Page 207 - Great Communication Secrets of Great Leaders

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LEADER AS STORYTELLER
CHAPTER 12
4.
of inviting members of the organization to share stories from
their past experiences. Some of these accounts may prove
insightful; others may not. By encouraging people to share
stories, you are trying to gain insight into what worked, what
didn’t, and why it did or didn’t.
Use stories as vision tools. Invite the group to imagine the
5. If your organization is a brand-new venture, make a practice 185
future of the team, the department, or the organization.
Choose a date at some point in the future—1 year, 2 years,
5 years. Ask these questions to get people thinking and to cre-
ate a visionary narrative:
What will the new organization be like? Be as descriptive
as possible.
How will you be able to judge its success?
What individuals (or teams) will others want to tell sto-
ries about? Why? (Be certain to ask someone to write the
stories. Save them for future reference.)
OPRAH WINFREY—LIFE AS A STORY
Amid the plethora of afternoon programs ranging from steamy soaps to
shock-talk TV, there is a voice apart. It is one of clarity born of focus, convic-
tion steeled by hard times, heart born of compassion, and natural ebullience
that bubbles up frequently. It is Oprah. With Oprah, what you see is what you
get. The woman is as genuine as the Mississippi hardscrabble from which she
comes. She is inordinately rich and very powerful. And the key to her success
and influence is simple—her ability to communicate and connect with people
in a way that makes her seem accessible as well as intuitive. When Oprah
speaks, people listen. Better yet from a business perspective, they buy. She is
a communicator par excellence.

BUSINESS SCOPE
Oprah is more than a television personality; she is the doyenne of a self-cre-
ated media empire. However, she says, “I don’t think of myself as a business-
10
woman,” and she has turned down invitations to serve on corporate boards
such as those of AT&T, Ralph Lauren, and Intel. She has even kept a personal
cache of $50 million in cash, not for a sense of wealth, but from a sense of
fear—a personal “bag-lady fund.” 11 It is a sentiment that many who were
born to poverty feel even when they accumulate a great deal of wealth.