I’ve been thinking about something my boss Susan Butenhoff of Access Brand Communications said to me in San Francisco in the late 1990s.
We were in the middle of the dotcom boom. She was exuberant, smart and completely alive to the moment. She used to say our job in communications was to turn ‘bits and bytes’ into glitz and glamour.
At the time, I’ll admit, it felt a little rock n’roll. A line from a different era.
But the idea has held up.
Bits and bytes, data and evidence, even the most carefully constructed argument, are rarely enough on their own. The real question is: how do we make data and numbers stick? How do we turn them into something that motivates people to care and take action?
Done well, that discipline has nothing to do with spin. It’s about translating what you know into something another person can feel.
I explore this with Debbie Kemp in the Association of MBAs and BGA podcast, including the five phases of Story-Centred Leadership and why anecdotes are the superfood of stories.
Listen to the full podcast Here