of bottom-lining, your team will be able to more succinctly, more efficiently, and more clearly communicate with each other.

When do you imagine bottom-lining would be an effective tool for you?

When Stephanie went through training to become an executive coach, she learned about her responsibility to ensure the conversation is spent on high-value conversation, and not wasted in storytelling and context setting that isn’t necessary for the coach or coachee to further and deepen their understanding. This skill is called bottom-lining. As a coach, it’s important to distill your contribution to the conversation down to straightforward pointed questions, or make an observation without droning on. But it’s also important to hold your client to the same standards, point out when they’re storytelling, and ask them to get to the point.

This skill resurfaced for Stephanie when we codified our point of view on influential storytelling. We often talk about the Super Power we call “Pick One Theme,” which is essentially all about making sure the story has a clear, focused point, and the context that is provided in the story is only that which is necessary to help the audience understand and internalize that point.

Summary of Takeaways

"Bottom-lining" is the skill of distilling a contribution down to its most essential, straightforward point. Whether you are coaching, storytelling, or facilitating, this technique ensures that time is spent on high-value conversation rather than unnecessary context. Here is how to master the art:

Distill for Clarity: Bottom-lining is about removing the "fluff." In storytelling, this aligns with the superpower of Picking One Theme —providing only the context necessary to help the audience internalize your main point. In meetings, it helps redirect tangents and keeps the group focused on the agenda.
Use it as a Facilitation Tool: As a leader, you can use bottom-lining to manage "chatty" participants or clarify complex ideas. By restating a participant's input as a single, succinct "bottom line," you verify that everyone in the room has a shared and correct understanding.
Establish it as a Ground Rule: To integrate this into your team culture, get explicit permission at the start of a meeting. Explain why bottom-lining matters and encourage participants to hold each other accountable.
Leverage Non-Verbal Cues: To keep the flow of the meeting without constant verbal interruptions, agree on a simple hand signal that indicates a request for the speaker to "bottom-line" their point. This creates a more efficient and respectful communication environment.

Bootstrapped Founders - How to Craft the Story Behind Your Business

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 16:47:00 GMT

1. Create a rough draft.

You already tell a version of your story even if you haven’t prepared and you’re not confident about it. Imagine somebody asking you one of the above questions and write down an answer to it. If putting pen to paper is challenging, don’t let that get in the way! Make an audio recording of yourself and then transcribe it. The point at this step of the process is to simply get something down - don’t worry about editing or refining it to perfection just yet.

2. Pinpoint your theme or main takeaway.

Having a theme in mind will help you stay on track and avoid tangents. With preparation, knowing your theme becomes a true super power. With a clear idea of what you want people to take away from this story, review your draft and eliminate every piece of context and action that doesn't relate to or build upon your theme. And make sure you close your story by reinforcing this main point.

3. Make it visual.

If your audience can picture your story while they listen, the story becomes easier to follow and experiential. This makes what you share more memorable. Consider your story as a series of scenes. For each scene, make sure you include some sensory details as well as time and place indicators to make your story more cinematic.

4. Practice and get feedback.

Just like the design process that you use for your product or service, think about your story development as an exercise in rapid prototyping. Take an early draft and share it aloud with someone safe like a friend or colleague. Once you’ve shared it, ask them questions to help you refine your message:

What did you take away from this story?
If I want you to take away [your theme], what should I include or remove?
What was powerful about the story?
What felt unnecessary or extra?

Your story will continue to evolve as your strategy shifts over time and your business grows, but you’ll be surprised by how much your “why” stays the same and this will soon become a go-to story.

In the meantime, if you’re struggling in your story development anywhere in the process, join us at a free Story Hour to get some insights and experiments to try.

As bootstrapped founders, we may not find ourselves about to give a formal pitch in front of suited VCs, but we do constantly interact with potential customers, partners and other stakeholders in our networks. Every one of these people should know what you do and most importantly why you do it.

You’ll know it’s time to tell a story about what you do and why when you get questions like these:

Why did you start your business?
What are you up to lately?
Tell me about yourself

Here’s how you can craft a version of your story that will feel authentic and extemporaneous, but also be an influential and powerful representation of you and your business...

Summary of Takeaways

The shift to a hybrid work model requires leaders to evolve beyond traditional "in-office" management styles. To maintain connection and performance in a virtual/in-person mix, focus on these four strategies:

Practice Mindful Leadership: In a cycle of back-to-back meetings and potential burnout, mindfulness is essential. This means shifting from a reactive to a strategic mindset, being truly present in every interaction, and respecting the boundaries of both yourself and your team.
Leverage Audio-Only Moments: Not every meeting requires video. Transitioning to phone calls can reduce screen fatigue, allow for better focus on content without the distraction of self-image, and even enable "walking meetings" to improve physical and mental health.
Reinvent Team Building: Move past the "Friday Pizza" model. Since remote employees can feel secondary in hybrid settings, experiment with inclusive alternatives like virtual coffees or localized activities where members share stories afterward.
Proactively Recreate "Hallway Coaching": Ad-hoc feedback moments have vanished in hybrid work. To prevent team members from feeling isolated or like a burden, establish dedicated "Office Hours" or routine ad-hoc check-ins to provide the guidance and encouragement that used to happen naturally in person.

SKYBOUND Leadership Podcast: Lead Through Storytelling

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 21:26:00 GMT

In this episode of SKYBOUND Leadership, Glen Taylor interviews Stephanie about how to lead through storytelling. They discuss why telling stories is important for leaders, what keeps us all from storytelling more often, and break down some of the skills of influential storytelling.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Three Activities to Drive Alignment in a Meeting

Wed, 11 Aug 2021 16:28:00 GMT

The other day Stephanie’s sister called her for advice on how to run a meeting she was planning. As a product manager at a big tech firm, she spends a lot of her time managing stakeholders, driving alignment, and leading through influence rather than authority. This particular meeting was going to require all three skills. Her big questions were:

How should we go forward now that the experiment we tried is definitely not working?
What should our priorities be?
Which strategic bet do we want to invest in, and with how much of our resources?

Her plan was to essentially pose these questions to the group, and then have a discussion about each one. Stephanie immediately asked her if there would be any implicit or explicit power dynamics in the room, and whether any person in the group was considerably more extroverted than the others.

You see, her big challenge wasn’t identifying the right question to ask. She had good, open-ended questions that were straightforward enough and easy to understand (although hard to answer). Her challenge was making sure that the ideas that surfaced were all given a fair shake, that no one voice dominated the conversation, and that her process guaranteed the best ideas would bubble to the top.

Here are some fun tricks we recommended to her that day, and ones you can consider for your own meetings:

1. Anonymize the input

One of the best ways to make sure ideas all start off on equal footing is to make sure they are disassociated from the person who came up with the idea. There’s a lot of complexity in power dynamics, willingness to speak up in a group, and how much airspace a person occupies (consciously or unconsciously) that will influence how ideas are perceived. By anonymizing the idea generation, all ideas begin on equal ground. One way to do that is to provide everyone in the room with a stack of sticky notes. Tell each person to generate several ideas, putting each idea on its own sticky note. Then throw all the sticky notes up on a wall together without anyone saying a thing out loud.

2. Identify popular ideas with democratic “voting” strategies

A great way to grab a pulse check of the room and determine where there are areas of alignment or misalignment is to have people “vote” on ideas. A low-fidelity way of doing that is to give everyone 2-3 “check marks” and tell them to put a check next to the 2-3 ideas they think are best. This will surface which ideas are clear “winners” and which warrant more conversation or debate. What’s great about this technique is that everyone’s voice is awarded equal weight, irrespective of how talkative they are.

3. Play Devil’s Advocate

Sometimes the challenge with debating the relative merits of a variety of ideas is that people are too polite to be candid, or they may see so much nuance and complexity in the ideas that there is no obvious best idea. In these cases, consider setting up a debate challenge where people in the room are tasked with arguing whole-heartedly for a specific idea for 5-8 minutes. Set up teams. Have groups align on a debate strategy and actually award the team that makes the best arguments. Consider assigning people randomly to an idea rather than having them opt into the one they already support the most… this will encourage people to consider other viewpoints, and will more likely drive the alignment you’re seeking.

No matter what problem you’re trying to solve, these strategies will help your multi-stakeholder groups find alignment and focus their discussions where it matters most.

What strategies and techniques help you drive alignment in your meetings?

Critical Stories to Pitch Your Company or Product

Wed, 04 Aug 2021 16:21:00 GMT

Every founder, entrepreneur or sales person should prepare at least 3 of these critical stories to include when pitching their company or product. In the course of your pitch, you’ll probably address all of these topics, but having prepared stories for a least a few of them will make loads of difference:

How you discovered the problem you solve
Why you decided to tackle the problem
The scope of the problem you solve
Why you (or your team) are uniquely qualified to solve the problem
The inspiration for your solution
How your product/service makes a difference for your customer or user
What you have learned so far

How to Begin

Start with one story at a time. Use a notebook, google doc, index cards, or whatever tool that will help you put some ideas down. Try not to edit yourself while you’re beginning; let yourself include too many details. Once you have a too-long, rough first draft, apply the Super Powers : Keep it Real, Engage Emotion, Invite Curiosity and Pick One Theme . Refine your story by sharing it with someone who will give you feedback. Identify where you want to use it in your pitch process. And then practice and start tackling the rest of the stories.

What are your critical stories? How do you prepare to use them when you pitch?

This article was also published on LinkedIn .

Every founder, CEO, or sales person has to pitch their company or product, but to their detriment, not all of them bring a story to do so. The pitch is an obvious structure. It’s easy to meet the baseline expectations here. But if you want to be noticed and remembered, inspire people with your vision, prove your passion, paint a picture and ultimately gain champions, storytelling—specifically influential storytelling—is a valuable skill to have in your tool belt.

Three Critical Stories

Summary of Takeaways

Data and technical specs provide the logic for a purchase, but stories provide the inspiration and emotional connection that make a pitch memorable. To stand out and gain champions, every founder or salesperson should have at least three of these critical stories ready:

Identify the Origin and Purpose: Be prepared to tell the story of how you discovered the problem you solve and why you specifically decided to tackle it. This proves your passion and unique qualifications to lead the solution.
Paint a Picture of Impact: Don't just list features; tell a story that illustrates the scope of the problem and how your product/service makes a tangible difference for the user. A well-placed story about the inspiration for your solution can help the audience visualize the "future state" you are offering.
Refine Through "Super Powers": To make your stories truly influential, apply four key principles: Keep it Real (authenticity), Engage Emotion , Invite Curiosity , and Pick One Theme . Start with a rough draft, include plenty of detail, and then edit down to the most impactful core message.

Build Trust and Candor into your Meeting

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 21:55:00 GMT

The First quality is Permission

A good meeting, interaction, or gathering is first characterized by the permission we give to its participants. The permission to say or ask anything is priceless. With this permission, we’re allowed to ask for what we need, speak up about issues when we feel the need, offer feedback to others, and be unfiltered about it in the process.

When leading a meeting, talk about permissions explicitly—don’t assume it’s implied. Ask permission for what you need as the facilitator of the group, and discuss what permissions the group needs from you to be effective together.

As a leader, consider asking permission to:

refocus the conversation when it diverges or gets repetitive
call on people who have not spoken recently
hold people back if they are dominating the conversation
ask clarifying questions when you need someone to elaborate
pause to reassess agenda topics or timing

Remind your participants they have the permission to:

ask questions
invite colleagues into the conversation if they have not spoken
ask to spend extra time on a topic
ask other people to say more about where they stand on an issue
express concerns that haven’t been fully addressed

The second quality is Safety.

Even if your meeting participants have permission to contribute fully, they also need to feel safe enough to do so. Psychological safety is largely based on the previous experiences and history the participants of your meeting have with you and each other. Breaking habits that cause people to feel uncomfortable can take a while, but naming those habits, ensuring you hold the boundaries as a facilitator, and establish new behaviors designed to create psychological safety will eventually lead to broader and deeper conversations with the people you meet with.

Here are some habits and ground rules to establish:

Make explicit the expectation of respect and confidentiality/discretion from the group.
Ask the group to devote their full attention to each person who speaks.
Hold the space for each person to take their time and complete their thoughts.
Ask follow-up questions for clarity if necessary.
Give credit to and build on each other’s comments.
Invite people into the conversation who have not spoken.
Encourage collaborative brainstorming to problem solve.
Avoid blaming.
Honor all opinions equally.
Answer any and all questions truthfully.
Summarize what has been learned as the meeting comes to an end.
Have each person explain the actions they will take and provide suggestions to others as well.
Acknowledge the quality of the conversation and thank the group for it.

In the process of having more candid, mutually respectful conversations, your team members will feel like their voices are heard and they are seen for who they are. They will become more cohesive and work together more powerfully. They may even start looking forward to your meetings.

There are two of us running Wolf & Heron. Our partnership is the foundation of our business. It shapes our work, how we show up for our clients, how we run meetings and what we put out into the world. Leaders watch our partnership in action and notice the trust, honesty, and candor between us and how that creates the space for both of us to be the best versions of ourselves. “How do we do that?” they ask. “What’s the secret?”

The answer lies in two important qualities of how we work together, and these qualities are transferable to any meeting you may have at work. If done well, over time they’ll manifest incredible trust and candor within your team.

Summary of Takeaways

Trust and candor are the foundation of any high-performing partnership or team, but they don't happen by accident. To create a space where people can be their best versions, you must intentionally build two qualities into your meetings:

Explicit Permission: Don't assume that participants know they have the right to speak up. As a facilitator, explicitly ask for permission to refocus the group, call on quiet voices, or pause the agenda. Simultaneously, remind participants they have permission to ask tough questions, invite colleagues into the fold, and express unaddressed concerns.
Psychological Safety: Permission is useless without safety. Establish ground rules that protect the group, such as ensuring full attention for every speaker, avoiding blame, and building on each other's ideas rather than tearing them down.
Consistency Builds Cohesion: Breaking old habits takes time. By consistently naming productive behaviors and holding the boundaries as a facilitator, you transition the team from "just another meeting" to a cohesive unit where members feel seen, heard, and valued.

Keep It Real: The Power of Authenticity in Stories

Tue, 06 Jul 2021 21:43:00 GMT

What does “Keeping it Real” look like in a story?

Here are some things to consider when crafting stories you will tell at work:

Make sure you’re not always the infallible hero. We are more likely to believe in and support the underdog.
Keep the story specific to your own experience. Speak in the first person instead of using “you” or “one.”
Be specific in your details. Say, “I was working from 7am to midnight every day” instead of “I was working long days.”)
Linger on the emotional, physical, intellectual or spiritual conflict within the story. Don’t rush through this! It’s the most interesting part of any story.
Expand upon moments of uncertainty or doubt. Describe the possible outcomes and the risks involved.
Lean into descriptions of the physiological experience connected to the emotions of the story. Instead of saying, “She was frustrated,” try, “Her jaw clenched shut and a small growl escaped from her throat.”

How do you know you’ve been successful?

Before “performing” your story at work or in front of any size audience, test whether or not you’re showing up authentically. One way is to get feedback from others; share your story with a peer. Watch for positive, interested body language as you tell your story. Often a story that effectively invites the audience in and builds rapport will result in people leaning in, nodding, and expressing mirror emotions. Then, when you’re finished, ask, “Where did I reveal something about myself? Where did I hold back?”

A note on authenticity and leadership

We often work with leaders who express a reluctance to show up as “imperfect.” They feel an undue amount of pressure to “have the answer” or “know what to do.” Leaders that ask for HELP from their teams rather than simply DIRECT them are more inspiring, more engaging, and more effective.

When can you practice bringing more of your authentic self and experience to stories and/or to your work?

This article was also posted on Linkedin .

Why should you “Keep It Real”?

Authenticity and vulnerability are important elements of storytelling and leadership. In our Influential Storytelling workshops, participants explore the Four Super Powers of an Influential Storyteller. The first of these four is “Keep it Real,” which centers on the fact that a storyteller (and/or leader) must show up authentically and with a touch of vulnerability to be perceived as a trustworthy and likeable communicator.

A story that is personally relevant to, and reveals an authentic truth about the storyteller encourages the audience to connect with the storyteller on a human level. This authentic connection is incredibly powerful when it comes to influencing and leading others; it allows for the possibility that the audience will support, root for, buy into, or be led by the storyteller.

Summary of Takeaways

We often feel pressure to show up as "perfect" versions of ourselves in professional settings, but true influence comes from the opposite: authenticity . In storytelling, being real is what builds the bridge of trust between you and your audience. Here is how to keep it real:

Vulnerability is a Strength: Influence requires a connection, and connection requires vulnerability. When you share your mistakes, doubts, or "messy" moments, you humanize yourself. This makes your audience more likely to listen to your message and trust your leadership.
Avoid the "Hero" Trap: If you are always the hero of your own stories, you distance yourself from your listeners. Instead, be the "learner." Sharing what you got wrong—and what you learned from it—is far more relatable and impactful than a story about a flawless victory.
The "Internal Dialogue" Technique: To make a story feel authentic, don’t just describe what happened outside of you. Share what was happening inside your head. Describing your internal monologue or your physiological reactions (like a racing heart) creates an emotional experience for the listener.
Authenticity Requires Intentionality: Keeping it real doesn't mean "oversharing." Choose vulnerable details that serve the main point of your story and help the audience understand the "why" behind your message.
Build Psychological Safety: When a leader shows up authentically, it signals to the rest of the organization that they can do the same. This creates a culture of honesty and psychological safety that drives better collaboration and results.

The Bottom Line: Your audience doesn't need you to be perfect; they need you to be human. By leaning into authenticity, you transform a simple anecdote into an influential tool that wins hearts and minds.

How to Open Your Meeting

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 21:40:00 GMT

The first 3-5 minutes of your meeting are your opportunity to make sure all those expectations and assumptions are aligned across the group, and folks are motivated to participate. You can do a lot in a few minutes; aim to establish operating norms or ground rules, share the agenda, and perhaps most importantly of all, set the tone. It’s in these 3-5 minutes that your attendees will make a decision about how much or little they will engage as participants and it’s your job to invite them in properly.

What is a good opening?

A good opening accomplishes a few things. It:

Frames the discussion, taking into consideration the “what’s in it for me?” for attendees
Establishes the meeting objectives
Highlights the key outcome of the meeting
Sets ground rules and norms for engagement

The DOs and DON’Ts of Opening

DOs

Take a breath and focus yourself.
Know your first sentence cold.
Be absolutely crystal clear on the goal of the meeting.
Co-create norms if possible.
Determine ahead of time the kind of energy you want people to FEEL by the end of your opening.

DON’Ts

Forget to prepare an intentional opening.
Jump right into the work without delivering an opening.
Start with a long-winded introduction of yourself (save it for later, if need be).
Use “Let’s get started.”
Skimp on reviewing ground rules - even if you think the norms are well established.
Focus on what you care about and forget your attendees’ agendas/priorities.

Using a Story to Open

As storytellers, we may be biased, but we strongly recommend that you consider including a story in your opening. An opening story can be just 2-3 minutes long, and helps establish the WHY of your meeting. Think of it as an opportunity to share something about yourself with the group), demonstrate the level of vulnerability and authenticity you expect others to show up with, and ground the room in the compelling reason for the meeting

Your openings are important. Think of them as the “first impression” that you get to craft for your meeting. Don’t skimp on your prep. It matters.

How have you seen someone open a meeting powerfully? What did they do well?

This article was also posted on LinkedIn .

In The Secret to a Great Hook , we talk about ways to open your story well. The first sentence really matters, and it’s worth the time to think about how to do it powerfully.

But strong openings don’t exclusively apply to storytelling. Openings are just as important when it comes to how you run your meetings.

Why Does Your Opening Matter?

When you gather your team for a weekly alignment session, stand up to give a presentation to your board, or plan a conference… No matter how big or small or mundane your meeting is, your attendees arrive with a set of expectations, assumptions, and preconceived notions.

Summary of Takeaways

The first 3–5 minutes of any meeting are your "first impression." This window is your opportunity to align assumptions and motivate participation. To open powerfully, focus on these essentials:

Frame the "Why": Clearly establish the meeting objectives and the key desired outcome. More importantly, frame the discussion around "what’s in it for them"—how does this meeting serve the attendees’ priorities?
Establish Norms Early: Don't skip the ground rules, even with a regular team. Setting expectations for engagement (and co-creating them when possible) ensures everyone is playing by the same rules.
Know Your "Hook": Just like in storytelling, your first sentence matters. Know it cold. Avoid filler phrases like "Let’s get started" and instead launch with purpose.
Use a "Micro-Story": Consider a 2–3 minute story to anchor the meeting's purpose. Sharing a vulnerable or authentic moment can humanize you as a leader and signal the level of authenticity you expect from others.
Manage the Energy: Decide ahead of time how you want people to feel by the end of your opening. Whether you need excitement, focus, or calm, your opening sets the emotional thermostat for the rest of the hour.

The Bottom Line: Don’t jump straight into the work. By taking a breath and delivering an intentional opening, you transform a mundane gathering into a focused, high-engagement session.

The Secret to a Great Hook

Mon, 14 Jun 2021 21:24:00 GMT

Nail your opening, or else.

Do we have your attention yet?

Opening a story or presentation is one of the most difficult yet essential things to nail down in advance. At our Story Hours, or during a coaching session, it’s very common for storytellers to begin with, “Uh... okay,” “My story is about…” or the ever classic, “So…”

It’s common to begin with a half-baked plan, and it’s not surprising because most people are still crafting the story in their heads while they are speaking. The moment may be extemporaneous or just unplanned and the slow start is an inevitable side effect. But it’s time to develop some strategies to avoid showing up like you’re not sure what you’re talking about.

Here are a few tricks to a confident, powerful opening:

Take a big breath before you begin. This slows your heart rate, stabilizes your vocal support, and will literally ground you and make you more confident.
Dive right in. Avoid filler words and long-winded explanations. Just start.
Consider beginning your story or presentation in the middle of the drama. Get your audience interested in the problem before you back up and provide context.
Start with something unexpected or unusual. Play around with the 5Ps of Story Delivery to capture your audience.
Ask a rhetorical question. Our brains have a hard time NOT answering a question that is posed to us, even if it’s just in our heads. Starting with a question immediately engages your audience’s minds… just don’t ask the question “Can I tell you a story?”
Start in a scene with a specific time and place, and vivid sensory details. Help folks visualize something immediately.
Consider memorizing your first sentence so you know exactly how you will begin.

In full disclosure, a great hook and strong opening is more of an art than a science, so while these tips will help, to really master your opening, you have to experiment and ask for feedback from others. Don’t wait until you’re facing the most important presentation of your life before considering how to open.

What do you use to hook your audience at the beginning of a story or presentation at work?

This article has been cross published on LinkedIn .

The 5 Ps of Influential Delivery

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 19:21:00 GMT

Changemaker Spotlight: Stephanie Judd, Co-Founder of Wolf & Heron

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 19:29:00 GMT

Stephanie Judd sat down with ChangeMakers For Chaffee to discuss her decision to launch Wolf & Heron, her commitment to Buena Vista, and ways that she hopes to see Chaffee County grow through entrepreneurialism.

READ THE ARTICLE

Influential Storytelling: Transform a simple anecdote into a tool that inspires.

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 18:19:00 GMT

White Paper

Influential Storytelling: Transform a simple anecdote into a tool that inspires

Read our detailed point of view on what makes a story influential, and how to craft your own influential stories.

Unpack the Pursuit: The Power of Influential Storytelling

Wed, 22 Jul 2020 21:25:00 GMT

In this episode for Unpack the Pursuit, Stephanie sat down with Molly Shunney to discuss the power of influential storytelling, and a knack for storytelling led her and Kara to carve a path of influence.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Business Beyond Usual: Finding Your Voice with Story Lab

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 21:27:00 GMT

Wolf & Heron partners with the Sanger Leadership Center at Michigan Ross to produce the Story Lab Program. This program is a phenomenal leadership development experience that allows students the opportunity to explore the art and science of storytelling, and craft their own personal stories for maximum impact.

In this special episode of Business Beyond Usual, a podcast hosted by Michigan Ross, we explore the power of storytelling. What can a good story accomplish, and how do we go about crafting one?

On this podcast you hear from Stephanie Judd, the storytelling expert, and two student storytellers at Michigan Ross involved in Sanger’s Story Lab program. One student even shares a compelling story of her own developed during the Story Lab program.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Brain Scoop: Can Great Leadership Be Taught?

Sat, 25 Jan 2020 22:20:00 GMT

Stephanie Judd sat down with Luke Yates of Brain Scoop to discuss her background, her decision to launch Wolf & Heron, and some of the ways she has pushed her own limits along the journey of entrepreneurship.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp: Finding Your Influence with Stephanie Judd

Mon, 25 Nov 2019 23:15:00 GMT

Stephanie Judd sat down with Lucas Casarez of Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp and LEVEL UP Financial Planning . She shared her story from her tech origins to helping leaders and team members to be more influential.

Some of the topics the two discuss are:

Dark Side and Light Side of Influence
From CS graduate to the real world
How she navigated the feeling of being underqualified
The 9 sources of influence power
Influence pathways
Relationships being the most valuable currency
Why storytelling is so effective
Skills from tech that help her today
Importance of finding community

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Meet Stephanie Judd of Wolf & Heron in Buena Vista

Tue, 03 Sep 2019 22:43:00 GMT

Read an in-depth interview of Stephanie Judd by VoyageDenver, a magazine that aims to uncover Denver’s most inspiring stories.

In this interview, Stephanie discusses her entrepreneurial journey with Wolf & Heron, her roots, her hopes for the company, and some of the challenges she and her business partner Kara have faced along the way.

READ THE ARTICLE

Four Things to Remember to be an Influential Storyteller

Tue, 21 Mar 2017 16:35:00 GMT

As human beings, we’re neurologically wired for stories - it’s been the primary mode of information transfer for most of human history, and as a result, we remember stories and the details associated with them far more effectively than any other kind of information. Stories present information in a controlled way, and bring the audience along by having them participate in the story through emotional and intellectual engagement.

However… if you want to use a story to actually influence someone, then we’re talking about taking stories to another level of awesome sauce. When you’re trying to influence, you’re not just trying to get your audience to remember your message - you want them to think or act differently as a result.

When it comes to influence science, there’s research out there that highlights how people make decisions, why they make the decisions they make, and what we can do to shift those decisions just a little to the left or right, up or down. But in the end, it really comes down to one core truth - you can influence people if they like and trust you. And an effective story, well-placed and craftily designed, will make the liking and trusting more likely.

SO… how do you tell a story that changes the hearts and minds of your audience? Use these four Super Powers:

Pick One Theme is about keeping your story simple. Focusing on one central concept helps your audience stay focused on what is important. In the digital age of information inundation, simplicity is a key super power to having your message heard.

Getting to a place where you can tell influential stories in an instant takes time. Start collecting stories that you can tell, and practice using the four super powers with a friendly audience. Get feedback. Influential storytelling is a skill set you can practice and if you take the time to master it, you’ll be moving mountains before you know it!

Invite Curiosity

relates to our natural human interest in solving a mystery or problem solving. We want to learn and discover. We don’t want to be told the answer (even if sometimes we think it would be easier that way). By telling a story that invites your audience to come along for the ride and discover the details bit by bit, they will stay engaged and focused on what you’re trying to communicate.

Engage Emotions
is the super power that will cause your audience to experience the narrative rather than just process it cerebrally. Our brains remember experiences way better than analytical information, so by anchoring your concepts to emotions, they become better integrated into our memory… remember, we call emotions “feelings” because they are physiological experiences that are felt. Now, with a physical experience to back up your message, your audience will be more likely to remember, and therefore do something about, what you’re trying to communicate.

Keep It Real

is the super power that’s easiest to forget or ignore. It’s rooted in the idea that by telling your story, you are also trying to get to a place where your audience likes and trusts you. After all, that’s the most important factor in whether or not you will be influential. Keep It Real requires that you choose stories that are personally relevant to you that you can clearly and authentically connect with. Human beings have “fake-dar” on all the time, and will instantly know if the story you’re telling is something meaningful to you or not. If you come across as inauthentic, your audience will be lost to you before you even get started. Tell a story that means something personal to you, and your audience will connect to you and care about what you care about.

Summary of Takeaways

Humans are neurologically wired for stories, but moving from "sharing information" to "influencing action" requires a higher level of craft. To change hearts and minds, leverage these four "Super Powers":

Pick One Theme: Simplicity is vital in an age of information overload. Keep your story focused on a single central concept to ensure your audience absorbs the core message without distraction.
Invite Curiosity: We are natural problem-solvers. Instead of simply providing an answer, design your story to be a mystery that the audience solves along with you. This keeps them engaged and intellectually invested in the journey.
Engage Emotion: Analytical data is processed, but emotions are experienced. By anchoring your message to a physiological "feeling," you ensure the narrative is better integrated into the audience's memory, making them more likely to act.
Keep It Real: Influence is rooted in trust. Choose stories that are personally meaningful and authentically connected to you. Audiences have a keen sense for inauthenticity; if you don't care about the story, they won't either.