755: How to Lead a Meaningful Cultural Shift, with David Hutchens

Coaching for Leaders

Dave Stachowiak

Education, Business, Management, Self-improvement, Careers

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Hutchens: Story Dash
David Hutchens works with leaders around the world to find, craft, and tell their most urgent stories for the purpose of creating shared meaning, preserving culture, disseminating learning, and speeding change in organizations. He has taught the Storytelling Leader program at some of the most influential organizations, including NASA, Paypal, Loreal Paris, Cisco, Walmart, Google, and FedEx. He’s written many books, including the Circle of the 9 Muses, Story Dash, and The Leadership Story Deck.

When organizational change is happening, leaders need to be intentional about lining up with culture, especially if it’s the time to shift that culture just a bit. We often do the logistics well, but we miss the power of both the human and emotional connections. In this episode, David and I discuss how story can help us make a meaningful shift.
Key Points

The organizations that are being intentional about culture are also being intentional about story.
Getting beyond the logistics of changes and leaning first into humanity and emotion help people frame cultural shifts.
Leaders go first. Embodied stories from leaders are surprising, counter-cultural, and repeatable.
Asking for stories is rarely sufficient. Instead, invite stories through intentional prompts like, “Tell me about a time you felt more engaged, alive, and happiest in your work here.”
Received stories are the ones told by employees. Adding an emotion word to an invitation such as, “What’s a time you were proud?” often surfaces more genuine stories.

David is now a Coaching for Leaders expert partner. Connect with him to discover how he might support your organization in making a meaningful cultural shift via our partners page or email him directly at [email protected].
Resources Mentioned

Circle of the 9 Muses: A Storytelling Field Guide for Innovators and Meaning Makers by David Hutchens (Amazon, Bookshop)*
Story Dash: Find, Develop, and Activate Your Most Valuable Business Stories…In Just a Few Hours by David Hutchens (Amazon)*
Leadership Story Deck by David Hutchens (Amazon)*

Related Episodes

Leadership Means You Go First, with Keith Ferrazzi (episode 488)
How to Start Finding Useful Stories, with David Hutchens (episode 593)
How to Bring Out the Best in People, with Donna Hicks (episode 724)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	When organizational change is happening, leaders need to be intentional about lining up with the culture, especially if it's the time to shift that culture just a bit.
0:11.5	We often do the logistics well, but we miss the power of both the human and emotional connections.
0:18.4	In this episode, how story can help us make a meaningful shift. This is
0:24.0	Coaching for Leaders, Episode 755. Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.
0:36.5	Greetings to you from Orange County, California.
0:39.9	This is Coaching for Leaders, and I'm your host, Dave Stahofiak.
0:44.7	Leaders aren't born.
0:46.2	They're made.
0:47.2	And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations.
0:53.2	One of the things that leaders are navigating often and perhaps today more than ever is
1:00.1	how to handle change and culture shift in an organization.
1:05.3	Organizational transitions have a tendency to be very disruptive, and leaders have a lot they can do that makes this go better or, unfortunately, in some
1:15.2	case, makes it go worse.
1:17.0	How we frame those transitions, those cultural shifts makes a huge difference in how we can
1:23.0	help the organization to thrive or not.
1:25.9	Today, I'm so glad to welcome back a guest expert who's so
1:30.3	wonderful at helping us to look at the human aspects of leadership through the power of story.
1:37.7	I'm so pleased to welcome back David Hutchins to the show. David works with leaders around
1:42.1	the world to find, craft, and tell their most urgent
1:45.2	stories for the purpose of creating shared meaning, preserving culture, disseminating learning,
1:51.0	and speeding change in organizations. He has taught the storytelling leader program at some of the
1:56.8	most influential organizations, including NASA, PayPal, L'Oreal, Cisco, Walmart, Google, and FedEx.
	...

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