November 4, 2025 • 42 mins
Ash Seddeek is a leadership communications advisor and speaker coach to Fortune 100 executives. He’s the founder of the Executive Greatness Institute and creator of the Chief Excitement Officer philosophy and the Free Up → Think Up → Speak Up framework, helping leaders transform communication moments into momentum. Ash has coached leaders at Cisco, Uber, and Google to communicate with clarity, conviction, and excitement that moves people to action.
Leaders often think they just need to show up and drop some brilliant ideas in meetings. But, as we dive into this episode, we discover that effective leadership is so much more than that. It’s all about the art of storytelling as a strategic tool to get everyone on board and ready to roll with change. Our guest, Ash Siddiq, breaks down how crafting the right narrative can build conviction and commitment among teams, making it easier to navigate the ups and downs of change management. We’ll chat about the importance of creating a vision, co-creating the steps with your crew, and how to keep the energy high when leading others. So, if you’re looking to elevate your leadership game and get everyone pumped about the future, you’ve hit the jackpot with this episode!
Leaders, listen up! If you think simply presenting your ideas is enough, think again! Ash Seddeek joins us to unpack how storytelling can transform leadership effectiveness. He emphasizes that it’s not just about sharing a vision but actively engaging your team in shaping that vision together. This is crucial in change management, where clarity and collaboration can make or break the initiative. Ash argues that when leaders frame their messages through stories, they can capture attention and spark motivation in ways that facts alone can’t. He shares how he helps leaders develop their narrative skills, encouraging them to draw on personal experiences that resonate with their teams. We explore how storytelling not only fosters connection but also helps navigate the tough waters of change, making it easier for employees to embrace new directions. The episode wraps with practical tips for both leaders and their supporters, highlighting the importance of intention and energy in leadership. We also discuss his book, which serves as a practical guide for leaders looking to elevate their game in strategic thinking and storytelling.
Takeaways:
- Leaders often think sharing their ideas in meetings is enough, but they need to actively communicate and engage their teams for effective change management.
- Storytelling is a powerful tool for grabbing attention and driving commitment within organizations, especially in our digital age where distractions are abundant.
- Creating a vision for the future involves not just telling stories, but also inviting team members to co-create the steps towards achieving that vision.
- Leaders should be the 'chief energizers' of their teams, using their own energy to inspire others and create a positive atmosphere for change.
- To effectively lead change, leaders must differentiate between managing current operations and fostering innovations for the future.
- Incorporating personal stories or relatable experiences can help leaders connect with their audience and make their messages more impactful.
Links for today's show:
- https://communicatewithclarity.co
- Download Ash's 'Meeting with Self' Template: Practice Free Up, Think Up, Speak Up: https://maven.com/eginstitute/strategicleaderjan
- email ash at ash@executivegreatness.com
- Strategic Leader Planner:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Leaders tend to think that allthey have to do is go in a meeting
and share the idea. But ofcourse, to your point about change
management, they realize Ireally have to intentionally go about
communicating the idea, butalso coming back and saying, let
me share with you how I thinkwe can go about doing this and then
inviting everybody to cocreate those steps. And then now
(00:29):
all of a sudden things arestarting to look more concrete because
we're thinking through thedifferent impacted groups and we're
thinking through what thatchange means. We're also hopefully
going to come up with a phasedapproach to make it happen.
Hi there and welcome to theStep Up Expert Voices for Leadership
(00:49):
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
I encourage you to subscribeso you never miss an episode. One
last thing. As a leadershipdevelopment consultant and executive
coach, I have a particularinterest in supporting recent internally
promoted leaders. If that'syou, or if you support a leader who
(01:12):
has been recently promoted, Iencourage you to visit my website
at Kent Coach Playbook anddownload a free copy of my 90 day
blueprint filled withpractical advice for you or the leader
you support in hitting theground running and truly stepping
up to their new leadershiplevel. Without further ado, on with
the show. Welcome everyone.Today we're here to talk about storytelling
(01:33):
as a strategic tool to drivecommitment. Did we say Ash?
Commitment and conviction.
Yes, and conviction. Thankyou. So with me today for this conversation
is Ash Siddiq. Ash is aLeadership in Communications advisor,
speaker and coach to Fortune100 executives, founder of the Executive
Greatness Institute Institute,and creator of the Chief Excitement
(01:57):
Officer philosophy and theFree Up, Think Up, Speak Up Framework.
Ash, thank you for joining me today.
Thank you so much for havingme, Kent.
Well, before we get into thetopic du jour, I'd love to hear just
a little bit more about youand your career story and whatever
your how wherever you want tostart that.
Absolutely. Yeah. So I, Iactually came to the US on a Fulbright
(02:18):
scholarship. I was going tobecome a linguist. Okay. Years ago
and long story short, I gotinto corporate settings, worked for
Schwab, Deloitte, a number ofhigh tech companies, most recently
Cisco. And Cisco's experiencewas the the top experience in a journey
that led me to pay attentionto how language was such the main
(02:41):
channel for leadershipeffectiveness and ended up essentially
leaving Cisco in 2015 andbecoming a leadership communications
coach. As you mentioned. Andit's been a really wonder journey
to see how much difference itmakes when leaders are able to speak
with conviction and then helpbuild that up within organizations,
(03:02):
because conviction is wrappedup in building desire. And once people
believe in something, then wesee amazing things happen. And now
there's so much that'shappening in organizations where
with AI, everybody's trying tobuild a vision for the future and
how AI fits into that and howwe can get everybody moving in that
(03:24):
direction. So it's been awonderful journey to see how we can
help leaders do exactly that.
That's awesome. Well, and sowe're going to talk about storytelling
today. And you know, I feellike it's come up a number of times
in my career, right. Andparticularly in my time in hr. You
know, when I was most recentlyI was with. With General Mills, right.
(03:46):
And we talked a lot about. Andthey're obviously a giant, you know,
brand forward company, right.And so storytelling sort of at the
heart of a lot of what theydo. But even, even as I was talking
with another leader recentlyat a much more quiet brand, right.
They're not necessarily abrand forward household name, but
even he was talking about, youknow, this element of storytelling,
(04:06):
even in his role and howimportant is. So I feel like storytelling
has come up more and more inrecent years for me. And so, you
know, how did you get intostorytelling and what gives? Why
is it so important?
I think what's happeningtoday, especially with the fact that
there is shortage ofattention, I think across the board,
(04:30):
we are getting so used to alot of these digital devices, the
phones in our hands, thesocial media, the YouTube shorts,
that grabbing your audience'sattention has become such a hard
thing to do these days. Andwhen you start with a story, you
have much more likelihood ofgrabbing that attention because all
(04:51):
of a sudden you're talkingabout something that has intrigue.
All of a sudden they want toknow what's going to happen next.
And with that in your hands,you're able to then say, and let
me tell you why this storymatters, and you're able to then
bridge over to the initiativethat you want them to work on, the
(05:13):
call to action that you wantthem to take. So I think that's really.
I think there is a lot moreinterest in storytelling because
of the fact that humans are somuch inclined to latch onto what
happened to the story, whathappened to that main character.
And they want to figure outhow do they. They fit into that story
(05:37):
so they can hopefully play arole in helping Bring about the change
and the vision that the leaderis talking about.
Yeah, I love that. And I betwe're going to talk probably a lot
more about where doesstorytelling come in with probably
change management, so tospeak, and how do you get people
(05:58):
on board. But before we evenkind of go down that road, interestingly,
some of the work that I'vebeen doing in talent management,
we, we kind of, we kind of raninto this issue with employees at
multiple companies that I'dworked with, worked for, where there
was sort of this myth foremployees of like there's some secret
plan that HR has for you andyour career. There was always this
(06:21):
like, you know, what's mycareer path? What's my, you know,
tell me what my career pathis. And one of the best tools we
had to bring in to help sortof showcase, it's all individual.
There's no, you know, hiddenplan we have for you was actually
leadership. Storytelling wasactually bringing leaders in and
having them tell their careerstories. Right? Just that aspect
(06:44):
of career story of that aspectof storytelling, having leaders come
in and just tell their owncareer story. And interestingly hearing
these weird left hand turnsand right hand turns and unexpected
opportunities when, whenpeople kind of in their mind already
had their own assumptionsaround, you know, that this person
(07:06):
must have had this perfectstep by step by step. So I think
there's so many pockets wherestorytelling is really important.
So where has your focusprimarily been with storytelling?
I think you're totally right.For me, the focus has been around
how leaders tend a lot of thetime to come up with ideas and then
(07:31):
they show up on a Mondaymorning and all of a sudden they
are talking about this ideaand that idea. So as I'm coaching
leaders at Cisco, for example,I discovered that of course this
is the tendency when you autoleader a lot of the time you have
a vision, you want to changethings. Sometimes these ideas are
popping up much morefrequently than we could imagine.
And leaders tend to think thatall they have to do is go in a meeting
(07:55):
and share the idea. But ofcourse to your point about change
management, they realize Ireally have to intentionally go about
communicating the idea, butalso coming back and saying, let
me share with you how I thinkwe can go about doing this and then
inviting everybody to cocreate and those steps. And then
(08:17):
now all of a sudden things arestarting to look more concrete because
we're thinking through thedifferent impacted groups and we're
thinking through what thatchange means. And we're also hopefully
going to come up with a phasedApproach to make it happen. Because
of course, as soon as youmention the idea, some people in
the room are already havinganxiety about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(08:41):
You know, because of courseit's going to change the fact that
they have buil expertise in aparticular area. And now you're coming
and saying, we're going tochange that deck of cards. And as
soon as you change the deck ofcards, it's going to go up in the
air, and then we don't knowwhere it's going to land. So they
want you to show them thatthere is a conscious process for
(09:04):
protecting and honoring thepast, celebrating the present, and
then thinking about how do wecreate a solid future.
Yeah, yeah. You're giving methis feeling like everybody needs
to become a TED Talk speaker.
Very important skill set to have.
Yeah.
(09:24):
Because to your point, a lotof leaders find themselves in this
place where I have to energizethe organization behind that future
vision. And a lot of the time,the daily grind is in the way. How
do we take care of thebusiness now as well as build the
future business? So there'salways tension, especially among
(09:47):
the leadership team, betweenwhere do we are today and where do
we want to be? And it'ssomething they struggle with all
the time.
That's. That's a really goodpoint because I've been talking a
lot about leadershiptransitions. It's a big focus of
my own work in terms of peoplebeing promoted. And how do you make
that transition from one levelto the next? And what, what is in
my head right now isespecially like, people going from
(10:09):
individual contributor to aleader kind of the. The metaphor
being, you know, we. Wepromote people for their skill in
one job and say, right. So thebest salesperson. Right. And the
sales leader has moved on, andwe're going to take the best salesperson.
You get to become the manager.Right. So we hire them for their
sales skills. Right. So I'm.I'm betting when you start to work
(10:33):
with people that you get a bitof this, like. Well, I was hired
for this expertise, notstorytelling. Right. So I would bet
even in getting people andworking with them on. On storytelling
skills that you're. Youprobably initially get a little bit
of pushback, maybe. Or is thatchanging also? As I think maybe.
(10:55):
Maybe people are understandingmore and more how important storytelling
is. But so you tell me. Iguess I would. I would. I would wager
maybe earlier in your workmore pushback, or do you still.
Right. I think, I think thisreally. This really channels into
the idea that to Your point?Once they make that transition, there's
so much that's being asked ofthem. And then being able to tell,
(11:19):
to strategically tell storiesis another skill set that some may
have, but a lot more that wecan imagine probably need to develop.
And then all of a sudden it'slike, oh, my goodness, now you're
adding this to the list.
Yeah, you know, I've got tolearn this too.
Exactly. Yeah. So I think wecan definitely empathize and I think
(11:39):
we can say to our listeners,give yourself grace, because I love,
I love how in your businessyou give them like a 90 day plan.
And within that 90 day plan,they can definitely take care of
the essential priorities. Andthen at the end of that 90 day plan,
we can then say, you knowwhat, now we want to take a deep
breath and think aboutdeveloping a vision for not just
(12:02):
running today's business, butwhat does that future business looks
like? And they can essentiallyagain allow themselves to say, I
don't have to do everythingthey want. Yeah, I can start to build
on what Kent is giving me.
Yeah, well, so where do youtend to start with people when you
start to work with folks onstorytelling? What's the kind of
(12:25):
foundation for you? Where doyou start with folks?
The foundation is to startwith a vision by having them think
about your strategiccontribution to the business would
be not about running thebusiness as it is today, but looking
and finding pockets where wecould find incremental improvement
in the business and then maybeanother bucket where there is a step
(12:50):
change and how the business isgetting done. And it's an opportunity
to increase their ownrelationship capital. Because in
order for them to develop thatvision and do it in the proper way,
it's not going to be by themgoing off to a mountaintop and thinking.
We encourage them to do that,but we also encourage them to come
(13:10):
back and say, I have someideas, I'd love to socialize them
and maybe have people shapethings up with me. Because that's
the magic way of making surethat as we are building the ideas,
we're also building supportand conviction to those ideas. So
that's really where we start.We start by saying, if this moment
(13:31):
in time is an opportunity foryou to do a reset on your leadership
journey and the team thatyou're working with, let's think
about where are things todayversus where they need to be. His
or her boss must have toldhim, we need to do this, we need
to do this, we need to dothat. There's already tension building
(13:53):
up in the air on where thingsare at and where things need to be.
So all of a sudden, thisleader, in addition to managing a
team of people, is also beingasked to manage a transition in how
the business is done, whichcreates to. To your point about change
management. It creates thisidea that we need to lead change
(14:13):
and manage change. And thereare two different things. One is
emotional. It's about buildingdesire. It's about building conviction.
It's about realizing thatpeople would resist the change and
working through that emotionalaspect. And then managing is more
about, okay, we, we need tohave a release plan, and we need
(14:33):
to think, how do we cascadethat out and make sure all the people
that are impacted by itunderstand why and all that stuff.
Nice. So let's dive in alittle bit more, too. Right. So I
know that you have done a lotof thinking in terms of kind of how
you conceptualizestorytelling, framing, you know,
(14:54):
so let's. Let's dive in alittle bit. I'd love to hear a little
bit more about kind of whereyou're aiming people and how you're
focusing them.
Absolutely. So one of the keyconcepts that you'll find me talking
with clients in the very earlycoaching sessions is to, again, invite
them, as we think about thatreset, invite them to see themselves
as the chief energizer for theorganization, because energy is,
(15:18):
again, one of those things. Inaddition to being short on attention,
we're also short on energy. Alot of us are overextended. So I
invite leaders to realize thatwe're going to have to get selective.
We're going to have to getselective on activities that we do
on a daily basis. We're goingto have to get selective on initiatives
(15:39):
that we're going to take onand really cascade things out so
that we can have a reservoirof energy. Because as a leader, it's
almost like you're the host ofthe party. If you are sitting in
a corner and you know you'retired, you're exhausted, people pass
by you in that party, they cansee you. It doesn't feel like a party.
(16:04):
I mean, it feels like, youknow, this is like a week or something.
So in order for us to energizethe organization, we're going to
have to start with a fewindividuals in that organization.
And one of them is definitelythe leader of the group. Whether
that's a he or she, we wanther or him to be the chief excitement
officer. And the excitementhere is not about taking care of
(16:27):
sustaining today's business,which we have to honor. And respect
and protect. But it's a lotmore about the fact that you've been,
as a leader, you've been tothe promised land, you saw how things
could be much better thantoday. And you are energized by what
you've heard from people, whatyou've heard from your boss, what
you've heard from thecustomers. And oh, my God, can you
(16:50):
just imagine what would happenwhen we actually get there? And then
you spend some time explainingto people how beautiful life is when
we create that new reality. Sothat's where then all of a sudden,
storytelling becomes tablestakes. Because if you want people
(17:11):
to be energized about whatyou're talking to them about, hopefully
the story gives you theopportunity to say, let me show you
where things are now, wherethings could be. And oh my God, I'd
love for you to work with meand I'd love to work with you to
make it happen so it gets awhole lot more interesting and inspirational
because of the idea thatyou're building excitement towards
(17:35):
a better future.
Yeah. So I know there's,there's really good backing for what
you're talking about. I can'tremember what it was exactly, but
I know I read something sometime ago now, and this person was.
They were dissecting some ofMartin Luther King Jr's speeches,
in fact. Right. And kind oftalking about how he would kind of
go between talking about the past.
(17:58):
Yeah, exactly.
Current situation, thestruggle, you know, struggle. How
great things could be in thisother potential future. Past struggle.
Potential future. Right. Andhow he would kind of build momentum
and build a story. So that'skind of what I'm hearing here is
you're kind of. Absolutely.
(18:18):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.Absolutely. Right on point. And there's
a lot of Harvard research onthis whole idea of energy and how
much it affects everythingelse. Because again, just by thinking
about that party that I wasdescribing, you can definitely tell
it will be a whole differentparty if the host of the party is
all over the place andexcitement, showing people where
(18:40):
the drinks are, showing foodis, showing people where they can
go out and hang out by thepool. I mean, it's a whole different
vibe than the vibe where, oh,my God, our boss is so tired. Don't
even mention this, though.
So, yeah, so. So if I'mfollowing you, I feel like maybe
you're already tapping into,you know, the, the free up space
of your model. Right. Free up.Think up.
(19:01):
Yeah, speak up.
So what, what more can youtell us about the free up?
Definitely part of that model.So. So that. That model and simply
we basically call it thestrategic leader model, whereby we're
inviting leaders to free up inorder for them to think up, in order
for them to speak up. Andfreeing up, to your point, is about
(19:25):
realizing that we're going tohave to manage our time, we have
to manage our energy, and weneed to make sure we have about 15
to 20% of our time dedicatedto thinking about what the future
could look like. And that'swhat gets us to that second stage
of thinking up. Thinking upnew ways of getting customer service
(19:47):
done, thinking up new ways ofpreparing our financial results,
thinking of how can we preparea much better dashboard for our leaders
to understand where thebusiness is at. And spending some
time thinking up, not just byyourself, as we mentioned before,
but also hopefully with yourstakeholders, your team members,
so they feel like you'rereally making sure that they are
(20:10):
shaping this with you. Yeah.And then speaking up is. Is the idea
of chief excitement Officerwhere you're going and you're energizing
the organization about, yes,we have to honor the present. We've
worked so hard to get here. Iappreciate everything you've done.
I see an opportunity for us touse AI to get us to much higher levels
and open up windows for uswhere we can do amazing things for
(20:33):
our customers. I need you onthat journey. I need you to shape
it up with me so you feel likeyou have to do this on a constant
basis and it doesn't happenonce you've seen that happen a lot
in organizations where as aleader, you have to spend a lot of
time going around. It's almostpolitical canvassing. You have to
go to every town, meet themayor and talk to the people.
(20:54):
Yeah, yeah. Well. And so Ithink what I love so much so far
about what I'm hearing iswhere this connects with a fair amount
of executive coaching, to bequite honest. Right. Like, I think
some of the starting places insome of my own coaching has to do
with. And some of the, I know,critical conversations that I've
had with multiple people thatI'm coaching is how are you spending
(21:15):
your time?
Right.
So are you, you know, andmaybe even starting with the vision
of, well, how do you want tobe spending your time? What should
you be spending. Spending yourtime on? What are you accountable
for? Because even with. And Iwould say this is true of directors,
VPs, even CEOs, is oftentimespeople become victim of lack of intention.
(21:42):
Right. And you know, you askthem even to just do a scan of the
previous 30 days in theircalendar. And you compare that against,
well, how do you want to bespending your time? And the lack
of alignment, you know, is.It's. It's almost ubiquitous, right.
This lack of alignment that.That leaders have between where they
know they should be spendingtheir time and how they are spending
(22:04):
their time currently. Right.So even in your model here, what
I mean, and I think you kindof honored this earlier by saying,
I'm not just giving you a newthing to do. Like, let's not just.
Just become good atstorytelling. It sounds like you're
even, you know, whether.Whether or not to borrow from, you
know, Karate kid from the 80s,right. You're kind of doing the,
(22:25):
the wax on, wax off here of,of probably also getting them to
be more strategic about howthey're spending their time in order
to. And I like what you saidhere because I, you know, I remember
talking with a VP even back inmy consulting days, who was just
said, like, I'm so busy, Idon't even have time to think about,
you know, I'm supposed. I'msupposed to be creating the new assessments,
(22:46):
you know, for the world.Right. Or what have you. And I don't
have. I don't even have timeto think about that. I'm so busy.
Right. So I like how part ofyour model here seems to be it goes
beyond just storytelling.Right. It is also, and I like the
language you're putting behindit, too. That is like creating space
for strategic energy. Right.Where are you actually putting your
time and energy?
(23:07):
Absolutely. And one of the,One of the. I love what you're saying
because I think that what wewould want leaders to think about
is there is a differencebetween running today's business
and creating tomorrow'sbusiness. And I usually put questions
in front of people. Ibasically say, if the company today
went out to hire somebody torun today's business, how many applicants
(23:30):
would they get? And highlylikely they're going to get a ton
of applicants. But let's saywe actually want someone to come
in and create tomorrow'sbusiness. And we put the same job
description out. The chancesfor us getting somebody who is going
to come and think and envisionand create something totally new,
higher likely, the number ofapplicants is going to be much lower.
(23:53):
Because it's very easy to saywe need an accounting manager, we
can look at the title andactually know exactly what's that
about. Whereas said, we needan accounting manager that can build
the next generation of how weprovide services for our client.
I Mean that person at thebeginning is highly likely to say,
I don't know where to start.And that's unsettling. That's unsettling
(24:16):
for a lot of people.
Yeah, well, and I'd imagine,right, because we're bringing people
up through certain functions.Right. So, you know, with the exception
of maybe the finance side.Right. I mean, there's, there's always,
you know, there's enoughstories of CFOs becoming CEOs for
(24:36):
sure. But when you, I thinkwhen you look at other functions,
we never hire, with theexception of marketing, perhaps,
and maybe, maybe depending onindustry, we're rarely hiring people
for storytelling ability. Right.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
You want them to be so good atwhat they do, so they do it so well
and manage the team so welland, and, and storytelling becomes
(24:59):
a vehicle, specifically whenyou are trying to help people envision
something that's going to becoming up into the future. In my
mind, that's, that's usuallywhere it's going to be best helpful,
is to help people in vision.Oh, you have a new process improvement
that you want to make. Youknow what this, what this would actually
(25:20):
sound like, this sounds likewe want to increase our freeway lanes.
This is going to be the fastlane for a select segment of our
customers. So not onlystories, but as I just did now, I
used a metaphor to get thepoint across that we already have
four lanes. This is going tobe the fifth lane, and it's not like
(25:41):
any other lane. It's going tobe for our VIP customers because
we're finding out that they'reactually willing to pay more if they
can get better, fasterservice. And then I basically look
around the room and say, whofeels that this is something we should
do? And everybody's, oh, myGod, I heard from this customer,
I heard from that customer.And this is going to give us an uplift
(26:03):
on our margin, about 15, 20%.You know what that means? This coming
December will highly likelyhave a bonus for everybody.
Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. Inmy own head, I'm going to like my
HR days of like, all right,we're rolling out a new annual performance
review system. Boom. Likethat's, you know, versus, you know,
(26:25):
how painful the annualperformance review is.
There you go.
Right? You know, like, likethere's, there's, you know, how do
you, how do you grab people?So I have a question for you, right.
Because I would wager,particularly in our over connected
world, I'd wager some of theadvice when it comes to storytelling
(26:46):
is maybe Be more personal,Right. To tell more of your personal
story or your personalnarrative. But I bet that. So I'm
guessing, right, that that'spart of. Part of, you know, in your
space, so to speak. But I'malso guessing that still gets a fair
amount of pushback because,you know, I know at least with. We'll
pick on LinkedIn for a minute,which I know you and I are both active
(27:09):
on. Yeah, it's something like1% of LinkedIn users who actually,
you know, are posting. Create content.
Yes.
So I'd wager you get some ofthat pushback from people like. Like,
nobody wants to hear my story.Or I don't have a good. I'm boring.
I don't have much of a story.So how do you. How do you work with
(27:29):
people on their own? Thosethings that make them kind of stuck
and resistant to morestorytelling is.
That is absolutely true. Inthe beginning, they are wondering
if they. If they have anystories. And of course, what I encourage
them to do is create almostlike a story bank a number of stories
(27:49):
that are part of how they grewup. A very simple example. I might
ask one of the leaders I workwith, and I would basically say,
when you were growing up, didyou at some moment get a bike? And
they might say, yeah, yeah.And I. And I say, what was that like?
And they may have thisexciting story about how they have
(28:10):
been waiting for one for solong, and then one Christmas they
woke up. They, you know, walkdownstairs, and right next to the
tree, there was this bigwrapping, and it looks like a box.
Maybe it was a TV orsomething. I don't know what it was,
but I remember meticulouslyopening up that box. So you can see
the story. Right. There is astory here about building aspiration
(28:35):
and building intrigue andbuilding surprise and then finally
getting what you want, andthen you can immediately leverage
that story. And it's. Andit's. It doesn't have to be like.
I know in the coaching world,sometimes you hear people saying,
you know, you have to have anorigin story. Maybe you were depressed
and got better. And thosestories are real. When we are trying
(29:01):
to lead others, we're going toget selective again. And the story
about depression may also behelpful at some moment if it has
relevance to the situation.And I may be talking with one of
my employees, and they can seethey are struggling with something,
and I might tap into that. Imight say, you know, I've had some
down days and I wanted tocheck in, but otherwise, if I'm trying
(29:25):
To inspire a larger group ofpeople, I might tap into a different
story. So to your point, Ithink you have to get them. You have
to get them to believe thatthe simplest story may actually be
good enough for us to createsomething around it. Because one
of the. One of the frameworksI have, it's a dramatic treatment
framework where we do a littlebit of almost like Hollywood style,
(29:47):
where basically we take thesame story. We say we can actually
tell this story in twoseconds. We can actually tell the
story in five minutes. We canmake it a 15 minute talk, and we
can essentially then, like anaccordion, maybe either compress
it or expand it. So dependingon the situation, you can really
dance with it. Yeah, you haveto be really clear on what point
(30:09):
are you trying to make? Likewith the. With the bike story, Maybe
I want to build the desire forsomething and waiting for that day.
And then you say, you knowwhat? I don't want our customers
to wait for that day for toolong. That's why we're building that
fifth lane.
Oh, I love that. See, that'snice. Yeah, I see that. Okay, well,
(30:32):
so I'm gonna. I'm gonna lie toyou and I'm gonna say, I think my
listeners want, like, give ustwo. But it's me. It's really me.
Because that was a veryvaluable, like, ooh, how do I want
to work my. My bicycle.
My.
My first bike story orlearning to ride a bike. You know,
what's two other simple, like.Like typical childhood or adolescent
stories that most people havethat they could be thinking about.
(30:55):
I think graduation is probablyone that a lot of people can relate
to. We could. We could lookfor a graduation angle that gives
us this moment of getting to apoint where we are finally at the
point of celebrating ourachievement. And I can use this as
a rollout date for ourSalesforce initiative, our CRM initiative.
(31:18):
And we talk about howbeautiful that day can be and then
come back and say, in orderfor us to create that reality, what
do we need to do in terms ofgo live readiness? I can have like
a whole day workshop where wespill out on flip charts how we will
create the conditions forsuccess for our go live. So I think
(31:40):
graduation would be one ofthem. And can I.
Can I pile onto that for asecond? Yeah, please. Because that
makes me think of a couple. Acouple similarly. Like a wedding.
Right. And I'll explain whereI think they're similar. Here is
there's all this time one putsinto thinking about now with a wedding.
There's a Lot more, obviously,a lot more planning for a lot of
meticulous details. But inboth cases, that wedding, graduation,
(32:03):
it's over like that, Right.You spend all this time thinking
about it, planning for it, andthe experience, you know, is a moment
in time. Right. And so that'sjust kind of.
I love that top of my head.
Of like, where could you minethe story of planning and prepping
for a wedding, you know, inthat way, too? But. Sorry, I interrupted
(32:26):
you. I totally put you on thespot, too. I was like, give me two.
Yeah, give me two, please.
It's wonderful because I thinkyou. You've just shown. Showing the
audience that it could be verysimple moments of. In our lives where
you bring that moment up, andwe would encourage them then to think
about the details. You know,maybe it's the planning, maybe it's
(32:48):
the guests, maybe it's the.The honeymoon trip. And you can pivot
and say, you know what? Whenwe make that, when we create that
fifth lane and we givecustomers that VIP experience for
them, it's going to feel likehoneymoon, because everything will
be a whole lot easier for themto get what they want. So you can
(33:11):
always package it. And I thinkthat's the message that you're sending
people, is that it doesn'thave to be too hard to pick a moment
in time and then think aboutwhat lesson or message you want to
get out of it so you can buildon it. So that pivoting or that bridging
over is what I coach clientson is we basically say, okay, let's.
(33:31):
Let's pause and think abouthow are we going to bridge over to
the point we're making. Theremay be a similarity that we want
to pick out and then show theaudience how you can then pivot,
because a lot of the time theymight get stuck in the story, but
we want them to tell the storyjust enough so they can bridge over
to the point they want to make.
(33:52):
Yeah, I love that. I want totell you a quick. I have to tell
you a quick story now, please.I'll try to keep it brief. Right.
So during. During the summerof 2020. Right. Height of the pandemic.
Yeah.
I decided to build a floatingdeck in my backyard. Right. But my
grandfather was a carpenter.Right. Now I. I am not, but. But
(34:13):
I'm plenty handy when I. WhenI stop complaining. And, you know,
it was lessons learned fromhim of, like, you know, yeah, you
can plan and you can design.At a certain point, you just have
to get your tools out and getstarted and oh, you're now, you know
then, because even with allthe planning, you're going to get
to a point where this isn'tsquare. And frankly, at that point,
(34:35):
you still might just need toget the sledgehammer out and pound
the thing square, you know,with a few good hits. Right. And,
and I, you know, I think aboutthat with rolling things out in any
project, rolling out a projectwhere, yep, you can think you can
plan it, eventually you needto get started and be, be willing
to tweak, be willing to makechanges, be willing to grab the sledgehammer
and just kind of pound thatthing square midway through. Yeah,
(35:01):
sorry, I had to, I had, I hadto try to try out a minute.
You basically showed peoplethat you, at some point you can do
some correction, coursecorrections, and that's fine, but
you, at some point you have toget the ball rolling. And I think
that was the key message youwere saying is at some point you're
gonna have, you have, you haveto step up and start walking ahead.
(35:23):
Yeah, I love it. Well, I, I'mgoing to get us into the advice section
here as we're kind of windingdown. I think this time is flying,
which I appreciate. So I, I,and I want to make sure I save some
time too, at the end of theadvice column here, because I know
you've got a book you want totalk about too. So I always ask everybody
to come prepared with a couplepieces of advice. So the first one
is, you know, what's one pieceof advice you have for leaders?
(35:47):
I would say, at least at aminimum. At a minimum, get yourself
energized at the beginning ofthe day somehow, whether you jump,
you know, you do jumping jacksor you take a walk outside, but for
the sake of God, bring alittle bit more energy into your
conversation so that peoplefeed off of you. It happens. Whether
(36:09):
you want it or not, they'regoing to feed off of you. So if you
come with your shouldersdrooping and they can tell that you're
tired, you haven't had a goodweekend. It's not fair. Let's just
be honest. It's not fair foreverybody at the office.
Nice. I'm gonna. Let me, letme tag onto that because there's
a. I'm gonna. He probablywould bristle against being called
(36:32):
a sales guru, but gentlemen,I've become aware of over the last
six months, Darren McKee, hedoes a lot of sale, you know, a lot
of stuff with sales. And oneof his things is like, hey, before
you get on that Importantsales call. Call your best friend,
call your, you know, your,your wife or your husband or call
your mom or your dad or yourbrother and like, have a real uplifting
(36:54):
conversation. I like verysimilar. Right. Like, how do you
manage your energy? How do yoube intentional? Right, Right. Yeah.
So what's one piece of adviceyou have for those who support leaders?
Right. That could be hr, thatcould be senior leaders who are,
you know, coaching andsupporting leaders under them.
I think this idea that we needto help leaders realize that they
(37:18):
need to lead, not just managethe change, that basically means
I see that you have back toback meetings on Monday, but then
you also have this meeting onTuesday where you're going to have
an all hands. Highly likelyyou need a couple of hours to prepare
your talk with at least onestory that will be inspiring. So
(37:38):
you know what? I think I canhave Sandy fill in for you in that
meeting and maybe I can haveJim take care of that for you because
I think you're probably goingto need that time because unless
we nicely tell them, you needto actually work on that talk because
that talk is going to becomewhat I call an exponential value
(38:02):
moment in that meeting. Whenyou speak, other people will be impacted
and you have to think aboutwhat kind of impact is this going
to be. So to your point, Ilove what you said. Intentional.
You have to be intentionalthinking about. I want them to feel
energized. I want them to feellike they cannot wait to get to that
promised land. And I want themto feel supported and therefore my
(38:25):
talk will create thosefeelings. Yeah. If I don't have my
slide deck or my talkingpoints, well, you know what? I better
get prepared.
Yeah, I like that. I think,you know, what you're saying here
is for, you know, seniorleaders, or hr, to give the leaders
that they're supporting thepermission. Right. Give them the
permission, slash,encouragement. Right. To be intentional
(38:49):
about the role that they playin motivating. Right. And I like
how you kind of draw thedistinction between managing change
versus leading change. Right.
Yeah.
Kind of encouraging people tostep into that leadership role so
much.
Yeah. Is dependent on thatidea of sponsorship. I used to work
for proi, and a key statisticthere is that sponsorship is one
(39:12):
of the most important factorsin the success of a change initiative.
So that leader or leaderscoming in and talking and reminding
everybody of the promised landis 90% of how to get there.
Nice.
Which is crazy. Yeah.
Well, and I know you, youshowed me a book earlier. So what's,
(39:33):
what's your book?
All about.
Tell us a little bit about the book.
Yeah, so the book's called theStrategic Leadership Mastery, a 90
day planner for effectiveleadership and growth. And the key
idea there is to do what wetalked about earlier, just this idea
of freeing up so you can thinkup, so you can speak up what the
planner does when leaders getthis. And basically each page is
(39:57):
an opportunity for them tohave what I call a meeting with self
recommended on Fridayafternoon. Where you think about
yourself, you think about yourteam, your organization and the business
as a whole. So you're able tostrategically think because if you
are in the grind of the dailybusiness, you're not going to help
(40:17):
the company as a leader,you're going to help them as a manager.
And they can, they can find apile of those outside the company.
If all they want is people tomanage the business, highly likely
they want you to also helpthem create the future of the business.
And that's where this is goingto be helpful because even if you
(40:38):
just do one strategic thingper week, it's a whole lot better
than zero or minus five.
Well, where can people findthat? And Ash, where can you know
if people are interested instorytelling? But to be honest, from
what I'm hearing today isyou're talking about a lot of stuff
beyond just storytelling.Right. And really kind of elevated
into the title of your book,Strategic Leadership. So people are
(41:01):
interested in the book. Ifthey're interested in working with
you, tell us a little morewhere they can find the book or how
they can find you.
Absolutely. Soleadeffectively, co is one destination
and also we havecommunicatewithclarity. Co is another
destination for people.LinkedIn is fantastic. Ash at Executive
(41:23):
Greatness is a very easy wayfor people to, to reach out as well.
And you're totally right. Ithink storytelling is just, is just
the nucleus of doing so much more.
Yeah, it's like the, it's,it's the above the water of the iceberg,
I think in terms of, you know,what you've been talking about today,
which I think is a lot of thebelow the water stuff that people
need to attend to and beintentional about in order to, you
(41:48):
know, lead instead of justmanage. Right, Absolutely. Absolutely.
Awesome, Ash. Well, I reallyappreciate you coming on today and
people can find you. I know Ifound you on LinkedIn as well, so
I know people can find youthere. Really appreciate you coming
on today.
I had a lot of fun. Thank youso much for having me. Thank you,
Kent.
Yeah, take it easy. Thatbrings us to the end of our episode.
Thanks for listening. I'dencourage you to head on over to
(42:10):
my website, Kent Coach andstart a conversation with me there.
Or check out my promotionplaybook at Kent Coach Playbook.
Before you go on with yourday, I ask that you please take a
moment to leave a rating and areview wherever you listen to podcasts.
Five stars. That helps putthis podcast in front of more eyes
and ears. Until next time,take it easy.
Leaders tend to think that allthey have to do is go in a meeting
and share the idea. But ofcourse, to your point about change
management, they realize Ireally have to intentionally go about
communicating the idea, butalso coming back and saying, let
me share with you how I thinkwe can go about doing this and then
inviting everybody to cocreate those steps. And then now
(00:29):
all of a sudden things arestarting to look more concrete because
we're thinking through thedifferent impacted groups and we're
thinking through what thatchange means. We're also hopefully
going to come up with a phasedapproach to make it happen.
Hi there and welcome to theStep Up Expert Voices for Leadership
(00:49):
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
I encourage you to subscribeso you never miss an episode. One
last thing. As a leadershipdevelopment consultant and executive
coach, I have a particularinterest in supporting recent internally
promoted leaders. If that'syou, or if you support a leader who
(01:12):
has been recently promoted, Iencourage you to visit my website
at Kent Coach Playbook anddownload a free copy of my 90 day
blueprint filled withpractical advice for you or the leader
you support in hitting theground running and truly stepping
up to their new leadershiplevel. Without further ado, on with
the show. Welcome everyone.Today we're here to talk about storytelling
(01:33):
as a strategic tool to drivecommitment. Did we say Ash?
Commitment and conviction.
Yes, and conviction. Thankyou. So with me today for this conversation
is Ash Siddiq. Ash is aLeadership in Communications advisor,
speaker and coach to Fortune100 executives, founder of the Executive
Greatness Institute Institute,and creator of the Chief Excitement
(01:57):
Officer philosophy and theFree Up, Think Up, Speak Up Framework.
Ash, thank you for joining me today.
Thank you so much for havingme, Kent.
Well, before we get into thetopic du jour, I'd love to hear just
a little bit more about youand your career story and whatever
your how wherever you want tostart that.
Absolutely. Yeah. So I, Iactually came to the US on a Fulbright
(02:18):
scholarship. I was going tobecome a linguist. Okay. Years ago
and long story short, I gotinto corporate settings, worked for
Schwab, Deloitte, a number ofhigh tech companies, most recently
Cisco. And Cisco's experiencewas the the top experience in a journey
that led me to pay attentionto how language was such the main
(02:41):
channel for leadershipeffectiveness and ended up essentially
leaving Cisco in 2015 andbecoming a leadership communications
coach. As you mentioned. Andit's been a really wonder journey
to see how much difference itmakes when leaders are able to speak
with conviction and then helpbuild that up within organizations,
(03:02):
because conviction is wrappedup in building desire. And once people
believe in something, then wesee amazing things happen. And now
there's so much that'shappening in organizations where
with AI, everybody's trying tobuild a vision for the future and
how AI fits into that and howwe can get everybody moving in that
(03:24):
direction. So it's been awonderful journey to see how we can
help leaders do exactly that.
That's awesome. Well, and sowe're going to talk about storytelling
today. And you know, I feellike it's come up a number of times
in my career, right. Andparticularly in my time in hr. You
know, when I was most recentlyI was with. With General Mills, right.
(03:46):
And we talked a lot about. Andthey're obviously a giant, you know,
brand forward company, right.And so storytelling sort of at the
heart of a lot of what theydo. But even, even as I was talking
with another leader recentlyat a much more quiet brand, right.
They're not necessarily abrand forward household name, but
even he was talking about, youknow, this element of storytelling,
(04:06):
even in his role and howimportant is. So I feel like storytelling
has come up more and more inrecent years for me. And so, you
know, how did you get intostorytelling and what gives? Why
is it so important?
I think what's happeningtoday, especially with the fact that
there is shortage ofattention, I think across the board,
(04:30):
we are getting so used to alot of these digital devices, the
phones in our hands, thesocial media, the YouTube shorts,
that grabbing your audience'sattention has become such a hard
thing to do these days. Andwhen you start with a story, you
have much more likelihood ofgrabbing that attention because all
(04:51):
of a sudden you're talkingabout something that has intrigue.
All of a sudden they want toknow what's going to happen next.
And with that in your hands,you're able to then say, and let
me tell you why this storymatters, and you're able to then
bridge over to the initiativethat you want them to work on, the
(05:13):
call to action that you wantthem to take. So I think that's really.
I think there is a lot moreinterest in storytelling because
of the fact that humans are somuch inclined to latch onto what
happened to the story, whathappened to that main character.
And they want to figure outhow do they. They fit into that story
(05:37):
so they can hopefully play arole in helping Bring about the change
and the vision that the leaderis talking about.
Yeah, I love that. And I betwe're going to talk probably a lot
more about where doesstorytelling come in with probably
change management, so tospeak, and how do you get people
(05:58):
on board. But before we evenkind of go down that road, interestingly,
some of the work that I'vebeen doing in talent management,
we, we kind of, we kind of raninto this issue with employees at
multiple companies that I'dworked with, worked for, where there
was sort of this myth foremployees of like there's some secret
plan that HR has for you andyour career. There was always this
(06:21):
like, you know, what's mycareer path? What's my, you know,
tell me what my career pathis. And one of the best tools we
had to bring in to help sortof showcase, it's all individual.
There's no, you know, hiddenplan we have for you was actually
leadership. Storytelling wasactually bringing leaders in and
having them tell their careerstories. Right? Just that aspect
(06:44):
of career story of that aspectof storytelling, having leaders come
in and just tell their owncareer story. And interestingly hearing
these weird left hand turnsand right hand turns and unexpected
opportunities when, whenpeople kind of in their mind already
had their own assumptionsaround, you know, that this person
(07:06):
must have had this perfectstep by step by step. So I think
there's so many pockets wherestorytelling is really important.
So where has your focusprimarily been with storytelling?
I think you're totally right.For me, the focus has been around
how leaders tend a lot of thetime to come up with ideas and then
(07:31):
they show up on a Mondaymorning and all of a sudden they
are talking about this ideaand that idea. So as I'm coaching
leaders at Cisco, for example,I discovered that of course this
is the tendency when you autoleader a lot of the time you have
a vision, you want to changethings. Sometimes these ideas are
popping up much morefrequently than we could imagine.
And leaders tend to think thatall they have to do is go in a meeting
(07:55):
and share the idea. But ofcourse to your point about change
management, they realize Ireally have to intentionally go about
communicating the idea, butalso coming back and saying, let
me share with you how I thinkwe can go about doing this and then
inviting everybody to cocreate and those steps. And then
(08:17):
now all of a sudden things arestarting to look more concrete because
we're thinking through thedifferent impacted groups and we're
thinking through what thatchange means. And we're also hopefully
going to come up with a phasedApproach to make it happen. Because
of course, as soon as youmention the idea, some people in
the room are already havinganxiety about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(08:41):
You know, because of courseit's going to change the fact that
they have buil expertise in aparticular area. And now you're coming
and saying, we're going tochange that deck of cards. And as
soon as you change the deck ofcards, it's going to go up in the
air, and then we don't knowwhere it's going to land. So they
want you to show them thatthere is a conscious process for
(09:04):
protecting and honoring thepast, celebrating the present, and
then thinking about how do wecreate a solid future.
Yeah, yeah. You're giving methis feeling like everybody needs
to become a TED Talk speaker.
Very important skill set to have.
Yeah.
(09:24):
Because to your point, a lotof leaders find themselves in this
place where I have to energizethe organization behind that future
vision. And a lot of the time,the daily grind is in the way. How
do we take care of thebusiness now as well as build the
future business? So there'salways tension, especially among
(09:47):
the leadership team, betweenwhere do we are today and where do
we want to be? And it'ssomething they struggle with all
the time.
That's. That's a really goodpoint because I've been talking a
lot about leadershiptransitions. It's a big focus of
my own work in terms of peoplebeing promoted. And how do you make
that transition from one levelto the next? And what, what is in
my head right now isespecially like, people going from
(10:09):
individual contributor to aleader kind of the. The metaphor
being, you know, we. Wepromote people for their skill in
one job and say, right. So thebest salesperson. Right. And the
sales leader has moved on, andwe're going to take the best salesperson.
You get to become the manager.Right. So we hire them for their
sales skills. Right. So I'm.I'm betting when you start to work
(10:33):
with people that you get a bitof this, like. Well, I was hired
for this expertise, notstorytelling. Right. So I would bet
even in getting people andworking with them on. On storytelling
skills that you're. Youprobably initially get a little bit
of pushback, maybe. Or is thatchanging also? As I think maybe.
(10:55):
Maybe people are understandingmore and more how important storytelling
is. But so you tell me. Iguess I would. I would. I would wager
maybe earlier in your workmore pushback, or do you still.
Right. I think, I think thisreally. This really channels into
the idea that to Your point?Once they make that transition, there's
so much that's being asked ofthem. And then being able to tell,
(11:19):
to strategically tell storiesis another skill set that some may
have, but a lot more that wecan imagine probably need to develop.
And then all of a sudden it'slike, oh, my goodness, now you're
adding this to the list.
Yeah, you know, I've got tolearn this too.
Exactly. Yeah. So I think wecan definitely empathize and I think
(11:39):
we can say to our listeners,give yourself grace, because I love,
I love how in your businessyou give them like a 90 day plan.
And within that 90 day plan,they can definitely take care of
the essential priorities. Andthen at the end of that 90 day plan,
we can then say, you knowwhat, now we want to take a deep
breath and think aboutdeveloping a vision for not just
(12:02):
running today's business, butwhat does that future business looks
like? And they can essentiallyagain allow themselves to say, I
don't have to do everythingthey want. Yeah, I can start to build
on what Kent is giving me.
Yeah, well, so where do youtend to start with people when you
start to work with folks onstorytelling? What's the kind of
(12:25):
foundation for you? Where doyou start with folks?
The foundation is to startwith a vision by having them think
about your strategiccontribution to the business would
be not about running thebusiness as it is today, but looking
and finding pockets where wecould find incremental improvement
in the business and then maybeanother bucket where there is a step
(12:50):
change and how the business isgetting done. And it's an opportunity
to increase their ownrelationship capital. Because in
order for them to develop thatvision and do it in the proper way,
it's not going to be by themgoing off to a mountaintop and thinking.
We encourage them to do that,but we also encourage them to come
(13:10):
back and say, I have someideas, I'd love to socialize them
and maybe have people shapethings up with me. Because that's
the magic way of making surethat as we are building the ideas,
we're also building supportand conviction to those ideas. So
that's really where we start.We start by saying, if this moment
(13:31):
in time is an opportunity foryou to do a reset on your leadership
journey and the team thatyou're working with, let's think
about where are things todayversus where they need to be. His
or her boss must have toldhim, we need to do this, we need
to do this, we need to dothat. There's already tension building
(13:53):
up in the air on where thingsare at and where things need to be.
So all of a sudden, thisleader, in addition to managing a
team of people, is also beingasked to manage a transition in how
the business is done, whichcreates to. To your point about change
management. It creates thisidea that we need to lead change
(14:13):
and manage change. And thereare two different things. One is
emotional. It's about buildingdesire. It's about building conviction.
It's about realizing thatpeople would resist the change and
working through that emotionalaspect. And then managing is more
about, okay, we, we need tohave a release plan, and we need
(14:33):
to think, how do we cascadethat out and make sure all the people
that are impacted by itunderstand why and all that stuff.
Nice. So let's dive in alittle bit more, too. Right. So I
know that you have done a lotof thinking in terms of kind of how
you conceptualizestorytelling, framing, you know,
(14:54):
so let's. Let's dive in alittle bit. I'd love to hear a little
bit more about kind of whereyou're aiming people and how you're
focusing them.
Absolutely. So one of the keyconcepts that you'll find me talking
with clients in the very earlycoaching sessions is to, again, invite
them, as we think about thatreset, invite them to see themselves
as the chief energizer for theorganization, because energy is,
(15:18):
again, one of those things. Inaddition to being short on attention,
we're also short on energy. Alot of us are overextended. So I
invite leaders to realize thatwe're going to have to get selective.
We're going to have to getselective on activities that we do
on a daily basis. We're goingto have to get selective on initiatives
(15:39):
that we're going to take onand really cascade things out so
that we can have a reservoirof energy. Because as a leader, it's
almost like you're the host ofthe party. If you are sitting in
a corner and you know you'retired, you're exhausted, people pass
by you in that party, they cansee you. It doesn't feel like a party.
(16:04):
I mean, it feels like, youknow, this is like a week or something.
So in order for us to energizethe organization, we're going to
have to start with a fewindividuals in that organization.
And one of them is definitelythe leader of the group. Whether
that's a he or she, we wanther or him to be the chief excitement
officer. And the excitementhere is not about taking care of
(16:27):
sustaining today's business,which we have to honor. And respect
and protect. But it's a lotmore about the fact that you've been,
as a leader, you've been tothe promised land, you saw how things
could be much better thantoday. And you are energized by what
you've heard from people, whatyou've heard from your boss, what
you've heard from thecustomers. And oh, my God, can you
(16:50):
just imagine what would happenwhen we actually get there? And then
you spend some time explainingto people how beautiful life is when
we create that new reality. Sothat's where then all of a sudden,
storytelling becomes tablestakes. Because if you want people
(17:11):
to be energized about whatyou're talking to them about, hopefully
the story gives you theopportunity to say, let me show you
where things are now, wherethings could be. And oh my God, I'd
love for you to work with meand I'd love to work with you to
make it happen so it gets awhole lot more interesting and inspirational
because of the idea thatyou're building excitement towards
(17:35):
a better future.
Yeah. So I know there's,there's really good backing for what
you're talking about. I can'tremember what it was exactly, but
I know I read something sometime ago now, and this person was.
They were dissecting some ofMartin Luther King Jr's speeches,
in fact. Right. And kind oftalking about how he would kind of
go between talking about the past.
(17:58):
Yeah, exactly.
Current situation, thestruggle, you know, struggle. How
great things could be in thisother potential future. Past struggle.
Potential future. Right. Andhow he would kind of build momentum
and build a story. So that'skind of what I'm hearing here is
you're kind of. Absolutely.
(18:18):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.Absolutely. Right on point. And there's
a lot of Harvard research onthis whole idea of energy and how
much it affects everythingelse. Because again, just by thinking
about that party that I wasdescribing, you can definitely tell
it will be a whole differentparty if the host of the party is
all over the place andexcitement, showing people where
(18:40):
the drinks are, showing foodis, showing people where they can
go out and hang out by thepool. I mean, it's a whole different
vibe than the vibe where, oh,my God, our boss is so tired. Don't
even mention this, though.
So, yeah, so. So if I'mfollowing you, I feel like maybe
you're already tapping into,you know, the, the free up space
of your model. Right. Free up.Think up.
(19:01):
Yeah, speak up.
So what, what more can youtell us about the free up?
Definitely part of that model.So. So that. That model and simply
we basically call it thestrategic leader model, whereby we're
inviting leaders to free up inorder for them to think up, in order
for them to speak up. Andfreeing up, to your point, is about
(19:25):
realizing that we're going tohave to manage our time, we have
to manage our energy, and weneed to make sure we have about 15
to 20% of our time dedicatedto thinking about what the future
could look like. And that'swhat gets us to that second stage
of thinking up. Thinking upnew ways of getting customer service
(19:47):
done, thinking up new ways ofpreparing our financial results,
thinking of how can we preparea much better dashboard for our leaders
to understand where thebusiness is at. And spending some
time thinking up, not just byyourself, as we mentioned before,
but also hopefully with yourstakeholders, your team members,
so they feel like you'rereally making sure that they are
(20:10):
shaping this with you. Yeah.And then speaking up is. Is the idea
of chief excitement Officerwhere you're going and you're energizing
the organization about, yes,we have to honor the present. We've
worked so hard to get here. Iappreciate everything you've done.
I see an opportunity for us touse AI to get us to much higher levels
and open up windows for uswhere we can do amazing things for
(20:33):
our customers. I need you onthat journey. I need you to shape
it up with me so you feel likeyou have to do this on a constant
basis and it doesn't happenonce you've seen that happen a lot
in organizations where as aleader, you have to spend a lot of
time going around. It's almostpolitical canvassing. You have to
go to every town, meet themayor and talk to the people.
(20:54):
Yeah, yeah. Well. And so Ithink what I love so much so far
about what I'm hearing iswhere this connects with a fair amount
of executive coaching, to bequite honest. Right. Like, I think
some of the starting places insome of my own coaching has to do
with. And some of the, I know,critical conversations that I've
had with multiple people thatI'm coaching is how are you spending
(21:15):
your time?
Right.
So are you, you know, andmaybe even starting with the vision
of, well, how do you want tobe spending your time? What should
you be spending. Spending yourtime on? What are you accountable
for? Because even with. And Iwould say this is true of directors,
VPs, even CEOs, is oftentimespeople become victim of lack of intention.
(21:42):
Right. And you know, you askthem even to just do a scan of the
previous 30 days in theircalendar. And you compare that against,
well, how do you want to bespending your time? And the lack
of alignment, you know, is.It's. It's almost ubiquitous, right.
This lack of alignment that.That leaders have between where they
know they should be spendingtheir time and how they are spending
(22:04):
their time currently. Right.So even in your model here, what
I mean, and I think you kindof honored this earlier by saying,
I'm not just giving you a newthing to do. Like, let's not just.
Just become good atstorytelling. It sounds like you're
even, you know, whether.Whether or not to borrow from, you
know, Karate kid from the 80s,right. You're kind of doing the,
(22:25):
the wax on, wax off here of,of probably also getting them to
be more strategic about howthey're spending their time in order
to. And I like what you saidhere because I, you know, I remember
talking with a VP even back inmy consulting days, who was just
said, like, I'm so busy, Idon't even have time to think about,
you know, I'm supposed. I'msupposed to be creating the new assessments,
(22:46):
you know, for the world.Right. Or what have you. And I don't
have. I don't even have timeto think about that. I'm so busy.
Right. So I like how part ofyour model here seems to be it goes
beyond just storytelling.Right. It is also, and I like the
language you're putting behindit, too. That is like creating space
for strategic energy. Right.Where are you actually putting your
time and energy?
(23:07):
Absolutely. And one of the,One of the. I love what you're saying
because I think that what wewould want leaders to think about
is there is a differencebetween running today's business
and creating tomorrow'sbusiness. And I usually put questions
in front of people. Ibasically say, if the company today
went out to hire somebody torun today's business, how many applicants
(23:30):
would they get? And highlylikely they're going to get a ton
of applicants. But let's saywe actually want someone to come
in and create tomorrow'sbusiness. And we put the same job
description out. The chancesfor us getting somebody who is going
to come and think and envisionand create something totally new,
higher likely, the number ofapplicants is going to be much lower.
(23:53):
Because it's very easy to saywe need an accounting manager, we
can look at the title andactually know exactly what's that
about. Whereas said, we needan accounting manager that can build
the next generation of how weprovide services for our client.
I Mean that person at thebeginning is highly likely to say,
I don't know where to start.And that's unsettling. That's unsettling
(24:16):
for a lot of people.
Yeah, well, and I'd imagine,right, because we're bringing people
up through certain functions.Right. So, you know, with the exception
of maybe the finance side.Right. I mean, there's, there's always,
you know, there's enoughstories of CFOs becoming CEOs for
(24:36):
sure. But when you, I thinkwhen you look at other functions,
we never hire, with theexception of marketing, perhaps,
and maybe, maybe depending onindustry, we're rarely hiring people
for storytelling ability. Right.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
You want them to be so good atwhat they do, so they do it so well
and manage the team so welland, and, and storytelling becomes
(24:59):
a vehicle, specifically whenyou are trying to help people envision
something that's going to becoming up into the future. In my
mind, that's, that's usuallywhere it's going to be best helpful,
is to help people in vision.Oh, you have a new process improvement
that you want to make. Youknow what this, what this would actually
(25:20):
sound like, this sounds likewe want to increase our freeway lanes.
This is going to be the fastlane for a select segment of our
customers. So not onlystories, but as I just did now, I
used a metaphor to get thepoint across that we already have
four lanes. This is going tobe the fifth lane, and it's not like
(25:41):
any other lane. It's going tobe for our VIP customers because
we're finding out that they'reactually willing to pay more if they
can get better, fasterservice. And then I basically look
around the room and say, whofeels that this is something we should
do? And everybody's, oh, myGod, I heard from this customer,
I heard from that customer.And this is going to give us an uplift
(26:03):
on our margin, about 15, 20%.You know what that means? This coming
December will highly likelyhave a bonus for everybody.
Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. Inmy own head, I'm going to like my
HR days of like, all right,we're rolling out a new annual performance
review system. Boom. Likethat's, you know, versus, you know,
(26:25):
how painful the annualperformance review is.
There you go.
Right? You know, like, likethere's, there's, you know, how do
you, how do you grab people?So I have a question for you, right.
Because I would wager,particularly in our over connected
world, I'd wager some of theadvice when it comes to storytelling
(26:46):
is maybe Be more personal,Right. To tell more of your personal
story or your personalnarrative. But I bet that. So I'm
guessing, right, that that'spart of. Part of, you know, in your
space, so to speak. But I'malso guessing that still gets a fair
amount of pushback because,you know, I know at least with. We'll
pick on LinkedIn for a minute,which I know you and I are both active
(27:09):
on. Yeah, it's something like1% of LinkedIn users who actually,
you know, are posting. Create content.
Yes.
So I'd wager you get some ofthat pushback from people like. Like,
nobody wants to hear my story.Or I don't have a good. I'm boring.
I don't have much of a story.So how do you. How do you work with
(27:29):
people on their own? Thosethings that make them kind of stuck
and resistant to morestorytelling is.
That is absolutely true. Inthe beginning, they are wondering
if they. If they have anystories. And of course, what I encourage
them to do is create almostlike a story bank a number of stories
(27:49):
that are part of how they grewup. A very simple example. I might
ask one of the leaders I workwith, and I would basically say,
when you were growing up, didyou at some moment get a bike? And
they might say, yeah, yeah.And I. And I say, what was that like?
And they may have thisexciting story about how they have
(28:10):
been waiting for one for solong, and then one Christmas they
woke up. They, you know, walkdownstairs, and right next to the
tree, there was this bigwrapping, and it looks like a box.
Maybe it was a TV orsomething. I don't know what it was,
but I remember meticulouslyopening up that box. So you can see
the story. Right. There is astory here about building aspiration
(28:35):
and building intrigue andbuilding surprise and then finally
getting what you want, andthen you can immediately leverage
that story. And it's. Andit's. It doesn't have to be like.
I know in the coaching world,sometimes you hear people saying,
you know, you have to have anorigin story. Maybe you were depressed
and got better. And thosestories are real. When we are trying
(29:01):
to lead others, we're going toget selective again. And the story
about depression may also behelpful at some moment if it has
relevance to the situation.And I may be talking with one of
my employees, and they can seethey are struggling with something,
and I might tap into that. Imight say, you know, I've had some
down days and I wanted tocheck in, but otherwise, if I'm trying
(29:25):
To inspire a larger group ofpeople, I might tap into a different
story. So to your point, Ithink you have to get them. You have
to get them to believe thatthe simplest story may actually be
good enough for us to createsomething around it. Because one
of the. One of the frameworksI have, it's a dramatic treatment
framework where we do a littlebit of almost like Hollywood style,
(29:47):
where basically we take thesame story. We say we can actually
tell this story in twoseconds. We can actually tell the
story in five minutes. We canmake it a 15 minute talk, and we
can essentially then, like anaccordion, maybe either compress
it or expand it. So dependingon the situation, you can really
dance with it. Yeah, you haveto be really clear on what point
(30:09):
are you trying to make? Likewith the. With the bike story, Maybe
I want to build the desire forsomething and waiting for that day.
And then you say, you knowwhat? I don't want our customers
to wait for that day for toolong. That's why we're building that
fifth lane.
Oh, I love that. See, that'snice. Yeah, I see that. Okay, well,
(30:32):
so I'm gonna. I'm gonna lie toyou and I'm gonna say, I think my
listeners want, like, give ustwo. But it's me. It's really me.
Because that was a veryvaluable, like, ooh, how do I want
to work my. My bicycle.
My.
My first bike story orlearning to ride a bike. You know,
what's two other simple, like.Like typical childhood or adolescent
stories that most people havethat they could be thinking about.
(30:55):
I think graduation is probablyone that a lot of people can relate
to. We could. We could lookfor a graduation angle that gives
us this moment of getting to apoint where we are finally at the
point of celebrating ourachievement. And I can use this as
a rollout date for ourSalesforce initiative, our CRM initiative.
(31:18):
And we talk about howbeautiful that day can be and then
come back and say, in orderfor us to create that reality, what
do we need to do in terms ofgo live readiness? I can have like
a whole day workshop where wespill out on flip charts how we will
create the conditions forsuccess for our go live. So I think
(31:40):
graduation would be one ofthem. And can I.
Can I pile onto that for asecond? Yeah, please. Because that
makes me think of a couple. Acouple similarly. Like a wedding.
Right. And I'll explain whereI think they're similar. Here is
there's all this time one putsinto thinking about now with a wedding.
There's a Lot more, obviously,a lot more planning for a lot of
meticulous details. But inboth cases, that wedding, graduation,
(32:03):
it's over like that, Right.You spend all this time thinking
about it, planning for it, andthe experience, you know, is a moment
in time. Right. And so that'sjust kind of.
I love that top of my head.
Of like, where could you minethe story of planning and prepping
for a wedding, you know, inthat way, too? But. Sorry, I interrupted
(32:26):
you. I totally put you on thespot, too. I was like, give me two.
Yeah, give me two, please.
It's wonderful because I thinkyou. You've just shown. Showing the
audience that it could be verysimple moments of. In our lives where
you bring that moment up, andwe would encourage them then to think
about the details. You know,maybe it's the planning, maybe it's
(32:48):
the guests, maybe it's the.The honeymoon trip. And you can pivot
and say, you know what? Whenwe make that, when we create that
fifth lane and we givecustomers that VIP experience for
them, it's going to feel likehoneymoon, because everything will
be a whole lot easier for themto get what they want. So you can
(33:11):
always package it. And I thinkthat's the message that you're sending
people, is that it doesn'thave to be too hard to pick a moment
in time and then think aboutwhat lesson or message you want to
get out of it so you can buildon it. So that pivoting or that bridging
over is what I coach clientson is we basically say, okay, let's.
(33:31):
Let's pause and think abouthow are we going to bridge over to
the point we're making. Theremay be a similarity that we want
to pick out and then show theaudience how you can then pivot,
because a lot of the time theymight get stuck in the story, but
we want them to tell the storyjust enough so they can bridge over
to the point they want to make.
(33:52):
Yeah, I love that. I want totell you a quick. I have to tell
you a quick story now, please.I'll try to keep it brief. Right.
So during. During the summerof 2020. Right. Height of the pandemic.
Yeah.
I decided to build a floatingdeck in my backyard. Right. But my
grandfather was a carpenter.Right. Now I. I am not, but. But
(34:13):
I'm plenty handy when I. WhenI stop complaining. And, you know,
it was lessons learned fromhim of, like, you know, yeah, you
can plan and you can design.At a certain point, you just have
to get your tools out and getstarted and oh, you're now, you know
then, because even with allthe planning, you're going to get
to a point where this isn'tsquare. And frankly, at that point,
(34:35):
you still might just need toget the sledgehammer out and pound
the thing square, you know,with a few good hits. Right. And,
and I, you know, I think aboutthat with rolling things out in any
project, rolling out a projectwhere, yep, you can think you can
plan it, eventually you needto get started and be, be willing
to tweak, be willing to makechanges, be willing to grab the sledgehammer
and just kind of pound thatthing square midway through. Yeah,
(35:01):
sorry, I had to, I had, I hadto try to try out a minute.
You basically showed peoplethat you, at some point you can do
some correction, coursecorrections, and that's fine, but
you, at some point you have toget the ball rolling. And I think
that was the key message youwere saying is at some point you're
gonna have, you have, you haveto step up and start walking ahead.
(35:23):
Yeah, I love it. Well, I, I'mgoing to get us into the advice section
here as we're kind of windingdown. I think this time is flying,
which I appreciate. So I, I,and I want to make sure I save some
time too, at the end of theadvice column here, because I know
you've got a book you want totalk about too. So I always ask everybody
to come prepared with a couplepieces of advice. So the first one
is, you know, what's one pieceof advice you have for leaders?
(35:47):
I would say, at least at aminimum. At a minimum, get yourself
energized at the beginning ofthe day somehow, whether you jump,
you know, you do jumping jacksor you take a walk outside, but for
the sake of God, bring alittle bit more energy into your
conversation so that peoplefeed off of you. It happens. Whether
(36:09):
you want it or not, they'regoing to feed off of you. So if you
come with your shouldersdrooping and they can tell that you're
tired, you haven't had a goodweekend. It's not fair. Let's just
be honest. It's not fair foreverybody at the office.
Nice. I'm gonna. Let me, letme tag onto that because there's
a. I'm gonna. He probablywould bristle against being called
(36:32):
a sales guru, but gentlemen,I've become aware of over the last
six months, Darren McKee, hedoes a lot of sale, you know, a lot
of stuff with sales. And oneof his things is like, hey, before
you get on that Importantsales call. Call your best friend,
call your, you know, your,your wife or your husband or call
your mom or your dad or yourbrother and like, have a real uplifting
(36:54):
conversation. I like verysimilar. Right. Like, how do you
manage your energy? How do yoube intentional? Right, Right. Yeah.
So what's one piece of adviceyou have for those who support leaders?
Right. That could be hr, thatcould be senior leaders who are,
you know, coaching andsupporting leaders under them.
I think this idea that we needto help leaders realize that they
(37:18):
need to lead, not just managethe change, that basically means
I see that you have back toback meetings on Monday, but then
you also have this meeting onTuesday where you're going to have
an all hands. Highly likelyyou need a couple of hours to prepare
your talk with at least onestory that will be inspiring. So
(37:38):
you know what? I think I canhave Sandy fill in for you in that
meeting and maybe I can haveJim take care of that for you because
I think you're probably goingto need that time because unless
we nicely tell them, you needto actually work on that talk because
that talk is going to becomewhat I call an exponential value
(38:02):
moment in that meeting. Whenyou speak, other people will be impacted
and you have to think aboutwhat kind of impact is this going
to be. So to your point, Ilove what you said. Intentional.
You have to be intentionalthinking about. I want them to feel
energized. I want them to feellike they cannot wait to get to that
promised land. And I want themto feel supported and therefore my
(38:25):
talk will create thosefeelings. Yeah. If I don't have my
slide deck or my talkingpoints, well, you know what? I better
get prepared.
Yeah, I like that. I think,you know, what you're saying here
is for, you know, seniorleaders, or hr, to give the leaders
that they're supporting thepermission. Right. Give them the
permission, slash,encouragement. Right. To be intentional
(38:49):
about the role that they playin motivating. Right. And I like
how you kind of draw thedistinction between managing change
versus leading change. Right.
Yeah.
Kind of encouraging people tostep into that leadership role so
much.
Yeah. Is dependent on thatidea of sponsorship. I used to work
for proi, and a key statisticthere is that sponsorship is one
(39:12):
of the most important factorsin the success of a change initiative.
So that leader or leaderscoming in and talking and reminding
everybody of the promised landis 90% of how to get there.
Nice.
Which is crazy. Yeah.
Well, and I know you, youshowed me a book earlier. So what's,
(39:33):
what's your book?
All about.
Tell us a little bit about the book.
Yeah, so the book's called theStrategic Leadership Mastery, a 90
day planner for effectiveleadership and growth. And the key
idea there is to do what wetalked about earlier, just this idea
of freeing up so you can thinkup, so you can speak up what the
planner does when leaders getthis. And basically each page is
(39:57):
an opportunity for them tohave what I call a meeting with self
recommended on Fridayafternoon. Where you think about
yourself, you think about yourteam, your organization and the business
as a whole. So you're able tostrategically think because if you
are in the grind of the dailybusiness, you're not going to help
(40:17):
the company as a leader,you're going to help them as a manager.
And they can, they can find apile of those outside the company.
If all they want is people tomanage the business, highly likely
they want you to also helpthem create the future of the business.
And that's where this is goingto be helpful because even if you
(40:38):
just do one strategic thingper week, it's a whole lot better
than zero or minus five.
Well, where can people findthat? And Ash, where can you know
if people are interested instorytelling? But to be honest, from
what I'm hearing today isyou're talking about a lot of stuff
beyond just storytelling.Right. And really kind of elevated
into the title of your book,Strategic Leadership. So people are
(41:01):
interested in the book. Ifthey're interested in working with
you, tell us a little morewhere they can find the book or how
they can find you.
Absolutely. Soleadeffectively, co is one destination
and also we havecommunicatewithclarity. Co is another
destination for people.LinkedIn is fantastic. Ash at Executive
(41:23):
Greatness is a very easy wayfor people to, to reach out as well.
And you're totally right. Ithink storytelling is just, is just
the nucleus of doing so much more.
Yeah, it's like the, it's,it's the above the water of the iceberg,
I think in terms of, you know,what you've been talking about today,
which I think is a lot of thebelow the water stuff that people
need to attend to and beintentional about in order to, you
(41:48):
know, lead instead of justmanage. Right, Absolutely. Absolutely.
Awesome, Ash. Well, I reallyappreciate you coming on today and
people can find you. I know Ifound you on LinkedIn as well, so
I know people can find youthere. Really appreciate you coming
on today.
I had a lot of fun. Thank youso much for having me. Thank you,
Kent.
Yeah, take it easy. Thatbrings us to the end of our episode.
Thanks for listening. I'dencourage you to head on over to
(42:10):
my website, Kent Coach andstart a conversation with me there.
Or check out my promotionplaybook at Kent Coach Playbook.
Before you go on with yourday, I ask that you please take a
moment to leave a rating and areview wherever you listen to podcasts.
Five stars. That helps putthis podcast in front of more eyes
and ears. Until next time,take it easy.
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