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1 Story, 3 Lessons
In our most recent working session we helped Brooke prepare a ‘quick’ storyline. Even though on the surface this story appeared straightforward, it turned into an onion. The more we layered into it, the more we found we needed to think through. There were enough...
Making time work FOR us not AGAINST us
Do you always have too much to do?It's not entirely surprising since our only finite resource, time, is at the heart of the challenge.Unsurprisingly, this is a pretty constant topic when coaching people on their communication.How do we find enough time to think...
One important consideration for progress updates
As always, my week unearths an interesting conundrum that has some useful insights buried within. This week's insight came from helping a team update their Board on their progress over the past year. Here's my number 1 takeaway that I want to share with you also. Your...
Diving Deeply into Big Picture Thinking and Synthesis
Over the first half of 2022 a small group of us have been working on a conundrum: what process can we use to synthesise ideas? We observe that this is a huge challenge for people when communicating and solving problems that storylines and issue trees help solve....
Why thinking into a doc is dangerous
I was reminded this week how we must get our thinking straight in a one-pager before we prepare a document. In using client material to prepare some exercises I had to work backwards from a document into a storyline. Wow. It is so incredibly easy to miss the thinking...
How to ‘flip' storyline patterns
Sometimes clients tell me they use our storyline patterns exactly as they are. They assume that the collection of seven will work for any situation without adjustment.While I think the patterns are a terrific place to start, I suggest they are just the start.So this...
How poor communication and burnout can be linked
You might be scratching your head about this week's topic, but let me ask you this.How often have you burned the midnight oil or perhaps missed your child's soccer match because you were RE drafting an urgent paper?Or, perhaps you aren't writing a paper then, but...
Why not to use tables alone when recommending which option to use
When I heard that NASA spent millions of dollars trying to find a ball point pen that would withstand the challenges of space I didn't query it too much.Until I heard that the Russians went with a pencil, that is.What's wrong here?While not being present in either...
What to do with ‘pros and cons'?
I had a fabulous question this week: where do we fit 'pros' and 'cons' in our storyline?That is a 'ripper' of a question.My answer is this: lists of pros and cons don't belong in your communication, they help you think through that message. Let me explain.If we...
2 ways to spend less time prepping your comms
Love or hate Jeff Bezos, he has had some very, very good ideas when it comes to decision making communication. I was talking about one of these with a client earlier this week. Given she liked the ideas and planned to implement them, I thought I'd share them with you...