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.
Read MoreYou’re a content expert who been asked to teach what you know. Challenge yourself to reach beyond the typical “lecture style” approach to learning—it’s not that effective anyway—and build out an interactive and engaging workshop instead. Here are some basic rules of thumb to keep in mind as you create your learning experience.
Read MoreIn 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 MoreCASE STUDY
Juniper Square was excited to host it’s first ever in-person Sales Kick Off event. Given what they knew about the power of stories, the leadership determined that the SKO would be designed around storytelling with the theme Ignite: Stories Brought to Life. Wolf and Heron drew from the foundational Influential Storytelling program and created a series of storytelling training experiences for team members at all levels.
Download our case study to explore more about our partnership with Juniper Square to deliver an impactful SKO 2023.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreTo 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 tool to get started.
Read MoreWe 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.
Read MoreAs 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.
Read MoreWhen 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.
Read MoreStephanie 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.
Read MoreAt 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.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreTruly engaging your audience takes a lot more effort and planning and, as a result, is often neglected. Ramp up the “asks” for your audience over the course of the meeting. Check out this one-page reference on how to Ramp Up The Asks.
Read MoreTurn off the slide deck and make your materials physical instead. Check out this one-page reference of Materials for Meeting Success.
Read MoreThe 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. Check out this one-page reference with some high-quality ground rules you may consider adapting and/or adopting for yourself.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreAt 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. 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.
Read MoreWe recently hosted a roundtable discussion on Building Authentic Sales Relationships in a Hybrid Virtual/In-Person Tech Industry. 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.
Read MoreMaking people feel seen, heard, and understood is an important leadership skill. Here we offer tips from our executive coaching training that we think are particularly powerful ways to do just that: restate what you hear, ask powerful, future-oriented questions, trust your conversation partner has it in them to find the answers, and be mindful of your purpose.
Read MoreREFERENCE
Download a pdf with prompts and questions designed to help you inspire you to have an intentional and productive manager/employee check-in.
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