Just a miscellaneous addition to the collection:

Storytelling is really about connecting with people in the moment of telling the story. It's something that happens in a dialogue between the storyteller and the audience.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Steve Denning provides a good rationale for the disagreement with Mel Kleinman's article on fact-based hiring that I voiced in this entry.

Discussing his work on a chapter on changing minds in his forthcoming book (to be published by Jossey-Bass in September 2007), Denning writes in his newsletter:

I looked into the ... psychological literature on persuasion, and found that it was vitiated by a fixation on the mind as a "sequential information processor", when it is obvious that most of our thinking is intuitive, associative and done in parallel, and most of our key decisions have a huge emotional component. It took me a while to figure out how all this stuff fits together. Finally, to pull it into focus, I included some very personal stories about occasions in my life where I had changed my mind -- subjects I've never written about before.

I end up with (a) three ways we change our minds; (b) four ways to persuade people to change; and (c) three basic principles of leadership.

Bingo: "Most of our key decisions have a huge emotional component." Mel Kleinman seems to think we can skirt that component and conduct hiring based on facts alone and linear, sequential decision-making.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I like collecting products related to storytelling because I think they illustrate the growing prominence of story in our lives and tend to focus on an aspect of storytelling I've become increasingly interested in -- storytelling for individual growth, self-actualization, and creating a better future.

Another one I spotted while Christmas shopping was the Story Teller Photo Book Creator by Epson.

The Edge of Avalon site has reviews of a couple of story resources.

I bought some "build your own autobiography" books at Christmastime, and while I found some of them disappointing, I see much potential.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I could not disagree more with an article on HR.com by Mel Kleinman entitled, "Just the Facts, Please". (Free registration may be required to read the article).

Kleinman's premise is that hiring should be fact-based because "Unlike impressions or gut reactions that might have been caused by what you ate for lunch, fact-based hiring is a form of detective work, a methodical process that when carefully followed inescapably leads you to an accurate conclusion." (He later contradicts himself by suggesting that conducting a phone interview with a candidate who will be expected to display a good phone manner can result in finding a hire who "leaves a good impression."

I don't disagree with Kleinman's assertion that it's prudent to gather as many facts about candidates as you can. I also admit that as a person ruled by intuition and emotion, I could never be a fact-based hiring manager.

But the hiring process needs to be at least partly about an emotional connection between candidate and hiring manager -- a connection that suggests the job-seeker will fit in with the organization. Kleiman himself asks: "Will this applicant's personality fit well with the personalities of the job, the manager, the company?" Does he propose to determine this personality fit based solely on facts?

Kleinman notes that it's much easier to train an employee with a great attitude than to train a "skilled grouch." Does he really believe that it is through facts that a great attitude is revealed?

Kleinman indicates that it's useful to ask candidates questions that can be answered with a simple "yes or no." I cannot imagine not wanting to hear the stories and examples behind such monosyllabic responses, nor would I ever advise a job-seeker to respond with a one-word response.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Ed Konczal offers Simple Stories For Leadership Insights, Published by University Press of America. About using storytelling in leadership, he offers these words from others:

A serious business tool. "Steven Kerr, who oversees Leadership Development at Goldman Sachs, suggests a simple exercise: Ask your company's best leaders to name the most powerful learning experiences they've had. They will hardly ever mention a class and will most always name a real-life experience in business.

The challenge is to find ways to replicate those experiences. -

STORIES JUST MIGHT BE THE ANSWER

"... a knowledge-sharing story offers a surrogate experience. When one reads a novel, one often feels as if one is living the experience described in the novel. So too when a story is recounted, the narrative form offers the listener an opportunity to experience in a surrogate fashion the situation that was experienced by the storyteller. -- Deborah Sole, Daniel Gray Wilson, LILA Harvard University"

"Leadership storytelling is fast becoming one of the most popular methods of developing leaders. Management and Leadership Network "

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Israel's Yigal Chamish contacted me awhile back on the PhD research he (she? I'm sorry, Yigal; I don't know if you're male or female) is doing. "My topic is 'Executives as Storytellers,' Chamish writes, "and I am looking at executives who use storytelling within their organizations in order to communicate knowledge management. I am interesting on the issue of the tellers, the executives, to see how they develop stories and how they use them."

In this blog post, Chamish writes more about this research. Excerpt here:

“Executives as Storytellers for communicating knowledge management within organizations” - who else is researching this topic for PhD.? My research looks at the issue of “Executives as Storytellers for communicate knowledge management within organizations”. This Research is within ARU (Anglia Ruskin University) in the UK, and my supervisor is Prof. Vernon, N. Trafford from the Faculty of Education in ARU.

Embarking the PhD. research journey at the end of 2003, I am looking forward to accomplish my research and submitting my Thesis somewhere in mid or end of 2007.

Writing your Thesis is a fascinating and challenging journey, both personally and professionally. I must say that it is full of insightful discoveries and exploration, intellectually.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.