How Great Stories Create Great Performance from You and Your Team

Here are six great ideas to move performance from good to great. From the stories you tell to your own bold moves others will be telling stories about for years to come, you can build perseverance, passion, and engagement.

Today’s post is by Paul Smith, thoughtLEADERS instructor and author of Sell With a Story.

Here’s an easy way to learn some new leadership skills – in easy-to-digest 10-minute podcasts you can listen to at your convenience.

These podcasts are based on interviews with 100 executives and leaders at dozens of companies around the world. Each episode brings you an important leadership lesson through a single compelling story.

These next 6 episodes will help you learn to do remarkable things other people will talk about, lead your team to love what they do or find the perseverance to press on even in the face of defeat or ridicule, move their performance from good to great, and learn 5 steps to giving more effective feedback.

Staff meetings your employees won’t try to crawl out of

One of the perhaps less-than-obvious ways to help the people who work for you to find passion for their work, is to remove the things they’re decidedly dispassionate about – starting with your staff meetings.

Perseverance: The Pringles Story

Perseverance in the face of defeat is a required character trait in sports and politics. You have to lose a few games and races on the road to the Super Bowl or to Washington. Here’s what it looks like when you demonstrate perseverance in business.

The Jittery Compass: Moving your performance from good to great

What’s the difference between good job performance and great job performance? And how do you explain that to a junior manager seeking guidance? Today’s post has some answers.

“What do you care what other people think?”

How to rid yourself of one of the most prevalent and paralyzing of human frailties one that can rob you of all productivity and creativity — concern about what other people think of you.

Story Triggers – doing something remarkable other people will talk about

My guest is strategy consultant Shawn Callahan who shares an insightful story about the Chairman of Mars, Inc. that any leader can learn from.

5 Steps to more effective feedback

This story is about one of those times I got lucky and did something right. In this case, it was giving some tough feedback to a junior manager. It worked so well, I’ve been doing it that way ever since.

So there you go… six great leadership stories in a few minutes apiece. If you want more stories like these, you can subscribe on iTunes, or click here to sign up for a weekly newsletter delivery to your inbox. If you’re interested in becoming a better storyteller yourself, check out our Influencing through Storytelling course where we can come into your organization and help you build this powerful, critical skill.

Paul Smith is a former director and 20-year veteran of the Procter & Gamble Company, and one of the world’s leading experts on business storytelling. He’s the bestselling author of three books on harnessing the power of storytelling for some of the most important work we do as humans: Lead with a Story, Parenting with a Story, and Sell with a Story. Paul is also the primary architect of a thoughtLEADERS course on Influencing through Storytelling.

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