Acerca da importância das histórias

"If someone has a strong opinion about something and you provide an alternative strong opinion…it reinforces their strong opinion.
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Instead of starting with facts and reasonings…start with a story.
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Start with a negative story, something that will grab someone’s attention"
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Trecho retirado de "Our natural tendency is to start with our facts and then give examples..we need to reverse this"

As histórias que contamos e que ouvimos

"The story that we are telling ourselves is really crucial. What we're telling, the stories that we tell to our selves, they determine the actions that we think work. What we think is possible."
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E se só ouvimos histórias de desgraças, de coitadinhos, de gente a precisar de apoios e subsídios, de ente que se queixa... então ficamos limitados, moldados a esse mundo.
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E acreditamos que não há saídas, que não há alternativas...

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Já ouviram alguém nos media a explicar esta excentricidade?
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A economia é também feita por isto... a economia é uma construção que emerge do somatório de conversas e histórias que se contam na sociedade. Se as histórias que passam são de desgraças e coitadinhos...

Ando com uma paixão sobre este tema: storytelling

• "Win by Telling Great Stories with Peter Guber"
• "How to tell powerful stories in your speeches"

Aqaba!!!

Quando facilito o exercício de desenvolvimento de um mapa da estratégia numa empresa:

Facilito a criação de uma ferramenta que facilita a comunicação.
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Com base no mapa da estratégia, é possível contar uma história que faz sentido. É possível mostrar como é que cada um contribui para o sucesso do todo. É possível alinhar, sintonizar, concentrar as pessoas, as acções, os recursos, os investimentos, as prioridades, as atenções, as motivações num rolo compressor imparável rumo ao futuro desejado.
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Um mapa da estratégia permite contar uma história. Uma história que reúne várias pessoas e diferentes níveis temporais, uma história com um argumento forte, uma história com personagens de carne e osso.
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Tudo isto encaixa bem com a mensagem deste artigo "The Art of the Business Narrative":
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"S+B: The basic premise of your book — that behind every great business endeavor is a great story — is not obvious at first glance.
GUBER: That’s because business is often seen as a purely rational act: marshaling facts and figures to get someone to buy your product or service. (Moi ici: Nancy Duarte em Resonate escreve "Facts are one type of content to collect – but they’re not the only type needed to create a successful presentation. Facts alone are not sufficient to persuade. Stating fact after fact in an hour-long presentation doesn’t signal to the audience why these facts are important. Use emotions as a tool to bring emphasis to the facts so they stand out. If you don’t, you’re making the audience work too hard to identify the decision they are to make. Staying flat and factual might work in a scientific report but simply won’t work for the oral delivery of persuasive content.
People are more conditioned to generate content from their heads. Yet it’s from the more emotional region that hunches, hypotheses, and passions are generated – big ideas need those too. ... So far, you’ve generated and collected ideas. Now you’ll give those ideas meaning. The structure and significance of stories transforms information from static and flat to dynamic and alive. Stories reshape information into meaning. Trying to persuade by stating the features and specifications of your subject matter, product, or philosophy is meaningless – until you add a human to the mix. Stories help an audience visualize what you do or what you believe; they make others’ hearts more pliable. Sharing experiences in the form of a story creates a shared experience and visceral connection. Stories are the currency of human relationships") But although information, data, and analytics are important to support any proposition, they are unmemorable in and of themselves. If you really want to create fans of your business who will become apostles and advocates for you, you have to use a narrative. That’s the way people are wired."
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"In business, by contrast, the story is told for an explicit purpose. You tell it to encourage the other person to see the value proposition you’re offering, and to make that person want to be part of it. Without that story, you have only transactional elements and no relationship. Transactions happen only once; repeat business requires relationships.
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I said, “We are also a disparate group of people, from different businesses — television, theater, distribution, everything. But we’ve got to become one tribe. So our cry will be: Aqaba!” We gave out little pictures of O’Toole as Lawrence pondering in the desert as a reminder of the story of pulling together. Today, the company is still there. All the other motion picture companies that were bought by foreign enterprises are gone. At the time, I didn’t know what I was doing. I did it instinctively. Now, I do it deliberately, (Moi ici: É a isto que eu chamo fazer batota, a esta acção deliberada que parece natural) which is about 5,000 times easier."

Estas pequenas histórias têm magia...

""Cão do tsunami" já está com os donos"
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Algo não me soa bem

"Sonae recruta líderes empreendedores"
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"Todos eles procuram uma oportunidade de emprego no universo Sonae. Mas só 20 serão escolhidos."
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Quais são os critérios de pré-selecção?
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E será que líderes verdadeiramente empreendedores procuram oportunidades de emprego? Não será antes: líderes verdadeiramente empreendedores criam os seus próprios empregos!!!
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Talvez fizesse falta ao universo Sonae esta leitura "Yes, A Business CAN Disrupt Itself".
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"“Good management” isn’t a solution

In the 13 years since then, we have learned that “good management” isn’t a cure: in fact, as Alan Murray has pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, it’s actually “good management” that accelerates death."
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O que procuram?
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A sério, o que procuram? Líderes empreendedores ou gestores?
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Os textos que se seguem servem para mim, servem para os deolindeiros, servem para as PMEs:

• "Screw Your Career Path. Live Your Story" (um must read)
• "Live Your Story and Shift Your Story Arc #story10 #reinvention"

E aí para vocês so-called "líderes empreendedores que procuram emprego": "newsflash #2: you can’t game your career development while following someone else’s rules.

Ever.

You will lose, because in this game, the people who determine your success are the incumbents who get displaced when you win. This isn’t conspiracy theory stuff. It’s human nature."
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"When we go along with prefabbed career paths, we lose—entirely—this test-your-mettle half of the development equation. Courage only gets tested in the face of doubt, but when everything is organized as it is with a career path, there is no doubt. Career paths may present tests and choices, but these are bounded, controlled. They are not the tests that can teach us to stick to our guns in the face of grave doubts—the guard rails of these programs prevent us from ever failing spectacularly.
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Our leaders—those with power—cannot help us with these lessons of courage any more than my dad could help me that night of our fight. It’s not because they’re not rooting for us; they often are our biggest cheerleaders. It’s because they are the incumbents who we must displace.

Their role changes from protector to tester.

They become dangerous adversaries with advantages in both knowledge and experience. And once they switch roles, they cannot take it easy on us. Which is OK: we need to know where we stand when the only thing holding us up are our own two legs. Greatness is not a club that lets us in. We have to earn our way in, and those inviting us to apply are often the very same ones guarding the gates."
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"But I do know this: humans are not meant to follow career paths. We are not built to follow guide wires. Birds are. Fish are. Ants are.

Humans. Are. Not.

We are meant to live our stories. It’s when you let go of trying to control the path and simply live the story ahead of you that—win, lose, or draw—you ensure your own success."
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Também não se perde nada a ler "The Disadvantages of an Elite Education" com este teaser:
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"But if you’re afraid to fail, you’re afraid to take risks, which begins to explain the final and most damning disadvantage of an elite education: that it is profoundly anti-intellectual. This will seem counterintuitive. Aren’t kids at elite schools the smartest ones around, at least in the narrow academic sense? Don’t they work harder than anyone else—indeed, harder than any previous generation? They are. They do. But being an intellectual is not the same as being smart. Being an intellectual means more than doing your homework.
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If so few kids come to college understanding this, it is no wonder. They are products of a system that rarely asked them to think about something bigger than the next assignment. The system forgot to teach them, along the way to the prestige admissions and the lucrative jobs, that the most important achievements can’t be measured by a letter or a number or a name. It forgot that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers."

Contar histórias, uma narrativa para unir, não para hipnotizar

E voltamos à história de que as organizações são redes de conversas.
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Um interessante artigo sobre o poder das histórias "Using Stories to Overcome Fear":
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"In uncertain times, if leaders don't tell and sell a purposeful story that incites their employees, partners, investors, boards of directors, and other stakeholders to manage fear, confront uncertainty, and collaborate with change, someone else will write their future. That usually leads to a story with an unhappy ending.
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Fear can paralyze or catalyze an organization. Leaders' willingness to embrace fear dictates how successful they and their enterprise may be. Leaders must tell a story that makes fear an ally, not an adversary, ultimately conveying the message that fear — F.E.A.R — is "false evidence appearing real."
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A story is a vehicle that puts facts into an emotional context. The information in a story doesn't just sit there as it would in a list or data dump. Instead, it's built to create suspense and engage your listener in its call to action. Facts and figures are memorable to computers, not to people. Research on memory conclusively shows that all the critical details, data, and analytics, are more effectively emotionalized and metabolized by the listener when they're embedded in a story — and they become significantly more actionable."
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Se os líderes contam histórias que não soam bem, que não têm dificuldades, que escondem informação... vamos ter um problema.

O poder das histórias

"The purpose of leadership isn’t to increase shareholder value or the productivity of work teams, though effective leadership does these things. Rather, the purpose of leadership is to change the world around you in the name of your values, so you can live those values more fully and use them to make life better for others. The process of leadership is to turn your values into a compelling cause for others."
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"Revealing your moment of truth"

Andragogia versus Pedagogia

Esta semana, em dois dias consecutivos, em locais completamente diferentes, pessoas diferentes comentaram comigo o desconsolo que é, após vários anos de vida profissional, voltarem à universidade para um mestrado e apanharem os académicos sem experiência profissional, que continuam a tratar os mestrandos adultos e independentes economicamente como se fossem alunos da licenciatura com vinte e pouco anos.
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Elogiam os poucos professores com vida profissional fora da universidade por que trazem casos reais de aplicação prática quase imediata, por que contam histórias e exemplos, por que contam situações concretas que viveram e erros que cometeram.
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Ao ouvi-los, num dos casos, por que tinha um PC com acesso à internet à mão, fui ao Google e digitei "Andragogy". Aí, escolhi a página na wikipedia:
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"Andragogy consists of learning strategies focused on adults. It is often interpreted as the process of engaging adult learners with the structure of learning experience. Originally used by Alexander Kapp (a German educator) in 1833, andragogy was developed into a theory of adult education by the American educator Malcolm Knowles.
Knowles asserted that andragogy (Greek: "man-leading") should be distinguished from the more commonly used pedagogy (Greek: "child-leading").
Knowles' theory can be stated with six assumptions related to motivation of adult learning:[1][2]

• Adults need to know the reason for learning something (Need to Know)
• Experience (including error) provides the basis for learning activities (Foundation).
• Adults need to be responsible for their decisions on education; involvement in the planning and evaluation of their instruction (Self-concept).
• Adults are most interested in learning subjects having immediate relevance to their work and/or personal lives (Readiness).
• Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented (Orientation).
• Adults respond better to internal versus external motivators (Motivation)."

A metodologia que funciona com jovens e crianças (vasos receptores de conhecimento sem experiência de vida que possa pôr em causa os ensinamentos do "professor") não funciona com adultos.

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Quando alguém com experiência de vida profissional é convidado para dar formação sobre um tema com o qual lida regularmente fora do circulo académico, tem tendência  a apresentar casos, exemplos, histórias... tem tendência a conjugar histórias ("storytelling") com dados estatísticos... e o que somos nós senão seres hardwired no nosso cérebro para ouvir e contar histórias?

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"Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.":
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"Stories are all around us. They are what move us, make us feel alive, and inspire us. Our appetite for stories is a reflection of the basic human need to understand patterns of life — not merely as an intellectual exercise but as a personal, emotional experience. Stories are the way to reach out to people and emotionally connect.

Yet most of us are used to the business-as-usual approach to communicating ideas, looking at the umpteenth Powerpoint bullet list or Word document."

O poder das histórias

Hoje, ao final da manhã, à medida que lia o texto, que lia a história, os meus olhos começaram a humedecer-se, a minha visão começou a turvar-se, e as lágrimas começaram a rolar pela minha cara abaixo.

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As histórias são poderosas. São mais do que sequências de palavras, são palavras que despertam experiências que já sentimos, que somos capazes de reconhecer. A história é poderosa porque não precisa de ir ao detalhe, basta-lhe apelar à nossa experiência de vida e nós preenchemos os espaços vazios.

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Lucas 15, 11-32

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O amor do pai... "Ainda estava longe quando o pai o viu, e enchendo-se de compaixão, correu a lançar-se-lhe ao pescoço cobrindo-o de beijos."

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E o filho mais velho... continua a olhar para o pai e a ver um chefe, um patrão...

São os erros que nos tornam humanos, credíveis e interessantes?

Quando um político inicia um mandato virgem é fácil dizer que se tem um problema, que algo foi mal feito (por outros, claro).

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E as pessoas concordam, a sua experiência com a realidade quotidiana, está em sintonia e ressoa com o que o político diz.

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Depois, o político refere que vai ser difícil fazer a mudança, mas que ela não é impossível e, apresenta um caminho para chegar à Terra Prometida.

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E as pessoas acreditam.

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E quando um político está a meio de um mandato, ou no início de um mandato não-virgem? E quando esse político, como humano que é, cometeu erros... terá coragem de os enumerar?

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O mais fácil é negar a realidade, negar a existência do problema...

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Só que o discurso deixa de ressoar com o sentimento das pessoas...

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"Governo acredita que é possível duplicar crescimento"

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"Why Do Brand Stories Work? The Societal, Cultural and Physical Reasons Why.":

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"“When you tell a story, the whole gist is to admit the negative side, then dramatize the positive side of how the courageous little company overcame all the negatives. To get executives to admit they ever made a mistake – that they didn’t predict that would happen, that surprises came from out of the blue, that means they were not in control – that really scares the shit out of them.”

“A great leader knows how to do this. ‘You wouldn’t believe it – just when we got to this point, when out of the blue comes this a competitor with a better product, or the government wouldn’t give us the patent, we were knocked back on our heels, but we turned it around and did this and did that.’”

“Everybody loves it when the underdog gets off his back and back on his feet and wins. But to do that you have to admit that something happened you couldn’t predict or you made a mistake. And then you had to fix it. That’s why the storytelling for a lot of people is terrifying. They don’t have the ability to admit they ever misjudged anything any person or any situation. And to tell a story, you have to do that.”"

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"Stories – and admitting that bad things have, and do, happen – do more than just build credibility. They draw us in. We want to hear how the hero returns triumphant.

We’re tired of bullshit because it’s plastered everywhere we look. No one tells the truth anymore. In a culture increasingly built on instant success without accomplishment, we wrongly look down upon failure. These failures are what make us human, credible and interesting to the world."

Contar uma boa história

A transformação contínua das empresas é sempre necessária. Contudo, qual tal não acontece, algures impõe-se fazer uma grande transformação sob pena das empresas fecharem.
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Como é que os gestores promovem, divulgam, convertem para essa mudança?
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"A big part of a CEO's job is to motivate people to reach certain goals. To do that, he or she must engage their emotions, and the key to their hearts is story. There are two ways to persuade people. The first is by using conventional rhetoric, which is what most executives are trained in. It's an intellectual process, and in the business world it usually consists of a PowerPoint slide presentation in which you say, "Here is our company's biggest challenge, and here is what we need to do to prosper." And you build your case by giving statistics and facts and quotes from authorities. But there are two problems with rhetoric. First, the people you're talking to have their own set of authorities, statistics, and experiences. While you're trying to persuade them, they are arguing with you in their heads. Second, if you do succeed in persuading them, you've done so only on an intellectual basis. That's not good enough, because people are not inspired to act by reason alone."
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Por isso, é preciso uma outra abordagem:
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"The other way to persuade people—and ultimately a much more powerful way—is by uniting an idea with an emotion. The best way to do that is by telling a compelling story. In a story, you not only weave a lot of information into the telling but you also arouse your listener's emotions and energy. Persuading with a story is hard. Any intelligent person can sit down and make lists. It takes rationality but little creativity to design an argument using conventional rhetoric. But it demands vivid insight and storytelling skill to present an idea that packs enough emotional power to be memorable. If you can harness imagination and the principles of a well-told story, then you get people rising to their feet amid thunderous applause instead of yawning and ignoring you."
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Quando desenhamos um mapa da estratégia, ficamos com uma importante ferramenta de comunicação "
"How would an executive learn to tell stories? Stories have been implanted in you thousands of times since your mother took you on her knee. You've read good books, seen movies, attended plays. What's more, human beings naturally want to work through stories. Cognitive psychologists describe how the human mind, in its attempt to understand and remember, assembles the bits and pieces of experience into a story, beginning with a personal desire, a life objective, and then portraying the struggle against the forces that block that desire. Stories are how we remember; we tend to forget lists and bullet points.

Businesspeople not only have to understand their companies' past, but then they must project the future. And how do you imagine the future? As a story. You create scenarios in your head of possible future events to try to anticipate the life of your company or your own personal life. So, if a businessperson understands that his or her own mind naturally wants to frame experience in a story, the key to moving an audience is not to resist this impulse but to embrace it by telling a good story."
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Trechos retirados de "Happy Tales: The CEO as Storyteller"

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Contar histórias, desenvolver narrativas

Há dias no Blasfémias, João Miranda recordou este discurso da dona de casa:


Nos últimos 20 segundos do vídeo as palavras de Tatcher são acompanhadas por imagens de gente anónima que pretendem representar, concretizar o que as palavras vão dizendo.
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Rapidamente nos lembramos deste discurso de Churchill (sobretudo dos últimos 3/4 minutos), deste outro de Luther King, também deste outro escrito por Shakespeare e posto na boca do rei Henrique V antes da batalha de Azincourt (como eu gosto deste discurso, reparem no conteúdo da mensagem a partir dos 50 segundos: imagens, imagens, imagens... do futuro. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...)
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Estes discursos que motivam, que dão ânimo para as dificuldades não são prescritivos, não dizem o que vai ser feito, como vai ser feito. Levam-nos a viajar mentalmente para o futuro e inundam-nos de imagens desse futuro desejado, e os ouvintes começam a ver esse futuro, começam a perceber qual o ponto de chegada, qual o destino.
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O que estes discursos têm em comum é uma história, contam uma história do futuro. Contam uma história simples do futuro, uma história com poucos detalhes, quanto menos detalhes mais os ouvintes se colocarão a eles próprios na história e poderão rever-se como seus protagonistas.
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O discurso de Tatcher fez-me voltar à prateleira e procurar o número de Maio de 2004 da revista Harvard Business Review... um artigo de Stephen Denning "Telling Tales":
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"Analysis might excite the mind, but it hardly offers a route to the heart. And that's where we must go if we are to motivate people not only to take action but to do so with energy and enthusiasm. At a time when corporate survival often requires disruptive change, leadership involves inspiring people to act in unfamiliar, and often unwelcome, ways. Mind-numbing cascades of numbers or daze-inducing PowerPoint slides won't achieve this goal. Even the most logical arguments usually won't do the trick.
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But effective storytelling often does. In fact, in certain situations nothing else works."
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Continua
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Estão a ver quem caçou em África, as histórias que contam, os exageros, as metáforas, os cheiros... estão a ver os velhos, muitos anos depois, a arregaçarem as mangas e a mostrarem as cicatrizes, quais medalhas especiais, que conquistaram em Azincourt no dia de São Crespim/Crespiniano? Estão a ver os seus olhos a brilhar?

Não culpem a caneta quando a culpa é de quem escreve! (parte II)

Há cerca de ano e meio escrevemos o postal Não culpem a caneta quando a culpa é de quem escreve! acerca do perigo de aplicar receitas válidas para uma proposta de valor destinadas a um certo tipo de clientes-alvo, a qualquer organização independentemente da sua proposta de valor.
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Não faz sentido querer aplicar o lean six sigma a um conjunto de processos relevantes para a liderança pela inovação, como o artigo da Business Week referido no postal faz suspeitar.
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Pois bem, a revista Harvard Business Review de Março de 2009 volta de certa forma ao tema com o artigo "When Should a Process Be Art, Not Science?" assinado por Joseph M. Hall e M. Eric Johnson.
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"The idea that some processes should be allowed to vary flies in the face of the century-old movement toward standardization. Process standardization is taught to MBAs, embedded in Six Sigma programs, and practiced by managers and consultants worldwide. Thousands of manufacturing companies have achieved tremendous improvements in quality and efficiency by copying the Toyota Production System, which combines rigorous work standardization with approaches such as just-in-time delivery of components and the use of visual controls to highlight deviations. Process standardization also has permeated nearly every service industry, generating impressive gains.
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With success, though, has come overuse. Process standardization has been pushed too far, with little regard for where it does and does not make sense. We aim to rescue artistic processes from the tide of scientific standardization by offering a three-step approach to identifying and successfully integrating them into any business.
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We argue that artistic and scientific approaches need not be at odds but must be carefully harmonized."
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Criar um vinho, ano após ano, passa por fazer sobressair o melhor de cada um desses anos.
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Receber e servir os hóspedes na recepção e um hotel, passa por criar experiências únicas para pessoas únicas.
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E como o mundo é pequeno:
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"Artists, of course, must learn the skills of their trade. They often have to undergo a formal apprenticeship or informal mentoring and a probationary period during which their freedom is curtailed. They might even have to pass a formal exam to be certified.
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But whether the artists are insurance claims adjusters, civil engineers, or software architects, their training entails more than just mastering new skills. It also involves developing an understanding of customer needs, the judgment required to act without perfect information, and the ability and willingness to learn from both good and bad outcomes.
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Companies can employ a variety of methods to instill their culture in new artists. One we’ve already mentioned: an apprenticeship with a master. Another is storytelling. Ritz-Carlton regularly shares stories of outstanding customer service to inspire its frontline employees."
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Por fim, o artigo termina com a caixa "Science as a Platform for Art"
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"The creation of many products and services involves both artistic and scientific processes. In such cases, the output of the scientific processes should provide a stable platform on which artists can then apply their craft."
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Pessoalmente, estou neste momento a trabalhar com uma empresa que quer fazer precisamente o contrário. Tem uma unidade de negócio que baseada na arte serve os visionários do lado de cá do 'chasm' e quer desenvolver outra unidade de negócio, em que os produtos da arte servem de plataforma para, após autópsia e reformulação, através da padronização dos processos e componentes, servir os pragmáticos do lado de lá do 'chasm'.

Contar estórias (parte I)

Durante milhões de anos à noite os nossos antepassados, em volta de uma fogueira, trocavam experiências, contavam estórias e passavam conhecimento uns aos outros, cimentavam a união do grupo ou, muito simplesmente, divertiam-se.
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Esse passado não foi apagado e, por isso, gostamos todos de ouvir e de contar estórias.
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Nas empresas, nas oganizações, as estórias continuam a ser um factor de integração, de socialização, de transmissão de conhecimentos, de criação de uma cultura própria.
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Gary Klein no seu livro "Sources of Power - How People Make Decisions" escreve:
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"We would be dazzled if we had to treat everything we saw, every visual input, as a separate element, and had to figure out the connections anew each time we opened our eyes or moved them from one fixation point to another. Fortunately, that is not necessary. We see the world as patterns. Many of these patterns seem to be built into the way our eyes work. We have detectors to notice lines and boundaries. The world is organized in our eyes to highlight contrasts, before any information reaches our brains. We have other powerful organizers to frame the visual world into Gestalts, so we naturally group things together that are close to each other.
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… we similarly organize the cognitive world – the world of ideas, concepts, objects, and relationships. We link these up into stories.
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A good story is a package of different causal relationships – what factors resulted in what effects. The more complexity and subtlety, the more there is to be learned. If the story gets too confusing, though, it stops working. It has to draw together different components clearly and memorably and show their connection.
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… a story, where the outcome is affected by many important variables or causal factors, each of which needs to be described and to have its influence traced. The story is a package for describing the important causes and allowing the listener to think of other possible causes for the events.
Perhaps we value stories because they are like reports of research projects, only easier to understand, remember, and use.
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The method we have found most powerful for eliciting knowledge is to use stories."
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Quais as características de uma boa estória? Já escrevemos sobre isso aqui Persuasão mas na segunda parte a opinião de Klein.

Persuasão

Continua daqui.
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“The other way to persuade people – and ultimately a much more powerful way – is by uniting an idea with an emotion. The best way to do that is by telling a compelling story”
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Para os aprendizes de spin:
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“What’s wrong with painting a positive picture?
It doesn’t ring true.” … “Positive, hypothetical pictures and boilerplate press releases actually work against you because they foment distrust among the people you’re trying to convince.”
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Caro Raul ainda há dias escrevemos sobre isto, recorrendo a palavras de Paula Campos.
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"The energy to live comes from the dark side. It comes from everything that makes us suffer. As we struggle against these negative powers, we’re forced to live more deeply, more fully.”
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“So, a story that embraces darkness produces a positive energy in listeners?
Absolutely. We follow people in whom we believe. The best leaders I’ve dealt with have come to terms with dark reality.” … “CEOs, likewise, have to sit at the head of the table or in front of the microphone and navigate their companies through the storms of bad economies and tough competition. If you look your audience in the eye, lay out your really scary challenges, and say, “We’ll be lucky as hell if we get through this, but here’s what I think we should do”, they will listen to you.
To get people behind you, you can tell a truthful story.”
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“Desire is the blood of a story. Desire is not a shopping list but a core need that, if satisfied, would stop the story in its tracks.”
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Os gestores de topo não gostam de falar aos seus colaboradores sobre o lado negativo, têm receio do pânico.
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Julgo que o pânico só surge quando, perante os factos negativos, não é apresentado um caminho com alguma possibilidade de sucesso.

"The Four Truths of the Storyteller"

Na vida das organizações, é preciso saber contar histórias. Ontem de manhã, a última coisa que fiz, antes de sair de casa, foi imprimir este artigo "The Four Truths of the Storyteller", do número de Dezembro da Harvard Business Review, para ler durante a viagem de comboio para o Porto.

"Over the years, I’ve learned that the ability to articulate your story or that of your company is crucial in almost every phase of enterprise management. It works all along the business food chain: A great salesperson knows how to tell a story in which the product is the hero. A successful line manager can rally the team to extraordinary efforts through a story that shows how short-term sacrifice leads to long-term success. An effective CEO uses an emotional narrative about the company’s mission to attract investors and partners, to set lofty goals, and to inspire employees.
Sometimes, a well-crafted story can even transform a seemingly hopeless situation into an unexpected triumph."

Assim que li este trecho lembrei-me deste discurso de Henrique V no dia de São Crespim/São Crespiniano, antes da batalha de Agincourt.

"Storytelling plays a similar role today. It is one of the world’s most powerful tools for achieving astonishing results. For the leader, storytelling is action oriented—a force for turning dreams into goals and then into results."

"The spirit that motivates most great storytellers is “I want you to feel what I feel,” and the effective narrative is designed to make this happen. That’s how the information is bound to the experience and rendered unforgettable."

Trechos de "The Four Truths of the Storyteller" de Peter Guber.